“Good point,” Kurtzman said. “Then again, if it swells up into a brouhaha, we’re going to wind up being as distracted by it as they are. Maybe even more so. They could use it to their advantage.”
Another possibility occurred to Tokaido. “Maybe it’s not money they’re after,” he said. “Maybe they’re angling for an exchange.”
“I don’t follow you,” Kurtzman said.
“The defectors. Maybe they want to barter my cousin for the members of the nuclear team they can’t get their hands on. What’s the latest on that, anyway?”
“Well, so far they’ve killed one of the defectors and nabbed another one,” Kurtzman said. “We stopped them, though, in Chicago and Washington, and Mack’s on his way to Vegas in case they try to make a move for the guy there. That leaves just this Shinn guy who’s dropped under the radar.”
The two men continued speculating as to North Korea’s motives, but several minutes later Colonel Michaels returned to CRCC with news that validated Kurtzman’s initial suspicions.
“Your cousin just contacted his business partners in Seoul,” Michaels explained once Tokaido got off the phone. “His family’s being held in North Korea along with three other friends of his. The North’s asking for ransom.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea
Men and women, especially in the same family, were normally not allowed to share quarters at the concentration camp, but one of Lim Seung-Whan’s terms had been that he be allowed to be with his wife and daughter. After negotiating with Lieutenant Corporal Yulim and making the ransom call to his people in Seoul, Lim had been reunited with U-Pol and Na-Li in one of the barracks. His daughter had already fallen asleep on the straw-covered floorboards and Lim stroked her head as he spelled out the rest of the terms to his wife. U-Pol was exhausted, as well, but she forced herself to stay awake, looking for hope in her husband’s words.
“They wanted me to do a straight wire transfer of funds to an offshore bank account, but I refused,” Seung-Whan told her. “There was no leverage for me in doing that, so I told them it would have to be cash and that it would only be turned over once we were safely across the border.”
U-Pol nodded. “At Panmunjom?”
“Yes,” Seung-Whan told her. “The Joint Security Area. It will be our best chance of making sure nothing goes wrong.”
Seung-Whan saw the fatigue in his wife’s eyes so he quickly laid out the rest of the agreement he’d hammered out with Yulim. In addition to the cash ransom, the KPA would be allowed to keep Lim’s yacht. In exchange, Lim would say that he’d unwittingly ventured across the Northern Limit Line and concede that the North Koreans had been within their rights to seize the boat and take them into custody “for routine questioning.” Further, he would offer a public apology for having prompted the seizure and heightening tensions between the two countries. Instead of a ransom, the forfeiture of the boat and the cash payment would be referred to as a conciliatory gesture.
“No one is going to believe any of that,” U-Pol said. “At least, not on our side of the border.”
“I know that,” Seung-Whan said. “Everyone in Seoul will know it was kidnapping and that North Korea is just trying to save face as they line their pockets. Our stature will not be ruined.”
“I don’t care about our stature,” U-Pol said. She wiped back the tears welling in her eyes. “I just want this to be over with.”
“It will be,” Seung-Whan said. “Soon enough.”
“The others will be freed, too?” U-Pol said, glancing across the barracks at Ji Pho-Hwa and his son, Rha-Tyr, who were fast asleep on the floor along with the eighty other male prisoners crammed into the shabby barracks. Yulim had denied Seung-Whan’s request to allow Lhe-Kan to stay with her husband and son; she’d been forced to stay in one of the other barracks with the other women.
“Yes,” Seung-Whan assured his wife. “We’re all going home together and then we can start to put this all behind us.”
U-Pol smiled briefly, but when she looked around the barracks at the other prisoners, the smile faded.
“They won’t be so fortunate,” she whispered sadly.
“I feel for them, but there is only so much I can do,” Seung-Whan said. He reached out and wiped a tear from his wife’s cheek, then motioned to a spot on the floor next to their daughter. “Go ahead, get some sleep. It’s been a hard day.”
“What about you?” U-Pol asked.
