by Brad Taylor
Knuckles came over the radio, “My guy has the canister out. I can’t get a shot at him without risk of hitting it.”
I said, “Knuckles, get on him now. The third man has a briefcase. This is it.”
Knuckles flung himself over the balcony, hanging on by his arms and lining up his drop.
I raced to the man on the east side, looked over, then launched myself over the side as well, holding the railing. I looked below, and saw he had the briefcase open, the canister visible inside. I dropped.
I felt the wind rush past me in that sickening second a child experiences jumping off of a high dive, and then I hit him, pile-driving him into the ground. I held my breath, ludicrously trying to protect myself from a nerve agent that was designed to kill on contact with the skin.
My target was writhing on the floor, reaching for a pistol on his hip. Before he could bring it to bear, I drew my pistol, put it against his temple, and broke the trigger, causing his head to snap back, his arm releasing the canister.
I heard someone scream, and saw the back row of the conference stand up, looking around in confusion, but some were pointing at me.
The North Korean’s canister rolled backward against the wall, intact. I leapt up. The DPRK delegate was now pounding his shoe on the table like he was Nikita Khrushchev. The man behind him had opened his own briefcase, and was holding his canister in the air.
I looked toward Knuckles, and saw his man was down as well, along with people shouting and pointing at him. He glanced at me, and on the radio I said, “Scarface is deploying.”
He said, “Get ’em out. Get as many out as we can.”
I unscrewed the suppressor from my pistol and fired two rounds in the air. The room erupted into pandemonium. I screamed, “Get out! Get out!” and began running forward, toward the North Korean delegation. Knuckles did the same, raising his own pistol and firing, opening up a hole as the delegates tried to get away from him, the crowds streaming out of the conference room.
I got halfway down the aisle, saw the head of the delegation begin running with everyone else to the rear, and Scarface raised his canister. I dropped into a shooting stance, but couldn’t get a clean kill with the people rushing by. He reached his hand to the top, and was knocked back by someone barreling to escape. The canister fell to the ground, and he immediately began looking for it, pushing people out of the way.
I ran forward, slamming the delegates aside like bowling pins, trying to reach him. The area around him cleared, and he found the canister. He looked around, realized he wouldn’t kill anyone in the now empty space, and then saw me coming, the lone man fighting forward instead of backward. He took off running toward the far western exit.
I said, “Knuckles, Knuckles, he’s headed your way. One door down from where you landed.”
He said, “I got him, but I’m fighting upstream.”
I finally cleared the crowds, the center of the room now empty. Scarface was at the end of a pack of people all pressing to leave through the far western exit. He turned around and saw me, and then began really fighting, flinging people out of the way and throwing elbows. He disappeared through the door, and I pressed into the crowd, doing the same thing.
I saw Knuckles to my left, raised my weapon, and cracked two rounds into the air. The crowd split away from me like I was carrying a contagious disease. Knuckles reached me, and we went through the door together.
As soon as we exited we were confronted by a security guard, his weapon out. I saw Scarface running behind him, the crowd around him all boiling in different directions to escape a threat they didn’t realize was right in the middle of them.
Knuckles slapped the guard’s weapon high and swept his feet out from under him, slamming him into the marble floor. Scarface raised a pistol and began firing. Knuckles dove left, and I went right. The delegates screamed again and ran like the devil was chasing them, away from the fight.
I took a knee and raised my pistol, looking for a clean shot. The elevator door opened, and another security guard came out, dragging someone behind him. Scarface whirled, shot the guard in the chest, and then ran to the elevator. I stood up to chase him, but I knew I wouldn’t make it. The distance was too great, but I ran anyway. He took two steps, and the person behind the guard dove and rolled on the ground, right in front of his path, tangling his legs.
He hit the marble face-first, sliding forward and giving me time. He lost the pistol, but kept the canister. He leapt back up and sprinted into the elevator, and I slid on my knees, lining up my sights. He bared his teeth and hit the fuse on the top of the canister, and I saw a spray of mist. He started to throw it, and I split his head open with a double tap. He collapsed on the floor of the elevator, and the canister fell on his body, spewing death into the air. The doors to the elevator closed.
I looked at Knuckles, saw he was okay, then checked the guard who’d taken a bullet. He was dead. Knuckles helped the guard he’d slammed to the ground, and I went to the body that had rolled in front of Scarface. I recognized the form.
It was Amena.
I touched her neck, and she rolled onto her back, staring at me in fear. She said, “Is it over?”
I smiled and said, “My Lord, doodlebug, you end up in the worst situations. I’m beginning to think you’re bad luck.”
She sat up, looked around, and said, “Or good luck.” She looked back at me and said, “Did he get away?”
I said, “No. He didn’t.”
“That makes four. Four for me.”
I laughed and she went to the elevator call button, saying, “We should get out of here, right now.”
I leapt up, slapping her hand away from the button and saying, “No, no. That’s not how we’re getting out of here.”
I got on the net and said, “Koko, this is Pike. I need you to call Creed. Get into the SCADA system and lock down every elevator in the building. Don’t let any of them move.”
