Mortal Allies (59 page)

Since nothing about to be discussed had been made available through pretrial discovery to either side, or even to the judge, this really was an unprecedented thing. On the other hand, both Carruthers and I had worked in the SPECAT court, where extraordinary things were done as a matter of course to protect the country’s security.

Anyway, once Mercer had told everybody who he was, and about his involvement in this case, the judge turned the proceeding over to his specially appointed assistant. That meant he turned it over to me.

I said, “Mr. Mercer, could you please explain to the court the trail of events that led to your discovery that Chief Warrant Officer Michael Bales and Chief Inspector Choi Lee Min were operating as agents of North Korea?”

I thought Eddie was going to have a heart attack right on the spot. He started to stand up, and I’m sure he was on the verge of protesting, but Carruthers banged his mallet twice, hard, and Eddie fell quietly back into his chair.

I helped guide Buzz through everything. At key points, I made him slow down and explain how some particular deduction was made, or I made him provide more detailed explanations of some twist or turn in the investigation. It only got awkward when he kept bringing my name into it, which happened to be fairly often, as you might imagine. But again, I wasn’t here as an attorney but as a member of the judge’s staff, so there was nothing prejudicial about it.

It took about an hour to get it all out, and frankly every soul in that room, even Eddie, was completely mesmerized. The men and women in this room were hearing the intricate, blow-by-blow details of the largest counterespionage case in U.S. history. The public wasn’t even yet aware it’d happened.

When Buzz was done, there was this odd moment you wouldn’t exactly call a stunned silence. It was more like a bunch of people seated around a room staring at a bombshell that had just crashed through the ceiling, a not-yet-exploded one that you could hear ticking away. There was a communal reluctance to move, or breathe, or speak.

Then Eddie recovered his wits. “Your Honor,” he called out in an irritated voice, “do I get to examine the witness?”

“Of course,” Carruthers announced. “But this is a courtroom, so defense precedes.”

Poor Kip was frozen in his seat. I could see his eyes darting around as he wondered what he could possibly ask the CIA station chief who’d just fingered two of the prosecution’s witnesses as North Korean spies.

Finally he just shook his head. “I’ll reserve till cross-examination.”

That was actually a pretty smart move on Kip’s part. Let Golden take his best shots, then see what damage needed to be repaired.

Eddie stood up and paced around trying to look lawyerly. I wanted to remind him there were no TV cameras in this room, so just cut the bullshit. He eventually stopped of his own accord right in front of Buzz.

He somehow managed to make himself looked amused. “Uh, Mr. Mercer, I’m sorry. That was a very, very entertaining story, but I didn’t really hear you present any evidence that either Michael Bales or Choi Lee Min are agents of North Korea.”

Buzz said, “No, I guess I didn’t.”

“I didn’t think you did,” Eddie said, instantly agreeable. “What I heard was a wildly circumstantial story that could have two dozen different entirely plausible explanations. You’re a trained intelligence officer, aren’t you? Assumptions can be very dangerous in your line of work. Don’t you agree?”

Buzz was scratching his head and nodding. “Absolutely, Major. One of the most dangerous mistakes you can make.”

“And Michael Bales is not here and is therefore unable to defend himself, right?”

“That’s true,” Buzz said. “Just seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.”

“And Choi’s dead, isn’t he?”

“He is indeed dead,” Buzz said with all-too-apparent satisfaction. “Major Drummond’s co-counsel killed him.”

“So you’re asking us to take on face value that they were agents of North Korea. Isn’t that true?”

“No, I wouldn’t say that. I’d—”

There’s a lawyer’s dictum that you never, ever ask a potentially antagonistic witness a question you don’t already know the answer to. Eddie had done his best to avoid it, slickly using his first four or five questions to feel out what Mercer had, to narrow down the odds, but in the end he’d stepped blindly off the cliff. He’d violated that dictum. And he knew it.

But he wasn’t known as Fast Eddie for nothing.

“That’s all I have,” he quickly interrupted.

Buzz’s lips were still parted, and he looked ready to say something more — he obviously wanted to — so Eddie leaned toward him and fixed him with a perfectly evil stare. “I said that’s all I have, Mr. Mercer.”

