Jim DeFelice - Threat Level Black

“Cleared it out for the conference. They’re putting up foreign scientists from North Korea and China there. Rest have to stay in real hotels.”

Amanda Kung’s flight was supposed to arrive at Sheremetyevo-2, within a few hours. Kung had agreed to come to Moscow and let the scientist contact her. For some inexplicable reason she’d insisted on having Mathers as her FBI bodyguard. Mathers had been equipped with a cover claiming she worked with Kung as a junior engineer and had come to take notes.

“We’ve already bugged the conference rooms,” said Madison, continuing to lay out the operation. “You’ll be inside with two other agents. A little tricky to wire everybody, so we’ll have to go silent com. We have some small radio units, but they’re very short-range. You’ll have to back up with sat phones. The phones are encrypted, but the Russkies will know you’re using them, so obviously that’s a last resort. What do you know about power companies and electrical generation?”

“They turn off the lights if you don’t pay the bill on time,” said Fisher.

“Guess that will have to do,” said Madison. “We have a portfolio for you as a Swedish electricity minister.”

“Cattle prod come with the job?”

“Not this time around,” said Madison.

Dr. Park made his morning ablution to his ancestors, trusting himself today especially to the memory of his great-grandfather, who had told him stories about fighting against the Japanese. A more objective observer might have questioned whether his great-grandfather had personally been involved in the battles he spoke of, but Dr. Park accepted them uncritically. His great-grandfather was for him a warrior, and he needed that quality now.

The American had sent word that she would attend the conference. His salvation was at hand, if he was brave enough to seize the opportunity.

Dr. Park dressed quietly. Chin Yop, the minder sent to accompany him through Moscow, snored loudly in the bunk a few feet away. It occurred to Dr. Park that he might take this chance to simply run for freedom: go out on the street and find a cab, then take it to the American embassy. But he didn’t know Russian, and even his English was halting. Besides, there were undoubtedly others watching him besides the mild-mannered man who had accompanied him from P’yongyang, Russians as well as Koreans.

“Trust us,” the American had said in her message.

It was his only option. Dr. Park finished dressing, then woke his minder, telling him he was going to the day room for breakfast.

There was black, and there was black. And then there was the blackness of Russian coffee, a shade beyond the naked oblivion beloved of philosophers from Plato to Sartre. Plato had his cave, Nietzsche had his superman; Fisher had his coffee.

It occurred to Fisher that the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant could not have been a true coffee drinker; he was too much of an idealist. Or, rather, given his syncretistic leanings, he would have been the sort who added milk and sugar, botching the whole operation and skewing his view of the universe in the process.

Coffee like this-strong, black, so full of caffeine that the surface buzzed-this sort of coffee was the reason Russia had produced musicians and writers rather than philosophers and poets; the liquid was as thick as sandpaper, scrubbing away the ethereal coatings of your esophagus, a region much given to philosophical thoughts. And the heartburn that would surely follow tended to wipe out lyrical expression.

Fisher, never much for poetry or philosophy, decided he would have to drink more of this on a regular basis. Maybe he could get his local Dunkin’ Donuts to import it.

The FBI agent achieved these insights while sitting at the back of Assembly Room Two in Meeting Hall Pavilion A, Government Facility Conference Buildings, Moscow, listening as an engineer sang the seemingly unlimited praises of microcurrents. Fisher was sitting two rows behind Kung and Mathers, who were themselves two rows behind the Korean subject, who had come with his minder and sat in what appeared to be rapt attention, though his dossier said he spoke little English, the language of the presentation.

There were another dozen people in the room, including one Russian agent and one of the CIA backup team members. Fisher had also spotted a Chinese conferee sipping coffee with cream; this was a dead giveaway that the man was either an intelligence agent or a German philosopher trying to reform.

The speaker droned on in an English that came from somewhere between London and Düsseldorf. Apparently there was a brave new world lurking in the circuits powering modern life; Fisher didn’t understand most of what the man said, but it did give him a new respect for his cordless shaver.

He remained in his seat as the session broke up, watching Dr. Park up close for the first time. Thirties, no family to speak of, the man was a mid-level drone in the Korean scientific community. As far as that went, he had a relatively sheltered life; in that society he would even be considered privileged.

So why did he want to defect? Beyond the obvious appeal of apple pie and Chevrolets?

Fisher got up as Kung and her gnomish bodyguard passed by his seat. Mathers wagged a finger at him as if they were in junior high; Fisher set his glare on stun and fended her off.

Outside, the hallway was crowded with scientists, engineers, and spooks assigned to make sure they didn’t make off with too many doughnuts. Fisher sifted to the far end of the snack table, making like he was checking the program listing.

Fisher had emphasized the importance to Kung-and to the gnome-of letting Dr. Park come to her. So far she was sticking to the program, nibbling on cookies with Mathers at one end of the long table while Dr. Park stood almost motionless on the other. A Finnish engineer came up to the two women and started talking about alternating current, obviously some sort of codeword for threesomes involving short people.

Fisher slid through the crowd and got closer to Dr. Park. He had a minder and a shadow: The shadow had registered as a scientist from China, but Madison ID’d him as a Korean agent. A pair of Koreans from the embassy were watching outside in a car.

A lot of company for a mid-level scientist, unless they suspected he wanted to defect. But if that were the case, wouldn’t they have stopped him from attending the conference in the first place?

Fisher watched as Kung and the gnome walked off toward the next session. Dr. Park moved in the opposite direction.

Where were the professional matchmakers when you needed them?

“From Swiss National Electric?” asked a cheery balding man, glancing at Fisher’s name tag. His accent was very British, and his name tag revealed that he worked for the London Power Company.

“ Sweden,” said Fisher. He mimicked the man’s accent and threw a lisp in as a bonus, though it was a lot to weigh on a single word.

“Spent time in the States?”

“Too much,” said Fisher.

“Many issues there, I suppose.”

“It all comes down to too many volts,” said Fisher, shambling after Dr. Park.

Miss Kung was plumper than he remembered, and a little older. Still, she had an exotic air about her. Her smile was not quite Korean, but it warmed the room nonetheless.

Dr. Park had not realized until he saw her at the conference that he was attracted to her in a romantic way. Perhaps he had not been until that moment.

He knew she was some sort of spy. The Americans routinely sent their agents across the world to enmesh unsuspecting males; he’d learned that as a child at school. They were devious, but that was one of the things that made dealing with them attractive.