by David Archer
Noah thought about it for a few moments, then frowned. “Have you answered them?”
“Yeah,” Shirley said, “I said we grow a hell of a lot of potatoes. What else am I gonna say?”
Noah nodded slowly. “Acclimatization and disorientation,” he said. “I read about this not long ago, it’s a new interrogation technique. Ask a lot of extremely confusing questions that don’t seem important, and keep doing it until you get any kind of answers. Apparently, once you start answering questions, it reduces your resistance to answering more sensitive ones. It’s harder to hold back information you don’t want to give up.”
“That’s not new,” Dale said, “our people have been using that for forty years, but we didn’t ask questions about farming. To get someone loosened up, you just ask them simple questions about themselves. It’s supposed to break down the wall we all put up between us and whoever we perceive to be the enemy. If we feel ourselves becoming familiar with the interrogator, it’s hard to think of him as someone you should oppose.”
Noah nodded again. “Yes, I’m familiar with that, too,” he said. “This is a little bit different, though, because it’s designed to not only get you accustomed to answering, but also to keep you confused. Do some of the questions seem completely ridiculous?”
Chrissy nodded her head. “Yeah, they do,” she said. “They asked me yesterday if I knew the difference between an orange and an orange. Like, what the hell kind of question was that? When I said I didn’t know what they meant, they kept asking it over and over again.”
“Confusion impact,” Noah said. “If you can sufficiently confuse someone, the mind is disoriented and can’t figure out what to do, so it will seize on the very first sensible thought it’s given. I’ve seen demonstrations of it; you can literally walk up to someone on the street, start spewing gibberish at them until they are obviously confused, and then if you tell them to do something they’ll do it without even thinking. I watched a man talk to a woman for a minute and a half and make no sense whatsoever, but then he suddenly told her to give him her purse and she did, without realizing it. He turned around and walked away with it, and she just stood there completely unaware of what happened. Lucky for her, it was just a demonstration and he brought it back a minute later, but she still hadn’t realized that it was gone.”
“I’ve seen that, too,” Liz said. “Some kind of instant hypnosis thing, there’s videos about it on YouTube. It’s really amazing. In one of them, somebody answers a payphone and hears a lot of really confusing things, but then the caller says ‘go to sleep’ and he just slumps down to the ground, out cold.”
Dale was looking at her as she spoke, but then he turned his eyes back to Noah. “Are you telling me we may have already answered the real questions, without even knowing it?”
Noah shrugged. “Highly unlikely,” he said. “From what I’ve read, you might not be able to stop yourself from answering, but you’d ultimately remember it if you had. I’m more concerned about how and why you would have been sold out. Any ideas?”
Dale seemed to hesitate, but Chrissy spoke up. “The Company has something rotten inside it,” she said. “Nobody’s really talking about it, but it seems like China has gotten its hooks into us somehow. An awful lot of classified information is being leaked to them, and since they share a border with North Korea, that makes anything going on here pretty important to them. Our best guess is that whoever’s working with them from inside our offices is feeding them all kinds of stuff about American activities in the peripheral countries.”
“Which means,” Dale added, “that any activities we’re involved in that affect China’s neighbors equals something they’ll pay a lot of money for. One of the top guys I know at Langley thinks the mole is compromising a lot of missions for the sake of money. As for our situation, I get the impression the Ministry of State Security here was told about us by the Chinese. I understand the language fairly well; a couple of the guards were talking about the fact that we might be going to China, but that’s all I’ve heard.”
Noah looked at him for a long moment, then nodded his head. “One of my team members was sold out in Thailand last week, but I’ve been suspecting the people I was working directly with. Now I’m wondering if there might be a connection to your problem.”
“If you are actually E & E,” Liz said, “I’d bet on it. There’s been a lot of buzz and chatter the last year or so that China is trying to identify an E & E primary, code name Camelot. If your guy could possibly know anything about that one, he’d be worth a fortune.”
“But don’t write off your own suspicions, yet,” Shirley said. “Like in our case, the only one who could have passed on the info about where to arrest us was our liaison, a deep cover agent who lives on a small farm outside Pyongyang. The mole might have told China we were here, but no one back at Langley had any information about where we were staying over here. Information isolation; no one but the local liaison knew that, so it couldn’t accidentally be intercepted in phone or computer chatter.”
Noah stared at her for a moment, his mind racing with sudden possibilities. If the Chinese are after me, why didn’t the mole give me up instead of Sarah? Noah wondered, but the logical answer was the same one he and Jenny had come to. It was a moment of opportunity. CIA probably provided the intel on the prison, and would have known we were sending in a female operative, even if they didn’t know why. If the mole somehow learned it was my team, then all he had to do was alert his contacts to snatch American girls. The prison would have told them who the newest one was, and they probably took the Ingersoll girl to make it look more coincidental.
But what about information isolation? That was a standard protocol for top secret missions, so the actual date and time of her insertion into the prison wouldn’t be available back in the States. If the Chinese were behind the abduction, and I’m almost certain now that they were, then there was still someone else involved, someone who was involved with the actual mission.
