“If they actually try to bring her over for an exchange, it’ll probably set their plans back a few days at least,” Jesse observed. “I doubt the KDSS has access to a long range jet. They’ll have to refuel at least once just to make it to the west coast, and once more to get to Virginia.”
The prospect of Miss Park’s discomfort at the consequence of her demand provided Emily one tiny ray of light in an otherwise very dark day. With a bit more reluctance she mentioned Jiang’s conviction that the Koreans would make every effort to avoid actually handing over their hostages.
“He’s probably right about that. Michael will have a better sense of what they’re capable of. But what does it matter? It’s not like we’d ever actually hand you over to them. The important thing is that you’ve probably bought us a little more time to arrange a rescue.”
Emily felt reassured by Jesse’s confidence. But deep down she knew a rescue wouldn’t resolve anything. Even if they succeeded, there was no reason to expect the Koreans to give up on her. A much more decisive confrontation would be required to accomplish that. The only question in her mind was whether she would survive it… and whether she even cared. Perhaps she had spoken to Jiang once too often. His pessimism was beginning to rub off on her. Or perhaps it was fatalism.
At the hospital, the scene was tense and hectic. Andie and Yuki were waiting with Ethan outside the post-operative wing. Men in dark suits were everywhere, some of them police detectives, others apparently federal agents.
“Emily’s got news,” Jesse whispered to Ethan. “We need to clear these people out of here, or at least get Andie down to the restaurant for coffee, or something.”
When Ethan proposed it to her, she was resistant.
“I’m staying here,” she insisted. “You go without me, Yuki. I’ll be fine here.”
Emily reached out to touch Andie’s hand and pulled her into a hug. As soon as she felt Emily’s arms around her the tears came out.
“There’s nothing to be accomplished here. Come down with us,” she whispered in her ear.
Andie finally nodded and walked to the elevator with Yuki and Emily on either side. Ethan and Jesse followed behind. The elevator was not empty. The news would have to wait a little longer. They found a corner table in a quiet end of the mainly empty cafeteria. Yuki went to get tea for everyone. Jesse related Emily’s news. Andie was horrified by what she heard.
“How did they contact you,” Ethan asked.
Yuki came back in time to hear only the last few words of Emily’s explanation.
“Absolutely not! I won’t allow it,” Andie declared in a tone of voice intended to be so firm as to preclude anyone’s even thinking of such a scheme.
“Has there been a development,” asked Yuki with a worried look.
“It’s like it’s always been, Mom. They just want me. Me for Anthony.”
Emily’s eyes burned darkly, as if she could hurl the whole world into the abyss. Yuki was horrified by her words, but the look in her eyes was shocking. Yuki looked at Andie and neither of them could hold back the tears. They rolled out silently at first, but then in heaves and fits uncontrollably. Emily pulled Ethan and Jesse aside.
“I want you to send a message to this address. It should read ‘See you at the University Rotunda today at two.’ Sign it M.”
The response she anticipated would be immediate. According to their understanding, Connie would meet her the next day. Emily needed to confer with Michael. But in case that proved to be impossible, she wanted to have her near too. Later she would contact Jiang.
“I think this means the police are of no use to us,” Ethan said when they were back at the table. “We need to be careful what we tell them. Michael will have to decide whether the FBI can be included in whatever we decide to do.”
Later that evening Michael found himself awake and groggy in a private room surrounded by his family. The nurses must have suspected the group was too diverse to really all be family. But there was no will on their part to challenge anyone. They’d be content as long as everyone left when visiting hours ended, which was soon.
“Andie’s right,” Michael said. “There’s no way we’re trading Emily. I don’t care what we have to do. We’re not going to tear our family apart at their whim.”
“I don’t see what alternative we have,” Emily said quietly. “Even if we can rescue him, what’s to stop them from trying again?”
“I want you two working on a plan,” he said to Ethan and Jesse, clearly unmoved by her concern. “And Emily, I think you should stay at the estate for the next few days.”
Ethan assigned three men from the estate staff to provide a subtle security presence after they left.
-back to top-
Chapter 18
Telling Danny
Jesse examined the memory card Emily gave him for clues with the help of a computer expert Michael brought in. No intact files remained on it, but there were odds and ends from old files that had apparently been erased recently. They couldn’t make sense of any of the fragments. Mostly it seemed to be jibberish in what they took to be Korean. When Yuki tried to pronounce some of the characters they discovered Ethan said it sounded like Russian to him. But it was unintelligible even on that assumption.
He put the sim card in a clean phone that would re-transmit any incoming calls to the estate server on a secure frequency. There was only one number in the sim card’s memory, which he guessed must belong to the phone originally intended for Emily. They weren’t able to track a location for that phone, which might mean it had been turned off. If they called her from that number, and the call lasted long enough, they might be able to pinpoint a location. It was a long shot, but Jesse wanted to have the system ready.
