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The major mulled over Yulim’s words and decided the man had a point. “It’s a win-win situation for us.”
“Exactly,” Yulim said. “Our biggest concern isn’t the defectors. We just need to make sure we can keep a lid on our plans until it’s time to carry them out. If all goes well on that front, Kim Jong-il will never know what hit him. The country will be ours.”
WHEN LIM NA-LI WAS awakened by the sound of laughter in the other room, it took her a moment to remember where she was. Then she recognized Yulim’s voice and it all came back, bringing tears to her eyes.
When she’d been singled out after she and her parents had been transported to the concentration camp, she’d braced herself for the worst, but nothing had prepared her for the brutal assault Yulim had subjected her to. She was so sore that even the slightest movement was painful.
Lying beneath the satin sheets in the lieutenant corporal’s oversize bed, Na-Li fought back a sob. She closed her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep, anything to blot out the memory of Yulim’s rough touch and the rancid, smoke-tinged smell of his breath. But even when she pulled a pillow over her ear she could still hear the men talking and Yulim’s voice was like a prod, taunting her.
Finally she tossed the pillow aside and struggled out of the bed and wrapped a towel around her waist as she went to the window, which looked out on the mountains. The view was breathtaking, but the young woman spent little time dwelling on it. She wanted to escape, to climb out the window and just run. She didn’t care what happened to her. She just wanted to get away from her tormentor. As she feared, however, there were two soldiers posted at the rear of the bungalow. They stood only a few yards from the window, backs to her, carbines at the ready. Na-Li knew they would apprehend her before she was even halfway out the window, in which case she would have to face Yulim’s rage for attempting to escape.
Stepping back from the window, Na-Li was overcome by a sense of futility surpassed only by her morbid curiosity at what the men in the other room might be discussing. Against her better judgment, she found herself moving to the bedroom door, then leaning to one side so that she could press her ear close to the wood. It took only a moment for the men’s voices to become more than a rumbling drone. Now she could hear what they were saying. And the more she listened, the more she began to tremble. No, she thought to herself. It wasn’t possible.
Yulim and the other man were plotting to overthrow the Great Leader!
With horrified fascination, Na-Li continued to eavesdrop, trying to piece together the details the men were discussing and commit them to memory. She had no idea what she might do with the information she was overhearing, and there was a part of her that began to fear that Yulim would remember she was in the room and have her killed just as a precaution.
Moments later, it looked as if her fears were about to be realized. She heard Yulim mention her to the other man, but he did it laughingly, with no concern that she might pose a security risk. She was his plaything. No more, no less, and no threat.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Airspace over Southern California
“With everything going on, I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” John Kissinger told Mack Bolan.
The two men were on a Laughlin-bound private jet the FBI had charted back in Los Angeles. The Bureau had stepped into the picture as soon as the focus had shifted from the Killboys’ drug-running to their likely involvement with the men being held responsible for the death of Yong-Im Hyunsook. There were two G-men riding in the plane, across from Bolan and Kissinger. Jayne Bahn had sweet-talked her way aboard, as well, and was sitting across the aisle from the Stony Man operatives, cell phone pressed to one ear as she conferred with her colleagues back at Inter-Trieve’s West Coast headquarters in San Francisco.
“No thanks necessary,” Bolan told Kissinger. “I was happy to help out. How’s that ankle doing?”
“Feels okay as long as I’m sitting down,” Kissinger said. “They said if I keep my weight off it for a few days I’d be fine.”
“Knowing you, that’s not going to happen,” Bolan said with a grin. “My money says you wind up ripping loose those stitches in your arm, too.”
“No bet,” Kissinger replied. Thinking back to the firefight that had left him wounded, he went on. “I just wish we could’ve gotten them all. I mean, you gotta figure those two who drove off before the raid are the ones that whacked that guy in the valley.”
“We’ll catch up with them,” Bolan said evenly.
“I hope so.”
Bahn had gotten off the phone in time to hear the tail end of men’s conversation. “I hope you’re not saying it’s my fault they’re still on the loose,” she told Kissinger. “Hell, even if I’d been close enough to stop them, it would’ve tipped off the others and we wouldn’t have stumbled onto this whole hit-squad thing.”
“Nobody’s blaming you for anything,” Kissinger assured the woman. “Matter of fact, you kept another one of them from getting away. That makes you woman of the hour.”
