Free Bamboo and Blood by James Church Page A

attention. Sometimes I concentrate on the wings, but mostly the engines. At that height, you don’t take anything for granted. There’s no way I could work on finishing up the file. Besides, the stewardesses are always interrupting, going up and down the aisle.”

    “Brushing against you, I suppose. You got an aisle seat, naturally.”

    “They’re assigned.” Pak’s face indicated he was dubious. “I could keep better control of him from the aisle seat.” Pak remained silent. “Okay, yes, the stewardesses are friendly girls.”

    “I leave such things to you, Inspector. Now, when do I get that report?”

    “After someone tells me what to do with our visitor.”

    “He stays with you. That’s why you were sent to get him.”

    “Did you know that no one from the special section was around to meet us at the airport? They weren’t even lurking in the shadows. The dogs have been called off. Even the immigration people didn’t blink twice when he came through. Don’t tell me they hadn’t been alerted.”

    “Apparently not.”

    “So you are going to try to convince me that this is all normal?”

    “No. I don’t know what normal is anymore. Do you?”

    Discussions about normality were out of bounds as far as I was concerned. I didn’t care about normality right now. My priority was to get rid of this foreigner. I needed to hand him off to some other section and then get out of the way before they knew what hit them. For that, I needed some facts, not the least of which was who had approved the reentry visa. I didn’t care if Pak wouldn’t always tell me what was going on, as long as he knew. But in this case, he didn’t know. The news about the two Israeli delegations had surprised him. If Pak was surprised, it meant we didn’t know where we were going, how far away from the edge of the cliff we might be.

    “By the way, our visitor has a long list of places he wants to go,” I said. “He gave it to me while we were waiting for the bags. Some of his requests are way over on the east coast. And I don’t mean places for sightseeing. He doesn’t care about Kangwon and snowy peaks. He’s interested in North Hamgyong. He asked if I knew anything about Hwadae county.” As soon as I heard myself say that, I knew where the edge of the cliff was.

    “Really?” Pak also sensed a cliff. “How interesting. Is there anything else we can get for him? Caviar, perhaps? A harem? Do you think he knows he has to pay double for a car this time of year, and that he can’t drive himself anymore? A driver will cost more than the car. Assuming I can even get him a car. Assuming, of course, I can get him a driver from somewhere for a car that probably doesn’t exist. Believe me, he’s absolutely not getting our last and only duty driver, not if I can help it. And you can be sure he’s not going anywhere near Hwadae county.”

    For some reason, I decided to ask a completely pointless question. “Something going on up there?” Of course something was going on, why else would anyone want to go to North Hamgyong, especially in January?

    “Nothing either of us needs to know about.”

    “But he does?” Another pointless question, but one that, I had no doubt, would eventually need an answer.

    “I’m not going to start guessing about his agenda,” Pak said, “and neither should you. Don’t let me hear that you’ve started checking around, either. Stay away from the subject. Our visitor isn’t getting out of the city, not unless he can pay off a lot of people. I don’t care who he has behind him.” He stopped. That was all he wanted to say about what or who we couldn’t see. “At the moment, the man is not a police matter. We are assigned to wipe his nose if he sneezes, that’s all. Anyway, the roads are piled with snow and no one is around to clear them these days, which for a change is a blessing. If he asks again, tell him about the bad road conditions.”

    “None of that will worry him. He