"Patriotism has its price."

"My family has paid it, many times over. Now I want to be with what's left of that family. I will do what you ask, but then I want you to leave me at the cottage."

"So you can make your way to Japan?" Hwan shook his head. "I would be dishonorably dismissed, and I would deserve it."

"You'd rather risk your country going to war?"

"You seem ready enough to let thousands of young men like your brother die."

Kim looked away.

Hwan glanced at the dashboard clock. He motioned for Cho to drive on, and the car got under way with a squirt of mud.

"I'm not going to let anyone die," Kim said.

"I hoped you wouldn't." He watched her face, which was brightened dimly now and then by candlelight from huts and cottages they passed. The shadows of the rain-soaked window played on her face. "I'll do what I can for you, of course. I have friends in Japan perhaps something can be worked out."

"Prison, there?"

"Not a jail. There are low-security facilities, like dormitories."

"It would be difficult to find my brother-- even from a comfortable cell."

"I can help with that. He can visit, or maybe we can work something else out."

She looked at him. The dark rivulets on her cheeks resembled tears. "Thank you-- that's something, I suppose. If it can be done."

She seemed open and vulnerable for the first time, and he felt drawn to her. She was strong and attractive, and he thought, and almost said, that he could always marry her and really complicate the South Korean legal system-- but as tempting as the idea was, it seemed unfair to tease her with freedom or threaten her with him.

But it was on his mind as they drove through the increasingly slippery road to Kim's home in the hills. Had he not been thinking of Kim, it is still unlikely that Hwan would have noticed the scooter that had passed them earlier, as it sat off to the side of the road, its headlight off, engine idling

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Tuesday, 10:50 A.M., Op-Center

Phil Katzen bumped into Hood on the way to his office and followed him in. He told the Director what they'd discovered, and that Stoll was already going through the first of the ROK diskettes.

"That would dovetail with what Gregory Donald told Martha," Hood said. "He and Kim Hwan at KCIA don't think it's North Korea, either." Hood felt good about having seen his son, and about the boy's prospects. He allowed himself a little grin. "How's it feel to get away from oil slicks and rain forests?"

"Strange," the Environmental Officer admitted, "but invigorating. Getting to use muscles that are a little atrophied."

"Spend too much time here, and that isn't all that'll atrophy."

Ann Farris strode into the room. "Paul--"

"Just the person I want to see."

"Maybe not. Do you know about the ROK files?"

"I'm the Director. They pay me to know those things."