It was just like these folks. Soo Mi was their liaison; only she could have given the local State Security ops the intel on where to arrest them. She may have also tipped these folks that I was coming, because it seemed they were looking for something when they came out and found me. And then there’s the fact that she knew I was Camelot. Only E&E personnel should know that, not CIA. I should have seen it then.
And Jenny and the others are back there with her, even now!
He turned his back and wiggled his fingers. “Do you have any way to take these zip strips off me?”
Dale leaned over and looked at Noah’s hands, then turned around and picked up what looked like the lid of a tin can. “Yeah, turn around.”
Noah felt Dale working on the plastic with the edge of the lid. It took a couple of minutes, using the edge of the lid like a saw. A moment later his hands were free, though one of the strips was still around his right wrist.
“It suddenly occurs to me,” Dale said, “that cutting you loose might have been a mistake. Are you going to carry out your orders?”
Noah looked him in the eye. “Not yet,” he said. “I was told bluntly not to attempt to rescue any of you, on CIA orders, but my own boss gave me leeway on it and the situation changed the minute I was captured. The rest of the team I was with will be working on how to complete the mission, but now I’m on the inside with you. If I can figure a way to escape and time it for when they come, it might be possible for us all to get out alive.” He flexed his wrists, working the circulation back into them. “Considering what you just told me, I want to bring you back alive if I possibly can. But if I can’t…”
Dale searched his face for any sign that he was lying, and seemed to relax. “If you can’t get us out alive, then you have to do what you have to do.”
“I’m afraid so. Let’s cross that bridge if we come to it, all right? What can you tell me about the security setup here?”
Dale looked around as if he could see through the walls, then turned back to N
oah. “There’s usually between fifteen and twenty soldiers around, and I would imagine that half of them are sleeping right now. Then there’s Colonel Song; he’s in command here, but he doesn’t wear a uniform. As far as I know, he’s the only one who speaks English properly, though there are a couple of women who come now and then, and they speak some.”
“Okay. I saw the guard room upstairs. Are there more down here?”
Dale pointed back the direction Noah had come from. “Two doors down, that’s their bunk room. How many guards did you see up and about?”
“About nine. There were two standing guard outside, two outside your door and five more in the guard room when I was caught.”
“Then there are probably about that many more catching some Z’s right now. Other than them and the Colonel, there’s occasionally a few other men around, usually only during the day. I doubt there’s anybody else here tonight.”
“Well, Song is probably the man they brought in to speak English to me. He didn’t buy it when I tried to tell him I was a lost tourist.”
Dale simply stared at him, but the three women laughed derisively. “Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Would you?”
“Of course not,” Noah said, “but I would naturally expect someone to try it. Giving him what he expected me to say was the easiest way I could think of to get myself thrown in with you.”
Dale scoffed. “What made you think they’d throw you in here? They could have tossed you in an entirely different room.”
“Possible, but unlikely. A limited number of soldiers to use for guard duty indicates that whoever was in command would probably keep any prisoners together. It was just bad luck that the guards stepped outside while I was snooping around, but once I was captured it made sense to just let them bring me to you.”
“Well, you certainly took a risk,” Dale said. “It was always possible they’d just assume you were trying to find out what happened to us, and shoot you for snooping around. They seem to think this place is pretty important.”
“Actually, I didn’t think it was that big a risk. If I’d made it back without being seen, I would have simply followed the mission outline and done what I was sent for, but the moment I was caught, I had to rethink the whole thing. I know the rest of my team won’t shy away, so that meant I might have a small chance of rescue if I could get myself close to you. It worked.”
Dale’s eyes bounced from Noah’s face to the floor and back. “Look, if it comes down to it,” he said quietly, “get the women out. Leave me behind if you have to, or kill me, if it helps you to save them, all right?”
“I’m not planning to leave any of you behind,” Noah replied, “not if I can avoid it. You need to tell Langley what you know about the mole, and I need to see that Soo Mi doesn’t get to betray anyone else.”
Dale looked up sharply. “You know Soo Mi?” he asked. “Damn, man, that’s probably how you got caught!”
Noah nodded. “That’s a possibility I’ve been considering,” he said. “The guards who caught me came out looking for something, so it’s possible they were tipped off. And if Soo Mi is aware of the Chinese interest in Camelot, it’s even more likely, and I’ll let you read between the lines on that.”
Dale glanced over at the women who were still seated, then motioned for Noah to follow him to the far side of the room. They kept their backs turned, and Dale lowered his voice to a whisper.
“Do you really think there’s a chance you can get us out of here alive?”
Noah looked him in the eye. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “If it looks like we can’t get out of here together, I’m not going to let you be retaken. My team will come sometime between now and morning, and if I can help them from the inside then there’s a chance we can take this place down and then get you out of here. Can any of you fight?”
“We all had basic hand-to-hand training, and we can all handle a gun if you can get any.”
Nodding, Noah said, “All right. The next question is how do we get the guards outside the door to come in here?”
“They won’t,” Dale said. “Somebody will bring us breakfast in the morning, but those two always stand back and keep their guns aimed at the doorway. Their job is to keep us in here, and I guess they take it pretty seriously.”
