There were a few South Koreans, but as it always was in the bars around the government building, it was mostly international press: Heather Jackson from CBS, Barry Berk from The New York Times, Gil Vanderwald from The Pacific Spectator, and others whom he didn't care to think about or talk to. Which was why he'd come here early and tucked himself in a far, dark corner of the bar, and why his wife Soonji hadn't joined them. Like Donald, she felt the press had never given him a fair shake-- not when he was Ambassador to Korea twenty years ago, and not when he became the adviser on Korean affairs for Op-Center just three months before. Unlike her husband, though, Soonji got angry about negative press. Gregory had long ago learned to lose himself in his vintage meerschaum, a comforting reminder that, like a puff of pipe smoke, a headline is just for the moment.

The bartender came and went and Hwan turned from the bar, his dark eyes on Donald, his right forearm lying flat and stiff on the counter.

"So what did you mean by your question?" Hwan asked. "About thinking back?"

Donald put in the last of the tobacco. "Do you remember a fellow named Yunghil Oh?"

"Vaguely, " Hwan said. "He used to teach at the agency."

"He was one of the founding fathers of the psychology division, " Donald said. "A fascinating old gentleman from Taegu. When I first came here in 1952, Oh was just leaving. Being booted out, really. The KCIA was trying hard to establish itself as a U.S.-style, state-of-the-art intelligence group and, when he wasn't lecturing on psychological warfare, Oh was busy introducing aspects of Chondokyo."

"Religion in the KCIA? Faith and espionage?"

"Not exactly. It was a kind of spiritual, heavenly way approach to deduction and investigation he had developed. He taught that the shadows of the past and future are all around us. He believed that through meditation, by reflecting on people and events that were and will be, we could touch them."

"And?"

"And they would help us see today more clearly."

Hwan snickered. "No wonder they dismissed him."

"He wasn't for us, " Donald agreed, "and frankly, I don't think Oh had all ten toes on the ground. But it's funny. More and more I find myself thinking he was on to something-- that he was in the neighborhood, if not knocking on the door."

Donald reached into his pocket for matches. Hwan watched his one-time mentor closely.

"Anything you can put your finger on?"

"No, " Gregory admitted. "Just a feeling."

Hwan scratched his right forearm slowly. "You always did have an interest in unusual people."

"Why not? There's always a chance you can learn something from them."

"Like that old tae kwon do master. The one you brought in to teach us naginata."

Donald struck a wooden match and, cupping the bowl of the pipe in his left hand, he put the flame to the tobacco. "That was a good program, one they should have expanded. You never know when you'll be unarmed and have to defend yourself with a tightly rolled newspaper or a--"