Clive Cussler - Black Wind

“When the facts come out, there will be no tears shed for Kang and his enterprise of murderers. Besides, he was still alive when we left the yacht. It looked like a boating accident to me.”

Gutierrez thought for a moment. “ ”A boating accident,“ ” he repeated, trying to convince himself. “Sure, that might just fly.”

Dirk watched as the remaining smoke from the collision slowly dissipated over the river, then smiled a tired grin at Gutierrez as the rescue boat approached and fished them out of the river.

Referendum July 1, 2007 As Kang was obliterated, so fell his empire. The SEAL forces that swept through his residence captured his assistant Kwan alive, along with a cache of incriminating documents that he was desperately trying to destroy in his employer's private office. To the south at Inchon, additional Special Forces teams sped through Kang's shipyard and neighboring telecommunications facility. Heavy security resistance at the facility raised suspicions and a large intelligence team quickly descended on the building. The secret biological research lab in the basement was soon discovered, as were the staff's ties to North Korea. Faced with mounting evidence and the death of his master, Kwan quickly folded under the duress and fully confessed Kang's sins in a self-serving ploy to save his own neck.

Back in the United States, news of the “accidental death of Kang as he was fleeing authorities” brought a similar reaction from ling and his top engineers. Threatened by officials with attempted mass murder charges, they cooperated as well, offering the ill excuse that they were just following orders. Only the Ukrainian engineers refused to cooperate, which eventually ensured their lengthy stay in a federal penitentiary.

The government authorities, meanwhile, held their cards to the vest publicly until the final piece of damning evidence had been uncovered. The remains of the rocket payload that Pitt and Giordino had retrieved were transferred under secrecy to Vandenberg Air Force Base north of Los Angeles. In a tightly guarded hangar, a team of space engineers carefully disassembled the payload, uncovering the mock satellite that disguised the virus canisters and vapor-dispensing system. Army and CDC epidemiologists removed the canisters of the freeze-dried virus, finding, to their shock, that they contained the lethal chimera of smallpox and HIV organisms. Samples from the Inchon lab were quietly matched up and the horror confirmed. Despite an interest by the Army in maintaining samples, the recovered viruses were ordered destroyed in their entirety by the president. Fears lingered that additional samples escaped capture and destruction, but the chimera engineered by Kang's scientists was in fact fully eradicated.

With the Koguryo and her crew traced to Kang Enterprises and the ties from Kang to North Korea firmly established, officials from the Homeland Security Department finally went public. A firestorm of media attention broke worldwide as details of the deadliest attempted terrorist attack on U.S. soil were fully released. The global press transferred its focus from Japan to North Korea as the diplomatic assassinations were additionally linked to Kang. The failed rocket attack brought worldwide outrage against the North Korean totalitarian regime despite the Korean Workers' Party blanket denial of involvement. The few trading partners North Korea had cultivated before the incident retaliated by placing even tighter restrictions on imports and exports. Even China joined in the sanctions by halting its trade with the outlaw regime. Once again, the starving peasantry in the North began to quietly question the dictatorial rule of their nepotistic leader.

In South Korea, the overwhelming evidence against Kang and the actions of his accomplices hit Seoul like a nuclear strike. Any displeasure the South Korean government initially manifested at the American unilateral military intervention was quickly put aside by the ensuing global uproar. South Korean sentiment turned from shock and disbelief to anger and outrage at their country's duping by Kang and his servitude to North Korea. The fallout was rapid. Political cronies and deal makers who had supported Kang were publicly vilified. A wave of resignations swept through the National Assembly, leading right up to the office of the presidency. Revelations of close personal ties with Kang forced even the South Korean leader to resign from office.

The national embarrassment and anger led the government to quickly nationalize the holdings of Kang Enterprises. The yachts and helicopters were dispensed with first and his fortress residence turned into a think tank devoted to the study of South Korean sovereignty. His name was removed from any association with his former assets, which were later broken up and sold to competing businesses over time. Soon there was nothing left to remind any of his very existence. Almost by silent decree, the name of Kang was entirely purged from the South Korean lexicon.

The expose of Kang's ties to the north impacted every level of society. Youthful demonstrations for reunification fell away as a wariness of the neighbor to the north reemerged in the national psyche. The massive North Korean military force poised across the border was no longer conveniently overlooked. Reunification remained a national goal, but it would have to come on South Korea's terms. When reunification finally did arrive on the Korean Peninsula some eighteen years later, it was driven by a growing hunger for capitalism in the Korean Workers' Party. Acceding to the personal freedoms that came with it, the party at last purged itself of dictatorial family rule and unilaterally converted the bulk of its military troops into a civilian economic workforce.

But before all that could occur, the South Korean National Assembly had to vote on Bill 188256, the legislative measure calling for the expulsion of U.S. military forces from within the national borders. In a rare show of bipartisan accord, the measure lost by a unanimous vote.

At Kunsan City, Korea, Air Force Master Sergeant Keith Catana was quietly walked out of a dingy municipal jail cell just before dawn and released into the waiting custody of an Air Force colonel attached to the American embassy. Far beyond his comprehension of events, Catana was told nothing about the reason for his release. Catana would never know that he had been set up for the murder of an underage prostitute as part of a concerted plot to influence public sentiment against the U.S. military presence in Korea. Nor would he know that Kang's own assistant, Kwan, had revealed the details of the staged murder. Ensuring full blame fell to the dead assassin Tongju, Kwan readily confessed to the plot, along with the political assassinations that occurred in Japan. None of this mattered to the stunned serviceman as he was whisked onto a U.S.-bound military jet. He knew only one thing. He would happily oblige the order given by the Air Force colonel never to set foot on Korean soil again for as long as he lived.

In Washington, D.C." NUMA was briefly exalted for the role played in diverting the launch and preventing the release of the deadly virus over Los Angeles. But with the death of Kang and the public release of his culpability for the attack, Pitt's and Giordino's exploits quickly fell to yesterday's news. Congressional hearings and investigations into the attack were the order of the day, and a drumbeat for war with North Korea beat loudly for a spell. But emotions eventually cooled as the diplomats were held at bay and the focus gradually shifted to Homeland Security's border resources and ensuring that such an act could never occur again.

Shrewdly seizing the moment, the new head of NUMA appealed to Congress for a special appropriations supplement for his organization, to fund a replacement helicopter, research ship, and two submersibles for those damaged or destroyed by Kang's men. In a wave of patriotic gratitude, Congress heartily approved the measure, the bill sweeping through both houses in just a matter of days.