Then Eddie stomped over to his seat. The only problem was, he’d already committed legal suicide.

Carruthers looked at Kip. “Do you have any questions?”

Maybe Kip would’ve gotten around to asking it anyway, but Eddie had just opened the doorway for him, so Kip stood up and smiled, and stepped right through.

“Let me start, Mr. Mercer, by congratulating you. As a soldier and an American, I’m deeply impressed by the service you’ve rendered.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Buzz nodded, playing his role to the hilt.

Then Kip looked over at me. “And you, too, Major Drummond. You’re a real hero.”

I mumbled, “Thank you.”

Kip grinned and then turned back to Mercer. “Now, I know you’re a very busy man, so I have only one subject of inquiry.”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any direct evidence that Michael Bales or Choi Lee Min were agents of North Korea?”

“In fact, I do.”

“And where is this evidence?”

“Actually,” Buzz said, pointing at the TV screen, “I brought along a videotape. We interrogated Mrs. Michael Bales, who also was an intelligence agent employed by North Korea.”

“Can we see that tape?” Kip quite naturally asked.

“That’s why I brought it.”

E
ddie was screaming, “Objection! Objection!” loud enough I thought he’d give himself a hernia. I wished he would. I’d love to see him crumple to the floor in a ball of excruciating pain.

The two technicians ignored him and shifted the TV so everybody could see it, and then began preloading a black videocassette. Carruthers looked over at Golden.

“What is it?”

“If this is evidence from Bales’s wife, it’s inadmissible. A wife may not be compelled to testify against her husband.”

“If it was compelled,” Carruthers said. Then he glanced over at Mercer. “Was it?”

Buzz shrugged. “In a manner of speaking. They didn’t let her sleep for five days.”

Kip stood up. “Actually, I think Major Golden is confused. The testimony is not against the accused, Thomas Whitehall. It concerns a key prosecution witness.”

Carruthers scratched his head a moment. “The point may still be relevant. Compelled testimony from the wife of a witness could enjoy the same protections.”

Then I popped up. “May I help clarify a point for the court?”

Golden glowered, but Carruthers nodded.

I said, “Mr. Mercer, could we have the full name of the woman on the tape?”

Buzz jovially said, “The name on her military dependent ID card is Jin May Bales.”

“Is that her real name?”

“Nope. Her real name’s Lee Chin Moon.”

“Where’s she from?”

“The papers she filed with American military authorities say she was born in Chicago, Illinois, and came here in 1995.”

“Was that factual?”

“Nope. Lee Chin Moon never set foot in the United States. She spent her whole life in a special camp in North Korea, at least until a submarine landed her off the east coast of the Republic of Korea.”

“Are you saying everything she reported to the military authorities when she and Bales applied for marriage was false?”

Buzz chuckled, then matter-of-factly said, “Very nearly. Except for the block she stamped that identified her as a female. She is in fact a female. I’ll attest to that.”

“And how would you describe their marriage?”

“It wasn’t a marriage. It was her cover. She was actually the controller for Choi and Bales. She was sent down here to run their operation when it was determined to be an intelligence gold mine.”

“I’m sorry, why’d they send her down here?”

“To run this whole operation.”

Even I had to shake my head at that one. “She was in charge of this?”

“Yep. They gave her a legend as Choi’s sister, then made it foolproof by having her marry Bales. A pretty slick solution, if you think about it. She’s living right on an American base as an officer’s wife, she’s controlling the man she lives with, and Choi gets to stop by and visit his ‘sister’ as often as he wants. And nobody’s suspicious.”

At this point we could have become embroiled in one of those lengthy arguments that you often see in bigamy contests about whether a marriage is still legal even if one of the participants used a false name — but really, what would be the point?

Eddie was squirming and trying to come up with something to object to, but I guess he finally realized he’d only make an utter fool of himself. I wanted to see him try anyway.

Carruthers said, “Play the tape,” and Eddie kept his mouth shut.

Minister Lee himself reached up and turned out the lights.

