But he couldn’t borrow worries from tomorrow. He’d watched the sun rise over the water, the bright orange orb warming his face, melting frost from the window. But now it had set and his breath froze to the glass again. The men might still show.
Every hour he’d tapped the first three notes of “Old Mr. Turtle” on the back window. Every hour they’d been answered by taps of the next three on the wood deck. Eun Hee had never known his mother. She’d sung the song each time she lit the stove fire, so the replies had to be coming from Soo Jin.
He peered over the hood. Judging outside was dark enough to safely step out and check on them, he gripped the door handle.
Just then, the passenger door flew open and the muzzle of an assault rifle was thrust into the cabin. The weapon was short, like a Russian submachine gun, with a blunt silencer mounted to the tip. A commando with a black-painted face and small scope strapped to his head trained the weapon rock-steady at his chest. “Sangsa Ko Chung Ho?” he barked.
Was that a question or a statement? Ko’s hands instinctively rose while his eyes flashed to the pistol on his hip.
The commando shook his head and held out a hand.
Ko unsnapped the security flap on the holster, but apparently he moved too quickly. The commando’s grip on the submachine gun tightened. Ko slowly pulled the weapon with two fingers, wrapped the barrel in his fist, and held it out.
“Sangsa Ko Chung Ho?” the man repeated.
So, it was a question. Ko nodded slowly. The state had found them. Eun Hee would be tortured, eventually killed. They’d make him watch, along with the rest of the prisoners. Perhaps it had been a setup all along. Had his sister been in on it?
His shoulders drooped. “Yes. I am Sergeant Ko.”
The commando’s cold smile was haunting. He sat in the passenger’s seat, stinking of rotting jellyfish, just like the shoreline where Ko had buried the guard. “You’re going to drive us. I’ll tell you where once the rest are in the back. You will do exactly as I say. One bad move, and I kill you. You, and your sister.”
Damn it! Ko had finally placed the man’s accent. He’d thought it was because the guy had been shivering with cold, but he’d actually spoken a different dialect. No commando, but an assassin—from the south!
The jellyfish commando lowered his weapon. “Do what I say, and you and your sister will be safe. We have a doctor with us. You’re not going to give any trouble. Right?”
Ko wrenched the door open and rolled to the ground. He jerked a knife from his belt and jumped to his feet, clutching it. A thump on the back of his head. The night fell darker still.
* * * *
Ko’s skull felt as if it rested on a pillow of broken glass. He forced his eyes open with much effort. The silencer of the same submachine gun was resting on his upper lip. Jellyfish’s knee was pressing his gut. Ko was stretched out on the dirt parking lot.
“I thought we weren’t going to have any trouble.”
“Damn you! Damn your country and your whoring mother! You can kill me, blind traitor. But I’ll not help you assassinate the dear leader!”
A wicked smile. This time, with a chuckle. “A bit late for remorse.” Jellyfish stood and said something to another man next to him, no taller, with a tight, curly beard the color of a pumpkin. Why was his hair that color? Birth defect? More words were exchanged. Pumpkin Beard gestured for the commando to point his weapon away from Ko.
“We don’t have time to explain, bbalgaengi.” Jellyfish sneered. “We’re not going to kill your fat leader. You agreed to drive us. Then we will free you and your sister. Either you do that, and we nurse her back to health, or you don’t, and you both die. Understood?”
“And my daughter,” Ko gritted out, wincing at the pain in his head.
“What?”
“My daughter. She’s back there, too. You take all three of us, and I’ll do as you wish.”
He’d spent fifteen years in the Korean People’s Army Ground Force. Seventeen before that, with juche teachings every numbing day beginning in elementary school. Those years seemed an east wind he strained against, rowing his father’s fishing boat away from shore, into deeper water. But one wave after another had splashed over the bow, till now it seemed the hull wasn’t long to stay afloat.
He’d killed a fellow guard, a comrade in arms, and justified it as protecting family. Hadn’t the dead man been a kind of family? Helping these commandos would mean even more death to someone.
