“Iron is the code for pickup,” said Corrigan, “and I double-checked just to be sure: There is no test for iron bromine, which is what FeBr would be, presumably.”
Corrine glanced across the conference room table at Parnelles and Slott. Both wore grim expressions, clearly concerned about the message that had been imbedded in a routine UN report intercepted almost exactly three hours before. Corrigan had called them all immediately, waking Slott and Parnelles up. Corrine had only just returned from meeting with Ferguson’s friend, so wired on coffee she wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway.
“There are other typos in the message,” said Slott. “It may be nothing.”
“I doubt she’d be sloppy with something like that,” said Corrigan.
“November 8 at midnight, the team will be out of there by then,” said Slott.
“Maybe it’s tonight at midnight,” suggested Corrigan. “See, it’s out of sequence; maybe the wrong date was put there to throw anyone else off.”
“She’s not going to make a mistake like that,” said Slott.
“Then why ask for a pickup after they leave?”
“Let’s see where this is,” said Parnelles, rising.
Corrigan had brought an extra-large map with him. The DCI unfolded it and peered down at the spot the mission coordinator had marked. A lock of jet black hair fell across his forehead. Parnelles’s eyes had immense bags beneath them. The looks that appeared rugged by day seemed merely craggy at three in the morning.
“Fifty miles south of the site, along the coast, if you read the numbers as longitude and latitude, with minutes and decimals,” said Slott softly. “Just due south of Kawaksan.”
Parnelles grunted. “You have satellite maps of this?”
Slott slid over a folder.
“I think, uh, we ought to run the team in there,” said Corrigan. His voice squeaked.
“How would Thera get there?” asked Corrine, looking at the map. “She wouldn’t walk fifty miles.”
“Yes,” grunted Parnelles, continuing to stare at the map.
“Maybe she’s planning on taking a vehicle from the site,” said Corrigan. “I think we have to assume she’s going to be there.”
“Thank you, Jack,” said Parnelles. He looked up at the mission coordinator. “I believe Corrine, Dan, and I can take it from here.”
Corrigan didn’t want to leave, but of course he had no choice. He felt as if he hadn’t made a good enough case for a rescue mission; his gut told him Thera was in trouble, and he didn’t want her abandoned.
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” said Slott after Corrigan left. “Why would she want a pickup after she’s gone? And if the sequence is supposed to be a clue, if it’s tonight, why did she give this location rather than O2, or one of the cache points? It doesn’t make any sense.”
O2 was a location a few miles outside the camp toward the coast.
“When you say midnight November 8, do you mean the midnight after the day of November 8?” asked Corrine. “Or the midnight that leads to the day of November 8? It might be interpreted either way.”
“She’d mean midnight at the end of November 8,” said Slott.
“Are you sure?”
“That’s the way we do it.”
“It would make more sense Corrine’s way,” said Parnelles. “She needs to be picked up before the UN team leaves, because she’s worried about something that will happen to her when she tries to go.”
“Midnight November 7—the way she should have written it—that would be tonight,” said Slott.
“Then we better get there tonight,” said Parnelles.
Slott was skeptical that the message was even a message; it seemed to him likely that Thera had accidentally typed the wrong letters for a legitimate testing compound. Analysts were always seeing things that weren’t there, and Corrigan tended to be an overanxious den mother.
“Dan’s point about how far it is from the base does make a lot of sense,” said Corrine. “From this map, it looks like she would be driving right by one of the supply caches, not to mention O2.”
“Maybe she saw something at O2 that made it inappropriate,” suggested Parnelles. “Or maybe it’s not her who’s supposed to be picked up.”
“What? A defector?” Slott picked up his plastic mechanical pencil and began tapping it furiously on the desk. “No. She’d never blow her cover like that.”
“Maybe she didn’t have to blow her cover,” said Parnelles. “Can we get to this site without being detected?”
Slott glanced at the map. “I believe so. I’ll have to check with Colonel Van Buren.”
“Very good,” said Parnelles, pushing back from the table.
“Which night should we go in?”
“Both, if necessary.”
“Since we’re all here,” said Corrine, “there’s something I wanted to mention. Sergeant Young broke his leg and is on his way back to Hawaii for treatment.”
“I hadn’t heard,” said Parnelles.
“He fell off the side of ravine,” said Slott. “It didn’t affect the mission.”
“The circumstances seemed odd,” said Corrine, looking at the deputy director.
“Guns and Ferguson went into the South Korean waste site,” explained Slott. “Security had been increased, and they took a risk getting out. In any event, as they were leaving, the sergeant slipped down a ravine and got injured.”
“Why had security been increased?” asked Parnelles.
Slott let the pencil slide down through his fingers to the table. He resented Corrine for bringing this up now; her only motive, it seemed, was to embarrass him.
“Seoul had a plan to get into the facility,” Slott told Parnelles. “Unfortunately, they didn’t coordinate properly with Ferguson. Actually, it’s very possible Sergeant Young would have gotten hurt anyway. The site is very hilly.”
“Why is Seoul involved?” said Corrine.
“Why wouldn’t they be?” said Slott.
“This is a Special Demands mission.”
“Special Demands doesn’t have the resources for what we need to do. This is more a bread-and-butter assignment.”
“You should have told me,” said Corrine.
“Seoul is involved because I told Daniel to pull out all the stops,” said Parnelles. “Blame me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You don’t run the CIA, do you?”
“Mr. Parnelles.” Corrine gave him a don’t-screw-with-me look.
“The president wants to know about the bomb material. We’re pulling out all the stops,” said Slott.
“Did Ferguson know?” Corrine asked.
“Apparently not. I sent him to talk to Ken Bo.” Slott picked up his pencil again. “Obviously, they didn’t play together very well.”
“I’d appreciate being informed when something directly involves Special Demands,” said Corrine. “I should have been told.”
“You want me to tell you every little thing?”
“I don’t think that’s a little thing, but yes,” she added. “Everything that has to do with Special Demands.”
Slott turned to Parnelles.
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable that Ms. Alston be kept in the loop,” said the director. “She is the president’s representative.”
Slott had intended to tell Corrine but got caught up in other matters and simply forgot. But her demand now—and, more important, Parnelles’s backing it up—seemed like an unconscionable attack on his authority. In effect, they were saying he couldn’t do anything without getting her approval. Or at least that was the way he interpreted it.
“I don’t know that that’s going to work,” Slott said.
“Make it work, Dan,” said Parnelles, getting up. “You better get moving; you have only a few hours to get this pickup arranged.”