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prison camp. Surviving members of the real man’s family had been rounded up and liquidated to ensure absolute security. No one was left alive to dispute Scorpion’s authenticity.
    In the nearly forty years since, the agent Scorpion had risen steadily through the ranks of South Korea’s bureaucracy. And Kang had been his controller since the 1960s.
    “Scorpion goes well, Dear Leader. Our man has attained a high position in the fascist internal security force.”
    Kim interrupted him. “Excellent, Comrade Kang. Perfect in fact. Then he is ideally placed to carry out the task I have in mind.”
    SEPTEMBER 6—THE MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

    The man known as Scorpion in North Korea stood by his office window. From there he could see faint, whitish-gray wisps of tear gas rising above thecity skyline. Another student protest that had turned into a riot. Good. It would make things easier. But not any safer—not for him at least.
    He thought over the emergency signal that had arrived from the North. What possessed those fools? Had they lost all ability to reason? He’d spent years worming his way into this position, and now they wanted to risk it all on a single throw of the dice. He turned away from the window.
    Should he refuse to carry out the order? The thought tempted him, but he dismissed it. That would be viewed as disloyalty and Pyongyang had a long arm. Better to risk detection by his colleagues in the South Korean security service than to risk death at the hands of his comrades in the North’s Research Department.
    Besides, there was a certain charming subtlety to the mission he’d been ordered to carry out. A careful word here. A thoughtful suggestion there. And all of them would be in character. He’d established his credentials as a hardline anticommunist with years of dedicated service and fierce talk. No one would be surprised by investigation that would certainly ensue if he was successful.
    He stopped pacing by his desk. So be it. He’d evaded South Korea’s counterespionage probes for four decades. Let them try again and he would outwit them yet again.
    The man called Scorpion picked up the phone. “Get me the minister.”
    He would light the fuse.

______________
CHAPTER
2
    Opening Round

    SEPTEMBER 8—NEAR THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

    General Jack McLaren leaned forward and rapped sharply on the divider. “Stop the car right here, Harmon. I want to see what the hell’s going on up ahead.”
    His driver grinned back over his shoulder. “Anything you say, General. This is about the end of the line anyways. Looks like a doggone parking lot up there.”
    McLaren snorted and popped the car door open—and started to sweat as Seoul’s hot, sticky summer air rolled into the air-conditioned limo. It was worse out on the pavement. Heat waves shimmered and danced along the mass of stalled cars now backed up all along Sejong-Ro—Sejong Street—the wide, multilane boulevard cutting north to south through Seoul.
    McLaren shoved his heavy uniform cap squarely on his head and leaned back in through the open door. “Doug, you’d better get on the horn to their high-and-mightinesses and tell ’em I’ll be late … but do it diplomatically, of course.”
    His aide nodded and reached for the command phone on the seat beside him.
    McLaren turned away and began working his way up the street through the crowds. He frowned. Street vendors along the sidewalks were hastily packing away their goods, and department store clerks swarmed alongside them hurriedly unrolling steel mesh screens to cover display windows showing the latest Western fashions. Other drivers had gotten out of their cars and stood trying to see what had caused the tie-up.
    By the time he’d gone just a couple of hundred yards, the reason for the traffic jam was obvious. Several hundred helmeted South Korean riot police had blocked off the whole multilane boulevard. Some were putting up crowd control barricades