According to Corrigan, Science Industries was owned by the same man—Park Jin Tae—who had owned the truck company, though for the moment Ferguson saw that only as a coincidence. What was more interesting was the fact that Park—in Korean, it was pronounced like “bark”—was an important behind-the-scenes political player, albeit a frustrated one. Several years before, he had donated a considerable amount of money to a now-banned political party named March 1 Movement. The left-leaning group had argued for peaceful reunification with North Korea. It had also called for a dramatic boost in military spending, a measure that to Ferguson seemed contradictory with the goal of peaceful reunification, but was somehow compatible in the tangled world of Korean politics—or at least the March 1 Movement members thought it was.
The CIA report forwarded to Ferguson stated that Park hated Japan, apparently because his family had been persecuted during the Japanese occupation. Supposedly he had retired from politics since the banning of March 1 Movement, though in the last few years he had worked to strengthen ties with the North. Park was a part owner, with the North Korean government, in several factories in a special area near the capital. He also owned stock in a North Korean bank established by a Swede. The business arrangements were encouraged by the South Korean government and, while profitable, were not entirely about making money. Anyone who believed in reunification realized that the greatest barrier to it, besides the intransigence of dictator Kim Jong-Il, was the North’s great poverty. Economic development in the North was absolutely essential if Korea was ever to be reunited.
“Now here’s the interesting part,” Corrigan told Ferguson. “Just before the political party was banned, some of the principles were being investigated for trying to buy weapons on the black market. Scuttlebutt was that it was just a trumped-up charge. But . . .”
“What sort of weapons?”
“Lots. Tanks. Artillery. Everything they could get.”
“Were they planning a coup?” asked Ferguson. He was walking through Daejeon’s shopping district. Even though the late afternoon air was cold, the streets were still crowded.
“Not clear. We have a news report here where one of the lawyers claimed that the weapons weren’t going to be used in South Korea. They don’t show up in any of the other reports, ours or the media’s.”
“Thanks.”
“So, Ferg. What are you going to do with this?”
“Process it.”
“Are you working with Seoul?”
“I’m in touch with them. Did you tell them about the trucks?”
“Well, no. Am I supposed to?”
“No,” said Ferguson. “I’m handling that myself.”
“Slott wants to make sure you’re cooperating. He doesn’t want a repeat of what happened to Guns.”
“Neither do I.”
Ferguson killed the communication, then turned down a side street, aiming for a motor scooter rental company he’d scouted a few days before.
Whether the trucks were a coincidence or not, Ferguson decided Science Industries was too interesting a place not to check out. His first thought was that he could scout the grounds from one of the hotel rooftops nearby, but it turned out that the one with the best view—the Han—showed the entrance driveway and two nondescript two-story buildings, nothing more. In fact, it was difficult to even get an idea of the size of the campus from the hotels; the landscape included a large number of evergreens on the hills and knolls that blocked the view. Only by going to four different high-rises was Ferguson able to determine there were six different buildings. The one where the trucks had been parked looked like a warehouse or perhaps a garage. It was arranged in a way that someone could make a drop-off or pickup without going through the rest of the campus; in fact, an inner fence cut off all but the rear of the building from the rest of the complex.
Two other buildings were very small cement structures, possibly for storage or machinery. One was round, the other square.
The last three were brown-brick structures with narrow, slitlike windows. The largest was three stories and only about two hundred feet long; the others were smaller two-story structures.
With a rough idea of the layout, Ferguson went to check out the perimeter, examining what sort of security measures protected it. A double fence topped by barbed wire protected the perimeter, limiting access to the single road Ferguson and Guns had taken two nights before. Security cameras were placed at irregular intervals, accompanied by floodlights to illuminate the grounds at dark. The building doors were all equipped with electronic locks that worked with card readers.
Ferguson found a spot on the road between the highway and the plant where he could watch for cars to come out of the facility. He hoped to follow them to a bar or restaurant, any place where he could get more information and maybe steal an ID card to get inside the buildings. But it was like playing the lottery—the first car he followed went onto the highway toward Seoul, and the second disappeared into a residential area west of the city.
The third was more promising—a Mercedes sedan with a driver and a passenger in the back. Ferguson had a little difficulty keeping up on the highway, but after about ten miles, the car turned off onto a local road. They drove past a series of high-rises until evergreen-clad hills burst around them, as if Nature had pushed man back and retaken its land.
The grade became steeper and steeper. When the road leveled off, Ferguson could see Daejeon laid out in the distance to his right. The afternoon sun gave the city an ethereal glow. It was a phenomenal view, but not one shared with many others—the road abruptly narrowed and turned to packed dirt.
The Mercedes turned into a gated driveway a few hundred yards beyond the end of the macadam. Ferguson slowed down, watching from the corner of his eye as the gate opened and the sedan pulled through.
Just after the driveway, the road veered to the left. A group of very old structures hugged the shoulder; a dozen men were working on one, refurbishing it with hand tools. Ferguson pulled around in a U-turn.
“Nice work,” Ferguson told the workers, getting off his bike. They either didn’t hear him or didn’t understand English, since no one paid any attention. This only encouraged him; he walked to the side of the building, staring up and nodding his head in admiration.
A man in a white shirt and tie came from around the side of the building and asked, in Korean, who he was. Ferguson stuck out his hand in greeting, then reached for the small phrase book, looking for the words for “very nice carpentry” while the man with the tie told him he should be on his way.
“They don’t have a section on carpentry,” said Ferguson cheerfully, closing the book. “But I hammer, saw.” He mimed the work, as if he were a carpenter. The man with the tie seemed to think he was looking for a job.
“No, no. On vacation. Love old houses. And big houses. Great work. I’m a contractor myself. Back in the States. Great work here. Fantastic. Make a lot of money doing this back home. You ever been?”
Ferguson’s admiration for the craftsmanship was so effusive that the man in the tie began showing him around the exterior. Ferguson, who in his entire life had been no closer to woodworking tools than the parking lot of Home Depot, bent over an ancient wood plane, admiring it as if it were the Grail.
It wasn’t the Grail, but it may have been older. The men were refurbishing the buildings with period tools to preserve the authenticity. Two of the older men began explaining their methods in great detail—and in Korean. Ferguson understood perhaps one word out of twenty, but he could be enthusiastic in any language. He spent more than a half hour admiring the project, and by the time he left he was sure he could show up in a day or so with a camera and have an enthusiastic audience.
He was also sure that the man who owned these houses and most of the surrounding mountain, including the property across the street, was Park Jin Tae: “a great and noble man, a leader of true Koreans and the heart of generosity and spirit,” according to the man with the tie.