CHAPTER 21
Friday, March 20, 3:15 p.m., Washington, DC
Nam loosened his tie and tried to focus on the speaker. It was only polite to listen to other presenters at the symposium, but he desperately wanted to be outside, walking around the capital. This was his first trip to the United States, and he hated to spend the whole time inside a hotel, listening to lectures. Defect. The thought kept coming back to him. If he asked for political asylum, he could live here in DC and never go back to North Korea. The idea was so tantalizing. To live in this free country, where people did and said whatever they wanted—even criticized their own government! He’d learned that in the first few hours he’d been at the symposium.
If he were not alone in the world, he would never consider defection. But his parents had died young, and he was an only child. Sung, his beloved wife, had been eaten by cancer the previous year. So there was no one for Kim Jong-un to kill as punishment. Now was the time. Maybe the only opportunity he would ever have. Did he need to claim political persecution?
Nam glanced at his bodyguard beside him, a military policeman with handcuffs, a stun gun, and the legal authority to detain him. How would he escape him? North Korea’s leader had allowed Nam to attend the symposium because the young dictator was thirsty for cutting-edge digital technology that could protect his secrets and keep hackers from opening up the internet to the North Korean people. He’d also sent Dukko Ki-ha, this unblinking military policeman, to keep watch.
Nam reminded himself he was fortunate to have only one bodyguard. That meant Kim Jong-un trusted him, as much as he trusted anyone. Nam had never been anything but a good citizen and professor, and once he’d been ordered to work for Kim Jong-un’s administration, he’d become a passionate encryption expert, now considered one of the best in the world. His country needed money, and Kim Jong-un was using him to help develop a variety of digital technologies he hoped to auction for millions each. Cyber security had many facets, and Nam was here to learn, as well as to give a presentation. But all he could think about was defecting.
What if he failed? He would disgrace himself and his country, then be sent to a work camp where his days would be filled with torture and backbreaking labor until he died an early death. The thought made his hands shake. Nam quickly pushed them under his legs. He must not draw attention to his behavior or seem nervous in any way. In his heart, he’d known since he’d risen that morning that this was his destiny—yet it had taken his mind all day to accept the risk. It was time to plan.
He would wait until they were out in the hall between lectures, then head for a bathroom. Ki-ha would stand outside the door. But how to distract him? Nam had no idea. A simpler plan seemed best. He would wait for an opportunity to disappear into a crowd of people—who were mostly men his age, all wearing suits. Then he would find a place to hide.
Ten minutes later, the lecture concluded, and Nam stood, still clapping. He had no idea what the presenter had said and he didn’t care. He was about to tear away from everything familiar and throw himself at the mercy of the American government. Heart pounding so hard he feared his guard could see the pulse in his throat, Nam grabbed his laptop case and walked toward the exit. Slipping his slender frame in between other attendees, he moved quickly, a wisp of a man who was light on his feet. The guard kept pace, though, and was right behind him as he entered the crowded foyer. Nam turned to Ki-ha and spoke in their native language, indicating he needed to use the facilities.
Nam hurried off, weaving through clusters of attendees all going the other way and talking excitedly. Maybe the restroom would have a vent he could slip into. Or should he just make a break and run? How far could the guard’s stun gun reach? If he made it outside and hailed a cab, he could reach the State Department in ten minutes. But if he succeeded in defecting, Ki-ha would be punished, maybe executed. Guilt gripped him, and he lost his courage.
Don’t sacrifice yourself. You have a lot to offer a new country. His wife’s voice echoed in his head. Legs trembling, Nam pushed forward, unsure. Blood from his pounding heart overwhelmed his brain, and he couldn’t think anymore. He spotted the bathroom sign and the familiar English words, and relief rushed over him. At least he could physically separate himself from his guard to think. Nam turned to Ki-ha and excused himself. The stoic man nodded and stepped back against the wall.
