Threat Level Black

Howe checked the radio unit and broadcast the Russian message, which had been prerecorded on a special CD. Then he turned up the volume and double-checked that the radio was locked into the command frequency, ready to receive the signal on what to do.

Chapter 19

Dr. Park got up from the chair and went to the window, bending his head to look up at the sky past the nearby mountainside. A few faint stars glimmered in the darkness; he thought of the folktale about the cowherd and the weaver, the constellations separated by a father’s jealousy.

Why was he here? The unit Dr. Park had been told he would help had not arrived; in fact, there were no more than a dozen men all told, if that. The camp seemed as forlorn as any Dr. Park had ever seen. The airfield a few miles away where the tests were supposed to be held was emptier still, abandoned for months if not years. The open hangar at the far end of the runway area held two small aircraft, the remains of a UAV project that until now Dr. Park had only heard rumors about, but the crews who cared for the planes, as well as the men who had developed them, were absent. The other buildings there were falling in on themselves.

The buildings here were not much better. The rooms in his small bungalow smelled of mildew. A cook made meals only once a day; the rest of the time Dr. Park had to forage for food in the large kitchen in the administrative building, apparently as the others did. The few men he had contact with were young soldiers who answered questions with shrugs.

Had he been sent here as punishment for Moscow?

He did not think this could be so, for surely punishment would be more severe. It seemed more that he had simply been forgotten. He was free to wander back and forth and spend his hours playing one-man Ping-Pong against the folded side of a game table. A soldier or two was never far away-one had gone with him to the airfield the other day, and down the road for a walk the day before-but none ever stopped him.

Most likely the situation was a product of the growing disarray in the country, the confusion between different branches and departments. Even in this isolated place Dr. Park saw it: A dignitary had arrived yesterday and yet received no official greeting; his car had swung in the gate and gone up to the main administration building, and if the man had even gotten out, let alone taken a tour of the place, Dr. Park did not know about it.

Dr. Park decided he would take a walk. He began thinking of the folktale again, the cleverness of coming up with an earthly story to explain the movement of the heavens. Dr. Park had always been interested in the stars; he saw it as an extension of his interest in science and math. He had vaguely hoped that if he was successful in leaving for America, he would be able to pursue those interests somehow. Perhaps there was a space project he might be assigned to, or some department dealing with the study of the stars. But the failure in Moscow -his own failure, he knew-had sealed his fate. He would live out his days as an engineer for the state, as preordained.

He walked around the perimeter of the camp, admiring the stars. Tomorrow he would find the camp director or someone else in authority and make inquiries, he decided. If he was not needed, perhaps it would be possible to visit his mother’s cousin in Dao; she was his last claim on family, though it was doubtful she even knew that he was there.

Dr. Park took one last look at the stars before going back inside his hut. Now he thought about his grandmother when she had told him the folktale of the stars that could meet only once a year. He felt again her warm embrace, the only memory he had now of the day his mother and father died together.

The memory lingered as he crossed the threshold of the hut. It stayed with him even as the thick blade of a hatchet smacked into the back corner of his skull, sending the life from his body.

Chapter 20

Tyler leaned across the rock, training the nightscope on the runway. The airfield was practically unguarded, with only two men watching the road at the south. It seemed to have been used as a storage area but had been abandoned sometime before. The army camp where their contact was living was two miles away. At one time a cross between an army base and a factory, it, too, seemed almost abandoned: There were skeleton posts around the perimeter, with no more than a dozen guards. A three-man team had already scouted it; they had a way in if their man didn’t show. Another team was sitting near the field itself, ready to intervene if the pilot needed help.

The communications man tapped him. Tyler cupped his hand over his ear and then clicked into the circuit, talking into the miniature boom mike that extended near his collar.