Op-Center o-1 Page 2

  It didn't make sense; it never did. There was no catastrophe in the offing, no ongoing situation, no crisis looming. Yet most nights since they moved here, his active little mind had gently nudged him from sleep and said, "Four hours of sleep is enough, Mr. Director! Time to get up and worry about something."

  Nuts to that. Op-Center occupied him an average of twelve hours most days, and sometimes— during a hostage situation or stakeout— exactly double that. It wasn't fair that it should also hold him prisoner in the small hours of the night.

  As though you've got a choice. From his earliest days as an investment banker through his stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to running one of the world's most bizarre and intoxicating cities, he had always been a prisoner of his mind. Of wondering if there was a better way to do something, or a detail he might have overlooked, or someone he forgot to thank or rebuke or even kiss.

  Paul absently rubbed his jaw, with its strong lines and deep creases. Then he looked over at his wife, lying on her side.

  God bless Sharon. She always managed to sleep the sleep of the just. But then, she was married to him and that would exhaust anyone. Or drive them to see an attorney. Or both.

  He resisted the urge to touch her strawberry-blonde hair. At the very least her hair. The full June moon cast her slender body in a sharp white light, making her look like a Greek statue. She was forty-one, NordicTrack slim, and looked ten years younger— and she still had the energy of a girl ten years younger than that.

  Sharon was amazing, really. When he was the Mayor of Los Angeles, he would come home and have a late dinner, usually talking on the phone between salad and Sanka, while she got the kids ready for bed. Then she would sit down with him or snuggle on the couch and lie convincingly— tell him nothing important had happened, that her volunteer work at the pediatrics ward of Cedars went smoothly. She held back so that he could open up and dump his day's troubles on her.

  No, he remembered. Nothing important happened. Only Alexander's terrible bouts with asthma or Harleigh's problems with the kids at school or hate calls and mail and packages from the radical right, the extreme left, and, even once, Express Mail from a bipartisan union of the two.

  Nothing happened.

  One of the reasons he opted not to run for reelection was because he felt his kids were growing up without him. Or he was growing old without them he wasn't sure which disturbed him more. And even Sharon, his rock, was starting to push him, for the sake of all of them, to find something a little less absorbing.

  Six months before, when the President offered him the directorship of Op-Center, a largely autonomous new agency that the press hadn't quite discovered, Hood had been preparing to go back into banking. But when he mentioned the offer to his family, his ten-year-old son and twelve-year-old daughter seemed thrilled by the idea of moving to Washington. Sharon had family in Virginia— and as Sharon and he both knew, cloak and dagger work had to be more interesting than check and dollar work.

  Paul turned onto his side, stretched a hand to just an inch above Sharon's bare, alabaster shoulder. None of the editorial writers in Los Angeles ever got it. They saw Sharon's charm and wit, and watched her charm people away from bacon and doughnuts on the half-hour weekly McDonnell Healthy Food Report on cable, but they never realized how much her strength and stability enabled him to succeed.

  He moved his hand through the air, along her white arm. They needed to do this on a beach somewhere. Someplace where she wouldn't worry about the kids hearing or the phone ringing or the UPS truck pulling up. It had been a while since they'd gone anywhere. Not since coming to D.C., in fact.

  If only he could relax, not worry about how things were going at Op-Center. Mike Rodgers was capable as hell, but with his luck the agency would score its first big crisis while he was on Pitcairn Island, and it would take him weeks to get back. It would kill him if Rodgers ever handed him a win like that, neatly wrapped.

  There you go again.

  Paul shook his head. Here he was, lying next to one of the sexiest, most loving ladies in D.C., and his mind had wandered to work. It wasn't time for a trip, he told himself. It was time for a lobotomy.

  He was filled with a mixture of love and need as he watched Sharon's slow breathing, her breasts rising— beckoning, he fancied. Extending his hand past her arm, he allowed his fingers to hover over the sheer fabric of her teddy. Let the children wake. What would they hear? That he loved their mother, and she loved him?

  His fingers had just brushed her silken teddy when he heard the cry from the other room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tuesday, 5:55 P.M., Seoul

  "You really ought to spend more time with him, Gregory. You're glowing, do you know that?"

  Donald tapped out his pipe against the seat of the grandstand. He watched the ashes fall from the top row to the street below, then put the pipe back in its case.

  "Why don't you visit for a week or two at a time? I can run the Society alone."

  Donald looked into her eyes. "Because I need you now."

  "You can have both. What was that Tom Jones song my mother was always playing? 'My heart has love enough for two ' "

  Donald laughed. "Soonji, Kim did more for me than he'll ever know. Taking him home from the orphanage each day helped keep me sane. There was a kind of karmic balance to his innocence and the mayhem we were planning at KCIA and when I worked at the Embassy."

  Soonji's brow knit. "What does that have to do with seeing more of him?"

  "When we're together— I guess it's part cultural, and part Kim, but I was never able to instill in him that trait American kids embrace so easily: forget your folks and have a good time."

  "How can you expect him to forget you?"