Inside the facility, Nam counted the stalls. The sixth one was empty. He hurried into it, bent over, and tried to calm himself. He could do this.
Harlan Romero watched the Korean tech guy go into the restroom. Yes! The other guy with him, who looked like a badass, stayed outside. Even better, the bathroom sat at the end of the hall, with double doors leading into the hotel’s banquet kitchen. Harlan leaned toward Rocky and whispered, “We need someone to distract his guard. Then we chloroform the tech guy in the restroom and haul him out through the kitchen. It should be pretty empty at this point in the afternoon. The loading dock is right outside the kitchen doors.”
Rocky shook his head. “He doesn’t look very distractible. That expression could cut through steel.”
“He’s human. There has to be a way.” Harlan racked his brain for a plan. He and Rocky had talked this through a dozen times, and even consulted with Shawn, but they never knew how it would play out until it did. The first two kidnappings had gone smoothly, but they’d had less time to plan this one and had spent more time traveling to get here. At least he’d been able to sleep on the flight. As the pilot, Rocky was exhausted and eating chocolate-covered coffee beans to keep going.
They were counting on the security-guard uniforms they’d acquired to make them look as if they were just doing their jobs by escorting an unconscious man out of the building. Rocky had wanted to wait until the North Korean was in his hotel room, but Harlan thought the bodyguard would be more of a risk in a private setting. The man walked like he was carrying, and Harlan didn’t want to get shot.
“We could call in a bomb threat,” he suggested.
Rocky shook his head again. “The hotel might go into a lockdown.”
They were across the hall from the bathroom, facing each other, about fifteen feet from the bodyguard. Their faces were disguised with dark makeup, big noses, and glasses, but Harlan felt more nervous about this abduction than the first two. The conference crowd was way more public than the parking garage or the backstage area of the theater. Plus, this was the capital. FBI headquarters was across town. If the Korean bodyguard called the police, the hotel would be crawling with feds in minutes. But would he make that call? Or would he contact his own boss first?
Too bad the protesters out front were so peaceful. Their signs were a little hard to figure out, but he thought they were objecting to the government spying on cell phones. Or maybe it was the shortage.
“I’ve got it,” he said, giving Rocky a gentle rap on the shoulder. “Go out there and tell the protesters that they’re giving away free cell phones and computers in here. Lead a few down this hallway and point to the Korean bodyguard as the guy to ask.”
Rocky blinked, then grinned. “That’s crazy, but it just might work.”
“Go,” Harlan urged, still whispering.
While Rocky hurried down the long corridor, Harlan headed for the restroom. He needed to be in place and ready with the chloroform. Who knew how long Nam would be in there. What kind of name was that anyway? The crowd in the corridor had thinned out some as the attendees filed into big meeting rooms to hear more speeches. Too bad. The more people, the more chaos when the protestors pushed into the hotel and demanded free cell phones. Looting was happening everywhere now, and no one would equate this incident with a missing North Korean tech guy. Officials might even think he’d disappeared on purpose—so he didn’t have to go back.
When Harlan walked by the bodyguard, he nodded, one security man to another. The North Korean didn’t respond. Fuck him. Inside the restroom, a skinny young man stoo
d in front of a sink, checking his face in the mirror. Otherwise the space was empty. Where was the tech guy? Trying not to be obvious, Harlan stepped toward the wall and looked down the row of stalls, checking for feet under the green metal doors. There, on the end. Dark dress shoes and black pants.
A commotion erupted on the other side of the wall. Thundering footsteps and dozens of people calling to one another with excited shouts. The preening guy spun toward the door, mouth open.
“You’d better clear out of here.” Harlan couldn’t resist using his fake authority.
The skinny guy bolted toward the exit. Harlan moved quickly toward the end stall, pulling the rag and chloroform out of his jacket pocket. Was the bodyguard preoccupied by now? Or would his instinct make him rush into the bathroom? Harlan prepped the rag with a heavy dose, just in case he had to use it on the guard too. The smell hit him hard, and he felt light-headed for a moment. Holding the rag at arm’s length, he tucked the bottle away with his other hand and gave a quick rap on the door. “That goes for you too. We’re evacuating the hotel.”
