The Target

by David Baldacci

  Marks hung back since the op was designed for a two-person team. But she watched the pair closely for more than one reason.

  She marveled at how Reel and Robie moved as a unit. They each seemed to know what the other was thinking. In less than twenty minutes they had achieved their goal and Marks ordered the live fire to stand down.

  On the Jeep ride back Marks told them that they had a visitor.

  “Who is it?” asked Robie.

  “Someone you know well.”

  The Jeep dropped them off about a mile from the facility and then drove on. A minute later Blue Man stepped from behind a tree to greet them.

  “You’re both looking fit,” said Blue Man. He was, as ever, dressed in a suit and tie with polished shoes. He looked decidedly out of place in the forest. His hair was white, his features grizzled, but his eyes were light and alert and his handshake strong.

  Reel gave him a hug and whispered, “Thank you,” in his ear.

  Robie stared expectantly at Blue Man.

  “I got a phone call from someone you’ve been interviewed by here,” he began.

  Robie and Reel exchanged a glance. Reel said, “Male or female?”

  Blue Man said, “Male. He apologized for how late your session went and for the degree of wetness involved.”

  “Nice of him,” said Reel dryly.

  “He also told me that there is a Plan B in place in the event that your vetting here does not go well.”

  “And what is Plan B?” asked Robie.

  “The B Team, actually. For the upcoming mission. You two are the preferred unit, of course.”

  “How flattering,” commented Reel. “And do we know what the mission is?”

  “One person at the agency knows, and that person is not me.”

  “Only one?” said Robie, looking startled.

  “So Evan Tucker, then?” suggested Reel.

  Blue Man nodded. “Highly unusual. I’m used to small circles of need to know, but a circle of one is problematic.”

  “We’ve survived so far,” said Reel. “Do you see something coming up that might change that?”

  “I won’t mince words, because that won’t do either of you any good. The director is enormously conflicted at this point. Facts that I have gathered demonstrate a man perilously near the edge. He both needs you and wants to punish you. And it is unclear at this point which of these competing views will win out.”

  “He tried to waterboard us into a confession,” said Robie. “That might indicate the ‘punishment’ side is winning out.”

  Blue Man nodded. “First blush might indicate that. But it’s unfortunately more complicated than that. He seems to be changing his mind not day by day but hour by hour.”

  “And how do you know this?” asked Robie.

  “We are an intelligence-gathering agency,” replied Blue Man with a smile. “And there is no law against turning that skill inward.”

  Robie looked at Reel. “That may be why Tucker came calling here.”

  “He came here to see you?” asked Blue Man.

  Robie said, “He wanted to ‘assure’ us that he has no personal vendetta against us and that everything they’re throwing at us here, including the waterboarding, is part of the vetting.”

  “And did you believe him?” asked Blue Man.

  “Hell no,” snapped Reel. “And there are no assets we can call on to stop his vendetta against us?”

  “That has been tried and his heels dug in. Personnel at the agency are convinced of the culpability of the former DD and the analyst. They were traitors pure and simple and their deaths are not unduly troubling. Unfortunately, none of those people run the CIA.”

  “We understand that some deal has been struck with the president,” said Reel.

  “That’s the rub. This mission runs all the way to the White House. I’ve learned that there was a transmission at the Sit Room involving only the president, the DCI, and the APNSA.”

  Reel looked confused. “What about the Watch Command?”

  “Walled off. First time in history, I believe. Literally no one other than the three men in that meeting was privy to who was on the other end of that satellite. Certainly a breach of normal protocol.”

  “So the VP wasn’t there?” said Robie.

  Blue Man shook his head. “Ominous, since the VP is normally part of the loop on something like that.”

  “Wait a minute, do you think they’re worried about transition exposure?” said Reel.

  “In case of impeachment?” Blue Man nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

  “So they’re walling off the VP so he could take over in case his boss gets the ax,” said Robie. “That tells us something.”

  “High crimes and misdemeanors,” said Reel. “That’s what the Constitution says are impeachable offenses. But those words can be widely interpreted.”

  “But in the intelligence world something jumps out,” said Robie.

  “Assassination of a head of state,” said Reel. She looked sharply at Blue Man. “Is that what we’re being dialed up to do?”

  “I wish I could tell you for certain, but I can’t.”

  “We hit Ahmadi before he came to power in Syria for that very reason,” said Robie. “He wasn’t yet a head of state. Otherwise, it’s illegal.”

  “And bin Laden was a terrorist, not a head of state,” added Reel.

