Free The Expediter by David Hagberg Page A

empty Delta jetway.
    A few people were at the terminal windows above, watching the airplane and the security officer walking away, but he didn’t expect anyone would be sounding an alarm. A North Korean diplomatic aircraft had been isolated and was being refueled, and a San Francisco Airport security officer was walking back to the terminal. Nothing was out of the ordinary, yet Pak was relieved when he reached the empty baggage bay and discarded the blue windbreaker that had covered his sport coat, laying it nonchalantly in plain sight on one of the rails.
    He took out the thick manila envelope stuffed in his belt at the small of his back and his small nylon bag, which he had strapped to his waist, and looked around.
    A small pile of luggage was stacked ready to be transported out to a connecting flight due in sometime tonight. Pak selected a small, dark blue overnight bag, and stuffed his things inside with what appeared to be a man’s dirty laundry. He crossed to a security door into the access hallway that connected all the airlines’ baggage handling areas in the international and domestic terminals, as well as the Bay Area Rapid Transit station beneath garage G.
    Passengers arriving on international flights had to pass through customs and immigration before they could reach the BART trains. But there was no security in the access tunnels, because entry from the terminal side could only be made through code-locked doors.
    Just before the corridor passed through to the domestic G terminal,Pak opened a door that led down a short corridor and out to the BART terminal. No one was in sight, and hefting his piece of stolen luggage he stepped out and walked down to the terminal. Only a half-dozen passengers were waiting for the next train into the city, and no one paid Pak the slightest attention as he bought a ticket from one of the kiosks using a credit card under his work name of Joseph Yee, a businessman from San Francisco.
    The train arrived a few minutes later and Pak got on with the others for the twenty-minute ride into the city. Looking out the window as they left the terminal, he was struck by the notion that he could simply get off the train downtown, and lose himself in the city. Or, perhaps he could telephone the FBI or CIA and ask for political asylum in exchange for what he knew about the assassination of General Ho. He would certainly get their attention because he would be considered a high-value intelligence asset.
    But no one would believe him. Kim Jong Il was insane and Pak Hae was part of the scheme. He was here in the States to spread disinformation. It’s what Washington wanted to believe. The West had blinders on when it came to North Korea. Dear Leader was certifiably insane, but he was not stupid as most everyone over here believed, even though he had played the U.S. and her allies as fools for years. He was a master of the game. From time to time he would back off the nuclear issue, allowing inspectors into the country to see what he wanted them to see, but only long enough to get some much-needed fuel oil, medical supplies, and grain, before he would kick them out again until it was time to reopen the negotiations.
    This had been going on for a very long time, and yet no one over here got it. Nor did he think anyone here would get it this time. Except for the man he had come to see.
    He had reached the conclusion that the only help North Korea was going to get—help that would be believed by Beijing—would have to come from her chief enemy, the United States. Even as the thought had first come to mind, he’d wanted to dismiss it as utterly foolish, with absolutely no chance of success.
    Pak got off at San Bruno, the first stop, and went directly over to a kiosk where he got a ticket for the train back to the airport, due to leave in five minutes.
    The American would have to be influential, someone of the stature of a Jimmy Carter, with the on-the-ground experience of a Colin Powell, the