by David Barker
“They’ll soon be missed. In and out double speed, J6,” Sim said, from the other side of the world.
“Already on it.”
Back in Birmingham, Sim watched the live feed from Jung Li’s glasses. Wardle and his assistant Tom were standing just behind Sim, watching the screen over his shoulder. The picture jogged up and down as the agent ran through the trees and approached a road. This one was properly tarmacked but on the far side there was a muddy lay-by. The picture stabilised and then swung rapidly up and down the road. Nothing.
“Is this the right spot, Sim?” Jung Li whispered.
“Yep. Dead centre on all the activity our satellites tracked on Tuesday.”
“I thought it would be, you know, better guarded.”
“Three guards not enough for a bit of dirt? Get on with it while it’s quiet,” said Sim.
The picture jogged across the road and focused on the churned-up ground of the lay-by. Thick with mud.
“We’ll never get any tyre tracks from this,” said Jung Li. There was a rustling while he got something out of his pocket and a pen appeared at the bottom of the frame. It started to crackle as he held the device near the ground in the centre of the lay-by. “Radioactive material here a few days ago, judging from the strength of this reading.”
The picture scanned the ground for a while longer and then stopped. A hand bent down to pick something up from the mud. A ring of metal with a barb sticking out. And then the ground rushed up to meet the spectacles and the picture went black.
“J6? J6? Do you read me?” Sim’s voice cracked a little.
No reply. Someone’s face appeared between streaks of mud as the glasses were wiped clean. The face was the woman who had guided Jung Li here. An Sun-Hi wiped the glasses a little cleaner and smiled for the camera. “Hello, British people.”
“Oh shit,” muttered Sim.
The picture from the glasses swung round to show Jung Li lying on his side in the mud. His hands were tied behind his back. He was made to sit up and then the glasses were put back on his face. Back at headquarters, they could see the woman again and several armed soldiers standing behind her.
“Did you think you could fool our mighty leaders? Spy on our glorious country? Without us knowing about it all along.” The woman pulled out a pistol. “You do know the penalty for espionage in this country, don’t you?”
Wardle made a grab for the headphones Sim was using. “Wait. I’m sure we can sort something out. A trade?”
“We don’t negotiate, Mister Alan Wardle. But as gratitude for revealing the frequencies you use, we will give your man a painless end.” She pointed the gun at the glasses and pulled the trigger. The picture turned to snow even as the noise of the shot rang out of the speakers in the Birmingham operations room.
Wardle sat down with a thud.
Sim broke the silence, trying the communicator again, even though it seemed pointless. Nothing. He stared at the blank screen and wiped a hand across his face as memories of shared training with Jung Li bubbled to the surface. A ready smile, a great team player.
“Sir?” Tom approached. “Sir, we need to act right away.”
“What can we do from here?”
“The mole. I told you. Feinberg has been sending encrypted messages all day.”
“That’s his job, isn’t?” said Sim.
Tom turned to face Sim. “I didn’t want to believe it either Sim. But I traced the messages. North Korea. He’s been feeding them information all along.”
Wardle looked up and frowned. “You sure?”
Tom showed him a roll tab, with rows of code and co-ordinates on it.
“Come on, then. Let’s go nail the bastard.”
They approached with caution, waiting for a security team to back them up. All exits covered. Feinberg looked up from a screen as Wardle and Tom walked into his lab.
“Not paying you enough, are we?”
“Sir?”
“You’re nicked.”
“For why?”
“For causing Jung Li’s death, that’s why. You’re never going to see daylight again, if I’ve got anything to do with it,” said Wardle.
Feinberg looked around the room. At Tom, just behind Wardle. At a security guard standing outside the other door. “I didn’t do it, sir. I was trying to warn him.”
“Save it for the interrogation room.” Wardle nodded to the security guard who came in and put handcuffs on Feinberg. He did not resist.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” he shouted as he was dragged out of the room.
Wardle turned to Tom and dabbed a handkerchief over his bald pate.
“You did the right thing, sir.”
“Let’s go over Jung Li’s footage again,” said Wardle.
They went back to the operations room and asked Sim to call up the video. They watched in grim silence, pausing just before the end of the recording.
“What’s some fissile material doing in the middle of nowhere? Even for North Korea, that’s odd,” said Tom.
Sim froze the screen as Jung Li picked up the metal object. “That sure looks like a safety pin.”
“From an ET-MP American grenade, if I’m not mistaken,” said Tom.
“Right. So, there’s a shake down, in the middle of nowhere, involving some fissile material. And then the whole North Korean army goes mad, driving all over the country.” Wardle chewed one end of his glasses. “I think the Terror Formers have gone and nicked one of their warheads.”
Sim’s eyelids pulled back. “Why would they do that, sir?”
Wardle shook his head. “I don’t know. But if the North Koreans think the Western world is trying to steal its nukes… Shit, they’ll be itching to get in the first strike.”
CHAPTER 18
Kathmandu, Nepal
A message pinged on Freda’s wrist tab. She scrolled through it and then checked to see if there was anybody sitting near the three agents in the dark cafe. “We’re needed for a mission in North Korea. Terror Formers are up to something. Again.”
