Corrine Alston was just about to curl up in bed with a good mystery when the phone rang. Thinking it was her mother, she picked up the phone on the night table in the bedroom.
“Hey, Wicked Stepmother, it’s Prince Charming.”
“Ferg?”
“I need you to get to a secure phone, but don’t go to The Cube.”
“Ferguson, what the hell are you doing?”
“Encrypted phone. Call me. You have my number.”
“But—”
“No buts. You have five minutes.”
The phone line went dead. Corrine scrambled to get her secure satellite phone. She punched the buttons, not entirely sure she remembered Ferg’s number.
“Grimm Brothers. Fairy tales are our business.”
“You’re not very funny, Ferguson, especially at midnight.”
“It’s only two o’clock here,” he said. “Must be the problem. Humor’s jetlagged.”
“What’s going on?”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“Guns is on his way back home with a soil sample. He messed up his leg. Corrigan tell you that?”
“No.”
“One of the reasons he messed up his leg is that the South Koreans tripled security at the waste site where we found the plutonium. You know about the plutonium, right?”
“Yes, of course. Why did they up the security?”
“Sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. The leading theory is that our CIA station chief here is a boob, but there are other suspicions.”
“Like what?”
Ferguson ignored the question. “I have some things to check out, and I need, uh, I just need someone I can trust.”
“You mean from the Team?”
“This isn’t a team job I have in mind. I want them to do some translating maybe, and I may send them back with something for you.”
“For me?”
“Maybe more soil samples . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to use Seoul.”
“Why not, Ferg?”
Ferguson didn’t answer.
“Ferg.”
“Because, Wicked Stepmother, if they’re merely incompetent, they’ll screw it up. If they’re more than merely incompetent, who knows what will happen?”
So why was he cutting out Corrigan, Corrine wondered. And why had Slott decided to get the Seoul office involved in a First Team mission without telling her?
“You still there, Stepmother?”
“I’m here, Ferg.”
“Hey listen, one of these days you’re going to have to trust me,” he told her.
“I trust you.”
“Then see if you can find this guy for me. He’s retired. Used to work for the Bureau. Name is James Sonjae. Call him now and wake him up. Tell him to come to Seoul.”
“Ferg, it’s two o’clock in the morning.”
“He doesn’t sleep very well anyway.”
“But—”
“Like I say. Trust me, OK? Gotta go do some barhopping now. I’ll talk to you in a bit.”
Two hours later, Corrine arrived at a diner about a mile and a half off the Beltway. James Sonjae sat in the far corner, slumped down in the booth, a coffee and half-eaten bagel sitting on the table in front of him. He kept his gaze toward the window as she approached; it was only when she leaned over to ask who he was that she realized he was able to watch everything from the reflections there.
“Mr. Sonjae?”
“Please have a seat, Ms. Alston.”
“Corrine, please.”
He turned from the window and straightened in the seat. “You’re the president’s counsel?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You don’t have bodyguards?”
The remark surprised her. “I don’t need Secret Service protection.”
“I see.”
He picked up his coffee cup. He looked considerably older than his Bureau records indicated. His face was pockmarked and worn, his hair thin and gray. He was dressed in a light windbreaker, despite the night’s chill. A short, compact man, his shoulders sloped, giving Corrine the impression of someone who had been worn down by his years in government service.
“Bob Ferguson asked me to contact you,” Corrine told him.
“Ferg works for you?”
“In a way. He’s in Korea.”
“Korea?” Sonjae put down his coffee cup. “South Korea?”
“Yes. He needs . . . He needs a translator he can trust. And he asked for you. He needs someone right away. Very much right away. The sooner the better.”
Sonjae leaned back in the seat. Corrine guessed that he was trying to think of a way to say no politely.
“His father saved my life,” said the ex-FBI agent finally. “What does he need me to do?”