The Korean Gambit

by Charles DeMaris

  When the guard had gone far enough down the hall and turned a corner, Rachel took a risk and went down the hall he had just come from. She passed a kitchen and two other doors which appeared to be bedrooms judging by the snoring she could hear from within. This corridor lead to a living room with a flat screen TV mounted on the wall. Three men were watching the TV and Rachel managed to slip past without being noticed. Opposite the living room was another door that was open a crack.

  She stole a glance into this room, empty. She entered to take a look around and saw it was a well- furnished study that seemed to be out of the 19th century. This had to be Yuriy’s study. She walked to the end of the room where the windows showcased a view of an impeccably manicured lawn framed by trimmed shrubs and a lake just beyond the shrubs. She heard a noise at the door and a voice speaking softly in Russian. Ducking behind an overstuffed leather chair, she waited for the man to walk away, which he eventually did, closing the door as he left.

  She breathed a sigh of relief and went to the door, hearing the footsteps retreat back toward the living room. She cracked the door and peered out, then exited the study and went down another hallway to her right. This took her to a door that opened into a stairwell. She took the stairs up to another floor which appeared to be mostly bedrooms, and then up another floor to the roof. The roof had a helipad marked, but there was no helicopter. Standing on the other side of the roof were two more guards, carrying what looked like high- powered rifles and wearing night vision equipment.

  That would certainly make things difficult if she wanted to make a run for it. She ducked back inside before either of the guards turned around and made her way back down the stairs, going down another flight from where she started. She exited into the basement level and used the key card to check the rooms that opened off the main hallway. Two more resembled the room she was held in and there were two restrooms. At the end of the hall, there was another door that appeared to have a different kind of lock, a fingerprint scanner.

  There was only one way to get past that door, and her curiosity got the better of her. Retracing her steps back upstairs, she moved as quietly as she could, avoiding the patrolling guard and the men in the living room, until she was back at her room. She wasn’t sure if the two dead thugs had had access to that room, but their key cards had opened every other door, so it was worth a shot. She first went to the sink and pulled several paper towels from the stack and then approached the two dead men, removing the combat knife as she went.

  A minute later, she had finished the grisly task of removing the index fingers from both men and had them wrapped in a thick wad of paper towels. Back out of the room, wait for the same guard to walk by, avoid the men in the living room, and get back to the basement. She got the door open on the third finger and slipped in. The room was low- ceilinged and the length and width of a high school gymnasium and was filled with computer equipment. Row upon row of servers filled the middle of the room while desktop computers lined the perimeter.

  It was then that Rachel thought of more than simply escaping, but at the very least of getting out with as much intel as she could manage, but how to pull that off was a mystery. She tried several of the computers, but they were password protected and she wasn’t a skilled hacker. Finally, one of them opened right onto the desktop when she moved the mouse. It must have been used recently. She looked in the drawer and found a USB drive. She inserted the drive, saw that it still had five gigs free, and started copying any files she could onto the drive. She wasn’t looking at the files, but copying anything as fast as she could. She was in the third directory when she thought she heard footsteps. She sat still for a few seconds and the sound was back, definitely footsteps, and coming her way.

  She yanked the drive out and slipped it into her pocket, hoping she had managed to get something useful, and thought about her next move. Whatever Yuriy was planning was in this room, but what if she could manage to take out Yuriy and Pavel? That would certainly stop what they were planning, or would it? There was also a chance that there was a back- up plan and things would proceed even if something happened to them. As much as she wanted to take them out, the responsible thing might be to get out of there and get this drive to Ahmed and hope he could unravel the plot.

  The footsteps were getting closer, so she ducked behind a server and tried to make her way back to the door to leave the room. The footsteps stopped at the desk she had just been at, and she heard a chair being moved, followed by a stream of Russian that needed no translation. Rachel regretted not learning Russian like her father wanted her to, since she had no clue what the man was saying, other than a good guess that half of it was unrepeatable in any language. Now he was talking to someone else in an urgent tone, and five seconds later an alarm sounded in the house.

  So much for stealth, she thought to herself. Now she just needed to get out of the house. She dropped the severed fingers in the corner and made for the room’s exit, hoping she wasn’t seen. That hope was in vain as she heard the man running toward her through the room. She exited and shut the door behind her, but the man came crashing through before she was halfway down the hallway. She heard the report of an unsuppressed pistol, followed an instant later by a chunk of drywall being blown off the wall inches from her head. The man had fired a wild shot without stopping to take proper aim, and that was a mistake he would not live to regret. Rachel was standing still and had her pistol out in a two- handed grip, taking careful aim at the man charging down the hall. When he saw that she was armed, he tried to check himself and bring his weapon back up, but she calmly squeezed off two rounds when he was only fifteen feet away, hitting him in the stomach and the chest. He took a few more steps before crashing to the floor and breathing his last.