76
Dr. Chin Mae-jung walked up the bare concrete steps, two men in uniform behind him as escorts, dreading what he was going to find in the control room. It was two in the morning, and he’d been called at home unexpectedly with a demand to return to his testing facility for some sort of demonstration for the General Staff. No other information had been given, but he knew it wasn’t going to be good news.
Unlike the majority of the denizens cursed by God to have been born in the DPRK, his job as a scientist gave him unfettered access to the Internet. While he was supposed to use it only for scientific purposes, he routinely ignored that command, searching out Western news sites for stories that would never see the light of day in his country.
Two days ago he’d found a report about an attack on the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. “Found” was putting it mildly, as it was the major story of every single news outlet in the world. Yesterday, he’d felt the noose tighten around his neck.
The reports now stated that it was a chemical weapons attack, and North Korea was involved. Three men had been killed in the assault, and while they held UN badges from the DPRK, all of their passports were from Vietnam, with different names than those on the badges. The DPRK was claiming it was a setup, just another attempt of the imperial powers to destroy the Kim regime, but there was no denying the security footage showing one of the men seated behind the lead UN delegate from North Korea. If he wasn’t an official from the DPRK, why was he sitting there?
Dr. Chin remembered what had happened to others of prominence who had failed and caused the DPRK the slightest shame or embarrassment. Some had been shredded by anti-aircraft cannons, and others—he knew—had been killed by chemical munitions.
He opened the door to the control room and was confronted by a mass of people, all in uniform. Sitting in the center was General Kim Won-hong, the minister of state security. Chin felt his heart hammering so fast he thought it would explode out of his chest.
General Kim smiled and said, “Welcome, Dr. Chin! So good of you to come here late at night.” He looked at his watch and then laughed, saying, “Or early in the morning, depending on how one wishes to view it.”
Chin felt the blood drain from his face. He nodded, saying nothing.
General Kim continued, saying, “You’ve heard about the troubles we’ve had in Switzerland, yes?”
Chin found his voice and said, “No, sir. Trouble in Switzerland?”
Kim smiled with little joy and said, “Come, come. We monitor your Internet. We know you’ve been reading the stories.”
Chin swallowed and said, “Oh, that. Yes, sir. I thought it was Vietnamese imposters.” He understood that General Kim knew he was lying, because he’d been in the room when the minister had ordered the attack. But in the DPRK, it never hurt to lie.
General Kim said, “That’s what the world will know, but it was actually a rogue operation from my own staff. Two colonels from the State Security Department. Traitors.”
He pointed out the window, and for the first time, Chin saw two men in the chemical testing room, both chained to chairs underneath a nozzle. It was Colonel Park and Colonel Lee, neither with the benign look of the scientist Dr. Chin had killed before. No, both of these men had terror on their faces.
Chin went back to General Kim and said, “I’m surprised, sir. My dealings with them have always been professional.”
General Kim turned cold and said, “They are traitors to the regime and have caused us incredible pain on the world stage.”
Chin nodded his head rapidly, saying, “Yes, sir, yes, sir.”
General Kim smiled again and said, “I was telling my staff the story you gave me about your Red Mercury. They want to see it.”
Chin nodded again, saying, “Of course.”
“And they want to see you test it, but this time only after ten minutes.”
Chin understood the implications of his words, his body trembling.
General Kim said, “Unless you know what silence is, yes?”
Chin said, “Yes. I understand the silence that will be met at the ten-minute mark. I will give you that no matter when you make me enter the chamber.”
Kim said, “Good. You’re a good man. We’ll test it after an hour. Does that sound better?”
Chin nodded and scurried to the control panel, his hand hovering over the button, his eyes on the men in the room.
77
Amena pushed away her plate of food and I said, “Let me guess, you want some ice cream.”
She said, “Not today. It’s my last chance to explore. I’ll probably never be back here again.” She stood up and took Jennifer’s hand, saying, “Come on. I’ll show you an art gallery you haven’t seen yet.”
Jennifer looked at me and I said, “Go. I know you want to, because we’ll probably never see this place again either. I’ll take care of the check.”
And off they went, walking up the ancient cobblestones of Eze, France.
When I’d left Switzerland, with Brett and Veep still in-country, it was the best place I could think of to go to immediately after the attack. We’d flown straight to Nice, then had returned to the church and the university dig, saying our funeral duties were over and we were ready to resume work. I wanted to get the contract started back up to help cover our tracks in Switzerland, but in the time we’d been gone, things had really broken down between the French and the Italians as to who had authority over the dig. The university had pulled out completely, telling the two governments to give them a call if they ever sorted it out. Which left us without a job.
So I’d just rented hotel rooms at the base of the mountain, waiting on word from Kurt that we could leave.
That had made Amena happy, because it turned out Eze was one of her favorite places. She delighted in dragging us all over the mountain, telling us one story after another. When we’d reached the church, she’d found out that it was our dig that had strung the place with caution tape. She’d grown quiet and said, “That really caused me some trouble a while back.”
I’d said, “What? How so?”
