New York,” Richtor said. “I think they own every other fruit stand in the city. Maybe they’re ordinary, innocent people.”
Sang-mi shook her head. “Go, go,” she said to Forensia.
But they were forced to creep past the accident as a young man crawled out of the driver’s window. The RAV4 stayed close.
Forensia kept checking her rearview mirror to keep an eye on the SUV and the road ahead to make sure that she didn’t drive off the road. As she drew even with the wreck, she glanced over at it, just when the young man turned his head.
“It’s Jason,” she shouted as the sheriff handcuffed him. Everyone in the car turned to look. An EMT led a young woman in a blanket to one of the ambulances.
“Whoever she is, she looks like she got off lucky,” Richtor said.
Sang-mi stayed scrunched down in the seat. A quarter mile later the RAV4 turned onto the highway heading south to the city. The young Korean woman stared silently till the small SUV disappeared under an overpass.
* * *
In the White House Situation Room, President Reynolds stared at the supertanker on the TV screen and shook his large head. Bad enough that he had to listen to a washed-up correspondent with a chopped-off thumb mouthing the implacable demands of Al Qaeda, but now the North Koreans had sent him a top secret communiqué that announced they were going to exploit the crisis as much as they could.
Reynolds lowered his eyes to the President’s Daily Brief, which summarized all the threats to the United States; the North Korean communiqué was item number one. That dingdong kingdom was ruled by a crazy little bastard in platform shoes who Reynolds long ago had dubbed “the Demon Dwarf.” This morning the Dwarf was saying that he would launch thousands of missiles loaded with sulfates that would explode in the stratosphere—releasing billions of sun-blocking particles—if the United States didn’t send his country massive shipments of food, grains, seeds, and a full array of high-tech gear for everything from agriculture to nuclear arms. The creepy Dwarf also wanted the top twenty U.S. coal-fired plants shut down, no doubt to top Al Qaeda’s demand to close ten of them. There was to be no public disclosure of any of this, of course, “including the receipt of this communiqué.”
The Dwarf insisted on secrecy in everything. No wonder that was his first condition. But Reynolds hated, hated the idea of complying with any of Demon Dwarf’s demands. The first concession in any government-to-government negotiation set the tone for every issue to follow. Complying with anything that crazy weasel wanted would send the wrong signal, and it would put the United States on a slippery slope long greased by the blood of his foes. Much better, Reynolds thought, to reveal the Dwarf’s threat to the planet so that everyone would know what he’d slipped into his silos. Neutralize the bastard with exposure. But if Reynolds did not keep North Korea’s secrets, the madman might very well launch his sun-blocking missiles, spreading SPF 1,000 all over Mother Earth.
The goddamned dictator had boxed him into a corner three days before the election. It was just like the little creep to pull a stunt like this when the last thing Reynolds needed was a crisis of this magnitude seventy-two hours before voting booths opened for business.
What would Lilton and his merry band of destroyers make of this wrinkle if it became public? Wrinkle? Hell, it’s a political San Andreas Fault, Reynolds warned himself. Imagine the attack ads. Merciless. Murderous. “Reynolds let America’s most dangerous enemy build thousands of deadly missiles that could destroy the whole world. And now he wants you to give him four more years? Say no to Reynolds. Say no to North Korean terrorists.” Horrible.
If Reynolds made the Korean’s demands public, missiles might begin flying. Yet if he stayed mum, it would encourage the man’s madness.
Reynolds’s cabinet and the directors of the National Security Agency, the FBI, and the CIA were waiting for his response to the Daily Brief. At last Reynolds looked up.
“Before we get started on the subject of secret communiqués, what did we find out about that guy,” Reynolds nodded at Rick Birk, jawing away on a silent screen, “and his blinking eyeballs? Anything worthwhile?”
The NSC chief said, “Our code breakers have found intriguing links to a little-known drumming pattern of the Lokele tribe in the Congo.”
“No kidding?” Reynolds grinned. “Where did that old bugger come up with something like that?”
“That’s puzzling