  Blue Man considered all of this and then filled his chest with the invigorating mountain air. “And there are a limited number of such targets for which the president would stick out his political neck.”

  “Very limited,” said Robie. “And it simply can’t be some asshole dictator raping his country. Saddam Hussein’s fellow countrymen hung him, not us. And Africa is not that important to us geopolitically. No basis to argue in the national interest.”

  “I can actually think of two possible targets,” said Reel. “And both of them are suicide missions for the people pulling the trigger.” She stared at Blue Man. “With no double cross needed. The target might go down, but so will the mission team. They might get in, but they won’t get out. We’re dead.”

  Blue Man said, “Ergo, I believe that the director has resolved his conflict. But then again, that’s what he thought last time.”

  Chapter

  21

  CHUNG-CHA HAD NEVER MET a westerner who could tell the difference between a Chinese and a Japanese, much less a North Korean and a South Korean. This had proven very valuable to her work. To the world North Koreans were evil, while South Koreans and Japanese roused no suspicions at all. And Chinese were tolerated because China made everything that everyone else used and had all the money, or so Chung-Cha had been told.

  She had taken a flight to Istanbul and boarded the train there. She was now in Romania, heading west. She had been on a North Korean clunker, but never a train such as this. She had never seen anything so luxurious that moved!

  She was listening to music on her headphones as the train wended its way along. Chung-Cha liked to listen to music because it allowed her mind to wander to other things. She could afford to let her mind drift now. Later, that would not be possible.

  The countryside here was quite remarkable. She enjoyed traveling by train for several reasons, not the least of which was the lessened standard of security. For this particular journey, there was another reason.

  That reason was residing in the same train car as she was, only four compartments down from her.

  She had seen him, but he had not seen her because he was not trained to observe, at least not at the level she was. The train’s destination was Venice. From Istanbul the trip took six days.

  She waited until he went to the dining car that night. Her gaze followed him all the way out of the sleeping car.

  She figured she had thirty minutes. She shouldn’t need half that time.

  Chung-Cha didn’t simply kill people; she gathered intelligence. She looked like a shy young Asian woman who would pose a threat to no one.
The fact that she could kill everyone on this train would not occur to any passenger.

  The man’s compartment was locked. A few seconds later it was no longer locked. Chung-Cha slipped inside and shut the door behind her. She did not expect to find much. The man was a British envoy lately attached to the embassy in Pyongyang. Those types did not leave classified documents lying around in their empty train compartments. What secrets they did have were confined to their minds or on encrypted devices that would take an army of computers years to break into.

  But there were exceptions to that rule. And this man might prove to be one of those rare exceptions.

  It took her barely fifteen minutes to efficiently search his compartment and leave no trace that she had done so. He had left, by her count, six subtle traps for those attempting to find something here. Tripping any of them would reveal said search. She either didn’t disturb them or returned them to their original positions, down to the millimeter.

  If he had a phone he had taken it with him. There was no computer here. There were no documents of any kind. He was traveling very light. It must all be in his head. If it was, she could gain access to that as well.

  She knew many torture techniques, and for a very good reason. They had all been inflicted upon her at Yodok.

  She had been trained to be a snitch on her family in return for a reward, or sometimes simply so she wouldn’t be beaten as badly. She had stolen food from her family. She had beaten others, some of them children. Her family had beaten her, snitched on her, stolen food from her. Children had beaten her, snitched on her, stolen food from her. That was just the way it was. Again, with enough fear, humans were capable of anything.

  She had always wanted to be one of the Bowiwon children, the offspring of the guards. Their bloodlines had been affirmed by the Great Leader, Il Sung. They had food to eat and something softer than a concrete floor to sleep on. In her dreams she had become a pureblood like them with a full belly and perhaps a chance to pass through the electrified fence one day.

  And then one day she had.

  The greatest day of her life. No prisoner had ever been released from Yodok’s lifer zone. She had been the first. She was still the only one.

  She returned to her compartment, but she had left something back in the man’s room.

  She heard him return a half hour later. The door opened and closed. She waited, listening through the wireless device mounted in her ear. In her mind she followed his movements based on these sounds. She was not guessing. She was highly trained to be able to see with something other than her eyes.

  The movements were slow at first, routine, measured. Then they picked up a bit. Then they picked up even more.

  She knew exactly what that meant.

  There had been a seventh trap that she had overlooked.

  He knew his compartment had been searched. Perhaps he had also spotted the listening device she had planted there.

