The tech turned, skirted a cardboard box of light switches on the floor, then pushed open the data center door and disappeared. Zhāng waited for it to close, then quickly slid another crate in front like last time. Slowly, quietly, he pulled a remnant of metal siding from where it leaned against the wall, setting it gently onto the floor.
Wait—why am I trying to be so quiet? Wouldn’t I normally be making noise? Yeah, I’d be pissed for being dragged out of bed.
Banging and clanking as he moved the rest of the siding, he still couldn’t lose his paranoia. The last piece revealed the control box and conduit that hid the wiring harness to the capacitor banks. He’d eyed the antenna on the walk inside and all looked in order, still tucked neatly in a seam. Maybe that was the problem. Could the siding be interfering with the antenna? Maybe he should hang it elsewhere.
He squinted at the control box. LEDs indicated both power feeds were hot. However, the antenna LED wasn’t on. A close inspection revealed it was still plugged into the socket. But when he pushed on the connector, it slipped down, illuminating the LED. Had someone loosened it? He studied the light for a minute; then it switched off. Pushed it down again. The stretch on the antenna had drawn the connector out. He pulled slack in the wire then pushed the connector once more, wrapping it with electrical tape. This time, the LED stayed on.
He walked outside to his truck, placing a rock between the door and jamb to keep it from closing, then called the new number Blue Tie had given him. The ringing was answered with silence. Only a low hum in the background.
“It’s fixed,” he said. “Antenna came unhooked. Can you connect?” As he said the words, he remembered his pacemaker and laid a hand over it. But such a feeble shield would do no good. He reached inside his pocket for truck keys.
A young female voice spoke, her accent local, close to Beijing. “Still can’t see it. Are all LEDs lit?”
“Yes,” he said, glancing back at the door, wishing he’d straightened up the mess before he made the call. “You’re not going to activate it now, are you?”
“We’re not going to activate it at all if you don’t fix it.”
“I’ve done everything right! This is your equipment. It’s hooked up just like the test. Would the metal siding interfere with the antenna?”
A pause. “No. We’re...close. We tested for that eventuality.”
“What, then?”
“Hold.”
Zhāng pressed the phone to his ear and walked toward the warehouse, then turned back, remembering the phone would lose reception the second he stepped under cover.
A muffled yell came from within the data center. Then another, an answer, in a different tone. After a minute, the voice on the phone returned. “Recheck all your connections. Are all the LEDs lit?”
“Yes! I’ve checked them. All four are lit. We’ve got full power on both leads to the device. Continuity and resistance checks all the way through the system. If it’s not working, the device is at fault.”
A sigh from the earpiece. “You have very little time. Check again.”
“The other sites. They go down?” Stupid question. Blue Tie had been so anxious. Of course they’d gone down.
“The controller is not flawed. Get it working, or you don’t get out of the country. MI is on the way.”
Zhāng hit end, then threw the phone onto the gravel and stomped it under his boot. Damn Americans were just as incompetent as the communists. No matter what, he’d strike a blow, despite their bumbling. Thieving, murderous, socialists weren’t going to win this game of Xiangqi.
He ripped open a toolbox drawer from the bed of the truck, grabbed jumper cables, high-voltage insulated gloves, and a small quarter-inch steel plate he sometimes used as a makeshift anvil. He inhaled acidic molten-plastic fumes, spewing from an injection-molding factory’s chimney across the parking lot, the stench held low to the ground by frigid night air. He turned and ran toward the warehouse.
The short guard a hundred meters away was talking into the window of a white Toyota pickup. Damn, hadn’t he seen a similar vehicle parked across the street from his apartment the last few nights? Must be MI. No getting out now.
Zhāng yanked on the gloves and clamped one end of the jumper cables to the primary power feed, carefully holding the other end in the air. He faced the large cable spool from which the EMP would flash. He slipped safety goggles over his eyes and held the steel plate over his pacemaker. Probably a futile attempt to keep its circuitry alive, but worth a try. The machine only paced out ventricular tachycardia. His heart would still work without it, wouldn’t it? Maybe like a truck with flat tires. But he’d had one for almost twenty years, replaced every five.
