"Hood," the General snapped, "I wouldn't even be talking to you now if you weren't head of the crisis--"

"Major Lee is behind the conference center, North side."

"What?"

Hood said urgently, "You should be able to see it from your watchtowers southwest of the center. You've got a rifleman up there?"

"Yes--"

"Then use him. Fast!"

"You want me to shoot one of our own officers and fire into North Korea?" Schneider said.

"Isn't that what you've been wanting? Lee is armed and he's going to kill Hong-koo. You've got to stop him or a minute from now you'll be up to your goddamn neck in bodies!"

"What about my man in the tower? They'll fire back--"

"Hopefully not. My people are talking to them now."

" 'Hopefully,' " Schneider snorted. "Mister, I'll give the order, but this one's entirely your ass."

Schneider signed off, and Hood asked Viens to keep one satellite on Lee, the other on the watchtower.

The second image moved in closer, showed one of the two soldiers picking up his phone, the other looking through field glasses.

The first image showed Lee boldly approaching Hong-koo. The second image showed the man with the binoculars lowering them.

Lee was closer now-- close enough so that he and Hong-koo were in the same image. Hong-koo was stepping from the jeep on the passenger's side, his men forming a semicircle around him, an honor guard. Reporters and photographers were off to the sides.

The soldier in the watchtower picked up his rifle.

Lee raised his gun.

The soldier put the stock of the Colt M16 to his shoulder.

Hood's gut was a furnace, his mouth painfully dry. A second late, one word too many, might be what plunged the peninsula into war- Photo flashes flared as Lee's gun went off. Hood's heart pushed against his throat as the watchtower soldier stood with the rifle in position. It seemed an eternity before the next set of pictures arrived.

Lee's face was turned away, apparently in response to the flashes. Hong-koo was falling backward with what appeared to be a splotch on his upper right arm.

The M16 spit smoke.

Hood had a curious flashback to when he was a kid, hiding in the muted, woolly quiet of his parents' cedar closet. The silence in his office was that thick.

The next photograph of the North Korean side showed General Hong-koo on his back, holding his arm. Nearby, Lee still stood, smoke rising from his gun his head entirely obscured by a cloud of blood.

"They did it," Herbert said, clenching a fist and shaking it.

McCaskey patted Hood on the back.

In the next photograph, Lee was falling and Hong-koo was rising. To the south, the men in the watchtower were ducking.

"Mr. Hood?" Kim Chong said. "I've given them your message and they're relaying it to Panmunjom."

"Do you think they believed you?"

"Of course," she said. "I'm a spy, not a politician."

Hood rose and Ann came over and hugged him. "You did it, Paul."