Korean Intercept

by Mertz, Stephen

"If there is someone who brought that shuttle down, it's someone working in Mission Control."

  Chalmers grunted again. He slapped the steering wheel again. "Someone inside NASA, reprogramming computers. That sure as hell is a first. I wonder if we have our man."

  "Lennick seems to think so." Jackson was referring to the senior watch officer. "The red flags are sure there."

  Chalmers nodded. "Wife terminally ill. Seeing an Asian woman." The files on primary Mission Control personnel had been reviewed as soon as word had come from DC about the shuttle. "Yeah, I guess going on what we know," said Chalmers, "I'd put my money on Eliot Fraley."

  "There he is," said Jackson.

  Fraley was the stereotypical brilliant, middle-aged computer nerd, a wiry little guy wearing a bow tie. His sports jacket didn't match his slacks. He had thick-lensed, wire-rimmed glasses and a balding pate encircled by a thatch of untamed, curly hair. He exited the building, making a beeline toward the parking lot. His wiry legs scissored with that hurriedly awkward stride of one not used to hurrying. He reached and boarded his waiting Volvo, backing it from his parking space and leaving the parking lot.

  Jackson and Chalmers followed, observing surveillance distancing as the Volvo drove down Highway C in the direction of the front gate.

  Jackson said into his lapel mic, "Subject is moving."

  Fraley was one of the ground team of flight controllers assigned to the Johnson Space Center Flight Control Room. There he'd labored, functioning like an automaton, endless week after week. At first, when his job had been a challenge, he'd loved it. But week after week had turned into month after month, then year after year. He himself did not fully understand it, but eventually the initial joy of computers and space technology had become reduced for him to a grinding drudgery made worse by the pressures of an overburdened personal life.

  Less than an hour earlier, in the immediate aftermath of the blackout from Liberty, he'd been standing with the growing crowd of NASA scientists and administrators around the flight director's console, which was the heart of the rows upon rows of monitors and their attending technicians. At first, he'd feigned interest and concern, standing there with his co-workers who moments earlier had been operating their computers, digesting their radar data, plotting the orbiter's path on the large map projection screen on the front wall. Then, eventually, he had been able to unobtrusively unplug his station from the flight director's loop, had set down his headset and walked away from the hubbub of concern. Don't panic, he'd told himself.

  He was still telling himself that as he stepped up to a pay phone on the concourse leading to the waiting area at the loading gate, where he was supposed to meet Connie. He'd already scouted the seating area where they were supposed to meet. People were beginning to congregate for the flight, which was scheduled to board in ten minutes. Fraley glanced at his digital watch. Actually, the flight was to board in nine minutes and forty seconds. He snapped his eyes away from the security of mathematics, a logical world that always made sense. He again scanned the busy scene around him: arriving and departing people and their accompanying parties pouring along the concourse in both directions.

  Maybe there is a logical reason to start panicking, Fraley told himself.

  He slipped coins into the pay phone and dialed Connie Yota's number, fully expecting to hear her answering machine message click on after half a ring, as always. He did not know what he should do if Connie didn't show up in time to catch the flight. She was supposed to be here waiting for him when he arrived. That was their plan, agreed upon and etched in stone as recently as this morning in bed. But he now jolted physically as if an electrical jolt had shot through him when he heard, instead of Connie's answering machine, the disembodied, metallic, recorded telephone company voice advising him that the number he was calling had been disconnected, and that if he thought he'd dialed the number in error, he should. . . . He disconnected, got the dial tone again and fed more coins into the pay slot, again punching up the number he had memorized since his and Connie's first night of hot sex several weeks ago . . . which had been the first night they'd met. He took extreme effort this time to dial the correct number and only then realized that his index finger was trembling. He cursed this sign of inner weakness. Damn nerves. The connection rang twice. Again, he got the wrong number recording. He replaced the receiver before the disembodied voice could speak the third word of its message.

  It dawned on him. Of course. She had disconnected her phone because that's the way Connie was. Her mind functioned with the same precise intensity as her sex drive.

