Ballistic Force

by Don Pendleton

  “Which means unless our raid scared him off, he’s probably on his way to Nevada,” Kissinger surmised. “Just like us.”

  Scanlon nodded. “DEA’s selling that raid you were in on as strictly a drug bust. Hopefully Hong’ll buy it and stick to his game plan. We’ve got California Highway Patrol on the lookout for him, but if he’s worth his salt he’ll be able to evade any spot checks on the highways. I think our best bet’ll be to nab him when he tries to go after his next target.”

  “If I remember rightly,” Bolan recalled, “the next guy on that list lived in Vegas, not Laughlin.”

  “Good memory,” Scanlon said. “We’re changing our plans accordingly. You guys wanna play along?”

  “What do you have in mind?” Bahn asked.

  “Well,” Scanlon replied, “judging from how the three of you went gangbusters during that raid, I’m thinking you’d rather see some action instead of sniffing around Laughlin for this guy who’s third on the list.”

  “You get points for flattery,” Bahn countered, “but you’re going to have to cough up more specifics.”

  Bolan figured he knew where this was going and told Scanlon, “You want us in Vegas instead.”

  “Bingo,” Scanlon said. “We’ve got the defector there under lock and key, but we figure if we plant a look-alike at his digs along with some backup, REDI’ll come in light and we’ll be able to get the upper hand on them.”

  “And you want us for the backup,” Kissinger guessed.

  “At least part of it,” Scanlon said. “We’ll have a crew there, but we’re spread thin looking for the Laughlin guy at the same time, so a few extra bodies couldn’t hurt.”

  “Works for me,” Bahn said. “I just talked with my people and I’m green-lighted to follow through and see where this takes us.”

  Bolan quickly weighed his options. Barbara Price had already asked him and Kissinger to help with the search in Laughlin, but Scanlon had been right in pegging him as someone who preferred the more proactive course. Fortunately his standing as a Stony Man operative was such that he could unilaterally change his plan of attack as developments dictated. He turned to Kissinger.

  “How about if we split up,” he suggested. “You can take Laughlin and give that ankle a breather.”

  “While you have all the fun?” Kissinger retorted. “I don’t think so.”

  “Look, before this is over you’ll have more chances to jump into the fray.” Bolan nudged the aluminum crutches Kissinger had propped against the seat next to him. “You might as well give yourself a chance to recuperate.”

  Kissinger thought it over, then nodded. “All right, all right. Laughlin it is.”

  Bolan turned back to Scanlon. “Count me in.”

  “Same here,” Bahn chimed in.

  Kissinger stared at the woman bounty hunter, then grinned at Bolan. “Looks like I bailed just in time. Good luck, buddy. You’re going to have your hands full.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Laughlin, Nevada

  Although the casinos in Laughlin were set along the banks of the Colorado River, the town’s population, for the most part, lived a few miles inland, just west of a huge, coal-burning power plant that today, like most days, disgorged a steady plume of dark smoke from its towering exhaust chimneys. Randall Howland, a thirty-year veteran of the FBI, had spent most of the morning choking on the smoke as he maintained surveillance on the home of Li-Roo Kohb, one-time propellant expert for the Kanggye nuclear team. Howland had parked his nondescript Chevy sedan on the shoulder of a crestline road overlooking the defector’s neighborhood. Another two agents were biding their time downhill in a second car parked just past the stop sign where Li-Roo’s street intersected with Casino Drive. They’d been on stakeout now for the better part of three hours, waiting for the defector to return home or, better yet, for a sign of the REDI crew that was supposed to be in town looking to kill Li-Roo or at least abduct him and drag him back home to North Korea.

  Howland was beginning to think they’d begun their stakeout too late. Maybe, he thought, the reason the man hadn’t answered the door earlier was because he was lying dead inside his house, already taken out by the same men who’d killed his colleague, Yong-Im Hyunsook, back in Los Angeles. That, or maybe the scientist had already been abducted. In any event, Howland had had his fill of twiddling his thumbs and breathing the exhaust from the power plant. Reaching inside his car, he keyed the dash mike and contacted his colleagues down the hill.

