“I’m here,” Herbert said. “But damn, I wish I had coffee.”

“Sorry about that,” Hood said.

“It’s okay. What’s on the table?”

“A North Korean colonel named Kim Hwan,” Hood said. “Have you ever heard of him?”

“Colonel Kim Hwan,” Herbert muttered. “Yeah. I came across his name in the files I brought. He’s a surveillance guy, I think.”

“Right,” Hood said.

“Is he with us or against us?” Herbert asked.

“He may have used a Chinese satellite to have a look at what we’re doing in the Celebes Sea,” Hood said.

“How do you know that?” Herbert asked.

“I asked Shigeo Fujima,” Hood said.

“The prick finally took your call?” Herbert asked.

“He had no choice,” Hood replied. “I had the operator cut in on his daughter’s cell phone.”

“Nice,” Herbert said. “Well, Fujima would know who is running what in that part of the world.” The intelligence chief was sounding much more alert now. “So Colonel Hwan is against us. Why?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Hood said. “Coffey’s team found an empty concrete block at the bottom of the Celebes Sea. The block was supposed to have nuclear waste inside.”

“North Korea gets whatever nuclear material they need from China,” Herbert said. “Why would they be interested in unprocessed waste material?”

“That’s the go-for-broke question,” Hood said.

“South Korea doesn’t need to go buccaneering for it either,” Herbert said. “We supply them. So Hwan wouldn’t have been watching to see what the enemy does either.”

“Makes sense.”

“That suggests a third party,” Herbert said.

“Which is where we run into problems,” Hood said. “I’ve got Colonel Hwan’s dossier on the computer. It’s pretty thin stuff. He’s a career man, no family, completely off the Western radar.”

“Does he attend seminars, go to retreats, travel in a private capacity?” Herbert asked.

“We don’t have that information,” Hood said. “As I said, he’s not even a blip to our intelligence allies.”

“That worries me.”

“Why?” Hood asked. “It could be he isn’t a heavyweight.”

“It could,” Herbert agreed. “More often than not, though, those are the real professionals, the ones who manage to stay hidden and anonymous. Let me think for a second.”

While Hood waited for Herbert, he scanned the dossier. They did not even have a picture of the man. That seemed to support Herbert’s interpretation. A low-watt intelligence officer would not mind being photographed. Hood came from the worlds of politics and finance. Voters were wooed according to complex demographics. Banking and investments were done with precision. Crisis management was different. It unnerved him to consider how often the only barricade between security and disaster was seat-of-the-pants thinking by men like Bob Herbert. In the same breath he thanked God that he had men like Bob Herbert around him.

“Okay,” Herbert said. “Did Hwan go to school?”

“You mean college?”

“Yes,” Herbert said.