Vital Force

by Trevor Scott

  “Really. What he give up?”

  She smiled. “He encrypted the files with a five-twelve something or other.”

  Fisher rose his head from the seat. “That son of a bitch. A five-twelve encryption scheme is impossible to break.”

  “But. . .” She thought about that, leaning back against the seat and turning her head toward the back seat. “She got the password for the encryption scheme.”

  “Cliff told her?”

  “Yes. Before she took off from the Eugene bank.”

  Fisher swished his head side to side. “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

  “Winston Churchill?”

  “Right. A nineteen thirty-nine broadcast, talkin’ about Russia.”

  She turned her head, her eyes on the Trooper ahead. “Somehow appropriate,” she said. “Let’s hope we figure out this mystery sooner than it took them. One more thing. Cliff was yankin’ your chain about posting the files on the Internet.”

  “Had a felling. I didn’t think Cliff was that stupid.”

  38

  Seoul, South Korea

  The regional flight from Dandong to Seoul had taken two hours. As far as Jake knew, their baggage had not been scrutinized thoroughly enough to find the gun broken down and separated between their bags.

  From the Seoul airport, they had gone to the train station and purchased with cash one-way tickets to Osan, some 45 miles south of the capitol city.

  Now, Jake and Su settled into their chairs in a commuter car among a wave of Koreans.

  Su rubbed her left wrist, which had swollen and turned black and blue, and was obviously giving her a great deal of pain.

  “Hurt much?” Jake asked her.

  She pulled her sleeve down over her wrist. “No. I’m okay.”

  The train slowly pulled away from the terminal and picked up speed. Shortly after coming to the surface, they passed through industrial areas and slums before reaching high speed in the country fields. At that rate, Jake thought, they would be in Osan in less than an hour.

  “Listen,” Jake said. “I don’t speak Korean, but maybe I can get you some pain reliever. It’ll help with the swelling.”

  Suddenly, Su’s eyes shot up toward the front of the car, her face ashen. Then her head shot out toward the aisle.

  “What’s up?” Jake asked her.

  “Nothing. I thought I saw someone I know.”

  Jake looked toward the front of the train and then back toward her. “In this car?”

  He had been rising in his chair somewhat for a better look, and she pulled him down. “It must have been a mistake. He’s from China.”

  Jake was going to let it go, but something had disturbed her, he was sure. “You need to tell me who you saw.”

  She rubbed her eyes with her right hand. “He was a bad man. He handle me.”

  “He was your handler?” Shit. That’s all they needed was a Chinese agent mucking things up. He glanced up at his backpack on the overhead rack, which contained the digital camera and the photos of the Chinese test site. How could they know where they were? Something wasn’t right.

  Less than an hour later, the train pulled into the central Osan station and the two of them collected their backpacks and drifted off the train with the crowd, Jake trying his best to keep them in the middle. Su’s eyes shifted around trying to find the man again.

  Without hesitation, they walked directly through the main lobby to the busy street. Jake nodded to the lead taxi and the man helped them put their bags in the trunk.

  He and Su got into the back and the driver got in and looked back at them. “Where to?”

  “Osan Air Base,” Jake said.

  The driver, missing two front teeth, smiled and said, “I guess that.” Then he drove off in a hurry. “I no go on base,” the man said over his shoulder. “Not allowed.”

  “No problem. Just drop us off at the front gate.”

  Osan Air Base was located some five miles south of Osan in an area of sprawling business parks that had once been rice paddies. The area just outside the front gate had grown along with the Korean economy, and had recently been incorporated into a new city.

  Jake, thinking back on his Air Force days, remembered that Osan was home to Seventh Air Force, with squadrons of F-16 and A-10 aircraft that could quickly respond to any attack from the north through the Demilitarized Zone. The base was also a major transport hub for Air Mobility Command, with daily flights to Japan and beyond. Including Alaska.

  As they approached the main gate, with its arched entrance and reinforced concrete barriers, Jake thought about his old friend, whom he knew was still stationed there, since he had e-mailed the man just prior to departing Austria, saying he would be nearby in China but would not have time to swing down through Korea. But life was full of surprises. He hoped his friend agreed.

  The driver pulled over to the right of the gate in an area used just for that. Jake and Su got out and retrieved their bags from the trunk, Jake giving the man a nice tip.

  “Now what?” Su asked him. She looked nervously at the security police airmen with their M16s across their chests.

  “Gotta see a man about a horse.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s just a saying,” Jake said. “Come on.”

  He led her toward a building that was still outside the gate, used to screen civilian contractors and visitors. Anyone who needed a pass to be on the base temporarily.

  Inside, Su stood back a ways as Jake went to a window with a female sergeant in battle dress uniform behind Plexiglas.

  “Hello Sergeant Jones,” Jake said. “I’m here to visit a friend. Lieutenant Colonel Stanley Bailey.”

  “Is he expecting you, Sir?” the sergeant asked.

  “Not today. Otherwise he’d be here to meet me. Could you please call him for me and tell him I’m here?” Jake slid his passport through the hole at the bottom of the window, which she picked up and viewed.