“In a while,” he told her. He kissed the tip of his fingers, then pressed them to U-Pol’s lips. She reached up and clutched his hand, squeezing it tightly.
“I love you, Seung-Whan.”
“I love you, too,” he told her. “Now sleep.”
U-Pol eased down beside her daughter. Na-Li stirred slightly as her mother put an arm around her, then resumed her faint snoring. Within moments U-Pol was asleep, as well. Seung-Whan stared at them, feeling a renewed sense of shame for having placed them in this position. He vowed that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to them. For now, however, he had to hope things would work out. There was still much to be done before he and his loved ones would truly be free again, and he knew there was always the possibility that things could go wrong.
Lim had never been a religious man, but as he looked past his family and tried to catch a glimpse of the night sky through the slats in the barracks wall, the Korean, for the first time since he was a child, found himself praying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Las Vegas, Nevada
Mack Bolan glanced down at his watch and sighed: 12:04. Only a minute had passed since he’d last checked the time. Patience was a virtue, and taking part in a stakeout held about as much appeal to him as dental work. But there was little he could do about it. The first move would be up to the enemy, and there was still the chance that the REDI agents had been warned off and wouldn’t even show up. Bolan had no control over that. All he could do was wait and hope he and the others had made the right choice coming here.
The Stony Man operative was crouched behind a large trash container at the end of a cul-de-sac in Headliner Estates, a new Vegas housing development two miles west of the Strip. The roads running through the complex—all named after legendary Vegas performers—had been paved less than a week earlier, and Bolan could still smell the fresh asphalt in the late-night breeze. A half moon hung in the night sky, flashing its pale light on the skeletal framework of two dozen homes targeted for completion by year’s end. Three of the structures were finished already. One was the display home, located a block away just inside the security gates, where prospective buyers could get a sense of what a half-million dollars would get them in the present housing market. The other two homes were located on the Liberace Lane cul-de-sac where Bolan had positioned himself an hour ago. The house to Bolan’s immediate right had been bought by a family of trapeze artists that performed twice nightly at Circus Circus. The Flying Herreras weren’t home, however. Last night they’d been moved into a VIP suite at the Venetian so that FBI agents could use their place for a staging area as they kept an eye on the house next door.
The second home had been purchased earlier in the month by Kang Moo-Hyun, one of the defectors from the Korean nuclear team. Kang was presently ensconced at a fortified FBI safehouse in Carson City. His home had been taken over by yet another Bureau team headed up by Scanlon and a Korean-American agent who closely resembled Kang. Jayne Bahn was with the second team. Like Bolan, she’d wanted to take up a position outside, but Scanlon had overruled her. If Bahn held to her reputation for constant banter and wisecracking, however, Bolan suspected that by now Scanlon was regretting his decision.
As the minutes crept by, Bolan shifted his position slightly, relieving a cramp in his right calf. No one had ventured out of the two homes and the only activity he’d seen in the past hour had been that of a lone coyote wandering past one of the unfinished houses. Off in the distance he could see the ambient gleam of th
e Strip as well as the lights of planes lifting off or arriving at McCarran International Airport. Now and then a car would make its way along the main road leading past the housing complex, but Bolan doubted that the North Koreans would make so obvious an approach. More likely, he figured, they would arrive on foot, slipping down from the undeveloped foothills. From his post, Bolan had a clear view of the hills, where the Bureau had placed an additional four agents in the hope of intercepting the assassins before they could reach their destination. Bolan couldn’t see the G-men but assumed they were concealed behind some of the scattered clumps of mesquite and tumbleweed that dotted the otherwise barren landscape.
Bolan’d had a snack back at the urgent care facility in Laughlin, but as the stakeout dragged on, his stomach began to rumble. He tuned out the hunger pangs and busied himself with yet another cursory inspection of his small arsenal. Besides the Desert Eagle pistol clutched in his right hand, there was an M-16 assault rifle propped against the side of the garbage dumpster, and clipped to the ammo belt strapped around the waistband of his slacks were a pair of flash grenades and a wide-barreled Bellhauser 12-A flare gun. The Bureau had additionally given him a pair of night-vision goggles, but Bolan didn’t like the way they compromised his peripheral vision and figured he’d make do with the moonlight.
