Black wind

of high-risk aliens,” Jimenez interjected. “We’ll issue a border security alert watch, in coordination with the FBI.”
    “And what are we doing elsewhere abroad to prevent any more target shooting?” the president asked, addressing the secretary of state.
    “We have issued heightened security alerts at all of our embassies,” the secretary replied. “We have also assigned additional security protection to our senior diplomats, and placed a temporary travel restriction for all State Department personnel within their host country. For the time being, our ambassadors abroad are under lock and key.”
    “Any opinion that there is an imminent threat domestically, Dennis?”
    “Not at this time, Mr. President,” the homeland security director replied. “We’ve tightened our travel and immigration inspections on incoming traffic from Japan but don’t feel it is necessary to raise the domestic security alert.”
    “Do you concur, Marty?”
    “Yes, sir. Like Dennis, all our indications suggest that the incidents are isolated to Japan.”
    “Very well. Now what about the deaths of those two Coast Guard meteorologists in Alaska?” the president asked, drawing another puff on his pipe.
    Finch rifled through some documents before responding. “That would be the island of Yunaska in the Aleutians. We have an investigative team presently on site working with local officials. They are also looking at the destruction of a NUMA helicopter as a related incident. Preliminary indications are that the acts were the result of rogue poachers who used cyanide gas to subdue a herd of sea lions. We’re trying to track down a Russian fishing trawler that was known to be fishing the local waters illegally. Officials on-site appear confident that they will apprehend the vessel.”
    “Cyanide gas to hunt sea lions? There are lunatics all over this planet. All right, gentlemen, let’s give it our all to find these murderers. Allowing our diplomatic representatives to be gunned down without repercussion is not the message I want to be giving the world. I knew Hamilton and Bridges. They were both good men.”
    “We’ll find them,” Finch promised.
    “Make sure,” the president said, tapping his downturned pipe bowl against a stainless steel ashtray for effect. “I fear these characters have more up their sleeve than we realize and I want none of what they’re selling.” As he spoke, a glob of burned tobacco plopped unceremoniously into the ashtray, and nobody said a word.
    Although Keith Catana had been in South Korea only three months, he had already identified his favorite off-base watering hole. Chang’s Saloon appeared little different from the dozen or so other bars of “A-Town,” a seedy entertainment section on the fringe of Kunsan City that catered to the American servicemen stationed at Kunsan Air Force Base. Chang’s skipped the loud blaring music that emanated from most of the other bars and offered a decent price for an OB beer, one of the local Korean brews. But perhaps more important, in Catana’s eyes, Chang’s attracted the best-looking working girls of A-Town.
    Abandoned by two buddies who decided to pursue a group of American servicewomen headed to a dance club around the corner, Catana sat silently nursing his fourth beer, welcoming the early periphery of a warm buzz. The twenty-three-year-old master sergeant was an avionics specialist at the air base, supporting F-16 attack jets of the Eighth Fighter Wing. Located just a few minutes’ flight time from
    the DMZ, his squadron stood in constant preparedness for an aerial counter strike should North Korea initiate an invasion of the South.
    Sentimental memories of his family back in Arkansas were suddenly jolted from his brain when the door to the bar flung open and in strolled the most stunning Korean woman Catana had ever laid eyes on. Four beers were not enough to deceive himself; she was a genuine beauty. Her long, straight black hair accentuated a delicate, almost porcelain-skinned face that featured a petite nose and mouth but stunningly bold black eyes. A tight leather skirt and silk top accentuated her small build but magnified a distorted symmetry created by her large, surgically enhanced breasts.
    Like a tigress searching for prey, the woman surveyed the crowded bar from front to back before focusing on the lone airman sitting alone in a corner. With her sights locked, she swiveled her way over to Catana’s table and smoothly slipped