He jammed the other end of the jumper cables onto the bare end of the wiring harness, bypassing the controller. Sparks flew from the connection, burning his cheek. A droning as from bagpipes filled the room. The EMP would fire when he broke the circuit, pulsing the capacitors. Warm heat from the jumper cables crept through his glove. He jerked them away and a drop of liquid copper hit the floor. The rebar packed into the middle of the spool clanked loudly as the magnetic impulse collapsed through it.
Zhāng’s heart stopped for a beat, maybe two, then seemed to strain hard on the next contraction. The loud beeping of an alarm rang from inside the data center. But not even that should be working, if the EMP was potent. He shoved the jumper cables onto the wiring harness again, sparks lighting the air. The room filled with the stink of ozone and burning hair. Molten metal scorched his shirt cuffs above where the gloves stopped.
He smiled—still had power.
He pulled back the jumper cables and another alarm sounded, this one closer. A new babble of voices rose from the direction of the data center. Instructions had said the controller would repeat the sequence a thousand times a second, so he batted the cable’s jaw against the wiring harness like a snare drummer on a roll. Sparks showered till the clamps were eaten through. His left arm began to ache. His breath came hard. One of the outside generators started and raced.
After a minute of more smoke and sparks, all alarms fell silent.
The door to the data center slapped against the crate. It grated across the floor as someone leaned a shoulder against it. “What did you do?” a tall tech asked, surgical mask crinkling under a long nose.
“Me? Nothing.” He staggered behind the pile of metal siding and pretended to inspect the control box. “Sparks just started flying in here. Must’ve been a surge. Look—burned my gloves almost clear through. I’m lucky to be alive.”
The room tilted, though he’d stopped drinking a while ago.
The outside door opened and the new, thick-chested guard he’d seen last week pressed in, squatting menacingly, gripping a black pistol.
Zhāng steadied himself against the wall, trying to stay upright. But his fingernails scratched weakly across the metal, and he fell upon concrete.
He lay there, barely conscious. He’d done it! He’d struck a wound with a filthy blade to weep putrid infection for years. The whoring communists would rebuild the data center, but with CIA-compromised components.
The guard knelt next to him, placing the muzzle of his pistol to his forehead, finger probing for his jugular. Now Zhāng couldn’t even open his mouth to curse the bastard child. He longed for death, for one last trick, to cheat the government of the satisfaction of inflicting it themselves.
As he descended into darkness, he realized he was already there.
Chapter 29 – New Wheels
Songpyong harbor, North Korea
The steering wheel shimmied under Ko’s grip as a tire hit a bump. A light tap on the brakes seemed to correct the vibrations for the moment. Worn steering knuckles, the motor pool would say. But he only needed this truck to last through the night. When he released the clutch it grabbed hard, the same way it had yesterday. Wheels spun on ice as they left the parki
ng lot.
Jellyfish rested his weapon in the crook of an elbow, muzzle still pointed toward Ko’s chest. Before leaving, the man had pulled a crisp green corporal’s uniform from a bag and pulled it over his black rubber suit. His eyes were like crinkled wax paper. Ko’s nephew’s eyes had looked the same when he’d sniffed too much ice. Ko sensed this commando enjoyed death—or at least inflicting it—like the sergeant of the guard at Hwasong who’d taught Ko so much. How to make it slow, elusive even. To know the exact amount of food a minder should give to keep the end close, but the Netherworld Emissary still hungry.
“The face is the best way to tell,” he’d said. “The body will eat itself alive, the brain last of all.” He’d pointed at a young boy in a cage, leg splint shattered, tongue protruding halfway from the mouth as if he lacked strength to draw it in. “That pig. See his eyes, how deep? We’ll feed him a little today, and keep him alive for a few more.” That sergeant’s own eyes had been detached, vacant, less alive than even that boy’s.
Just like Jellyfish.
Bang!