“A lot of good that did,” Bahn scoffed. “Two hours of interrogation and the punk didn’t give up a thing.”
“Well, he’s just lucky we got called away,” Kissinger said. “Two minutes in the I-room alone with him and I’d have had him talking.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Knock it off, you two,” Bolan intervened.
Bahn smiled at Bolan. “Come on, he’s just flirting with me, that’s all.”
“In your dreams,” Kissinger said, suppressing a grin.
As the plane carried the group over the arid desolation of the Mojave Valley, the head of the FBI detail, Ed Scanlon, strode up from the rear of the plane. He was a tall, lean man in his midforties, wearing an off-the-rack suit and well-scuffed Oxford shoes.
“Got a wee bit of good news,” Scanlon announced, as he flipped his cell phone closed. “We went another round with that gang-banger and got him to spill. He confirmed what we’ve been expecting all along. One of the guys who rode off just before the raid is just the baby brother of a Killboy we’ve got chilling the morgue. The other guy’s a major player, though.”
“REDI?” Bahn guessed.
Scanlon eyed the woman, surprised. “You know about them?”
She nodded. “It’s the closest thing North Korea has to our CIA. Espionage, wet work. You name it, they get the call.”
“That’s about the size of it.” Scanlon continued, “Anyway, this guy’s name is Hong Sung-nam, and he’s bad news. We’ve got his crew linked to a handful of assassinations over in Asia, and last time we checked he was still over there.”
“Obviously you’ll need to update your records,” Bahn taunted.
“So it would seem,” Scanlon conceded. “We don’t know how he slipped stateside, but according to our stoolie, he showed in L.A. with a heroin shipment about a month ago and insinuated himself into the gang. Got the tattoos and everything. Apparently there were concerns that the Killboys needed more supervision so they’d spend less time butting heads with rival gangs and more time pushing the product. Of course, somewhere along the line he was rounding up info on these nuke defectors. And as long as he’s on the loose, we gotta figure he’s gonna work his way down that list you guys found.”
“Which means unless our raid scared him off, he’s probably on his way to Nevada,” Kissinger surmised. “Just like us.”
Scanlon nodded. “DEA’s selling that raid you were in on as strictly a drug bust. Hopefully Hong’ll buy it and stick to his game plan. We’ve got California Highway Patrol on the lookout for him, but if he’s worth his salt he’ll be able to evade any spot checks on the highways. I think our best bet’ll be to nab him when he tries to go after his next target.”
“If I remember rightly,” Bolan recalled, “the next guy on that list lived in Vegas, not Laughlin.”
“Good memory,” Scanlon said. “We’re changing our plans accordingly. You guys wanna play along?”
“What do you have in mind?” Bahn asked.
“Well,” Scanlon replied, “judging from how the three of you went gangbusters during that raid, I’m thinking you’d rather see some action instead of sniffing around Laughlin for this guy who’s third on the list.”
“You get points for flattery,” Bahn countered, “but you’re going to have to cough up more specifics.”
Bolan figured he knew where this was going and told Scanlon, “You want us in Vegas instead.”
“Bingo,” Scanlon said. “We’ve got the defector there under lock and key, but we figure if we plant a look-alike at his digs along with some backup, REDI’ll come in light and we’ll be able to get the upper hand on them.”
“And you want us for the backup,” Kissinger guessed.
“At least part of it,” Scanlon said. “We’ll have a crew there, but we’re spread thin looking for the Laughlin guy at the same time, so a few extra bodies couldn’t hurt.”
“Works for me,” Bahn said. “I just talked with my people and I’m green-lighted to follow through and see where this takes us.”
Bolan quickly weighed his options. Barbara Price had already asked him and Kissinger to help with the search in Laughlin, but Scanlon had been right in pegging him as someone who preferred the more proactive course. Fortunately his standing as a Stony Man operative was such that he could unilaterally change his plan of attack as developments dictated. He turned to Kissinger.
“How about if we split up,” he suggested. “You can take Laughlin and give that ankle a breather.”
“While you have all the fun?” Kissinger retorted. “I don’t think so.”
“Look, before this is over you’ll have more chances to jump into the fray.” Bolan nudged the aluminum crutches Kissinger had propped against the seat next to him. “You might as well give yourself a chance to recuperate.”
Kissinger thought it over, then nodded. “All right, all right. Laughlin it is.”
Bolan turned back to Scanlon. “Count me in.”
“Same here,” Bahn chimed in.