  "I don't, but he feels as though he can't do enough for me, and he takes that very, very personally. The KCIA doesn't have a tab at that bar. He does. He knew he wouldn't win our fight, but he was willing to accept a public drubbing for me. When we're together, he carries his sense of obligation with him like a millstone. I don't want that eating at him."

  Soonji hooked an arm through his and pushed back her hair with her free hand. "You're wrong. You should let him love you as he needs—" She froze for a moment and then shot erect.

  "Soon? What is it?"

  Soonji fired a look toward the bar. "The earrings you gave me for our anniversary. One of them is missing."

  "Maybe you left it home."

  "No. I had it in the bar."

  "Right. I felt it when I brushed your cheek—"

  Soonji shot him a look. "That had to be when I lost it." She stood and hurried to the end of the grandstand. "I'll be right back!"

  "Why don't I call them?" Donald shouted. "Someone here must have a cellular—"

  But she was already gone, making her way down the steps and, a moment later, hurrying down the street toward the bar.

  Donald slumped forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

  The poor girl would be devastated if it was lost. He'd just had the earrings custom-made for their second anniversary, with two small emeralds, her favorite stones. He could have it made over, but it wouldn't be the same. And Soonji would carry her guilt around.

  He shook his head slowly. How was it with him that every time he showed someone love, it came back as pain? Kim, Soonji- Maybe it was him. Bad karma or sins in a previous life or maybe he was a black cat with a résumé.

  Leaning back, Gregory turned his eyes toward the podium as the President of the National Assembly stepped to the microphone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Tuesday, 6:01 P.M., Seoul

  Park Duk had the face of a cat, round and unworried, with eyes that were wise and alert.

  As he rose from his seat and moved to the podium, the people in the grandstand and the crowd standing below erupted into applause. He raised his hands in acknowledgment, framed majestically by the stately palace, with its walled grounds and collection of old pagodas from other parts of the country.
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  Gregory Donald clenched his teeth, caught himself, then returned his expression to neutral. As President of the U.S./Korean Friendship Society in Washington, he had to be nonpolitical as pertained to matters in South Korea. If the people wanted reunification with the North, he had to go along with that in public. If they didn't, he had to go along with that in public.

  Privately, he yearned for it. North and South both had a great deal to offer each other and the world, culturally, religiously, and economically, and the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts.

  Duk, a veteran of the war and a fierce anti-Communist, was opposed to even talking about it. Donald could respect his politics, if he tried— but he could never respect anyone who found a subject so distasteful it couldn't even be debated. People like that were tyrants in the making.

  After too-long applause, Duk put his hands down, leaned toward the podium, and spoke. Though his lips moved, nothing came out.

  Duk drew back and, with a Cheshire grin, tapped the microphone.

  "Unificationists!" he said to the politicians seated in a row behind him, and several applauded lightly. There were cheers from nearby members of the crowd who had heard him.

  Donald allowed himself a little frown. Duk really bugged him, as much for his smooth manner as the growing size of his following.

  A red flash caught Donald's eye as, from somewhere behind the august gathering, a figure in a red blazer went racing to the sound truck.

  They'd have this fixed in no time. From the 1988 Olympics, Donald remembered just how good the focused, savvy South Koreans were at troubleshooting.

  He lost the frown as he turned to look back toward the bar and saw Soonji running toward him. Her arm was raised in triumph, and he thanked God that at least something went right today.

  * * *

  Kim Hwan sat in an unmarked car on Sajingo, south of the Palace, two hundred yards behind where the podium had been erected. From here, he had a complete view of the square and of his agents on rooftops and in windows. He watched as Duk approached and then stepped back from the podium.

  No sound from a bureaucrat: now there was his definition of a perfect world.

  He raised the field glasses sitting beside him. Duk was standing there, nodding to acolytes in the crowd. Well, like it or not, this was what democracy was all about. It was better than the eight years that they had General Chun Doo Hwan running things as head of the martial law command. Kim didn't like his successor, Roh Tae Woo, any better when he was elected President in 1987, but at least he was elected.

  He turned the glasses toward Gregory and wondered where Soonji had gone.

  If any other man had won his former assistant, Hwan would have hated him to his last breath. He had always loved her, but KCIA policy forbid relationships among employees; it would be too easy for infiltrators to get information by placing a secretary or researcher on staff and having her court an official.

  She was almost worth quitting for, but that would have broken Gregory's heart. His mentor had always felt that Hwan had the mind and soul and sensitive political instincts of a KCIA man, and had spent a small fortune educating him and preparing him for that life. Even as thick as the red tape got at times, Hwan knew that Gregory was right: this was the life for him.

  There was a beep to his left, and Kim lowered the glasses. A wideband radio was set in the dashboard of the car; when anyone needed to talk to him, a tone sounded and a red light flashed above the button accessed their station.

  A light came on from the operative stationed atop Yi's Department Store.

  Hwan punched the button. "Hwan here. Over."

  "Sir, we have a lone figure in a red blazer running toward the sound truck. Over."

  "Will check. Over."

  Hwan picked up the portable phone and called the office of the event coordinator at the Palace.

  A harried voice said, "Yes— what is it?"

  "This is Kim Hwan. Is that your man going to the sound truck?"