  She nodded and then clicked a few keys on her computer, obviously looking up Lt. Col. Bailey in the base directory.

  Jake turned and smiled at Su, who was nervously holding her left wrist with her right hand.

  “Sir,” the sergeant said, a phone in her hand. “He’d like to talk with you.” She slid the phone through the hole to Jake.

  “Jake Adams,” he said into the phone.

  “Hey. What the fuck? I thought you weren’t going to make it down here?”

  “Change of plans. I’m at the front gate.”

  “Be there in a second. Time for some brewskies.”

  Jake smiled as he slid the phone back through the hole and accepted his passport from the sergeant. He slowly drifted back toward Su.

  “Now what?” Su asked him.

  “Now we take a seat and wait.”

  She laughed. “Just like our military.”

  They took seats along the wall to wait.

  Ten minutes later, the door swung open and in rushed six Korean police officers, their guns drawn and aimed directly at Jake and Su.

  39

  “She’s on the move,” came a soft voice from the front seat.

  Fisher tried his best to wake himself, but his head was swirling about. Sitting up, he straightened his gun under his left arm.

  “Why aren’t we moving, then?” he asked.

  His question was answered with one look toward the front of the hotel. A small airport shuttle was parked and guests were loading their bags onto it, including the Asian woman.

  “Why’d she go through all this trouble?” Harris asked.

  Fisher thought and then got on his phone. He told the Portland Agency boss what was going on, and asked that a crew process the Trooper as soon as possible. He listened carefully and then clicked off.

  “You got a hunch?”

  “Yeah. Could be nothing. They processed her house in California and the crime scenes in Bend and Eugene.”

  “And?”

  Fisher didn’t respond immediately.
The revelation from Portland was difficult for him to process. “She’s worked for us in the past. Before we became the new Agency, though.”

  “Great. A former CIA agent?”

  “Double agent.”

  The two of them watched the airport shuttle pull away from the front of the hotel.

  Fisher got out and moved to the driver’s seat after Harris had moved back to the passenger side. He pulled out after the shuttle, but stayed far back. It wasn’t like he didn’t know where they were heading.

  The drive to the airport took only a few minutes. The shuttle dropped its load in front of the terminal, and Fisher, pulled over in a taxi zone, slammed his hand against the steering wheel.

  “Can you drive?” he asked Harris.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m gonna follow her.” He slipped out of the car and started after the Asian woman, who had a small carry-on bag that she pulled behind her.

  She went directly through the security area toward the international terminal. Fisher flashed his badge, keeping his eyes on the woman ahead, and was allowed to pass without incident.

  Overhead, a monotone female voice called out flights boarding in English and Japanese.

  Fisher pulled out his phone and punched in a number.

  “Harris.”

  “Hey, we’re heading down to the international terminal. Any idea what our folks look like down here?”

  “They said you met them last night. The homeless guy and the couple, along with a few other Seattle detectives. Also, you should have two other guys on your tail from the Ford.”

  Fisher looked back and saw a head bob up above the crowd, apparently looking for him. “Got him.” Then he glanced back to keep track of Li. He passed the United terminal Gate 28 with the flight to Beijing. The woman kept walking. “She’s not going to China.”

  A man got up from the United terminal and started out after Fisher.

  “Got the homeless guy,” Fisher said. “Only now he’s in a three-piece suit.”

  Again, overhead, Fisher heard the woman make a plea for passengers to make a final boarding at Gate 36. Shit. He quickened his pace to close in on her.

  “Not China,” Fisher said into the phone. Gate 36 was just ahead. He had no time to call Portland.

  The Asian woman went directly to the boarding area. The gate crew was about to close the doors, but held them for her as they processed her ticket. Then she went through the doors, which were closed behind her.

  Fisher stopped outside the gate in the wide corridor, people flowing about him like blood in a vein, a deafening cacophony of sounds all around him.

  Suddenly, a hand touched his arm. Fisher turned to see the Seattle Agency officer.

  “She got on the Korean Air flight,” Fisher said.

  “Do we stop the flight?” the Seattle man said. “Take her off?”

  Fisher thought for a second, for that’s all he had to decide. If they took her now, they would have no idea who she was currently working for, and he didn’t think for a second that she would give up her employer. But it was best to check with Portland.

  “Keep the car ready,” Fisher said to Harris in the phone. Then he clicked off and speed dialed Portland. He told the boss about their current situation and asked if they should stop the flight. The Portland boss came back with an emphatic “no.”

  Now they had no choice. Fisher ran back through the terminal, crashing through people who got in his way, until he got back to the drop-off area outside. He frantically searched for the car. Then he saw it fly up to the curb from around a couple of airport shuttles. He could see she was having a difficult time steering with one arm, so he went to the driver’s side and forced Harris back to the other seat.

  Behind the wheel, Fisher put the car into gear and squealed away from the terminal.

  “You all right?” Harris asked him.

  He didn’t answer. He was too busy weaving in and out of traffic.

  “I got the info on that flight,” she said. “It’s a direct flight to Seoul.”