Kissinger stared at the woman bounty hunter, then grinned at Bolan. “Looks like I bailed just in time. Good luck, buddy. You’re going to have your hands full.”
CHAPTER NINE
Laughlin, Nevada
Although the casinos in Laughlin were set along the banks of the Colorado River, the town’s population, for the most part, lived a few miles inland, just west of a huge, coal-burning power plant that today, like most days, disgorged a steady plume of dark smoke from its towering exhaust chimneys. Randall Howland, a thirty-year veteran of the FBI, had spent most of the morning choking on the smoke as he maintained surveillance on the home of Li-Roo Kohb, one-time propellant expert for the Kanggye nuclear team. Howland had parked his nondescript Chevy sedan on the shoulder of a crestline road overlooking the defector’s neighborhood. Another two agents were biding their time downhill in a second car parked just past the stop sign where Li-Roo’s street intersected with Casino Drive. They’d been on stakeout now for the better part of three hours, waiting for the defector to return home or, better yet, for a sign of the REDI crew that was supposed to be in town looking to kill Li-Roo or at least abduct him and drag him back home to North Korea.
Howland was beginning to think they’d begun their stakeout too late. Maybe, he thought, the reason the man hadn’t answered the door earlier was because he was lying dead inside his house, already taken out by the same men who’d killed his colleague, Yong-Im Hyunsook, back in Los Angeles. That, or maybe the scientist had already been abducted. In any event, Howland had had his fill of twiddling his thumbs and breathing the exhaust from the power plant. Reaching inside his car, he keyed the dash mike and contacted his colleagues down the hill.
“This is getting us nowhere,” he told the others. “I say we go back to Li-Roo’s place and invite ourselves in.”
There was a moment’s hesitation before the driver of the second car replied, “Done. We’ll meet you there.”
Howland got into his car and drove down to Casino Drive, then circled around the power plant to Yancy Drive. Li-Roo Kohb lived halfway down the block in a small, twenty-year-old starter home set back on a small plot of land that, like most of the other residences on the street, had forsaken lawns in favor of cacti, succulents and other drought-resistant plants capable of withstanding Laughlin’s brutally hot, arid summers. There were a few people out, some tending to plants, others lazily basking on their front porches in the late-afternoon heat. One of Howland’s colleagues had already gotten out of the other car and was approaching the defectors’ next-door neighbor, holding out his FBI badge. The man’s partner, Agent Sandra Pearle, was standing next to the car, which had been parked two houses down from Li-Roo’s home.
“We should’ve done this in the first place,” she told Howland after he’d parked and joined her.
“Hindsight,” he murmured, leading the way up the front walk. When they reached the door, Howland knocked, then rang the bell. Pearle glanced around as she nonchalantly pulled a G-issue Colt pistol from her shoulder holster. She kept the gun concealed from view of the neighbors and waited for Howland to trip the lock. Her partner drew his gun, as well, then swung the door open.
“FBI,” he announced.
The only response was the chirping of a canary somewhere inside the house. The two agents did a quick room-by-room search. There was no sign of Li-Roo Kohb and the house seemed undisturbed. The canary was caged in an alcove just off the kitchen.
“I’ll check the garage,” Pearle told Howland.
Howland nodded, then began to retrace his steps through the house, inspecting each room more thoroughly for some clue as to Li-Roo’s whereabouts. He was in the den when Pearle rejoined him.
“He’s got a canoe and some fishing gear in the garage,” the woman reported, “and there are a couple pairs of hiking boots by the door, so obviously he’s the outdoors type.”
“Not much to go on there,” Howland muttered. They were interrupted by a knock at the front door. Howland whirled with his gun but held fire. It was the third agent, Bryce Thompson.
“Easy,” Thompson said. “It’s just me.”
Howland filled Thompson in on what little they’d found, then asked, “You come up with anything?”
“Couple things,” Thompson reported. “The gal next door says Li-Roo likes to keeps to himself, so she doesn’t know much about him. She says most days he’s out of the house by eight and doesn’t get back until after sundown.”
“We just missed him,” Howland said, recalling that their stakeout had begun shortly before nine. “What else?”
“She says there were a couple cable guys here yesterday afternoon,” Thompson said. “They were here nearly an hour.”
“Korean?” Pearle asked.
“She’s not sure. Definitely Asian, though.”
“Sounds like the same MO REDI used with that guy in L.A.,” Howland said. “Which means they’ve probably already tossed the place.”
