Oil by Jeff Nesbit

Author:Jeff Nesbit
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Oil
ISBN: 9781609361143
Publisher: Guideposts
Published: 2012-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

33

State Department

Washington, DC

Su was devastated by Nash’s SMS message and then his call. Like Nash, she’d believed both You Moon and Kim Grace would be safe and freed from North Korea’s brutal Camp 16 complex. The news that they were to be executed just hours from now was more than Su could bear.

Nash and Su had quickly formulated a plan. Nash would talk to his father, relay the news about nuclear materials, and put his father on a path to deal directly with Pyongyang on the release of You Moon and Kim Grace. But that would take time—which their friends did not have. It was Su’s job to intervene from Washington.

It was very late in the day at State. Most of the vast bureaucracy had gone for the day. But Su knew that at least one person would still be there. Alex Cooper, the secretary’s brilliant, peripatetic director of science and innovation, was nearly always in his office long after the sun had gone down.

Today, thankfully, Alex was still there. “Can I talk?” Su asked as she fairly burst into his office minutes after getting off the phone with Nash.

Alex looked up from behind his terribly cluttered, messy desk. Stacks of paper were strewn across it and piled high on either side. “Always,” Alex said with a wan smile.

Su was one of his favorite people in the building. They shared a common belief in the power of Nash’s “relentless, positive storm” to remake the world for good.

“I need your help,” she said breathlessly.

“Tell me what you need.”

“Can you call the US ambassador in Seoul?”

Alex glanced at the map of world time zones he kept hanging to one side of his desk. He always struggled to keep track of the times in other parts of the world, and the map helped. “It’s the middle of the night there. I doubt if the ambassador is—”

“Can you call him?” Su demanded, much too loudly for the small office.

Alex studied his friend. She was clearly troubled. He would find out why at some point. But now he would do as she asked, without question. “Of course, Su. You can tell me what this is about while I find the number at the residence.”

“Thank you,” Su said more quietly.

Alex typed in a couple of commands on the MacBook Pro that he used as his office computer. An instant later, the telephone number for the US ambassador in South Korea’s capital appeared on his screen. He dialed the number from his Skype account and switched the video on. He wanted the ambassador to see him, via video, while he talked. He knew he’d likely get in trouble for this, but he didn’t care. If this was important to Su, it was important to him.

“So quickly, why am I calling him?” Alex asked while the number rang.

“To ask him to intervene in something immediately,” Su said. “They are going to execute two people in the morning—in just a few hours. We need to ask him to call

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.