But he had no alternative. Twisted in the storm, the beach no longer in sight, all he could do to keep afloat was row into the wind. There was no way he could stay in the homeland now. The government knew everything. The thought of leaving pained him. Maybe he could get a job in China on a fishing boat.
Jellyfish spoke to Pumpkin Beard, who nodded, then stretched a hand down to Ko. He grasped it and was pulled to his feet. Pumpkin Beard pointed him to the truck cabin. Ko held a finger at them and walked toward the tailgate to check on his daughter and sister, steadying himself against the bed rails as the ringing in his ears subsided. Someone must have coldcocked him from behind. When he wiped his nose, blood smeared his cuff.
He peered over the tailgate, arms shaking. “Eun Hee, you OK?”
Her voice quivered. “Father! Are you all right? What are—”
Soo Jin’s hand slipped over Eun Hee’s mouth. “Shh,” she whispered. Her muffled voice came from beneath the dead guard’s coat. “We’re OK, brother. Do what the men say.”
He filled his lungs with cold salt air. Jellyfish poked him in the ribs with the muzzle of his weapon, then waved it toward the cab. Gravel and ice crunched beneath Ko’s boots as he trudged toward it.
The engine turned over slowly, but finally fired. A pop loud as a gunshot came from the carburetor. Ko flinched, then sighed, relieved not to have to steal another truck’s battery or lie about his cargo as he asked for a jump start.
He shifted toward reverse and the gearbox grated. “Shit,” he muttered. He hadn’t depressed the clutch. Arthritic pain stabbed beneath his kneecap when he pushed the pedal. A short growling objection from the engine, and they were backing away from the harbor. Gas still registered three-quarters of a tank. “Where we going?” he asked.
Jellyfish pointed south and pressed two fingers to his ear, then said something in...must’ve been English. Sounded feeble, like a love-struck girl talking to a suitor. South Korea was nothing more than the United States’ bitch. So, the other commandos must’ve been American. But Americans didn’t have pumpkin-colored hair, did they? At least none he’d seen on bootleg Chinese CDs of Charlie’s Angels.
Jellyfish gazed through the windshield and said, “Chŏngjin.”
* * * *
Red peered beneath the flapping canvas tailgate cover as the truck jostled out the parking lot and accelerated down a wide, icy road. Tall marsh grass stretched two hundred meters east across a mud-flat, their tufted tops clumped with snow like a field of white cattails. Silver crystals stirred by the tires floated and spun, sparkling in the beam of the vehicle’s single working taillight. Red pulled the flap down, but snaps to secure it had long since vacated their post. He pulled his KA-BAR, cut a few thin strips from the edge, and used them to fasten down the blowing fabric.
Dr. Cooley tucked the trench coat collar back around the young girl’s neck, but left a breathing hole for the emaciated woman. He sat on a green wooden bench above the pair, stretched his legs out, and leaned against a metal pole that supported the rubberized tarp above. His deep sigh sent a swirl of frozen vapor to the top of the covering where it ballooned and twisted, then flew like an escaping spirit out an open seam. Red envisioned it swirling and mixing with the frozen exhaust, lost forever in the dark prison of North Korea.
“I could use a cigarette,” said the slender Pakistani doctor, rubbing his mouth.
“I thought doctors didn’t smoke.”<
br />
His eyes were closed, but one side of his lip curled. “Sure. And a dentist never eats sweets.”
Red jutted his chin at the bundle below his legs. “Still OK?”
“Maybe. Need to keep her warm. The chem-pack should help a little till her system can convert the protein bar to body heat. If the weather drops cooler, we can take turns huddling with her.” He lifted his head and scowled. “She looks like death warmed over. I’ve seen bad shit, like that refugee camp in Girdi Jungle. But something’s eating me about this one. Maybe because the communists are so damn pompous, denying these camps even exist.” He clasped his hands in front of him, as if resolved. “If we get the chance, I’m not going to kill any of the commie bastards. Just slice with a dirty blade.” Cooley had always possessed a vindictive streak.
“Just keep her alive.”