The tech guy stepped out, a nervous twitch in his eyes. “I need your help.”
Harlan made a quick decision, slipping the noxious rag into his pocket. “With what?”
“I want to defect from North Korea.” His speech was stilted but his English was fine. “Can you help me get away from my guard and take me to the State Department?”
Oh boy. Sometimes luck swung his way. “Sure,” Harlan said. “We’ll go out through the kitchen.” He slipped an arm around Nam’s shoulders and led him to the door. The noise outside was raucous, and he heard Rocky shouting something. A wave of fear rolled over him. “Let me check the hall.”
Harlan opened the door about four inches and peered out. The guard was right there, with his back to him. A group of three ragged-looking protesters were in the guard’s face, demanding cell phones. Rocky was nowhere to be seen. The guard shouted back in a foreign language, then spun toward the restroom. Harlan pulled out his rag as he jerked open the door and shoved it into the guard’s face. The protesters looked on open mouthed, then staggered back. One bolted. The Asian man brought up his arms and grabbed the cloth, but his knees buckled and he went down in a thump. Harlan jerked the rag from the downed man’s grip, then reached back into the bathroom and grabbed the tech guy’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Rocky was suddenly there, coming from the direction of the kitchen doors. “It’s clear. I sent the dishwashing crew out through the banquet room.”
Yes! They were going to pull this off.
One of the remaining protesters called out, “Hey! What’s going on?”
Harlan started to respond, but another protestor knelt down and pulled a cell phone from the bodyguard’s pocket. Two others leapt on him and tried to take it.
Rocky stepped to Nam’s other side, and they walked him through the kitchen and out the back doors to the loading dock, leaving the chaos behind. Once they were in the stolen van, Harlan held the rag to the tech guy’s mouth and he passed out. While Harlan secured him with duct tape and nylon handcuffs, Rocky started the vehicle and drove down the service alley.
Now they had to get him on the plane, but that seemed easy in comparison. Shawn would be pleased. After bungling Bowman’s transport and failing to kill the FBI agent, Harlan needed a win. Shawn was hard to please, but very generous when he was happy. Once Harlan had the bonus money Shawn promised, he planned to get the hell away, maybe settle in Oregon or Colorado and open a pot store. He’d spent his whole life trying to please his friend, and he didn’t know why. Shawn seemed to be headed for a meltdown, and it was time to move on.
CHAPTER 22
Friday, March 20, 2:30 p.m., Washington, DC
Jocelyn pulled into the underground parking garage at the new consolidated crime lab, eager to hear what the experts had to say about the microchip she’d dropped off earlier that week. She and her partner had made little progress on Zach Dimizaro’s murder, and they were counting on the chip’s data to give them a lead. She passed the morgue’s entry and took the elevator to the cyber unit. Only one tech person was on duty, and he’d called her to come in. His workspace was surrounded by tall metal shelves loaded with electrical equipment that he used to access the data on cell phones brought in as evidence.
Despite his dreary cubicle, he seemed cheerful. “Mason Walsh.” He shook her hand, then grabbed a chair from a nearby similar workspace. “We’ve made a copy and completed the hash on this chip, so you’re free to take it with you. We don’t store evidence here.” He handed her a small pink plastic bag.
When she’d dropped off the microchip, she’d learned that a hash was a digital matching and copying process that guaranteed the files couldn’t be tampered with. None of it would matter if she didn’t find a perp to bring into court for Dimizaro’s murder. “What’s on here?” she asked, cutting to the chase.
“An encryption algorithm like I’ve never seen before.”
“You mean you couldn’t access the data?”
“No, I mean it’s a software program that encrypts data and makes it totally secure.”