The next morning Michael seemed a little stronger. Andie wanted him brought to the estate, even though the hospital staff was reluctant. Michael thought it might be useful to be at home in order to control the access law enforcement officials might have to his family, and especially to Emily. Andie brooked no opposition from the nurses and had him home by noon, in a special bed Ethan set up in the study on the first floor. Once he was settled and was able to shoo everyone out, he asked to speak to Emily alone.
“I know what you’re thinking, and it’s too dangerous.” He wanted to say he wouldn’t allow it, but knew it would have no effect. “Even if you manage to free him, if you’re killed in the process it will hang over him for the rest of his days.”
“I don’t see another way. Unless I confront them they’ll just try again some other way.”
“But it just looks like such a futile gesture,” he said shaking his head. “I can’t stand the thought of you throwing your life away. You are too important… to all of us.”
“I’m meeting with Connie in an hour to see what she thinks.”
“Bring her back here. I may want a word with her, too.”
~~~~~~~
Connie was sitting on the steps of the Rotunda when Emily arrived. She looked like she already knew at least some of what happened the day before. A quick glance at Emily was enough to see that she was in the middle of a full blown family crisis.
“How is he?”
“Michael took two rounds in the chest. It looks like he’s gonna pull through. We brought him home this morning against doctor’s orders.”
“Two in the chest means they expected to kill him. So not ransom then, I’m guessing.”
“No. They’ve already made contact with me.”
“What then, a trade?”
Emily nodded. The look in her eyes told Connie what she needed to know.
“North Koreans, we think. One of them was masquerading as a PE teacher at my school for the last few weeks, a bleached blonde named Park.”
“Early thirties, about my size, maybe an inch or so shorter, not physically intimidating?”
“That sounds about right. There were rumors of an abusive boyfriend. She got a lot of sympathy that way. I even offered to give her some self-def
ense pointers. Do you know her?”
“It sounds like Park Soon-ee. I think she’s a colonel in one of the Korean security services. One of her ploys is to pretend to be timid and weak. Don’t be fooled. At sixteen she was national champion of one of their martial arts, some sort of variation on taekwondo, taekkyeon I think it’s called. She ought to have been on the team that went to the Sydney Olympics, but missed them for some reason.”
“I’m not familiar with taekkyeon.”
“Think a very limber, graceful krav maga. Fancy footwork, low combination kicks, joint locks… oh yeah, and sneaky head butts. Watch out for those. They can be deadly.”
“I’ll try to remember that if I ever see her again,” Emily said.
“What’s your plan to get the boy back?”
“Go through with the trade.”
Connie was speechless for a long moment. Then she tried to talk her out of it. Told her how ruthless and untrustworthy these people could be. Urged her to reconsider.
“This is foolishness.”
“I don’t see another way.”
“It won’t work. They’ll find a way to keep their hostage and you.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you even considering going through with it?” she asked incredulously.
“It’s who I am. I can’t just pretend to be some normal kid. That won’t work either. They’ll never leave me alone. But here’s what I know: a block is a strike, and the more an adversary thinks he has succeeded, the more devastating the strike will be.”
Connie knew exactly what she meant and gave an involuntary shudder, having seen her risk everything for her friends once before, not to mention having felt the force of her foot against the side of her own head on another occasion.
“Okay. I’m in,” she said, her heart pounding in her ears. “What can I do?”
~~~~~~~
By the time they returned to the estate the sim card had received a text message: a time and GPS coordinates and the words “come alone.” Emily read the message in disgust.
“Can I call out on this thing,” she asked Jesse. “Is it secure?”
He assured her it was. She tried the number the text came from but it was not a real phone.
“They probably routed the message through lots of servers to disguise their location,” Jesse said. “Once it’s been sent, the path won’t exist any longer. You’re only calling the last server.”
Emily dialed the other number saved in the sim card’s memory. This one rang. No answer. She dialed it again. A familiar voice picked up. She skipped the niceties.
“You have the girl?”
“What girl?” Miss Park’s voice answered disingenuously.
“No deal without the girl.” She ended the connection.
Jesse and Connie were stunned. They clearly expected some long, drawn out conversation in which the kidnapper has all the authority. Everyone’s heart was racing with the thrill of what Emily had done. A moment later the phone in her hand buzzed.
“You have the girl?” she demanded, not giving the voice on the other end an opportunity to control the exchange.
“Yes. Come alone.”
“No deal. Who’ll take the boy and the girl home? I’ll bring my people.” The other voice was silent. After a moment Emily hung up.
“Don’t accept anymore voice calls from this line,” she said to Jesse.
She went to see Michael. Andie and Yuki were sitting by his bed in the study. Connie waited outside with Ethan.
“No,” Andie shrieked. “We do not sacrifice children in this family.”
She was sobbing uncontrollably.
“There’s another way, Emily,” Michael tried to tell her. But she sensed somehow that he knew there wasn’t.
“There must be another way,” Yuki said.
She was struggling not to cry. The muscles of her jaw and brow were practically white.
“I can’t let you do this,” Andie cried out. “It’s too cruel.”