“Their job isn’t to keep you in, it’s to make sure Song doesn’t lose you, and there’s a difference. What we need to do is make them think they failed.”
Dale looked confused. “And how do you plan to do that?”
“Where’s that can lid you used as a cutter?”
ELEVEN
“He’s coming back,” Marco whispered. Beside him, Randy nodded as they watched Noah come back around the corner of the building. He was moving swiftly and staying low, making his way back to the point that was closest to the little stand of trees.
A thin vertical line of light appeared suddenly, and instantly swelled into a rectangle as one of the doors on the back of the building swung open. Noah was less than twenty feet away when two soldiers stepped out, and one of them spotted him instantly. The muzzle of his gun snapped up instantly to center itself on his face, and the other one matched it a second later.
“Oh, shit,” Marco hissed. “This ain’t good.” He gripped the pistol in his hand tightly and tensed himself to rise, but Randy put a hand on his shoulder.
“Stay down,” Randy whispered. “We’ve got orders, remember? He’s caught, so we got to go back and tell Jenny to take over.”
Marco huffed, but stayed put. They watched as more guards came out of the building, weapons waving in every direction, but then Noah was hustled inside and the door slammed shut. They held their position for a minute, but when no other guards came out to start searching the area, Marco looked at Randy again.
“You’re right, bro,” he said. “Let’s head back.”
Despite the dim light, it wasn’t difficult to retrace their steps. When they got back to the safe house, a light tap on the back door was enough to rouse Soo Mi. She let the men in and sent them down the ladder, then followed them to learn what was going on.
“It may have been just dumb luck,” Marco said, “but I’m not really sure.” He sighed. “Noah was captured. He was running recon on the building when some soldiers stepped outside all of a sudden, like. Thing is, I’d swear they knew he was there when they came out, and they grabbed him in a hurry and dragged him inside. Last thing he told us before he went in was to come back and say it’s on you, Jenny, if he got caught, so that’s what we did.”
“Son-of-a-bitch,” Jenny cursed. “Dammit, I like Noah, and I don’t like very many people!” She crossed her arms and paced around the room for a moment, then turned back to Marco and Randy. “Okay, did you hear any gunshots?”
“No,” Randy said. “They drug him inside, and the last I saw of him before the door closed was him getting pushed down on the floor. Looked like they were going to search him, but I don’t think they were going to kill him.” He shrugged, then glanced for a second at Soo Mi before turning back to Jenny.
“Good, that means we’ve got an asset inside the building. With any luck, they might have tossed him right in with the targets. If it were me, I’d probably enlist their help in creating a diversion when we go in.” She turned to Jim Marino. “Break out the gear,” she said. “Rifles for everybody, but we take the grenades and C4, too.”
While Jim, with Neil helping, started passing out guns and grenades, Jenny turned back to Marco and Randy. “How many doors on the building? How many windows?”
“There were only three doors on the side we could see,” Marco said, “no windows.” He was standing slightly behind Randy, and suddenly wiggled his eyebrows and flicked his eyes at Randy and Soo Mi. Jenny raised her own eyebrows in a silly face, then relaxed them. It was enough to tell him she’d gotten the message he was trying to convey.
Soo Mi spoke up. “I’ve seen pictures of that building,” she said. “Your guys would have been looking at the back, but the
re is one window on each end and only one door and half a dozen windows on the front. The building is made of concrete blocks, but the cavities were filled with concrete as well, so it’s pretty solid.”
“Okay, thanks,” Jenny said, keeping her face bland. “Any idea on the interior layout?”
Soo Mi shook her head. “No, sorry.”
Jenny continued pacing for a moment, then suddenly stopped and looked around at the men. “Okay, we’re going to blow the three doors on the back of the building, then move in in teams of two each. Randy, you’re with me. Marco, you take the whiz kid, and that leaves Jim and Dave. This is going to be a wipeout, we take out anyone in uniform and any other opposition we run into. Everybody keep your ears open, because Noah’s gonna be trying to work with us from the inside once he hears the explosions, and I’d like very much to bring him out of this alive.”
“Damn right,” Neil said. “We’ve got to get him back!”
“And we will,” Jenny said emphatically. “Chill out, whiz kid.” She took the mini assault rifle Jim held out to her. “Everybody ready? Let’s do it!”
Soo Mi went up the ladder first, then confirmed that everything was clear, and the rest boiled out like bees from a disturbed hive. It was dark in the old farmhouse, but that only made it easier to see through the windows. After checking to be sure there was no visible activity, Jenny nodded once and Randy opened the door.
Randy and Marco went out first, and then the rest of the men followed. As soon as all of them were outside, Jenny spun away from the door and grabbed Soo Mi by the throat, pressing her face up close to the Korean girl’s own.
“I’m gonna say this one time,” she whispered. “I know you’re a traitor, and I can’t stand a traitor. I’ve got two questions for you, bitch. Answer me fast and you might live through this.”
Soo Mi’s eyes were wide as they could be, but she shook her head. “I’m not—”