  She immediately checked the train schedule.

  Forty-five minutes from here.

  She had one small bag with her for the six-day trip. Chung-Cha never carried much because she had never had much. No more than would fit in a small bag. The car wasn’t hers. The apartment wasn’t hers. They could take it from her whenever they wanted. But what was in the bag was hers.

  Forty-two minutes later the train slowed. Then it slowed some more. The conductor came on the PA and announced the next stop. She listened to the device. The man’s compartment door opened and closed and she could no longer hear anything from the device she’d planted in the room.

  However, she believed he would be heading to the right, away from her. The closest exit door was there. She opened the door to her compartment and sprinted to the left. She was out a service door and onto the station platform before the train even stopped. She took up position behind a stack of boxes and waited, peering through a crack in one of them.

  He got off and looked up and down the platform. He was waiting for someone else to get off, obviously the person who had searched his compartment. No one else did. He waited until the train started to pull away. Then he turned and hurried off without seeing her and entered the station.

  Her Asian appearance would be problematic for her now, she knew. There could not be many Asians in this ancient town of white Europeans. However, a hat and glasses helped hide her face. She started after him, keeping a good distance in between.

  He was already on his phone. Getting off the train had been an impromptu move, so he would need either lodging or ground transportation.

  If he opted for a car she would have to strike fast. If lodging, she would have at least the night and morning to sort things out. She would prefer that.

  Fortunately for her, he picked lodging. She walked past where he entered and observed him through a window arranging for a room. He was still on the phone, multitasking as he showed his passport and took the old-fashioned room key tied to what looked to be a large golden paperweight.

  It might come in handy, she thought, that paperweight.

  Chung-Cha sat in her room in the same hotel as the Brit. She sipped her hot tea and smacked her lips appreciatively. At Yodok her gums had turned black and all her teeth had fallen out. What she had there now was the work of an orthodontist in the employ of the government. The worst of her scars had been hidden with plastic surgery, but the doctor had been unable to correct all of them. She didn’t have enough undamaged skin left with which to do so. The burns had been the most painful. Being hung over a fire and made to confess something, anything to make the pain stop, was not good for one’s complexion.

  So she sipped her tea, then touched her bed with the fat pillows and thick blanket. They felt nice to the touch, far better than what she had back in Pyongyang.

  She wondered whom he had called.

  Midnight passed to one.

  She heard a clock strike somewhere in the center of this ancient city.

  The sound of revelers died away a half hour later.

  That was when she was on the move.

  She did not walk down the hall. She went out the window.

  His room was three floors above hers. Room 607, fourth over from the right. She had observed this through the hotel window when the key had been removed from its numbered cubby at the front desk. Finding small handholds, Chung-Cha climbed swiftly.

  She opened the window to his room noiselessly and slipped inside. As soon as her foot hit the carpet he was on her.

  Chung-Cha felt the muzzle of the gun against her head. But before he could fire, she had spun away, placing her finger behind the trigger so he couldn’t pull it. While he struggled with this, she used him as a fulcrum, leapt off her feet, spun her body around his, and slammed her knee into his right kidney. He screamed and dropped to his knees, his grip on the gun lessening, and she ripped it free. He tried to rise but she whirled in front of him, rammed her foot into his crotch, and at the same time made a V with her elbow and crushed it against his temple.

  And then as he was toppling she stabbed him in the shoulder with the knife she held in her left hand, his gun in her right.

  He lay on the floor holding his bleeding shoulder and gasping for air, his knees tucked involuntarily upward as the pain shot through his privates. He started to cry out, but she pounced and the rag was in his mouth, his shout stifled.

  He was a large man and she was a small woman. Though badly injured, he tried to rise. She struck him on the wound and he fell back, sobbing and holding his injured shoulder.

  She put his gun to his temple and told him what he must do or he would die now.

  He slowly rolled onto his belly. She tied him up securely, hands lashed to the ankles via a zip tie she had brought with her. She put him on his side and faced him, shining a light in his eyes. She spoke to him again in English. He nodded.

  She took the gag out and studied him.

  She asked him a question. He answered. She asked four more questions. He answered only three.

  She put
the gag back in his mouth and pushed her knife blade deeply into his wound.

  Without the gag he would have woken the entire hotel with his cries of pain. She withdrew the blade and waited for him to calm.

  He looked at her, tears clustered in his eyes.

  She took out the gag and asked him the last question again. He shook his head. He snapped at her hand when she started to put the gag back in.

  He screamed.