thing would lead to another, and we’d both be depressed for the rest of the day.
“I’m not going to worry about their seating arrangements,” I said. “Let whoever signed for them at the airport clean up the mess. We have one visitor to look after, and that’s enough for me.”
“Even one is too many. I don’t have the manpower for visitors of any stripe. I don’t have any manpower at all. You’re supposed to be putting together a file on that woman. It should have been ready a week ago. I haven’t even seen a draft, not a word.”
“I’m not the one who okayed the orders for me to fly to Beijing in the middle of everything.”
That was unfair; Pak hadn’t wanted me to go. “People do write on airplanes, you know, Inspector. They have those little trays that come down. I’ve seen them.”
“I thought you didn’t like to fly.” I started edging toward the door.
“I don’t. I had to board a plane at Sunan once to search for something.” He turned the memory over in his mind. “Never found it.”
“Maybe some people can write on airplanes; not me. I can’t even think on a plane. Something about the noise and that sense of being disconnected from the earth. I’m not one of those people who likes to hurtle through the air.”
“You sleep?”
“Sleep? Don’t be crazy. I concentrate.” Pak looked dubious. “The engines need a lot of attention. Sometimes I concentrate on the wings, but mostly the engines. At that height, you don’t take anything for granted. There’s no way I could work on finishing up the file. Besides, the stewardesses are always interrupting, going up and down the aisle.”
“Brushing against you, I suppose. You got an aisle seat, naturally.”
“They’re assigned.” Pak’s face indicated he was dubious. “I could keep better control of him from the aisle seat.” Pak remained silent. “Okay, yes, the stewardesses are friendly girls.”
“I leave such things to you, Inspector. Now, when do I get that report?”
“After someone tells me what to do with our visitor.”
“He stays with you. That’s why you were sent to get him.”
“Did you know that no one from the special section was around to meet us at the airport? They weren’t even lurking in the shadows. The dogs have been called off. Even the immigration people didn’t blink twice when he came through. Don’t tell me they hadn’t been alerted.”
“Apparently not.”
“So you are going to try to convince me that this is all normal?”
“No. I don’t know what normal is anymore. Do you?”
Discussions about normality were out of bounds as far as I was concerned. I didn’t care about normality right now. My priority was to get rid of this foreigner. I needed to hand him off to some other section and then get out of the way before they knew what hit them. For that, I needed some facts, not the least of which was who had approved the reentry visa. I didn’t care if Pak wouldn’t always tell me what was going on, as long as he knew. But in this case, he didn’t know. The news about the two Israeli delegations had surprised him. If Pak was surprised, it meant we didn’t know where we were going, how far away from the edge of the cliff we might be.
“By the way, our visitor has a long list of places he wants to go,” I said. “He gave it to me while we were waiting for the bags. Some of his requests are way over on the east coast. And I don’t mean places for sightseeing. He doesn’t care about Kangwon and snowy peaks. He’s interested in North Hamgyong. He asked if I knew anything about Hwadae county.” As soon as I heard myself say that, I knew where the edge of the cliff was.
“Really?” Pak also sensed a cliff. “How interesting. Is there anything else we can get for him? Caviar, perhaps? A harem? Do you think he knows he has to pay double for a car this time of year, and that he can’t drive himself anymore? A driver will cost more than the car. Assuming I can even get him a car. Assuming, of course, I can get him a driver from somewhere for a car that probably doesn’t exist. Believe me, he’s absolutely not getting our last and only duty driver, not if I can help it. And you can be sure he’s not going anywhere near Hwadae county.”
For some reason, I decided to ask