The weeping and wailing continued for several minutes until finally everyone was exhausted by it. Even Emily. She looked at her mother with an expression of world weariness. Yuki gazed at her, as if she just wanted to drink in the sight of her daughter, her eyes, her nose, the shape of her face, the play of her eyebrows.
Finally she leaned over and kissed Andie on the forehead and walked over to her daughter. Placing her hands on her shoulders and fixing her with her eyes, she spoke a few words in Japanese, in a low dark tone unfamiliar to Emily.
“Go. Do what you were born to do.”
It sounded like a command, or perhaps permission. Emily let the words wash over her. Was her mom saying what she thought? Was she admitting her suspicions were true? She looked into her eyes and saw one thing for certain, abject fear.
Yuki said something else. Emily could see her lips moving, but she wasn’t sure words were reaching her ears. What she heard seemed to come from deep inside of her own mind. It was a distant voice that seemed to be begging her: “come back to us.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she finally heard her mother say.
She turned and walked to the door.
“I have to see Danny. I can’t just disappear without telling him something.”
On the way out she told Jesse to expect her around seven. They would have to leave by four in the morning for the meeting with the Koreans. She took one of the estate SUVs for the drive.
~~~~~~~
Danny was sitting on the front porch with his mother when she pulled up. They watched her walk up the steps and sit across from them on the wicker bench. She didn’t say anything for a moment, weighing her words carefully, trying to decide what she could tell them.
The scene she had just left at the estate came vividly to the front of her consciousness. It left her with the firm resolution not to keep secrets anymore, especially from anyone’s mother. She fished the picture of Tang Li Li out of her pocket and handed it to Mrs. Rincon.
“Who’s this little cutey,” she asked, obviously charmed.
“Her name is Li Li.” She paused again, hoping the words would come to her. “She’s the reason I haven’t given you a straight answer about the prom.”
Danny and his mom were all ears.
“What’s she got to do with you,” he asked. “Or the prom?”
Emily explained exactly who she was, in more detail than she had ever told him anything. She told him about the fight in the parking lot outside the tournament hotel, about Li Li’s father and Jiang. She told him about the attack on Michael and Anthony, and who was behind it, who Miss Park really was. Mrs. Rincon listened to what must have been the most outlandish story she had ever heard. There had been something on the news about a shooting and a kidnapping. The connection to Emily, indirect though it was, gave her story an intrusive sort of corroboration. It wasn’t so easy to laugh it off.
“Nooo,” Danny howled when she sketched out her plan. “What’s all this got to do with you?”
“It has everything to do with me,” she said, sharply. “Anthony’s as close to family as I have. I can’t let him down. I have to get him back.”
He put his face in his hands and growled in frustration and anger.
“I’m so sorry for you,” Mrs. Rincon said when she finally recovered the power of speech. “How is the boy’s mother doing? And your mother?”
“Everyone over there is upset. Anthony’s mom is adamantly opposed to my going through with this. I need two favors from you.”
“What? Anything. Just name it,” Danny said lifting up his head, glad to be of use.
“I need the two of you to come back to the family estate in Charlottesville with me, just to be safe.”
“What good will that do?” Mrs. Rincon asked, a little surprised.
“I’m probably just being overly cautious, but I’ll feel a lot better if I know you’re both safe tomorrow. It’ll be one less thing on my mind.”
“What’s the second thing?
”
“Do you still have the electric clippers your mom uses to cut your hair for football season?”
He nodded his head.
“I want you to cut my hair.”
His jaw dropped open. Her hair was so pretty. The idea of cutting it off practically turned his stomach.
“Why on earth would you want to do that?”
“Danny, you know me. I can take care of myself. But I don’t want to have to fight my way out of a North Korean prison camp with a pony tail.”
~~~~~~~
Mrs. Rincon couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It all sounded absurd. She knew from her son and his friends that Emily was pretty good at karate. But this story was just getting to be too strange. Fight her way out of a North Korean prison? She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. But every time she looked at her face, she saw how deadly serious Emily was. Those eyes were so hard. She almost couldn’t bear to look at them. They exacted a solemn mood from her.
While Danny retrieved the clippers from the upstairs bathroom, Mrs. Rincon led her into the kitchen, still not sure what to believe. When Danny couldn’t quite bring himself to begin, she offered to do it.
“No. I want him to cut it,” Emily said. “It’ll help make it all real for him.”
He grabbed the clippers from his mother’s trembling hand and made a first pass along the side of her head just above the ear. She’d chosen a one inch attachment. Her hair would be one inch long all over her head when they were done. A long, thick lock of jet black hair fell to the floor. Mrs. Rincon watched as it slipped off her shoulder and glided down the rest of the way. Another pass, another lock. A few more passes and it was all gone. He passed the clippers back and forth here and there to catch a few remaining long stragglers. The haircut was done in just a few minutes.
Emily reached down and picked up one lock that was still clinging together. She tied it in a simple knot and handed it to him. A keepsake. Mrs. Rincon felt tears in her eyes. Emily got the broom and swept up the rest of the hair.
“How do I look,” she asked sheepishly.
He looked at her, his eyes wide and unfocused.
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