  The only way out of the basement appeared to be back up the stairway she had come down, but before she got to the door, she heard people running down the stairs. She pressed herself up against the wall so the door would hide her when it was opened, and waited with the pistol drawn. Seconds later, the door burst open and two men came through. They stopped when they saw the dead man on the floor. The first man said something in Russian and the other ran into the server room. The first man then turned around toward the stairs and Rachel was ready for him, firing two rounds into his chest. He was staggered for a second, but kept on coming, the rounds wasted on body armor. Rachel adjusted her aim and fired another round, this one between his eyes.

  She didn’t wait for the other man to come from the server room, but instead ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time. She got to the main floor and went toward the living room. The room was empty. She looked across to a large bay window looking out over the lawn and the lake in the distance. She also remembered the men she saw on the roof. Would they still be up there, or would they have come into the house to help the others? They were probably still up on the roof. A dash across that open terrain would be suicide, but maybe not. She remembered the times she had been hunting with her father and how hard she had found it to hit a fast- moving target while looking through a scope. The other option was to go up there and try to eliminate the snipers, but she heard several men running toward the room she was in.

  She fired a couple rounds at the glass but nothing happened. The glass was bulletproof. The footsteps were getting closer and she was running out of options, until she saw a door off to the side leading out to a deck outside the window. She darted out the door and onto the deck just as three men ran into the room. Before they saw where she went, she had managed to lower herself over the edge of the deck. She looked down and tried to estimate how far the drop was, maybe ten feet at the most.

  She let go and dropped to the ground, bending her knees as she hit to cushion the fall, then got up and took off at a sprint toward the lake, zig zagging as she ran to throw off the aim of the snipers. She heard two shots and felt nothing, so continued to run. The lake was closer now, less than a hundred yards. If she could make it to the water, she just might get away. She saw a
chunk of dirt thrown up by a round that must have only missed her by inches and kept running dodging this way and that as she went.

  The water was right there, only a few more steps and she could dive in and disappear from sight. As she was preparing to jump in, she felt a strong kick on the back of her left leg, the leg buckled, and she fell headlong into the reeds on the edge of the lake bed. Two rounds hit the water nearby, and then there were no more shots. The pain hit a few seconds later as she ducked under the water and tried to swim. Her left thigh was throbbing and she had almost no use of the leg. Still she tried to stay under the water and swim, but it was no use. She dog paddled a few yards up the shore to where the reeds were thicker and crawled there to hide herself. She heard no more shots from the house. Hopefully the men thought they had killed her.

  No, a man like Yuriy would leave nothing to chance and would want confirmation. Her fears were confirmed when she heard the unmistakable sound of dogs barking near the house. She kept crawling through the reeds, dragging her useless left leg behind her, hoping the water would help mask her scent. Stealing a glance behind her, she saw two men advancing cautiously across the lawn, each man with a flashlight and a dog on a leash. Soon they would release the dogs and wait.

  She took a deep breath and ducked under the water, trying to swim with two arms and one leg, and she managed to make it farther up the shore, but when she came up for air, she noticed that she had gone farther from the shore. The dogs were running around on the shore, occasionally barking, but it didn’t appear that they had spotted her. She sat there, treading water and looking around, and it was then that she spotted a light on the other side of the lake. There was a house there. She had no idea who the occupants were or if they would help her, but she knew she couldn’t go back.

  ‘So, the folks across the lake might kill me, but the people behind me definitely will kill me,’ she thought to herself as she took another breath and tried to swim toward the opposite shore. The going was painful and slow. She felt her strength draining with each stroke. There was no telling how much blood she had lost. She would swim a few strokes and rest by rolling onto her back and floating with her mouth above the water before swimming a few more strokes, trying to block out the throbbing in her leg.

  The barking was a faint sound in the distance behind her and the light in the house window on the other lake shore seemed to be getting closer, but not fast enough. She steeled herself for another attempt and only managed a few strokes before the pain became unbearable and her vision began to blur. The light on the shore seemed so close, but it danced before her as she fought to keep her head above the water and pull one more stroke, then one more, then one more, then she couldn’t manage another. The last thing she saw before everything went black was her father’s face and her last thought was a fervent hope that she hadn't let him down.

  18

  “Do you have a body?” Yuriy asked the two men who stood before him.

  “No boss. She fell into the water when I shot her. We found blood in the reeds. She’s dead.”

  “But you don’t have the body.”

  “No, the body is in the lake somewhere, probably fish food by now.”

  “I don’t care. I want you to go back there and get whatever is left. Don’t come back here empty- handed. Is there any chance she isn’t dead?”

  “She was at the edge of the water and I shot her in the back. I saw her body drop into the water and we found a lot of blood in the reeds. We took the dogs. They found nothing.”

  “You take as many men as you need and whatever equipment you need, and you bring me back that body. Do you know how many men she killed making her escape? Four. Four of my men are dead because of this girl and I’m not taking any chances.”

  Jefferson was up early and back at the range by 6:00 a.m. He was starting to get a feel for the pistol, but he was far from proficient.

  “You’re still jerking the trigger,” Brock said from behind him.

  Jefferson whirled around. “You startled me.”