It sounded like the same software that was on the prototype phone missing from DigSec, where the victim had worked. The implications for law enforcement were worrisome. “Could you break it if you needed to?”
Walsh shrugged. “I’m not an encryption expert, just a data extractor. The pros are still analyzing it.”
That was always the struggle—finding good-guy tech freaks who were better than the black-hat coders. “So this software is valuable?”
“I would think so. Device makers and financial institutions, in particular, are always working to improve their security. One of them might pay handsomely for this software.”
Was he implying that the tech team thought the encryption was unbreakable? “Now that you have the software, doesn’t that give you the key?”
“Yes and no.” He sighed.
“Never mind.” She would give it to Ross to take to the FBI. “You don’t have to explain. Just tell me who you think would kill someone for this chip.” The software probably belonged to the victim’s employer, but it was evidence now.
Walsh pursed his lips and gave it some thought. “I think it would work best in mobile devices. But the big companies already have encryption in place, which, by the way, is blocking our ability to access high-end phones when they come in as evidence. So I’m thinking that if a small company making the burner phones criminals use got hold of this, we’d be screwed.”
Bailey could find those companies, but it would take time. He was the expert. “Can you name some of those businesses?”
“Celltronics, HiWire, ZoGo, Cricket.” He shrugged. “Now that some of the metals for manufacturing are in short supply, the small companies will probably go out of business.”
She asked him to repeat the names as she wrote them down. “Someone recently committed murder trying to steal this chip, so they must think their company has a future.” Yet in that part of town, it still could have been a mugging. The victim could have been preparing to meet someone and not made it to the buy.
“Every company is looking for the best encryption available. Good luck.”
He’d obviously told her everything he knew. “Thanks.” They exchanged business cards, then Jocelyn headed out. Maybe she needed to turn the whole investigation over to the bureau. Once the FBI saw the software, they would get involved anyway.
Back in her car, her phone rang. “Larson, it’s Murphy. We’ve got some kind of disturbance going on at the Presidential Plaza Hotel. Patrol units are handling it, but a foreign diplomat was knocked unconscious, and I need you to take the lead on the assault.”
“What kind of disturbance?” Jocelyn started her car, adrenaline flowing.
“The group was out front, protesting a technology symposium, then suddenly rushed into the hotel
and started grabbing cell phones from the attendees. Ironic, eh?”
The phone shortage was officially out of hand, and a hell of a problem for law enforcement. But why was she getting another assignment? Oh yeah, the rest of her team was overloaded with domestic murders and gang shootings, and her boss didn’t expect her to solve the mugging or spend much more time on it. “Is the diplomat still at the hotel?” She pulled out into the street.
“I think so. But get over there and find out what you can before the feds take over.”
Jocelyn almost laughed. Her husband was one of the agents who worked cases involving domestic terrorists and violent activists. He would probably be on the scene. “I’m on my way.”
The Friday afternoon traffic was predictably heinous, and even using her siren, it was a bitch to clear a roundabout that wasn’t moving. When she arrived at the hotel fifteen minutes later, she couldn’t get anywhere near the lobby. Patrol cars had blocked off access to the front entrance and to the back alley loading dock. She parked at a nearby mall and power walked back to the hotel. It was better than running, but it still jostled her breasts to the point of discomfort.
She showed her badge to the uniformed officer at the perimeter of the yellow tape and kept moving. Inside the lobby, a dozen officers were standing guard over and questioning groups of protestors, who were all on the floor. Some were cuffed; others were lying facedown in protest. Because of all the minority deaths and lawsuits, cops everywhere had become more reluctant to use excessive or deadly force. Lawbreakers knew that. Jocelyn approached a patrol sergeant she’d worked with, trying to remember his name. Unlike hers, it was a common African American surname, as she recalled.
“Sergeant Johnson,” Jocelyn said, offering her hand.
“Detective Larson.” The corner of his mouth turned up in his version of a friendly greeting. “What can I do for you?”
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