go down. “You think you can refuse a direct order from an officer of the People’s Army these days? I can have you arrested. I can even have you shot. I can do it myself, if I’ve a mind.”
“You want help on your jeep or don’t you?” My feet were getting cold, and my back was sore. If I didn’t get somewhere warmer soon, it would stiffen up and I would be hunched over until spring. I wasn’t about to stand and argue for a whole afternoon, even a short one in January, with a colonel who didn’t rate a driver. He might have me shot, but he didn’t look the type to do it himself, certainly not here. There was more and more talk that the army had made a grab for extra status, but that still didn’t dictate executing police in broad daylight with no one else in sight. Make sense, you strutting bastard, I thought to myself. Why shoot a monkey to scare the chickens if there are no chickens around to see you do it? Or was it the other way around?
The drive to the Foreign Ministry took less than two minutes. We roared up to the front steps so quickly it startled the sentry, who unfastened the holster at his hip and reached for his pistol. I was barely out of the jeep when the colonel backed into the street at high speed and slid into the square before he regained control, hurrying off in a spray of ice and snow.
The guard had seen me before. He didn’t want to move again because if he did, it would disturb the warmth of the posture he had settled into. He flicked his eyes to the door. I went in and up the stairs to the liaison office. I didn’t knock.
“Inspector!” The liaison officer had a small electric heater on. That was illegal, but warm. He nodded for me to come over and share the heat. “Is this a pleasant surprise, or have you arrested someone who is going to cause us trouble of a diplomatic sort?”
“I’m on heater patrol.”
“Well, you came to the right place.” The lights flickered once, then went out. So did the heater. “Funny,” he said, “the other day on the radio they announced that the electricity workers had overfulfilled this month’s quota.”
“Perhaps they were rewarded with today off.”
We stood around in the dark, wondering how long it would last this time. Sometimes it was only a few seconds; sometimes it was longer. A few people kept candles in their desks. Apparently, he wasn’t one of those. “Don’t move, Inspector,” he said very softly. “If you move, you’ll dissipate the warm air. Just stand still and let it waft slowly up to the ceiling. If we’re lucky, Mr. Shin downstairs will do the same, and his heat will be arriving through the floor just as ours goes up to Miss Ban. Imagine the heat going up her legs, will you?”
“I’ll do no such thing.” I thought about it for a moment, and as I did, the lights went back on. “There, back from vacation. They probably just went out to read the paper. I need a favor—only you owe me, so it really isn’t a favor. It’s more like payment.”
He rubbed his face with both hands, as if he were washing something away, maybe the memory of the last time I had twisted his arm behind his back to give me information. “Very well, though I don’t recall your doing anything for me lately.”
“Are you going to make me pull your cousin’s file again? Selling copper from downed electric lines is still a capital crime.”
“What is it I can do for you, Inspector?”
“I need a few facts, that’s all.”
He was impassive. Finally, he stirred. “If I can.”
Just then the lights flickered again, but this time the heater stayed on. “It’s the wiring,” he said. “The heater draws too much power. You know what they say about this ministry—more heat than light. I’ll have to jiggle something.”
Maybe people said that about every ministry. “Forget the wires and the cute slogans. I need a woman.”
The liaison man looked up, presumably to where Miss Ban sat. “You’ll have to get in line, Inspector.”
“No, I need information on a woman, a particular woman. She worked in the embassy in Pakistan until recently. Or possibly her husband did. One of them did, anyway. Before that she was in New York.” Admittedly, I still didn’t know for sure she