  He turned to again survey the flow of people moving along the concourse. He could often foretell the approach of Connie's lithe, small-boned, tight figure, her flowing shoulder-length black hair, her dusky beauty that radiated both sex and intelligence. . . . He knew when she was approaching, sometimes before he saw her, by the way men's heads would begin turning to view her approach. But not this time. Still no sign of Connie. He glanced again at his watch. Eight minutes and forty seconds to boarding. The crowd was growing by the minute in the waiting area by the loading gate. People beginning to stir. Businessmen and businesswomen organizing their work, snapping shut their laptops. Mothers gathering up their children and their luggage. Family, friends and lovers were preparing to say goodbye. A well-coifed airline employee standing by the desk was eyeing the clock too, preparing to announce the boarding.

  Watching the teeming concourse, Fraley tried hard not to show the panic that was building within him with each passing second. His heartbeat was pounding like a bass drum in his ears, almost completely blotting out the sounds around him.

  He was ready to kiss everything goodbye. His life, his career, everything . . . to begin a new life with the gorgeous, brilliant Japanese beauty who had come into what had been a wretched life and made it incredibly exciting . . . and dangerous. But that danger would diminish to nothing the instant they boarded this flight to the Caribbean. She was in love with him and they would fly away together. Connie had promised him this, and he believed her.

  It had been like something out of Penthouse Forum. Night after night of the wildest sex imaginable with this single, twenty-three-year-old Japanese civilian with a law degree, who spoke several languages, whom he'd met accidentally at the restaurant he frequented near his home. From that first night of their chance encounter when she'd invited him to her apartment, when their lust had burned through the night on silken sheets cast in candlelight, the smell of incense blending with the scent of warmed oils, the moans and the gasps of pleasure mingled with the low, subtle music that caressed and provided the changing tempos of their lovemaking. . . . Ms. Connie Yota had shown the computer scientist things about the physical act of love that he'd never imagined. He'd been her slave in every way since then. She demanded much, but his rewards were exquisite and, in addition, Connie had professed a true love for him that had touched Fraley's heart as much as his libido.

  Where is she? My God, don't let anything go wrong! He wondered with a start who he was to be imploring anything of a deity he'd never acknowledged the existence of. He self-analyzed this as an indication of just how overwrought he was, and he hoped this was not noticeable to anyone passing by. Of course, he had no right to ask any god for any help after the sins he had committed. He'd sold out his country. He'd sold out the crew of the space shuttle Liberty. And, even more poignant to him personally, he was about to run out on his dying wife for a woman half Nora's age. No, he did not think there was any god anywhere who would condone any of that. He was somewhat surprised that the thought even flashed through his mind. But then, life—including his own mind, soul and heart—had proven to hold untold surprises since the moment Connie had appeared in his life. It had been a roller-coaster of emotions, in direct conflict with his lifelong psychological need for emotional stability to facilitate his mental discipline. He accepted this conflict as part of what generated the unbelievably rewarding sexual and psychic bond between himself and her. He could h
ardly believe that he was about to embark on a lifetime of experience with this woman who had so changed him.

  He had picked up their tickets. He carried only his travel-on, a single brown leather suitcase, as she'd suggested. She was a seasoned traveler, obviously, though they had never directly discussed her work for what she had only once vaguely referred to as "a Tokyo corporation with connections everywhere." She had mentioned this, she assured him, merely to assure him that they would lead a life of comfort, even luxury, as part of his payment for his onetime betrayal. And the betrayal of his wife of seventeen years? Fraley blinked the thought of Nora from his mind. His wife had been a paraplegic since that terrible car crash seven years ago. He hadn't wanted to fall in love with another woman, but it happened anyway. He had made financial arrangements to ensure that Nora Fraley would be well taken care of for the duration of her life. Reviewing the situation in this manner, Fraley felt suddenly as free as a bird. Connie had already arranged payment of the promised amount into his numbered Swiss bank account.

  "Mr. Fraley?"

