"Sir, General Sam's headquarters just phoned with news: a U.S. fighter just attacked the air base at Sariwon."

"One fighter?"

"Yes, sir. We believe a Nighthawk hit the MiG that attacked their Mirage."

Finally, thought Yung-Hoon, something to smile about. "Excellent. What's the latest on Kim Hwan?"

"There is no latest, sir. He's still in surgery."

"I see. Is the coffee ready yet?"

"Brewing, sir."

"Why is everything so slow around here, Ryu?"

"Because we're understaffed, sir?"

"Rubbish. One man successfully attacked Sariwon. We're complacent. This whole thing happened because we're fat and lack initiative. Perhaps we need some changes--"

"I'll pour whatever coffee is made, sir."

"You're catching on, Ryu."

The Director jabbed off the phone. He wanted his coffee, but he was right about what he'd said to Ryu. The organization had lost its edge, and the best of them was on his back in God only knew what condition. Yung-Hoon had been angry when he learned what Hwan had done, hauling in the spy and asking for her help. It just wasn't done that way. But maybe that's why it needed to be done.

Show compassion and trust where you usually show anger and doubt. Shake people up, keep them off balance.

He'd been raised by the old school, and Hwan was the new. If his Deputy Director survived, maybe it was time for a change.

Or maybe he was just balmy with exhaustion. He'd see how things looked after coffee. In the meantime, he lifted his long right hand and gave a small salute to the Americans for having done their part to keep the North off balance.

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Tuesday, 2:00 P.M., Op-Center

The laboratory at Op-Center was extremely small, only nine hundred square feet, but Dr. Cindy Merritt and her assistant Ralph didn't need much more room than that. The data and files were all computerized, and the various tools of the trade were tucked into cabinets and under tables, hooked into the computers for control and observation.

The fingerprints from the KCIA computer came to Merritt's computer over a secure modem; the instant it arrived, the loops and whorls were already being scanned and matched against similar patterns in files that had come from the CIA, Mossad, MI5, and other intelligence sources, along with files from Interpol, Scotland Yard, other police sources, and military intelligence groups.

Unlike the KCIA software that superimposed the entire fingerprint over prints in its file-- processing twenty every second-- the Op-Center software Matt Stoll had developed with Cindy divided each print into twenty-four equal parts and literally threw them to the wind: if any part of the pattern showed up in another print, the entire prints were compared. This technique allowed them to examine 480 prints a second for every machine being used.

Bob Herbert and Darrell McCaskey had arrived when the print did, and asked Cindy if she could put several computers on the job: the unflappable chemist was able to give them three, and told them to stick around-- it wouldn't take long.