Red Shark

“Bullshit! He’s afraid you’ll expose someone he or the DG is protecting.”

Fumiko balled her hands into fists and said, “This is Japan, not the U.S., damn it. You Americans don’t run things here. You don’t understand how things work here. You’re not our bosses. We take security very seriously, and breaching it is a civil offense, jail and all that.”

Scott sat down beside her on the sofa and sipped the brewed tea. “Fumiko, I don’t have to tell you how important this is. If you have names, I have to have them.” It occurred to him that Fumiko’s apartment might be bugged, but he pressed on anyway. “I have to have a starting point for the SRO to find out what the hell the North Koreans are up to.”

“And what do the people you work for in Washington think the NKs are up to?” she said, a note of defiance in her voice. “Tell me. You have had plenty of time to figure it out. You were on the submarine and on Matsu Shan. What do you think?”

He acknowledged her bitter tone and didn’t blame her. She had only done her job, and now she was being treated by the JDIH as if she were a security risk.

“All right, I’ll tell you what I think.”

He got up and used a wand to turn on the TV set. He raised the volume of the game show on the NHK network to create a voice blocker that might neutralize any hidden listening devices.

“I think the North Koreans want to launch a preemptive attack on the United States but don’t have the means. The man Jin met on Matsu Shan plays some part in the NKs’ plan. But I don’t know what part. Maybe he has something they need to launch an attack. Money, technology, whatever. Right now I don’t know why this man would help the North Koreans and I don’t have any idea who he is. Maybe what you found in the files will provide answers. All I know is that my gut tells me I’m right.”

Fumiko had a hand to her mouth. “A preemptive nuclear attack—”

“Yes.”

“Launched by missiles or—”

“Or delivered by terrorists.”

After a long moment of silence Fumiko looked down at her cold tea and said, “You’re right. Kubota and the DG are protecting someone. Last night after I dropped you off at your hotel I returned to headquarters and accessed the JDIH deep-classified computer files. It took all night, and I finished just before the meeting this morning. I keyed in the names of eighteen men that I had suspected might have a possible connection to Marshal Jin and the DPRK. I winnowed the list to seven names. Each one came up in what are called Bureau Files, daily updates on an individual’s activities both in and outside of Japan. Three of those names had been given Denied Access status. The files were sealed and also had reporting tags linked to the DG’s personal computer system.”

“By reporting tags, you mean the system records your name and access code so they can tell who’s been asking for information.” He pictured the JDIH computer system, which was capable of processing over a hundred septillion operations a second and working in time chunks of femtoseconds, tripping over Fumiko’s intrusion into the agency’s deepest and darkest secrets. He could almost hear the drawbridge squeal as it rose over the moat to block access to such privileged information.

“I got past the seals without any trouble, but it must have set off a secondary alarm in the DG’s office and in Kubota’s, too. That’s why he appropriated and classified the file I presented at the meeting this morning and why, by this afternoon, I’d been downgraded from top clearance to mid. Tomorrow I may even be fired or”—she shrugged her shoulders—“arrested.”

“What did you find?” Scott asked.

“Things no one is supposed to know. Like reports to the JDIH by the United States Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. The reports are only days old, so I doubt Kubota, much less the DG, has had time to review them.”

“What kind of reports?”