Herbert rolled to his side and read over Hood's shoulder.

"Mr. President: I share your outrage at the attack on our jet and the loss of an officer. However, I urge restraint from a position of strength. We stand to lose much and gain little fighting a foe who may not be our enemy."

"Good for you, chief," Herbert said. "You may not be speaking for the Task Force, but you speak for me."

"And me," Ann said. "I couldn't have said it better."

Hood saved the addendum and brought Ann's face on the screen. She was so good at selling ideas to reporters over the phone, he couldn't tell what she was really thinking unless he saw her face.

She was thinking exactly what she'd said. In the six months he'd known her, that was the first time she hadn't noodled with something he'd written.

Herbert left the office, Ann returned to her conference with the White House Press Secretary, and Hood finished reviewing the options update before telling Bugs to fax it over the secure line. Alone and surprisingly relaxed for the first time that day, he rang the hospital where the news was not what he'd expected to hear.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Wednesday, 1:45 A.M., the DMZ

The soldiers in the radio center were joking with Private Koh when the message came from the headquarters of General Hong-koo, Commander of the Forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They were immediately alert, no longer teasing Koh about brown-nosing by taking a second shift; they replayed the coordinates recorded by their directional antennae to ascertain that the message had, in fact, come from just over the DMZ. That done, they checked their computer directory to confirm that the caller was, in fact, his adjutant Kim Hoh. The computer searched its files and, within seconds, had completed a voiceprint identification. Finally, less than thirty seconds after the signal had been received, they radioed back an acknowledgment and started the two-cassette recorder to tape the message and a copy. One man notified General Schneider that a communications from the North was being received. The private was told to bring it to him the instant it was complete.

Koh seemed the most intent of the five men, listening as the message came through:

"To former Ambassador Gregory Donald at Base Charlie. General Hong-koo, Commander of the Forces of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea at Base One, DMZ, returns greetings and accepts your invitation to a meeting in the neutral zone at 0800 hours."

While one of the men radioed that the message had been received, another ran a copy of the tape and a cassette player to General Schneider's quarters.

Koh said to the remaining two men that he was feeling a bit tired and was going to have some coffee and a smoke. Outside, he walked into the shadows of a nearby truck and undid his shirt. There was an M2 cellular phone strapped to his upper arm: undoing the buckle, he pulled up the antenna and punched in Lee's number.