Bolan was also wearing a light-weight, bi-comm headset and, at a quarter past midnight, he got a call from Scanlon, who was posted at the rear window of Kang’s second-story rec room.
“We have a possible situation in the foothills,” came the whispered message.
Bolan waited for more details. When he didn’t get them, he asked, “How about some specifics?”
“We’ve lost radio contact with our men there.”
Bolan couldn’t believe it. “All four of them?”
“Affirmative,” Scanlon replied. There was tension in the man’s voice. “We’re calling in the chopper.”
The Bureau had an Apache assault helicopter on standby in a desert wash two miles from the housing development. Bolan, however, wasn’t about to wait around for the chopper’s assistance.
“Have someone take my post here,” he barked into his condensor mike. “I’m going to check it out.”
“We’ll handle this,” Scanlon snapped. “Stay your position.”
“I don’t think so.” Bolan had already grabbed his carbine and was moving away from the garbage Dumpster. “I’m on my way.”
ONCE HE’D SLIT the throat of the FBI agent he’d taken by surprise, Hong Sung-nam eased the man’s body to the ground, then crouched behind the nearest brush and wiped the blood from the razor-sharp, serrated edge of his combat knife. Thirty yards to his right, Yokota Ch’ang, the REDI agent he’d selected back in Goffs when Cho Il-Tok had failed to return to the safehouse, was sheathing the knife he’d just driven through the heart of a second Bureau officer. Two other Americans farther up the hillside had already been quietly dispatched by the Koreans. The third member of Hong’s team, Tahnk Woo-Ki, was nowhere to be seen; Hong assumed he was hiding somewhere off in the brush.
The REDI team leader was helping himself to the dead man’s pistol when Yokota caught up with him.
“I don’t like this,” Yokota whispered. “They know we’re coming.”
“I can see that,” Hong snapped. He was getting fed up with the whining of subordinates. Whatever happened to the days when underlings could be relied on to do their jobs without complaint?
“What do we do?” Yokota asked.
“Let me think!”
Hong stared downhill at the housing development. The plan had been for him and the others to slip into Kang’s home and hopefully take him alive so that they could question him as to the whereabouts of Shinn Kam-Song. But now it seemed clear that the Americans were in on the game plan. Hong felt a twinge of recrimination. Part of him suspected that Cho Il-Tok had been apprehended in Laughlin and blown the whistle on the operation, but he also knew there was a chance that the list of defectors he’d left back in Koreatown had provided the tipoff. In either case, it was clear that the mission had been compromised. He doubted now that Kang was even home. More likely, he figured, there were more Americans at the house, lying in wait.
Yokota broke Hong’s train of thought, hissing, “There’s another one!”
Yokota was pointing downhill. Hong peered toward the cul-de-sac and saw a man breaking clear of a trash Dumpster set between Kang’s house and another of the completed homes. The man darted between the two houses and made his way toward the foothills. He was carrying some kind of assault rifle. And, as if this weren’t enough cause for concern, Hong heard a sudden drone to his right and glanced over to see the blinking lights of a helicopter rising up into view less than a mile away. The chopper was mounted with a searchlight; as Hong watched, the high-powered beacon began to rake the ground below. It wouldn’t be long before the Koreans found themselves caught up in the harsh glow.
Hong knew he had no choice but to abort the mission and retreat. And the last thing he wanted to deal with was having a panicked colleague dogging his heels as he tried to escape the trap that had been set for them.
“We need to split up,” Hong told Yokota. “Stay here until I reach the ridge line, then follow me to the car.” Their getaway vehicle was parked a mile away on the other side of the hills.
Hong started to move away but Yokota grabbed his arm.
“I’m not staying here!” the younger man said. “I’m going with you!”