She’d said, “Never mind. Let me take you to the citadel. The view is incredible.” When we got up there, she spent the time looking down at a bench, ignoring the very view she’d supposedly brought us to see. I looked as well, but didn’t see anything spectacular.
I’d said, “Hey, what’re you staring at?”
She snapped out of her trance, gave me a sheepish grin, and said, “Nothing. Just thinking.”
I assumed it was about the events at the United Nations, and didn’t press her, because it had been a little hairy, even for me.
Right after killing Scarface, while I was working with Creed to lock down the elevators, Knuckles had helped the security guard he’d thumped. The guard was awake, but groggy. When his brain had cleared, he’d become fired up, sure we were the enemy.
I’d calmed him, telling him we—meaning he—needed total control of the hallway and the chambers. I could tell he wanted to put me in an arm bar, but at least he’d listened. I told him that there had been a WMD chemical attack, and to lock down the entire area. It had taken a bit of convincing, but since he had a radio and was tied into the security apparatus there, it would be a hell of a lot faster than trying to go through the American delegation, so I pressed on, dragging him into the council chambers.
Eventually, he’d believed us, especially when I’d shown him the two dead guys inside and the canisters next to them. I’d explained that I thought it was a contact nerve agent, but it could still spread through the atmosphere, and that he really needed to close off this side of the building. I ended by handing him his weapon back.
He’d taken it, shocked, and I’d said, “I told you, we’re the good guys. Now get on it. Someone’s going to die by that stuff if we let people wander around—especially by the elevators—but if my intelligence is correct, and you keep everyone away from here for an hour, it’ll be less dangerous.”
He’d agreed, and started working his magic with the radio, now focused on the threat instead of us. When the moon suits started arriving, I’d called Jennifer and told her to exfil. She’d asked about the men in the DPRK conference room, and I’d said, “Let them explain it. Trust me, with the shit storm about to occur, that’s going to be the least of North Korea’s problems.”
Turned out, I’d been wrong. State—in the form of one Sonya Harden, working under the direct supervision of Amanda Croft—denied any US involvement in the operation at all, but the North Koreans were bleating we were in on the attack.
Their story featured an evil imperial Western alliance against them, with agents provocateurs from Vietnam conspiring with the United States to sabotage the DPRK’s reputation ahead of future sanctions discussions. Their proof? A bunch of tied-up North Koreans and a Nordic contract receptionist saying Americans had done it, and three dead Asians with Vietnamese passports.
I have to admit, it was pretty ingenious, but the Swiss had other evidence. Besides the fact that the three dead guys had also been seen by the receptionist in the presence of the lead DPRK delegate, there was the discovery of a bunker rented by a North Korean cutout that was full of WMD identical to what was found at the UN.
Brett and Veep had managed to stay hidden for another twenty-four hours before an official delegation arrived at the bunker. The Swiss government had been very smooth in its approach, without a screaming convoy of people wearing bubble-boy outfits or a stick of helicopters with bioweapons signs on the sides. They’d managed to evacuate the entire thing under the noses of all of the hikers, so it was anybody’s guess as to whether they’d use their evidence against the North Koreans. After all, it would cut both ways, exposing its lucrative bunker/banker trading to unnecessary worldwide scrutiny.
I could care less either way, because they knew beyond a shadow of
a doubt there wasn’t any American involvement in the attack. Well, offensive involvement. They might question State on what the hell had happened, but that was Amanda Croft’s headache. Not mine. With the bunker-find embarrassment, I was pretty sure they wouldn’t push too hard, since it was the US that had clued them in to the threat.
I’d rented a stack of rooms in Eze and sent Kurt my request, planning on leaving when Brett and Veep returned. They had arrived yesterday, and still no word. I’d awakened this morning, resigned to spending one more night on the mountain, when Kurt had called, telling me I could now take Amena and then come home.
I let Jennifer and Amena spend their last day on the mountain, while Knuckles, Brett, Veep, and I sat on the deck overlooking the scenery drinking beers, the Med stretching out in front of us.
Veep was asking how in the hell I’d managed to find Amena, and I went through the story, then changed the subject, saying, “How’d it go on the mountain with you guys?”
Brett said, “Not nearly as sexy as what you guys got, but we had a few moments of high adventure.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Veep said, “Yeah. He’s not kidding. There was this group of women hiking the mountains, and they stopped just above the cabin, then one came running into the trees, dropped her pants, and peed right in front of the OP.”
Brett laughed and said, “She was this six-foot blonde wearing spandex. I wasn’t sure if Veep was more afraid of the compromise if we were found, or the embarrassment that he was sitting face-level to her ass.”
We all chuckled and Veep said, “It would have been embarrassing, no doubt, but we got out clean. How did you guys fair with Kurt? What’s our status with the Oversight Council?”
I balled up a napkin and said, “Pretty much the same thing. Amanda Croft whipped her pants down and peed, and Kurt’s afraid of getting found out he watched.”
Knuckles punched my arm, saying, “Hey, cut it.”
I laughed and said, “Well, you have to admit, that’s pretty close, from what she told you on your call yesterday.”