  "It is. In case you didn't notice, our audio is down. Maybe one of your men did it when they were checking the stage for explosives."

  "If they did, we'll take away their bones."

  There was a long silence.

  "Their dog bones. We had the sniff squad out."

  "That's great," said the coordinator. "One of them might have urinated on a wire."

  "Political commentary," Hwan said. "I want you to stay on the line till you hear something."

  Another long silence. Suddenly a faraway voice crackled through the phone.

  "My God! K-Two—"

  Hwan was alert. "Turn up your radio. I want to hear what he says."

  The volume rose.

  "K-One, what's wrong?" the coordinator asked.

  "Sir— K-Two is on the floor. His head's bleeding. He must have fallen."

  "Check the console."

  There was a tense silence. "The microphones are off. But we checked them. Why would he have done that?"

  "Turn them back on—"

  "All right."

  Hwan's eyes narrowed. He squeezed the receiver tightly and was already starting out the door. "Tell him not to touch anything!" he shouted. "Someone may have gotten in there and—"

  There was a flash, and the rest of his sentence was drowned out by a massive blast.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tuesday, 4:04 A.M., the White House

  The STU-3 secured phone on the nightstand rang. The console had a rectangular, lighted screen on top with an LED display giving the name and number of the person calling, and whether or not the line was secure.

  Not quite awake, President Michael Lawrence didn't look at the screen as he reached for the receiver.

  "Yes?"

  "Mr. President, we have a situation."

  The President climbed to an elbow. Now he looked at the screen: it was Steven Burkow, the National Security chief. Below his phone number, it said Confidential— not Secret or Top Secret.

  The President dug the palm of his free hand into his left eye. "What is it?" he asked as he rubbed his palm into the other eye and looked at the clock beside the phone.

  "Sir, seven minutes ago there was an explosion in Seoul, outside the Palace."

  "The celebration," he said knowingly. "How bad?"

  "I just took a quick look at the video. There appears to have been hundreds of casualties, possibly several dozen deaths."

  "Any of our people?"

  "I don't know."

  "Terrorism?"

  "It appears to be. A sound truck was obliterated."

  "Has anyone called to claim responsibility?"

  "Kalt is on the phone with the KCIA right now. So far, no one."

  The President was already on his feet. "Call Av, Mel, Greg, Ernie, and Paul and have them meet us in the Situation Room at five-fifteen. Was Libby there?"

  "Not yet. She was en route from the Embassy— wanted to be late for Duk's speech."

  "Good girl. Get her on the phone; I'll take it downstairs. And call the Vice President in Pakistan and ask him to come back this afternoon."

  Hanging up, the President tapped the intercom beside the phone and asked his valet to take out a black suit, red tie. Power clothes, in case he had to talk to the media and didn't have time to change.

  As he hurried across the soft carpet to the bathroom, Megan Lawrence stirred; he heard her call his name softly, but he ignored her as he shut the bathroom door.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tuesday, 6:05 P.M., Seoul

  The three men walked calmly down the alley. When they reached the window of the old hotel, the two men slid in while Eyepatch watched the street. When they were inside, he followed quickly.

  Eyepatch hurried to the duffel bag he had left behind and pulled three bundles from inside. He kept the South Korean captain's uniform for himself, and tossed the noncom uniforms to the others. They removed their boots, stuffed them in the bag with their clothes, and quickly donned the uniforms.

  When they were f
inished, Eyepatch went back to the window, climbed through, and motioned for the others to join him. Bags in hand, they quickly crossed the alley and walked away from the Palace, toward the side street where a fourth man waited in an idling jeep. As soon as they were seated, the jeep pulled onto Chonggyechonno and headed away from the explosion, toward the north.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tuesday, 4:08 A.M., Chevy Chase, MD

  Quietly shutting the bedroom door, Paul Hood walked over to his son's bed, lay a hand over his eyes, and switched on the lamp beside his bed.

  "Dad—" the boy wheezed.

  "I know," Hood said softly. He cracked his fingers to admit the light slowly, then reached under the night-stand and took out the Pulmo Aide. Flipping the lid of the lunchbox-sized unit, Hood uncoiled the tube and handed it to Alexander. The boy put one end in his mouth while his father eyedropped the Ventolin solution into the slot on top.

  "I suppose you'll want to kick my butt while you do this?"

  The boy nodded gravely.

  "I'm going to teach you chess, you know."

  Alexander shrugged.

  "It's a game where you can kick mental butt. That's a lot more satisfying."

  Alexander made a face.

  After switching on the unit, Hood walked over to the small Trinitron in the corner of the room, turned on the Genesis unit, then returned with a pair of joysticks as the Mortal Kombat logo blazed onto the screen.

  "And don't put in the password for the bloody version," Hood said before handing one to the boy. "I don't want my heart being torn out tonight."

  His son's eyes went wide.

  "That's right. I know all about the A, B, A, C, A, B, B sequence on the Code of Honor screen. I watched you do it last time, and I had Matt Stoll tell me what it was all about."

  The boy's eyes were still saucers as his father sat on the edge of the bed.

  "Yeah you don't mess with Op-Center techno-weenies, kid. Or their boss."