“Maybe we should check for prints,” Pearle suggested.
“Yeah, maybe so.” Howland considered another possibility. “Could be they’ve been watching us during our whole stakeout, too.”
“If that’s so, we’ve pretty much blown our cover.”
“Not much we can do about that now. Let’s keep looking around here,” Howland suggested. “We still need to figure out where the hell Kohb spends his days.”
“If REDI’s been here, they probably already know,” Thompson remarked. “Which puts us a step behind them.”
“Thanks for sharing that,” Howland groused. He turned his attention back to the den. Li-Roo had a state-of-the-art sound system with a karaoke counsel and a carousel filled with more than a hundred CDs, mostly by jazz artists and Korean pop singers. There was a bookcase built into the wall, but it was empty except for a few library books, two devoted to local hiking trails and a third entitled How to Win at Texas Hold ’Em. On the bottom shelf, though, there was a ceramic bowl filled with candies, stray keys and a few packs of matches. On a hunch, Howland zeroed in on the matchbooks. The hunch paid off.
“I think I’ve got something,” he called, grabbing the phone next to the stereo. He dialed the number on the one of the match packs. After a few rings he found himself talking to the operator at the Laughlin Shores Casino.
“Do you guys have a poker room?” Howland asked.
CHAPTER TEN
Camp Bonifas, South Korea
Akira Tokaido awoke with a start to the persistent bleeping of his travel alarm. He muttered to himself as he untangled one hand from under the covers and reached over to shut off the alarm. It was a little after four p.m., South Korean time. Tokaido had hoped a quick catnap would take the edge off the fatigue he’d been battling since arriving at Camp Bonifas, but he felt every bit as tired as when he’d nodded off. And the situation he’d gone to sleep worrying over promptly began to hound him all over again.
After several years of corresponding and talking by phone with his cousin, this was to be the first face-to-face meeting between Akira and Lim Seung-Whan, and Tokaido had been under the impression that Lim was looking forward to the occasion as much as he was. But since arriving at Camp Bonifas, Tokaido had tried several times to reach his cousin without success. No one was answering the phone, either at his home or at Lim’s cell number. He’d left messages, as well, but his calls had yet to be returned and the young man was troubled by the silence. He knew that Lim had planned to take his family on a weeklong fishing trip on the Yellow Sea, but they were supposed to have returned two days earlier, not only because of Akira’s visit, but because the Seoul Sky-Eagles—the professional baseball team partly owned by Lim—were in the thick of a pennant race and Seung-Whan had made it clear how much he was looking forward to taking in this weekend’s crucial home series with the first-place Lotte Giants. Given all this, Tokaido knew that Lim wouldn’t have deliberately prolonged his fishing trip, and yesterday he’d double checked maritime conditions on the coast near Incheon, thinking inclement weather might have waylaid his cousin. But the sea had been as calm as the skies had been clear, so there had to be some other explanation for Lim’s being incommunicado.
Tokaido’s cell phone was on the dresser of the officers’ quarters where he was staying for the week. He’d left the phone on in hopes Lim might call, and his spirits rallied when he saw that someone had indeed left a message. It turned out, however, that the call had been from Barbara Price back at Stony Man Farm. Tokaido showered first, then dressed and pulled his long black hair into a ponytail before returning the call. The mission controller wasn’t available, so Tokaido asked to be patched through to Aaron Kurtzman at the Annex.
After they exchanged a quick greeting, Kurtzman told Tokaido the reason Price had called.
“Look, I know your plate’s full out there,” Kurtzman said, “but there’s a new wrinkle to this whole mess that you might want to keep an ear open for.”
Tokaido quickly tracked down a pen and paper, then scribbled notes as Kurtzman apprised him of the latest developments involving attempts by North Korean REDI agents to abduct members of the Kanggye nuclear team.
“If you come across any intel mentioning the defectors,” Kurtzman concluded, “you might want to give it top priority, because if the KPA spells out where they plan on bringing these guys, odds are we’ll find the missiles there, too.”
“It’s definitely worth a shot,” Tokaido admitted. “I’ll get on it first thing.”
“Listen, Akira,” Kurtzman went on, “I don’t know if it’s just the connection, but you sound exhausted. Were you out partying with the relatives last night?”
“I wish.”
Tokaido told Kurtzman about the problems he’d had getting in touch with his cousin.
