“So the VP wasn’t there?” said Robie.
Blue Man shook his head. “Ominous, since the VP is normally part of the loop on something like that.”
“Wait a minute, do you think they’re worried about transition exposure?” said Reel.
“In case of impeachment?” Blue Man nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”
“So they’re walling off the VP so he could take over in case his boss gets the ax,” said Robie. “That tells us something.”
“High crimes and misdemeanors,” said Reel. “That’s what the Constitution says are impeachable offenses. But those words can be widely interpreted.”
“But in the intelligence world something jumps out,” said Robie.
“Assassination of a head of state,” said Reel. She looked sharply at Blue Man. “Is that what we’re being dialed up to do?”
“I wish I could tell you for certain, but I can’t.”
“We hit Ahmadi before he came to power in Syria for that very reason,” said Robie. “He wasn’t yet a head of state. Otherwise, it’s illegal.”
“And bin Laden was a terrorist, not a head of state,” added Reel.
Blue Man considered all of this and then filled his chest with the invigorating mountain air. “And there are a limited number of such targets for which the president would stick out his political neck.”
“Very limited,” said Robie. “And it simply can’t be some asshole dictator raping his country. Saddam Hussein’s fellow countrymen hung him, not us. And Africa is not that important to us geopolitically. No basis to argue in the national interest.”
“I can actually think of two possible targets,” said Reel. “And both of them are suicide missions for the people pulling the trigger.” She stared at Blue Man. “With no double cross needed. The target might go down, but so will the mission team. They might get in, but they won’t get out. We’re dead.”
Blue Man said, “Ergo, I believe that the director has resolved his conflict. But then again, that’s what he thought last time.”
Chapter
21
CHUNG-CHA HAD NEVER MET a westerner who could tell the difference between a Chinese and a Japanese, much less a North Korean and a South Korean. This had proven very valuable to her work. To the world North Koreans were evil, while South Koreans and Japanese roused no suspicions at all. And Chinese were tolerated because China made everything that everyone else used and had all the money, or so Chung-Cha had been told.
She had taken a flight to Istanbul and boarded the train there. She was now in Romania, heading west. She had been on a North Korean clunker, but never a train such as this. She had never seen anything so luxurious that moved!
She was listening to music on her headphones as the train wended its way along. Chung-Cha liked to listen to music because it allowed her mind to wander to other things. She could afford to let her mind drift now. Later, that would not be possible.
The countryside here was quite remarkable. She enjoyed traveling by train for several reasons, not the least of which was the lessened standard of security. For this particular journey, there was another reason.
That reason was residing in the same train car as she was, only four compartments down from her.
She had seen him, but he had not seen her because he was not trained to observe, at least not at the level she was. The train’s destination was Venice. From Istanbul the trip took six days.
She waited until he went to the dining car that night. Her gaze followed him all the way out of the sleeping car.
She figured she had thirty minutes. She shouldn’t need half that time.
Chung-Cha didn’t simply kill people; she gathered intelligence. She looked like a shy young Asian woman who would pose a threat to no one. The fact that she could kill everyone on this train would not occur to any passenger.
The man’s compartment was locked. A few seconds later it was no longer locked. Chung-Cha slipped inside and shut the door behind her. She did not expect to find much. The man was a British envoy lately attached to the embassy in Pyongyang. Those types did not leave classified documents lying around in their empty train compartments. What secrets they did have were confined to their minds or on encrypted devices that would take an army of computers years to break into.
But there were exceptions to that rule. And this man might prove to be one of those rare exceptions.
It took her barely fifteen minutes to efficiently search his compartment and leave no trace that she had done so. He had left, by her count, six subtle traps for those attempting to find something here. Tripping any of them would reveal said search. She either didn’t disturb them or returned them to their original positions, down to the millimeter.