The doctor stood, steadying himself against the vertical metal pipe. “I’ll do that. I’m not the one you need to worry about. Better keep Gae from killing her brother. See the way he looks at him? He’d just as soon slit the man’s throat as shake his hand.”
Red silently cursed the CIA for their insistence on such a tight timeline. Two more days and he could have had his own Korean-speaking asset. Instead he was stuck with a half-cocked South Korean operator. He pressed the comm in his ear. “Gae, how long?”
“One and hap hour. Driver say two checkpoint on way. I say two hour.”
“We’ve got no real cover back here. Need something to hide us better before the first checkpoint.”
“Cigareettes and chocolate.”
“What do you mean? Crates? Boxes of them?”
“No. Driver say no check truck bed on big road. Only going on camp. He give guards cigareettes and chocolate with papers. Say, ‘In hurry.’ Then wave him through.”
Red leaned back against the cab. No window in it to spy on Gae riding shotgun. Richards was kneeling near the tailgate, peering between the canvas flaps, just like their last op in Iran. But then they’d had crates stacked in the bed, concealing them from any casual inspection.
He straightened his back. Fatigued as hell, but he couldn’t risk relaxing. Jim had always said, “Ops go to hell when you feel too comfortable.” The team would have to strap themselves to the bottom of the truck before they got to the MSS site. Unpleasant, but he’d done it twice before. And the girls? Leave them somewhere and pick them up on the way out. But he doubted the driver would agree.
Just then a shot rang out from inside the cab. The truck lurched sideways as if it would tip over, sending the huddled women sprawling against the bed’s steel side.
Chapter 28 – Not Broken
Langfang, China
Zhāng Dàwe rolled whiskey across his tongue, then down his throat, warming his esophagus. He inhaled deeply, hoping the fermented beverage would clear his clogged sinuses.
Four other apartments, stacked like concrete shoe boxes, abutted his own narrow space on the building’s eighth floor in Langfang, just outside Beijing. A packed brown suitcase leaned against his rumpled bed. He wriggled his toes, feet resting upon an upturned wooden box with circuit breakers, 450V stenciled on the side.
The thin man had worked his entire life for Yanje Group, tolerating meager cost-of-living increases each year, and only slight pay raises as his responsibilities grew. Only after his fingers went numb from decades of handwork could he afford his own apartment, without a roommate, in a part of town with new concrete streets etched in a bricklayer pattern. With electronics outlets on the first floor of every building, he enjoyed watching the younger generation attracted there.
He glanced at the suitcase with a tinge of regret. China sheltered such a beautiful, diverse society. His homeland. But even with the reforms of recent decades, the communists, at their core, were still the murderous henchmen of Mao Zedong, who’d driven his family from the fields they’d planted. In the swat of a fly, they’d reallocated lands, destroying generations of labor with empty lies. They were the reason he would strike. Yes, now this feeble old man—a single transformer in their massive electric system—would send a jolt they’d not forget. Zhāng was patient.
Another sip. Someone rapped on his door. He scowled. Too early for Ms. Yang, the slightly younger widow three doors down. They’d spent an evening together just last week. Her aged libido typically ran on an every-other-week cycle. Though he’d only had two fingers of the beverage, when he stood the room seemed to tilt, but righted itself as he strode to the door, smiling. No one there. As he stepped into the hallway, the stairwell door clicked shut. He shrugged and sucked the last bit of whiskey from the cup. Stepping back into the apartment, his bare feet crinkled over paper. Stooping, he pinched the edge of a sheet and lifted it: Tonight. One hour. Contingent location.
Zhāng glanced down both ends of the hallway once more, then shut his door, twisting the dead bolt and securing the chain. His last scheduled meeting with Blue Tie was tomorrow, after the EMP ran during early morning hours. Then he’d be on his way out of the country.
They’d never had an emergency meeting before. Why now? Blue Tie had always been so careful, following strict protocol, always communicating something like this through drops. Why had he risked such a public contact? Maybe it wasn’t Blue Tie at all. Maybe the Ministry of Intelligence had discovered him and now they were going to follow Zhāng to find out...what?