The shot rang from ahead and the truck lurched sideways. Next came a scream, hissing under the hood. The engine continued to run, though it clanked and rattled now, worse than when his father’s strapped-together outboard motor had blown a bearing. Ko strained against the slipping wheel and pulled the vehicle straight again. Not daring to brake too fast with a blown steering tire, they coasted to a stop in fifty meters.
He looked over at Jellyfish. The man waved his rifle’s muzzle, motioning outside.
Ko tapped lightly the first three notes of “Old Mr. Turtle” once more on the back of the cab. Silence. Then after a few seconds the next three notes returned.
He jumped onto packed ice. The passenger-side front tire was shredded, half the tread lying below the step rails. But what had the scream been? He knelt near the front bumper, ducking his head to look below. He inhaled the sweetness of hot coolant as it dripped from the radiator, melting through ten centimeters of ice to the pavement below.
A jagged square of fur dropped into the new pool. As coolant filled the hole, dim moonlight illuminated it...pink. Ko stood and climbed onto the front bumper. Jellyfish jumped out, pressed his ear, and spoke again as if to no one. Must have a radio, maybe talking to the men in the back, though at first he’d thought the devices in the man’s ears were swimming plugs.
The metal hood crashed like a cymbal as he lifted it. He shoved it hard, up till it rested against the windshield. A puff of vapor wafted past his cheek, again carrying the deceitful sweetness of antifreeze. He squinted into the truck’s open mouth, shielding his eyes from the headlight glare. They quickly adjusted, and plug wires, rocker covers, and steering gear appeared along with the rest of the machine’s vital organs. A half-moon glimmered on the radiator, newly cut aluminum glinting, sliced by the fan blade. He reached in and pulled out a piece of shredded belt, sighed, and jumped down.
Jellyfish stood looking down at the tire, still talking in a tone as if to a lover. What a weak language. He straightened his back. “What’d you find?”
Ko tossed a mangled, furry leg onto the snowbank. “What’s left of a cat. Rest of it’s on the road behind us. Must’ve crawled near the engine to stay warm when I was waiting for you. Best I can tell, the tire blew and it shook him loose, into the engine fan. It bent the blades and slashed the radiator.”
“You have a spare tire?”
“No. We could take one of the back ones. But the radiator’s dead. We’d be lucky to get a half kilometer before it seizes.”
* * * *
The shot had come from the front of the truck, near the cab. Red flicked the safety off his MP5 and knelt on the truck bed, stooping low. He lifted the canvas and saw the truck was sliding sideways, but then straightened. The side-view mirror reflected the driver’s face, eyes large with fear, but the man was still alive. So he hadn’t been hit.
They coasted to a stop. “Report!”
“Clear,” called Lanyard, weapon and head angling out the back to scan one side, then the other, optics over one eye. “No heat.”
Dr. Cooley had his weapon slung across his back, checking the girls for bullet holes or fresh blood. Lanyard jumped over him, pulled up the canvas, and cleared the other side.
“Bad tire,” Gae transmitted.
“Someone could’ve shot it out. Let the driver check it.”
A forest of tall evergreens with snow-stooped branches stood on either side of a road wide enough for three vehicles to drive. Red listened, ear pressed atop the bed rails, but heard only the crunch of ice beneath the driver’s boots. He turned the gain on the enhanced auditory all the way up till it buzzed like an elderly woman’s hearing aids in church, but the night was silent. He squeezed out below the tailgate flap, dropping onto an icy crust. Small drops of blood trailed in the snow between the truck’s tracks, like the time he’d shot a buck in the rump and Tom had helped track it for six hours. But then the crimson-dotted trail and hoofprints had stopped, as if the animal had just vanished.
The frigid air immediately frosted his nostrils. Gae pointed to a front tire, rubber strip peeling off like a busted tank tread. A bloody cat’s leg lay next to the wheel.
“Shit. Can we fix it?”
“No. Cooler beroken. Need new truck.”
Red pulled the cover from his watch. Six hours till showtime, a two-hour drive, and they needed at least an hour to get set and in position. That left three hours to secure a new ride. He turned to face the direction of the harbor. A sharp trench cut into the snowpack where the truck had slid sideways back there.