After Rabten had finished his second breakfast, they made their way to the rental car park, looking around for signs of a tail. Still nobody, thank goodness. Maybe they had lost that guy in the truck for good. They checked the car, under and over for signs of interference but found nothing. Five kilometres outside the city, Freda was driving when a familiar red shape appeared in the mirror. The red SUV that had followed them across China had tracked them down to Kathmandu. How had that happened?
Freda tried accelerating, but the borrowed car had a feeble engine and the truck had no trouble keeping up. It did not try to overtake, even though Freda figured it had more than enough power to do so. It just remained a steady four hundred metres behind them. They could not even get a glimpse of the driver due to tinted windows in the vehicle.
As they approached the border with China, Freda noticed that the SUV slowed down and the distance between them quickly doubled. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Maybe they don’t have a visa for Chinese travel.”
“Do we?” asked Gopal.
“Course. Wardle has sorted all that out. False IDs, the works.”
“Last time, not work so good,” said Rabten.
“That wasn’t Wardle’s fault, I’m sure,” said Freda. But as they approached the border control, she found herself reaching to the pocket and feeling for the paperwork over and over again.
The border control was a breeze, even if Freda did have trouble keeping her breathing normal and controlling the quake in her voice. But fifty kilometres beyond the border, just after they had passed a service station, the red SUV had re-appeared in the rear-view mirror.
“It’s bloody Duel all over again,” Freda shouted.
“Huh?” said Gopal.
“Spielberg’s first film. A salesman getting chased by an oil tanker.”
“Ship?” asked Rabten.
“A truck.” Freda shook her head. “Never mind. Although, actually. That does give me a
n idea. You might want to undo your seat belts.”
“Umm, should we discuss this first?” Gopal asked.
Freda waited until there was nothing coming in the other direction. A relatively straight stretch of road, with grass verges on either side. She threw the steering wheel around until the car was facing the other way and accelerated towards the oncoming SUV. “Get ready to jump,” she shouted, feeling for the door release. At the last moment, the three agents leapt from the car. There was a screech of brakes as the SUV slewed to a halt. The agents’ car smacked into the other vehicle. The bonnets concertinaed and the front of each car dipped. The SUV shunted the smaller car backwards, its back wheels rearing off the ground for a moment. The windscreen of both vehicles crazed into a thousand panes of tiny glass but stayed within their frames.
The three agents had hit the ground hard and fast, rolling over and over, trying to keep limbs tucked in. As they staggered to their feet, they saw the driver’s door of the SUV swing open.
Freda got to her feet and winced as she put weight on her left ankle. She rubbed a hand against the back of her head and pulled out the old gun she’d bought a few days ago. Gopal had lost his service pistol when Joanna had exploded, so this was their only gun. She covered the SUV, waiting for somebody to get out of the truck. “Rabten? We might need those fists of yours.”
A foot descended heavily to the floor, behind the open driver’s door. Then a second foot and the door swung open a little further. The man stood up and rested his hand on the roof of the SUV as if to emphasise his height. A trickle of blood ran down his forehead from beneath a black beanie hat. He slammed the door shut and stretched his neck to one side.
“That hurt,” he shouted, in English.
Shit, thought Freda. He’s twice the size of Rabten. “Freeze.”
The man lumbered towards her. Freda fired. Two shots found their mark in the middle of his chest and then the gun jammed. The man staggered and looked down but no blood emerged from the bullet holes. He wagged his finger at her and stepped forwards. Freda was trying to un-jam the gun, but an enormous swinging backhand smashed into her face. She went flying and the gun skidded under the wreckage.
Rabten jumped in between Freda and the man. He crouched into the White Crane stance his beloved master had taught him a long time ago. A foot flashed out towards the tall man’s legs. He blocked it. The monk tried another kick and this time the man caught Rabten’s foot and twisted it, forcing him to fall over.
Gopal sprang from behind the wreckage and launched into a rugby tackle. The tall man turned at the last moment and brought his fists crashing down onto Gopal’s back.
Shit, shit, shit, Freda repeated under her breath, hauling herself off the ground. She scanned the scene for another weapon. Nothing. She dashed around to the far side of the mangled vehicles and looked under the crumpled mess. She could not find her gun. Where the two vehicles had fused together half of a bumper had fallen off. She picked it up, disappointed that it did not weigh more. But it was long and the crash had left one end with a vicious hook.
As she ran around to the side where the tall man stood, she saw Gopal still lying on the ground and Rabten trying to dart past his opponent’s defences. Freda ran straight in and swung the metallic bar as hard as she could. The tall man, busy deflecting a punch from the monk, only just saw Freda approaching and ducked at the last moment. The bumper swished through the air and caught the top of the beanie hat. A clang resonated, like metal striking metal.
“What the hell?” Freda looked down at the metal bar in her hands as the tall man staggered, then rose up again. “You a fucking robot?”