  “I couldn’t sleep, thought I’d come in here for a bit. Didn't expect to see anyone else.”

  “I need the practice. Yesterday was the first day in my life I’d even held a gun.”

  “Well since we’re both here, maybe I can give you some pointers. Your stance is good, but you’re jerking the trigger. You want to squeeze it. You notice a lot of your shoots missing high?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just give the trigger a squeeze. When you jerk it like you were doing, you’re pulling the barrel up and shooting high.”

  Brock took the pistol and demonstrated for Jefferson, putting a tight group in the middle of the target.

  “You’ve pretty good,” Jefferson said.

  “Years of practice. You’ll get there if you put in the work and you have good instruction.”

  “Is that what you’re here for?”

  “That’s what I hear, help train people.”

  “On that course outside?”

  “Looks like it, but I also hear you’re not ready for that yet, not until the doctor says so.”

  “I’m seeing him this afternoon. Casey’s gonna run me down there.”

  “Have another go at that target. Remember what I said. Squeeze the trigger.”

  Jefferson fired several more rounds under Brock’s watchful eye and more of his rounds were hitting near the center of the target.

  “See, you’re already improving. We’ll make a marksman out of you yet.”

  “So how long were you in the Marines?”

  “24 years.”

  “Longer than I’ve been alive.”

  “Watch it, son. You call me an old man I’ll kick your ass.”

  “I’ll bet you could. I’ll keep that in mind. You were in Iraq?”

  “Yep, and Afghanistan too.”

  “What was it like?”

  “I saw things you hope you’ll never see. Crap that keeps you awake sometimes.”

  “Sorry man, didn’t mean to bring that up.”

  “It’s okay. Served with good boys your age who didn’t come back. Gets to me sometimes.”

  “Well…don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s okay…most days it’s okay.”

  “Well, I can’t say I know what you went through…but…you ever want to talk.”

  “I appreciate the offer. You’re a good kid. How about we shoot now and talk later? I’ll get fresh targets.”

  Ken brought the plane to a smooth landing on the calm water of Lake Victoria and eased the throttle back, coming to a rest against the dock.

  “Bringing the gear in can wait a bit. I need a drink,” he said as he got out of the pilot’s seat.

  “We’ll be needing some of this,” Hank said.

  “We’re well equipped here. Latest equipment from our friends in the States. We can unload the plane in a bit if that will make you feel better.”

  “How secure is this place?”

  “Lot more secure than it looks. Got more cameras and motion sensors around here than you can count. Don’t want anything too obvious. Might freak out the neighbors.”

  “Communication?”

  “As good as you had in that safe house. Encryption as good as any government. Nathan came over from America a few weeks ago and worked his magic.”

  “I haven’t met Nathan, but Avi tells me good things about him. Is he really that good?”

  “Uncanny with a computer, almost like he thinks like them, and his wife’s an African.”

  “Did me meet her over here?”

  “No. She’s from Tanzania, but grew up in the States. They used to work together.”

  As they were about to walk in the house, two lanky teenage boys came running up.

  “Uncle Ken, Uncle Elijah,” the taller one said, “I thought I heard Nyangumi. Are you staying for a while?”

  “Martin, Daniel…it’s good to see you. I swear you’re taller each time I see you.”

  “Come on Uncle,” Da
niel said, “it’s only been a couple weeks since you saw us last.”

  “Well…maybe so,” Elijah said, “What brings you over to our place?”

  “Mum and Dad are gone to Nairobi, got bored, heard the plane,” Martin said.

  “And Martin was hoping you might have something for us to do,” said Daniel.

  “You boys looking for volunteer work?”

  “The workman is worthy of his hire. Says so right in the Bible,” Martin said.

  “You sound like a Kikuyu,” Ken said.

  “They’re Luo,” Elijah said, “You could just pay them in fish.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Ken said, “you two grab a couple dollies from the garage and you’ll find some crates in Nyangumi’s cargo area. Stack them in the garage and I’ll pay you in fish and cash.”

  The boys went straight for the garage without another word.

  “Takes care of that problem,” Hank said, “they your nephews?”

  “Nope. Neighbor’s kids. They’re good boys, always willing to help out, for a few shillings.”

  “Why go in the house on a day like this?” Elijah said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Elijah came back a moment later with three beers and they sat on the deck watching the boys wheel the crates from the plane.

  “After we’ve rested, we’ll go in and call Jenny, see if she’s found anything,” Ken said.

  Nikita Ivanov and his wife Jelena had lived in the small lakeside cottage for thirty years. Jelena bought the house when Nikita came home wounded from the Afghan front in 1987, thinking it to be a good place for him to recover from his wounds. They always said they would sell it and buy something nicer closer to the city, but that never happened and now they were too attached to the place to let it go. What Nikita liked most was the pace of the life they had there. He spent his days fishing, walking along the lakeshore with his Newfoundland Druzhok, sometimes accompanied by Jelena, or sometimes just cruising around the lake in his boat, not bothering to fish.