  He jerked around to find himself confronted by two men who, he knew instinctively, could only be plainclothes law officers of some kind: a muscular black man and a Caucasian with a lumpier build and a boyish face.

  "Uh, yes . . . my name is Fraley."

  "Mr. Fraley, my name is Agent Chalmers. This is Agent Jackson. Sir, you're under arrest. Please don't make a scene. Put your hands behind your back. Read him his rights, Claude."

  The black agent read him words that Fraley had heard a million times in movies and on TV shows about things he said used against him and his right to remain silent. He nodded dumbly when asked if he understood. His head drooped forlornly. The handcuffs snapped tightly, coldly, behind his back, making him wince. Then the two men were guiding him along the concourse, back in the direction of the airport parking lot. Jackson's massive grip felt like a steel vise on Fraley's upper arm, while Chalmers steered Fraley from his other side, hurrying him along far faster than he ever would have walked of his own volition. At times, they practically dragged him, and he was becoming winded. His preferred world since childhood had been the cerebral, rarely the physical. That had all changed with Connie, of course, certainly when it came to sex. Even at a time like this, he could only think of her in those terms and of the passions she stirred within him. lie thought, at least they don't have Connie. It's good that she didn't make it in time for the flight. He would pay for his betrayal, but thank God she would remain free. . . .

  As if reading his mind, the black agent at his side chuckled without humor. "You were set up, stupid. You have figured that part out, haven't you?"

  Fraley blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

  Chalmers chimed in, "Not that it did your sweet little fortune cookie any good."

  "Connie?" It burst from him.

  Jackson nodded. "She was apprehended ten minutes ago at a car rental agency. She was leaving town without you, Eliot. We just don't know yet where she was going or who set her up to take you down. Do you know?"

  Fraley summoned up every ounce of inner strength he could muster, which wasn't much. "1 don't know anything about what you're talking about." He spoke in a voice he did not recognize as his own.

  They left the concourse using an "authorized personnel only" exit.

  Chalmers said, "Miss Yota is being interrogated. They played you for the patsy you are, pal, getting you to sell out your soul and your country for a piece of ass. Something like this, tapping someone as high up as you . . . can you say compartmentalization? That means your Connie will know just enough to incriminate herself into a nice long prison sentence, even if she is a lawyer."

  "So how about you, Doc?" said Jackson. "You could get your honor back, or at least some of your self-respect. You will cooperate?"

  "I don't know anything," Fraley insisted.

  "We'll see," said Jackson with supreme confidence. They steered him toward a waiting unmarked car. "Mr. Fraley, the shit of your life has just hit the biggest fan there is."

  Chapter Seven

  North Korea

  It was an incredible chain of stunning events, thought Kate, that had brought her to this cave with armed men outside, one of whom was shouting something in Korean into the cave, not sounding friendly at all. In the shadows of the cave, she continued to whisper cooing sounds into Terri's ear in an attempt to quiet Terri's delirious ramblings. Kate stroked the injured woman's temples with her fingertips.

  Terri's semi-conscious eyes suddenly opened wide, normal and lucid. She gazed up with that unflagging inquisitive good nature that Kate had grown fond of. "What happened? Did we crash?" She started to turn her head, looking around. "Where are we?"

  Kate wanted to ease Terri gently back into awareness of what had transpired. She clasped one of Terri's hands in hers. "There's been trouble; you'll be all right."

  "Okay." Terri spoke the single word in the small voice of a child. She closed her eyes, saying no more.

  At the mouth of the cave, Scott and Paxton remained one to either side, each with a finger on a trigger. Scott shouted something in Korean, responding to the men outside. There was a surly reply from without. Scott translated for the others.

  "They're not soldiers. They're bandits. They've given us sixty seconds to surrender. Big Mouth out there says he's holding a fragmentation grenade with a ten-second fuse. We don't show ourselves, he throws in the grenade." Scott flicked a quick glance around the confines of the cave. "That means we all die."

