Jim DeFelice - Threat Level Black

As he walked toward the conference room, Dr. Park realized with great disappointment that Miss Kung was not attending this session. He could not change his own plans, however, without arousing the suspicion of Chin Yop.

A tall European with an absentminded, arrogant air bumped into him just outside the door. The man managed to knock the packet of handouts Dr. Park was carrying from his hand onto the floor.

“Pardon, pardon,” said the man, bending and helping pick them up.

Dr. Park stood motionless as the man handed him the folder.

Was there a message in the papers he handed back?

Chin Yop grabbed the folder.

“Sorry,” said the man who’d bumped into him.

Dr. Park wanted to run away: He thought of jumping on the man, grabbing his chest, demanding help.

But he wasn’t even an American. All that would accomplish would be to expose himself and his plans. He would be dragged away, taken back home to Korea, shot.

They wouldn’t bother taking him home. He would be shot in Russia, left in an alley for the dogs to eat.

“You-cigarettes? Have some?” asked the European in broken English.

Dr. Park couldn’t get his mouth to speak.

“Cigs?” repeated the man. He took a pack out and held it in Chin Yop’s face. He said something in a foreign language that Dr. Park didn’t understand, then repeated it in English. “Where I can get more?”

Confused, the minder shook his head.

The European turned to Dr. Park. “You?”

Dr. Park managed to shake his head.

“No smoke?” said the European. He turned back to Chin Yop, said something indecipherable, then switched to English. “I can tell you smoke. Where do you get your cigs?”

The minder glanced at Dr. Park. “Is he crazy or what?” he said in Korean.

Dr. Park shrugged. Chin Yop did, in fact, smoke: He had a box of Marlboros that he had picked up near the hostel in his pocket.

“Cigarettes? You smoke American?” asked the European, pointing at the box.

Chin Yop nodded hesitantly.

“Can I have one?” said the European, pointing at the minder’s pack. “Two of mine for one of yours.”

Chin Yop held up his hands, not understanding or at least pretending that he didn’t.

Dr. Park explained in Korean, then added that he ought to hold out for three at least.

“Three?” said the European when the trade was offered. But he made the deal, trading his entire pack for three Marlboros. He lit up immediately.

“Where?” he asked as he exhaled. “Buy them? Where did you find them? American, right? I didn’t know you could get them here.”

“Should I tell him where I got them?” Chin Yop asked Dr. Park as he deciphered the question.

Dr. Park shrugged. Cigarettes were available throughout the city, though they had bought theirs from a black-market vendor near the hostel at a considerable discount.

Was this man really a Russian policeman, checking on them?

“You tell him,” said Chin Yop.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“But I don’t know.”

“You’re the senior man. Go ahead, it will seem odd if you don’t reply.”

Dr. Park looked at the European and then at his minder. Probably the minder was simply worried about his English, but perhaps this was part of an elaborate trap: Dr. Park would be arrested for buying forbidden items, then thrown into a Russian jail.

“Is he a policeman?” asked Dr. Park in Korean.

“You think so?” answered Chin Yop. “No. Too confused. Look, he’s a geek like you.”

“Maybe it’s a trick.”

The minder looked at the European and laughed.

If it was a trick, Dr. Park decided, the minder wasn’t in on it.

“Go ahead and tell him,” said Chin Yop. “He’s harmless. A nicotine addict.”

Dr. Park had trouble smiling, still unsure if he would be arrested for answering.

“I have heard that you can get them near Kolomev Street,” said Dr. Park, naming the street where their hostel was located. He had to repeat it twice before the foreigner understood.

“Oh.” The man nodded. “I heard there are shops in Arbatskaya.”

Dr. Park felt the blood leave his head as he finally understood who the man was and what he was doing. The Americans were quite clever after all.

After the excitement of the Hawk flight, Howe found the rest of his week rather mundane. The girl in the aircraft was okay-physically, at least: Her father had had a heart attack and died as she watched. Howe, who had lost his own father when he was young, knew she would never truly get over that.

He had missed lunch with Blitz and they kept missing each other as they tried to reschedule, but otherwise he got the full-court treatment, VIPs at every meal. He phoned home once and sometimes twice a day, talking to his mom and occasionally his younger sister, who lived nearby and stopped by the house every so often. They were terribly impressed.

So was his friend Jimmy Bozzone, who kept calling him a big-shot muckety-muck and asking if he’d be able to get him tickets to all the sporting events now.

“What would that do for you, Jimmy?” asked Howe as Jimmy ragged him that night after dinner.

“Well, like, you know, you talk to the powers that be and get an executive box and I come along as your aidede-campo.”

“Campo?”

“Whatever. As long as I get a free beer. Listen, they’re having the Final Four down in New York City this month. Get us some tickets.”

“Right.” Howe shook his head and lay back on the bed. He yawned.

“Sorry if I’m keeping you up,” said Jimmy.

“All this wining and dining is hard work.” Howe hadn’t told Jimmy how much money was involved. He knew if he did, Jimmy would yell at him, call him a fool for even hesitating.

Would he, though? Jimmy valued his independence, and that was something you couldn’t really put a price tag on. As head of the NADT, Howe would be answering to all sorts of people at the Pentagon, the White House, Congress. He’d have to deal with contractors, blue suits, Navy people, the GAO-everyone in the world.

That was why they would pay so much money.

“You watching Syracuse?” asked Jimmy. “They’re ahead.”

“I may turn on the TV just to see them get their asses kicked,” Howe told him.

“Screw yourself. And don’t forget, I want tickets to the finals at Madison Square Garden.”

They were having the Final Four championship games at the Garden this year, the first time ever. Jimmy had gone to Penn State but had inexplicably seized on Syracuse as a team to root for after moving to New York State a decade or so before. Howe had no doubt that he would try and scalp tickets at Madison Square Garden if the Orangemen somehow made it to the play-offs. Tickets would go for thousands, he thought; everybody was making a big deal out of the fact that they were at the Garden.

“Ain’t gonna happen,” said Howe.

“We’ll see,” said Jimmy.

After he hung up, he flipped on the basketball game, a first rounder in the NCAA finals. Syracuse was comfortably ahead, but they were only playing Marist, which had managed somehow to draw the last bid of the tourney. With Syracuse up by twenty after one period, the game was pretty boring. He was just about to click off the set when the phone rang; thinking it was Jimmy calling back to rub in the game details, he hesitated but then picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Colonel Howe,” said a female voice, “stand by, please, for Dr. Blitz.”

“Colonel,” said Blitz, coming on the line before Howe could even answer. “Sorry we’ve been missing each other. A lot of stuff going on over here. I know it’s getting late and I won’t keep you. How about we have dinner next Tuesday night?” suggested Blitz. “My wife loves to cook.”