  “This is getting us nowhere,” he told the others. “I say we go back to Li-Roo’s place and invite ourselves in.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation before the driver of the second car replied, “Done. We’ll meet you there.”

  Howland got into his car and drove down to Casino Drive, then circled around the power plant to Yancy Drive. Li-Roo Kohb lived halfway down the block in a small, twenty-year-old starter home set back on a small plot of land that, like most of the other residences on the street, had forsaken lawns in favor of cacti, succulents and other drought-resistant plants capable of withstanding Laughlin’s brutally hot, arid summers. There were a few people out, some tending to plants, others lazily basking on their front porches in the late-afternoon heat. One of Howland’s colleagues had already gotten out of the other car and was approaching the defectors’ next-door neighbor, holding out his FBI badge. The man’s partner, Agent Sandra Pearle, was standing next to the car, which had been parked two houses down from Li-Roo’s home.

  “We should’ve done this in the first place,” she told Howland after he’d parked and joined her.

  “Hindsight,” he murmured, leading the way up the front walk. When they reached the door, Howland knocked, then rang the bell. Pearle glanced around as she nonchalantly pulled a G-issue Colt pistol from her shoulder holster. She kept the gun concealed from view of the neighbors and waited for Howland to trip the lock. Her partner drew his gun, as well, then swung the door open.

  “FBI,” he announced.

  The only response was the chirping of a canary somewhere inside the house. The two agents did a quick room-by-room search. There was no sign of Li-Roo Kohb and the house seemed undisturbed. The canary was caged in an alcove just off the kitchen.

  “I’ll check the garage,” Pearle told Howland.

  Howland nodded, then began to retrace his steps through the house, inspecting each room more thoroughly for some clue as to Li-Roo’s whereabouts. He was in the den when Pearle rejoined him.

  “He’s got a canoe and some fishing gear in the garage,” the woman reported, “and there are a couple pairs of hiking boots by the door, so obviously he’s the outdoors type.”

  “Not much to go on there,” Howland muttered. They were interrupted by a knock at the front door. Howland whirled with his gun but held fire. It was the third agent, Bryce Thompson.

  “Easy,” Thompson said. “It’s just me.”

  Howland filled Thompson in on what little they’d found, then asked, “You come up with anything?”

  “Couple things,” Thompson reported. “The gal next door says Li-Roo likes to keeps to himself, so she doesn’t know much about him. She says most days he’s out of the house by eight and doesn’t get back until after sundown.”

  “We just missed him,” Howland said, recalling that their stakeout had begun shortly before nine. “What else?”

  “She says there were a couple cable guys here yesterday afternoon,” Thompson said. “They were here nearly an hour.”

  “Korean?” Pearle asked.

  “She’s not sure. Definitely Asian, though.”

  “Sounds like the same MO REDI used with that guy in L.A.,” Howland said. “Which means they’ve probably already tossed the place.”

  “Maybe we should check for prints,” Pearle suggested.

  “Yeah, maybe so.” Howland considered another possibility. “Could be they’ve been watching us during our whole stakeout, too.”

  “If that’s so, we’ve pretty much blown our co
ver.”

  “Not much we can do about that now. Let’s keep looking around here,” Howland suggested. “We still need to figure out where the hell Kohb spends his days.”

  “If REDI’s been here, they probably already know,” Thompson remarked. “Which puts us a step behind them.”

  “Thanks for sharing that,” Howland groused. He turned his attention back to the den. Li-Roo had a state-of-the-art sound system with a karaoke counsel and a carousel filled with more than a hundred CDs, mostly by jazz artists and Korean pop singers. There was a bookcase built into the wall, but it was empty except for a few library books, two devoted to local hiking trails and a third entitled How to Win at Texas Hold ’Em. On the bottom shelf, though, there was a ceramic bowl filled with candies, stray keys and a few packs of matches. On a hunch, Howland zeroed in on the matchbooks. The hunch paid off.

  “I think I’ve got something,” he called, grabbing the phone next to the stereo. He dialed the number on the one of the match packs. After a few rings he found himself talking to the operator at the Laughlin Shores Casino.