  “And?” He finally looked at her for a second. She had her cell phone locked onto her right ear.

  “That gives us twelve hours to decide what to do with her. We could have our people detain her in Korea. Or, we could have her tailed there and see where she leads us.”

  By now they had cut across a side street and were about to head onto Interstate Five South. Fisher powered the car up to speed on the ramp, the engine roaring to life.

  “Who you on the phone with?” Fisher asked her.

  “McChord Air Force Base Operations.”

  “Great minds,” he said. “That’s where we’re heading. You get authority from Langley?”

  The Agency was divided into two areas of operations—internal and external. Although the two of them were officially assigned to internal U.S. operations, they were able to operate outside the U.S. with headquarters approval.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But they weren’t too happy about it. They said they have people in place also. They should be on the horn to McChord as we speak. The Air Force didn’t know me for shit. They needed approval beyond my pay grade.”

  They were on the outskirts of Tacoma now, the traffic not very heavy, since it was the weekend.

  Suddenly, Harris sat up into her chair and listened to the phone. “Excuse me?” Then she listened more. “You’re kidding, right?” She clicked off the phone and shook her head.

  “What’s up?” Fisher asked.

  “They got you a ride to Korea. Military aircraft.”

  “Just me?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Fisher flew through the morning traffic and saw the exit ahead for McChord Air Force Base.

  40

  The last few hours had been trying for Jake. The Korean security forces had pulled their guns on he and Su in the Osan Air Force Base Pass and Identification building, which, although was physically outside of the front gate, was essentially U.S. soil.

  Lieutenant Colonel Stan Bailey, in full battle dress uniform, 9mm automatic handgun drawn, had been backed by half a dozen Air Force Security Police rapid deployment forces with M16s locked and loaded. It had taken the Koreans exactly five seconds to realize their error, backing out and returning to their vehicles.

  Now, Jake sat with his old friend, Stan Bailey, in the waiting area of the base hospital. Bailey had used his rank, and, more importantly, his position as the tactical intelligence squadron commander, to have an Air Force physician x-ray Su’s left wrist. It had been fractured, and she was now getting a cast.

  “You got a tendency of finding trouble, Jake,” Bailey said, sitting down across from him.

  “I didn’t ask for this.”

  “Korean security wanted to haul that woman off. What the hell did she do?”

  Jake looked around. There was nobody in the waiting room but them. “She’s an Agency asset.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Bailey opened a folder on his lap. “I know that much, Jake. What do you know about her?”

  That was a question Jake had not considered since they met on the train that first day. What did he know about her? “When you work with someone, you learn a lot about them.”

  The colonel glanced down and then flipped through a few pages.

  Jake and Stan Bailey had first worked together in Germany while they were both captains in a tactical intelligence squadron. Jake looked at the rank on his friend’s collar. If he had not left the Air Force and started working for the old CIA years ago, and then gone private, he too would have been a lieutenant colonel. Part of him wondered how that would be, and the other part of him, that which enjoyed the freedom to come and go as he pleased, was glad he had chosen his current path.

  “You better look this over, Jake,” Bailey said, handing the folder to him.

  Taking the folder, Jake reluctantly sifted through each page, planting to memory all that was there. When he was done, he slowly closed the pages inside and handed the folder back to his friend.

&n
bsp; “Well?”

  Jake lowered his head. “I knew she had worked both sides.”

  “But she killed one of our agents.”

  “Yet, the Agency still found a reason to use her again. Why’s that?” Jake yelled out. He was losing it. He had to calm himself. Maybe he was still thinking about some of the ops he had been on, and how a couple of those had gone to hell. Although he had not killed his own agents, he had still not kept them alive. How culpable was he?

  “Are you sure she didn’t kill her contact in Harbin?”

  Jake shook his head. “No way. I was with her. He had just been tortured and killed.”

  “I talked with Agency headquarters,” Bailey said, hesitating for a moment as he thumbed the papers on his lap. “You didn’t send the photos you shot in the mountains.”

  “There was a problem with the cell phone they gave me. I got no signal.”

  Reaching into his side pocket, Bailey produced the cell phone Jake had been given. “This one?”

  The two of them, Jake and Su, had left their bags with a sergeant who worked for Bailey. “You gonna do my laundry also?”

  “We had to check them to make sure there were no weapons before we could bring them into our secure area. You understand.”

  Jake did. He would have done the same thing.

  “However,” Bailey continued. “We also found a .22 caliber handgun and a silencer, along with a clip full of rounds hidden in Su’s backpack.”

  “Shit! I put that there. Part in her bag and part in mine.”

  “What about the silencer? Where’d you get that?”

  “We were attacked in Dandong, China. At a hotel. Almost killed.”

  Bailey turned the phone around in his hands. “The phone,” he said. “It’s been tampered with. . . rendered inoperable.”

  Jake thought about running through the cold forest in China, and then ran back from the time it had been handed to him in China as part of the package from Steve Anderson, the think tank man. Who, other than Jake, had had access to the phone? There was only one person. And she worked for a Chinese cell phone company. Damn it.