“You’ll wait like I said!” Hong snapped, shoving Yokota’s hand away. “That’s an order!”
Yokota glanced back down the hillside. The American was still a good hundred yards away, but he was clearly headed their way. Behind him, the door leading to Kang Moo-Hyun’s rear patio swung open and another two armed figures bolted out of the house.
“I’m going with you!” Yokota repeated, falling into step beside Hong.
There was no time to argue. Hong rushed uphill a few yards, then abruptly stopped and whirled, raising the pistol he’d taken off the FBI agent he’d just slain. The gun was equipped with a sound suppressor and when Yokota stumbled into Hong, the senior agent jabbed the barrel into the other man’s chest and pulled the trigger. Yokota staggered back a step and stared at Hong, dumbfounded.
“You left me no choice,” Hong told the other man.
Yokota made as if to lunge at Hong but crumpled to the ground before he could make his move. Hong left the man to die and crouched low as he began to retrace his steps back up the hillside. With any luck, he figured he might still yet live to fight another day….
TAHNK WOO-KI, the third REDI agent, had taken cover in a shallow gully fifty yards down from the hill crest. He’d killed one of the Bureau agents and had seen Hong and Yokota take out three others. Like them, he realized that they had lost the element of surprise. And, like Hong, when he’d first noticed the approaching helicopter he’d realized that he would soon be spotted.
But the thought of retreat had never entered Tahnk’s mind. A fifth-generation soldier, the young REDI agent had been raised with an ingrained sense of duty and devotion to country. For him, if worse came to worst, there could be nothing more honorable than to die on the field of battle. For him, the only question was how many Americans he could take out before he perished.
Besides his combat knife, Tahnk was armed with an Israeli-made Micro Tavor assault rifle, but he knew his only chance of bringing down the helicopter would be to lure it within firing range. Several tumbleweeds had collected in the gully alongside him. He reached out and pulled the bushes on top of him, hoping they would provide enough concealment that the chopper would have to swoop down low to spot him. Heart racing, the Korean thumbed off the MTAR’s safety and peered out through the dry, spindly branches at the helicopter. It was a few hundred yards away, but moving closer, following the beam of its searchlight.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Tahnk caught a glimpse of someone moving past him. He shifted slightly,
leveling the snub-nosed barrel of his assault rifle, but held his fire when he saw that it was Hong Sung-nam. The squad leader didn’t see him, and before Tahnk could call out to him, Hong had moved out of view. Tahnk assumed the other man was moving to a better position from which to make his last stand, so he turned his attention back to the chopper, only to spot further activity on the ground fifty yards downhill from the gully. Someone was zigzagging up the slope, heading directly toward him.
Tahnk cursed under his breath. He could no longer afford to wait for the chopper before betraying his position. Warily, he shifted beneath his cover and took aim at the approaching figure. His target continued to veer from side to side as he advanced, but the Korean kept his assault rifle steady and rested his finger on the trigger. With any luck, he could kill the advancing figure and still have a chance to take out the helicopter.
Soon the other man was less than thirty yards away. In the moonlight, Tahnk could see that the man was tall and broad-shouldered and that he was toting a carbine. He was varying his zigzags, but every few steps he wound up squarely back in the REDI agent’s sights.
A little closer, Tahnk thought, beginning to tighten his grip on the subgun’s trigger. Just a little closer…
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Mack Bolan was twenty yards from the gully when he saw the tumbleweeds in front of him stir slightly in the moonlight. There was no breeze, so he instinctively suspected trouble and pitched sharply to his right, then threw himself to the ground. A spray of 5.56 mm Parabellum rounds streaked past, barely missing him.
Forsaking his carbine, Bolan rolled to one side, then clawed at his ammo belt for the flare gun. He knew he was an open target and figured there was only one way to protect himself from being hit. Aiming skyward, he fired a flare, then cast the gun aside and closed his eyes as he continued rolling to his right. Once the flare went off, bathing the hillside in a burst of bright light, he unholstered his Desert Eagle and sprang to his feet.
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