  “Do you guys have a poker room?” Howland asked.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Camp Bonifas, South Korea

  Akira Tokaido awoke with a start to the persistent bleeping of his travel alarm. He muttered to himself as he untangled one hand from under the covers and reached over to shut off the alarm. It was a little after four p.m., South Korean time. Tokaido had hoped a quick catnap would take the edge off the fatigue he’d been battling since arriving at Camp Bonifas, but he felt every bit as tired as when he’d nodded off. And the situation he’d gone to sleep worrying over promptly began to hound him all over again.

  After several years of corresponding and talking by phone with his cousin, this was to be the first face-to-face meeting between Akira and Lim Seung-Whan, and Tokaido had been under the impression that Lim was looking forward to the occasion as much as he was. But since arriving at Camp Bonifas, Tokaido had tried several times to reach his cousin without success. No one was answering the phone, either at his home or at Lim’s cell number. He’d left messages, as well, but his calls had yet to be returned and the young man was troubled by the silence. He knew that Lim had planned to take his family on a weeklong fishing trip on the Yellow Sea, but they were supposed to have returned two days earlier, not only because of Akira’s visit, but because the Seoul Sky-Eagles—the professional baseball team partly owned by Lim—were in the thick of a pennant race and Seung-Whan had made it clear how much he was looking forward to taking in this weekend’s crucial home series with the first-place Lotte Giants. Given all this, Tokaido knew that Lim wouldn’t have deliberately prolonged his fishing trip, and yesterday he’d double checked maritime conditions on the coast near Incheon, thinking inclement weather might have waylaid his cousin. But the sea had been as calm as the skies had been clear, so there had to be some other explanation for Lim’s being incommunicado.

  Tokaido’s cell phone was on the dresser of the officers’ quarters where he was staying for the week. He’d left the phone on in hopes Lim might call, and his spirits rallied when he saw that someone had indeed left a message. It turned out, however, that the call had been from Barbara Price back at Stony Man Farm. Tokaido showered first, then dressed and pulled his long black hair into a ponytail before returning the call. The mission controller wasn’t available, so Tokaido asked to be patched through to Aaron Kurtzman at the Annex.

  After they exchanged a quick greeting, Kurtzman told Tokaido the reason Price had called.

  “Look, I know your plate’s full out there,” Kurtzman said, “but there’s a new wrinkle to this whole mess that you might want to keep an ear open for.”

  Tokaido quickly tracked down a pen and paper, then scribbled notes as Kurtzman apprised him of the latest developments involving attempts by North Korean REDI agents to abduct members of the Kanggye nuclear team.

  “If you come across any intel mentioning the defectors,” Kurtzman concluded, “you might want to give it top priority, because if the KPA spells out where they plan on bringing these guys, odds are we’ll find the missiles there, too.”

  “It’s definitely worth a shot,” Tokaido admitted. “I’ll get on it first thing.”

  “Listen, Akira,” Kurtzman went on, “I don’t know if it’s just the connection, but you sound exhausted. Were you out partying with the relatives last night?”

  “I wish.”

  Tokaido told Kurtzman about the problems he’d had getting in touch with his cousin.

  “That’s strange,” Kurtzman said. “If you’re really concerned, maybe you ought to head down there and check things out. It’s only an hour drive to Seoul from where you are, right?”

  “Something like that,” Tokaido said. “I can probably wrangle a chopper ride and get there even quicker. I want to wait until a little later, though. I keep thinking there’s been some kind of mixup and I’ll still hear from him.”

  “You don’t sound very convinced of that,” Kurtzman said.

  “Maybe not,” Tokaido confessed, “but it beats thinking about the alternatives.”

  “I can understand that,” Kurtzman said. “Well, keep us posted. And if you come up with anything on that defector angle…”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll get right on it and give you a holler if we get lucky.”