  "Well hell," said Paxton. "Let's do as the man says. Jesus, Commander. I don't want to die. You've got to get us back home. We've got to take any chance we can!" Paxton's blond hair was mussed, his face streaked with dirt and fear, no longer the movie-poster-handsome face.

  Scott glanced at Kate. "Will Terri make it, if we move her?"

  Kate rose from kneeling at the side of the woman who had become her friend during their intensive astronaut training together. "Terri's dead," she said in a grim voice. She unholstered her pistol.

  "Are you sure?"

  "I'm sure. And we're dead if someone out there throws in a grenade. I don't see where we have a choice."

  Paxton looked mightily relieved. He looked happy enough to jump up and down. "Kate's right!"

  Scott sighed. "She always is. Okay. I'll step out first. If they open fire, you two do your best. Good luck."

  Kate started to say something, but Scott had already managed to hobble the single awkward step it took for him to swing his straightened leg through the shrubbery that choked the mouth of the cave. He disappeared from their sight, leaving Kate and Bob Paxton alone with the dead woman. When Kate's eyes locked with his, she saw that his were glassy with uncertainty. "Get a grip, Bob. This is no time to lose it."

  Paxton didn't look so sure. 'There was nothing like this in the goddamn training."

  "Can it," she said. She couldn't believe that she had once been attracted to this man.

  From outside, she heard Scott address someone in Korean. There was a cruel, guttural laugh and the briefest sound of a scuffle. Then she heard Scott grunt in pain. She could wait no longer. She'd rather die giving backup to a teammate than crouch here, hiding. She took a step forward, bringing up her pistol and bracing herself for whatever she would find confronting her.

  Paxton's jaw dropped. "Kate, no, for Chrissake, wait! What if—"

  She didn't have an opportunity to reply, nor to propel herself through the shrubbery as she'd intended to. Instead, Ron Scott was propelled into the cave under force of a powerful shove from outside. He plowed into her with enough impact to send them both stumbling backwards. Kate fought to maintain her balance, simultaneously steering Scott toward a rough, curved wall of the cave, where he could reach out a hand and steady himself on his good leg, to brace himself from falling. She noted that he wore a nasty purple bruise on his forehead that was swelling by the second, and an open, ugly red wound along the scalp line. Scott did not fall. He remained standing when Kate released
him. This allowed her to spin around just in time to see the man, who had obviously shoved Scott, now come storming into the cave.

  There was the cruelty of a killer about him, every bit as palpable as his foul body odor that permeated the dank closeness. He wore a dirty padded jacket and ragged pants. His face was scarred, probably from smallpox. He held an M16 automatic rifle.

  Scott explained quickly, "His name is Han Ling. Three of his men are outside, and they're not much prettier than he is. He's Chinese, but he speaks Korean."

  Paxton had stepped away from the cave entrance, pointedly keeping his pistol aimed at the ground, a sign of surrender. This did him no good. Before he could speak, before anyone saw it coming, the intruder whipped the rifle sideways in a sharp movement that snapped the rifle's butt squarely into Paxton's startled face. There was a bone-crunching sound. Paxton fell back with a cry, falling to the ground, the pistol skittering from his fingers. He drew himself into a crouch against the cave's wall, staring wild-eyed from behind the hands that he clasped to his face.

  "My nose! Jesus Christ, he broke my goddamn nose!"

  Kate and the bandit faced each other. Like Paxton, she held her pistol aimed at the ground. The intruder glared at her menacingly, and she took advantage of the opportunity he was obviously offering her by not opening fire and cutting her to ribbons. She let the pistol drop from her fingers. It clattered onto the cave floor.

  The man gestured with his rifle. Paxton sidled over to join her and Commander Scott, near the sprawled remains of Terri Schmidt. The bandit scooped up their dropped pistols while maintaining a one-armed grip on his M16, a finger on the trigger and the muzzle aimed at them. He nonchalantly slipped the sidearms into a wide, colorful sash that served as his belt, with the pistol butts reversed, old American West style, for quick cross-draw. The bandit motioned them outside with the rifle barrel, issuing a gruff command in his own tongue.