The TV screen flickered as the tape cued, then a picture popped up of a woman seated on a white chair in the middle of a white room. A wool blanket had been thrown over her body to cover her nakedness.

She looked filthy and exhausted, and her hair hung down in oily straggles. She was still breathtakingly beautiful.

For about thirty seconds, there were some exchanges between her and a man who was hidden from the camera. They were speaking in Korean, so I didn’t understand what they were saying, but her voice and her demeanor were pleading, and the man’s voice was sharp, overbearing, harsh.

She finally hung her head in resignation and allowed it to bob up and down in an exhausted nodding motion.

The man said, “Describe your relationship to Michael Bales.”

He made her go through everything Buzz Mercer just told us, only it was infinitely more compelling to hear it from the lips of this woman taped into a chair. Carol Kim had been right. Her English was excellent, right down to the midwestern twang. But it should be. Like Choi, before coming south she’d spent her whole life in that special camp that Kim, the KCIA man, had mentioned, being taught English by former American POWs.

Then came questions about her responsibilities, and it turned out her role in the conspiracy included controlling the traitors Bales and Choi caught inside their net. In fits and starts, and often speaking haltingly, she said she told her traitors what information her masters in North Korea wanted, she collected their products, and on market days she went downtown and dropped them off with a contact who sped them up north.

Then came the part we were awaiting.

“How was Michael Bales enlisted?”

She stared at the floor. She seemed to be having trouble recalling it, maybe because she was exhausted, or maybe because she didn’t want to get Bales confused with all the other Americans they’d entrapped.

Then she said, “This happened months before I arrived. Bales went to Itaewon one night to the King Mae Bar. He drank heavily and went upstairs with a prostitute. Bales likes . . . well, he likes rough sex. We had problems with him even after he was recruited. That night, though, Bales beat the whore as he screwed her . . .” She drew a few quick breaths like she needed oxygen to keep talking. “He drove her nose bone into her brain. She hemorrhaged and died. Choi came to investigate. Bales immediately identified himself as a police officer and Choi recognized how valuable he could be.”

“So they struck a bargain?” the unseen questioner asked.

“Yes . . . a . . . a bargain.”

“It was that simple?”

She nodded.

“Then what?”

“Who cares about the death of a whore? Who complains if her killer is never found? Her pimp? Choi wrote in the criminal file that Bales was there as an investigator, rather than a suspect. After two months he closed the case as unsolvable.”

“Didn’t you worry that Bales might flee or go back on the bargain?”

“There were always second files. I sent them north for safety. I could get them if . . . well, if I needed them.”

“What did Bales do for you?”

Her chin fell on her chest, but her eyeballs looked up and stared at her questioner. “I’m tired . . . uh, ask me later.”

The questioner screamed something at her in Korean, and while I had no idea what he said, she obviously did, and it brought her chin right off her chest.

The questioner said, “Now, answer the question. What did Bales do for you?”

Her head rolled backward, like she was trying to get blood flowing in her brain. “The first year . . . background checks on targets. He could access military personnel and FBI files. That was helpful.”

“Anything else?”

“After a few years, he helped with entrapments. Choi would call him when he found a target. Bales would . . . he would help persuade them. The Americans, they became worried when he arrived. He would help pressure them.”

“Did you give him money?”

“Some money. We sent it to a foreign account. It was not important to him, though.”

“Why?” the interrogator asked.

Her chin fell on her chest again, but this time she kept talking, although her voice was trailing off. “He is very egotistical. Choi arranged to make him look like a super-detective.” She then chuckled to herself, like it was a big joke only she got. “Very funny, really. Bales’s superiors began relying on him to handle most of the cases committed off base. And when Bales’s tours ended, they were eager to see his time extended in Korea.”

“Tell us about the American Keith Merritt.”

“No,” she said, her voice becoming very weak. “It is time to sleep . . . You promised.”

The screen suddenly went dark, but the sound was still on and you could hear the noise of footsteps, then four loud whacks, and the woman yelping from pain. Then the picture returned. Her cheeks were red, and she was staring at her interpreter with a mixture of resentment and anger.