He grinned at her and lunged for the bumper. As he did so, Gopal finally got back to his feet. He charged into the tall man’s back, catching him slightly off balance. Gopal kept pumping his legs and drove the man, face first, against the side of the wrecked cars. There was a groan and a whoosh of air, like a giant balloon deflating. The three agents retreated slightly and took up fighting stances in a ring. The tall man turned to face them, pain creasing his forehead, eyes and mouth. Protruding from his stomach was a vicious shard of silvered glass. The remnants of a wing mirror. The man’s hands, clutching at the glass, were already scarlet as blood oozed from the wound. He slumped to the ground and closed his eyes.
A giant truck zoomed past the wreckage and blasted its air horn. Freda jumped. She knelt next to the body and felt for a pulse. Nothing. She pulled at his hat and discovered a metal skull cap sewn into the underside. No terminators yet, thank goodness. Then she patted him down, uncovering the body armour that had stopped the bullets. The wing mirror had penetrated an inch below the vest. She found a wallet and a small electronic device that she did not recognise. Freda put both in her pocket. Gopal tried the SUV. Once he had finally forced open the glove compartment, he was rewarded with two guns and a silencer.
“Come on guys, we need to get away from here. I don’t think the rental insurance covered this.”
And then a thought struck her. She pulled the number plates from their mangled car and started walking back towards the service station.
CHAPTER 19
Birmingham, UK
“I still can’t believe it was Feinberg,” said Sim. “Why not get Jung Li arrested at the border? Instead of waiting until he’d met his executioner?”
Wardle shrugged. “Maybe the Koreans wanted to see how much we knew. Maybe they just wanted to humiliate us.”
“Hadn’t he just got married?”
Wardle looked into the americano he had poured for himself and nodded.
Sim’s chest tightened. He needed to get back to Rosie. “After I’ve written up my report, sir, I’d like to head back to Scotland. Resume my duties at the tracking station.”
“The Division is under pressure.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“I don’t need comebacks from you, Atkins. If the accountants have their way, the department is going to disappear.”
“Cutbacks?” Sim’s hopes of a promotion and a bigger mortgage were evaporating faster than the steam rising from Wardle’s coffee mug.
“We need a result. A big one that proves our worth to the book-keepers in Whitehall. I can’t have one of my best agents skulking around in satellite monitoring stations.”
“If I remember, it was you called me back from America, where I was trying to help with the Moon Base investigation.”
Wardle shook his head. “Even if you had managed to help, you think we’d get any credit? You saw what happened with the Himalayas. Diane Butler, rah, rah, rah.”
An image of the round-faced CIA department leader popped into Sim’s head. His first mission had ended with two dead American agents and all the plaudits going to the CIA. Death and glory for the USA. His reminiscences were cut short by an orange field report that popped onto Wardle’s desk glass. Sim’s boss opened it and began reading.
“It’s from Brightwell. Follow-up to that death in Russia. She says that the three of them were tracked all the way through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. Even into China. Narrowly escaped a car bombing. And attacked again after they left Nepal.”
“Is she ok?”
“She’s as tough as they come.”
“The attacks. Not that surprising, are they, sir? The Russians don’t like people walking out of maximum security prisons.”
“Freda’s not convinced this was the FSB. The car bomb attempt was too amateur. The tail that they picked up in Kathmandu. Wrong sort of gun. Maybe Terror Formers again.”
“Doesn’t that mean we’ve still got a mole at large? Leaking information to the terrorists?”
Wardle stroked his chin for a moment and turned his chair to face the window. “Not necessarily. Could be that Feinberg fed this information to the TF before we locked him away. Could be that Brightwell is wrong. Maybe the Russians are leading us up the garden path.”
“After we helped them sort out the Arktika mess?”
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” said
Wardle.
Sim thought about David Feinberg, trapped inside a tiny cell somewhere in the depths of the building. They had not worked together much over the years. But he had seemed such a likeable guy.
Wardle’s assistant came into the room. “You need to get going if you’re going to make the afternoon meeting of the Select Committee.”
Wardle waved a hand at Tom as if the assistant was a bothersome fly.
“This needs your full attention, sir, if we’re to keep the department alive. Just stick to the answers I’ve prepared and you’ll be fine.”
Wardle sighed. He swiped shut the files on his desk glass and nodded to Sim. “Don’t go anywhere. I need you here.”
Sim thought of Rosie again. “How long for, sir?”
“Until I say so.”
Sim was at his desk, dutifully waiting for Wardle to return, catching up with the news on his desk glass. Tensions were high in Asia. The international community was trying to rein in the North Koreans. The rapprochement of fifteen years ago all but forgotten. The scale of military activity was alarming, unnecessary. Nobody was threatening them. But the isolated country was not listening. They blasted out occasional proclamations. Foreign invaders would face the wrath of their glorious armed forces. Governments responsible would be wiped off the face of the Earth.
Sim took a gulp of tea and pulled a face, looking at the brown liquid. That drinks dispenser really couldn’t make a decent cuppa. He clicked onto an article posted by the Tokyo Times but could not get his eyes to focus on the screen. He squeezed his eyelids together and squinted at the words. The screen started to tilt sideways and then he fell off his chair, hitting the deck hard. He didn’t feel a thing.