  Tokaido wrapped up the call, then tried Lim again. There was still no answer. Anxious for some kind of news, he tried Lim’s office. Seung-Whan was CEO of a computer-electronics firm in Seoul bearing the family name: in fact, it had been the profits from Lim Systems International that had allowed him to buy his share of the Sky-Eagles baseball team. Tokaido managed to speak with Lim’s executive secretary, but she hadn’t heard from Lim and wasn’t expecting him back in the office until the beginning of the following week. She offered him some fleeting hope, however, explaining that Lim owned a beach house near Incheon and might have stopped over there after the fishing trip. The house didn’t have a phone, but Tokaido assumed Lim had his cell phone with him and should have received his earlier messages. Things still didn’t add up, at least in any way that was reassuring.

  “Where are you, Seung-Whan?” he muttered as he hung up.

  Tokaido slipped his cell phone into the same carrying case that held his laptop and the notes he’d compiled during his long hours at the base’s Communications and Radio Control Center. Though he wasn’t hungry, he stopped by the cafeteria for an early dinner. The food was standard Army fare: bland but filling. He stared into space as he ate, trying to suppress his growing concern over Lim’s whereabouts. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice an officer approach his table. The man had to wave a hand in front of Tokaido’s face to get his attention.

  “Sorry,” Tokaido said in apology, staring up at U.S. Army Colonel Thomas Michaels.

  “You weren’t in your room, so I figured I might find you here,” the officer told him.

  Although Camp Bonifas was technically home of the United Nations Command Security Battalion, the U.S. Army’s 2nd Armored Division comprised the majority of the base’s actual manpower, and Michaels, who headed up intelligence operations along the DMZ, was third in command at the facility. A tall, hawk-nosed Seattle native, Michaels had been Tokaido’s primary contact the past week. Normally the man had a surprisingly easygoing demeanor, but as he took a seat, Tokaido noticed that the colonel’s expression was grim.

  “I think we might have something on your cousin,” the colonel told the Stony Man cyber warrior. “If we’re right, I’m afraid the news isn’t good…”

  LESS THAN TEN MINUTES later, Tokaido was sitting at his station at CRCC. The room, half the size of the Annex Computer Room back at Stony Man Farm, was located on the second floor of the UNCSB Administration Building. A bank of windows along the north wall overlooked the exercise yard, where a handful of new Hummers delivered from Seoul were being unloaded from a semi-rig. Beyond that, uniformed troops were out training in the surrounding hills a
nd, far in the distance, a South Korean flag flapped in the breeze from the center of Daeseong-dong, the only inhabited village located inside the DMZ. Tokaido was oblivious to the activity, however. He was still reeling from Colonel Michaels’ news.

  Less than an hour ago, the Army Intelligence radio crew had intercepted a KPA military communiqué in which a senior officer boasted that the day before a naval unit of the Bureau of Reconnaissance had managed to get their hands on a South Korean fishing yacht moored just off the coast of Gyondongdo, a small island in the Yellow Sea forty miles north of Incheon. They’d incarcerated those aboard the boat, which was presently en route to the North Korean military port in Sinsaeng. For now, according to the pirated dispatch, the plan was to dole out use of the yacht as a perk for naval officers with high-performance ratings.

  “I know there aren’t many specifics,” Michaels said, pointing to the transcript Tokaido had just read over for a second time, “but there are just too many coincidences. It sounds like the same-size boat you said your cousin had taken out fishing in that area.”

  “Yes, I know,” Tokaido conceded wearily. “But I don’t understand. Gyondongdo is located on our side of the maritime line. Seung-Whan wouldn’t have strayed into North Korean waters. He knows better.”

  “Even if he stayed on our side,” Michaels said, “North Korea has been disputing that line ever since it was drawn up, and they have no qualms about crossing it, believe me. This isn’t the first ship they’ve snatched. Hell, they’ve even come ashore on a couple of these islands looking to abduct people. It’s happened twice this month that I know of.”

  “Still,” Tokaido murmured. “It’s so hard to believe.”

  “I hear you,” Michaels said, “and I’m sure it’s the last thing your cousin expected. No offense, but he’s well-off and it’s easy for people of his station around these parts tend to get a little complacent. They don’t realize how much can go wrong if they stray out of their element. We’re in a war zone.”