He strained his whiskey-dulled mind to make sense of it.
No, if MI had made Blue Tie, they would’ve just arrested him. But something had gone wrong. Maybe with the EMP. Maybe it was the Americans.
* * * *
An hour later, Zhāng paced a narrow alley behind a woman’s handbag outlet facing Xinhua Road. An occasional car zipped past the open end, tires slapping over a seam in the pavement, echoing coldly off metal dumpsters. Footsteps came up from behind. He turned to see a silhouetted figure in a suit swaggering down the alley toward him. Zhāng sighed in relief. By the thick build and slight limp, it was Blue Tie.
Zhāng backed into shadows between two trash boxes. “I’m here,” he said in a low voice when the man came into view. Blue Tie stood next to him, shoulders almost touching.
Zhāng tightened his grip on a length of rebar behind his back. He’d ground the tip to a point just a half hour earlier.
“It’s not working,” Blue Tie muttered.
“What isn’t?”
“The controller. They can’t get a signal.”
Zhāng held up a palm. “All is installed correctly. Exactly like the one we tested last year. Both power feeds are live. All LEDs on the controller are green.”
“But they can’t contact it. Did you install the antenna?”
“Just like the test. I even ran a continuity check and checked resistance. A hundred ohm, just like the specs say.”
The cold night air had sobered Zhāng, but Blue Tie still seemed to lean in. “Then you need to check it again. Make sure nothing changed. Troubleshoot it, just like in the instructions. Maybe someone was in the utility room and flipped a switch.”
“It’s not a place where anyone would be so careless.”
Blue Tie straightened his neck. “Check it. It’s got to be operable tonight.” He pushed his thick fingers into Zhāng’s chest, making him stumble against a dumpster. “If not, you don’t get out of the country. Ministry of Intelligence is going to know very soon the data center is a target. They’ll be on you when they find the device.”
Zhāng retightened his grip on the rebar as if it were the handle of a sickle. “If MI is onto me, they’ll be on you, too.”
Blue Tie spun, jerked Zhāng’s shoulder, and pinned his neck against a block wall.
Zhāng jabbed the rebar toward the other man’s stomach, but something gripped his wrist and wrenched the weapon away. Before he could blink, it was hovering over his own eye.
Blue Tie’s lips pressed thin as a knife cut. Wh
ite breath streamed from his nose. “There is but one way this works, old man....”
Zhāng gasped for air, but managed only a thin wheeze.
Blue Tie weaved from side to side. “And that is, you get into the electrical utility room. Tonight. And fix that damn controller. I don’t care what it takes. If it doesn’t work, I’ll kill you before you have a chance to talk. We’re watching. Understand?”
His grasp loosened enough for Zhāng’s chest to heave a breath. He spat upon the concrete. “Yes,” he panted.
* * * *
“Of course you didn’t know about it,” Zhāng explained a half hour later to a guard wrapped in a tight black uniform jacket, rubbing gloved hands outside a phone booth–sized shack. Thankfully, it was the short one. Zhāng was always able to make him smile with a joke. But tonight, he could think of none. “We’ve got it wired to call me if something happens,” he added. “One of the power lines went down. Everything’s still working fine off the primary. It’s just that we’re no longer redundant. And with this snowstorm coming tomorrow, we need everything running perfect. Please, I probably messed something up here earlier today. Let me fix it, or it’s going to be my ass.”
The guard rubbed his hands some more. Was the man looking for a bribe?
“Listen, it’s almost midnight. Wouldn’t be here unless I had to. I left your fat wife in bed calling for me.” With that, the man finally smiled and, shaking his head, opened the gate.
Zhāng stopped the truck next to the data center. A tech in a white lab coat peered from the utility room door as soon as he shut off the engine. Guard must’ve made a call.
“You again?”
Zhāng hung his shoulders in mock disgust. “Yes. Just closed my eyes when the phone rang, telling me the new power feed failed. Thanks for letting me in. Going to be a long night.”
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