“We’re five klicks from the harbor. Maybe seven. There was another truck parked there. Looked to be a troop transport. You and the driver, run back and get it.”
Gae turned to the man and spoke in angry tones, or maybe that was just the way Korean sounded. The driver’s eyes searched the ground, then pointed a finger to the truck. “He say that same truck at harbor yesterday. No think it work.”
“Too bad. We’ve got no choice.”
“He say you kill girls now.”
“Tell him that’s not part of the deal. We’ll keep them breathing—as long as he comes back.”
An ironic twist of fate, Red thought. Three data centers in China were probably already destroyed, but his portion of the op in North Korea depended upon keeping an adolescent girl and her frail, disfigured aunt alive in zero-degree temps while their brother stole a truck, all because of a bad tire and a stray cat.
He could send Lanyard and Richards, but if they ran into natives they had no language skills and no disguise. The team could hijack another vehicle, but that could end badly if a local got a quick radio call out before they gained control of the situation. Pulling a trigger usually means you’ve already failed, Jim had taught him. He’d already killed one innocent civilian. Red owed it to the dead man to get the driver and two girls out.
He gripped Gae’s shoulder. The man’s finger rested on the trigger guard. The safety was off. “We need him back alive. Your life for his. Understand?”
Gae’s narrow eyes tightened. He pulled his shoulder free.
The only leverage he had on the guy was that a US Navy submarine was their egress. If Gae killed the driver now, chances of making it through checkpoints were slim. The Det would have to scan the road ahead with the UAV and come up with go-arounds, adding hours to their timeline. Red walked over to the tailgate as the driver and Gae jogged off down the frozen stream of a road, carefully planting their feet inside icy tread tracks, masking their own.
He pointed after them. “Lanyard, dig us a burrow inside the tree line two hundred meters that direction. Richards, go with him. Be our eyes around the curb. I’m taking position a hundred meters ahead. Cooley, get the girls ready to move. Keep ’em warm in Lanyard’s dugout.” That would be the coziest place for them in such an icy prison. He spat. It hi
t the ground without a crackle. Based on that, it was around ten degrees below zero.
Red jogged ahead, beyond the truck, also keeping his steps in fresh dual-wheeled tracks. The waffle-patterned tread crunched at each footfall. At a hundred strides, he jumped over the shoulder, landing just beyond a dirty snowplowed bank. One more pace, then he squatted on the lee side of a spruce behind a low drift. This vantage point provided a clear view of the next quarter mile before the road curved away again. He looked back to inspect his trail, satisfied his tracks were relatively inconspicuous. He leaned a shoulder against the tree’s trunk. Wind blew stinging ice up his nose. Too cold to even snow, he thought, as tree limbs crackled in a breeze of frozen rain. What a hellhole this county was.
* * * *
Pumpkin Beard gripped Jellyfish’s elbow, capturing the man’s gaze. He spoke in authoritative tones, but Ko could tell Jellyfish resented it. He shook his shoulder free, then came over and snarled, “We need to go back and get the other truck.”
“Who? All of us? My sister...she’s too weak.”
“No. You and I. We’re going to run back, stay out of sight, and steal one.”
Ko pulled himself up till he could see over the tailgate. The small commando—a doctor, they’d claimed—was kneeling beside Eun Hee and Soo Jin. “It’s OK, brother,” Soo Jin said. “Go get the other truck. We’ll be here when you return.”
Jellyfish passed his machine gun to the short one who knelt next to his sister, then held Ko’s pistol out to him. He accepted, holstering the weapon.
“You can’t go like that,” said Ko.
“Like what?”
“Your uniform. It’s too new. I saw an old jacket stuffed beneath the driver’s seat. Use that.”
The man disappeared around the side of the truck, then returned wearing a thin, oil-stained brown cotton coat, buttoned halfway.
“This isn’t proper uniform.”
“Of course it’s not. We’re not on parade. This way you won’t draw attention.”
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