by Laura Scott
“No, I have a disposable phone with me, just need to plug it in and get it validated so I can use it.”
His eyebrow levered upward. “That stash of yours was pretty complete.”
“Did you expect anything else?” She closed the curtains to cover the window, then turned on the bedside lamp.
It took longer than she thought to get the disposable phone working, and when she did, she learned she had missed a voice mail message from her boss. Even more frustrating was that Jordan didn’t answer.
She left a terse message. “Call me at this number ASAP.”
Mack sat on the edge of one of the beds, regarding her thoughtfully. “Speaking of calls to make, do you have any way to contact your mother?”
“Not directly.” It pained her to admit she hadn’t spoken to her mother in the past five years and hadn’t actually spent time with her for even longer. The last Mensa meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, she’d only used a disposable phone to contact her mother, not daring to use anything traceable. Although they did have an anonymous answering service number they’d both memorized to use in case of an emergency.
“Your disposable cell is probably safe,” Mack pointed out.
She looked up with sudden suspicion. Was there more to Mack’s presence here in DC than he was admitting to? “Is there a reason you want me to call my mother?”
Mack didn’t look away, holding her gaze steadily. “No, Sun. My only concern is to keep you and your mother safe.”
She desperately wanted to believe him. Knowing Mack as long as she had, the thought of him turning on her was too painful to contemplate.
Once, she preferred working alone, but after partnering with Jordan and Sloan in preventing a terrorist act on the anniversary of 9/11, she’d come to appreciate having someone watching your back.
Someone like Macklin Remington.
But she hadn’t seen Mack in just over five years.
Every muscle in her body went still as she tried not to panic.
What if he’d decided to go rogue? Play for the dark side? How did she know he didn’t plant the car bomb himself? If she remembered correctly, it had been his suggestion to try to use the key fob from where they were standing.
Lord have mercy, had she placed her trust in the wrong man?
Chapter Four
January 18 – 11:58 p.m. – Geneva, Switzerland
Hana Yin-lee approached her apartment building with hesitation, the tiny hairs on the back of her neck tingling in alarm.
She’d sensed she was being watched since earlier that morning. Geneva was no longer a refuge. She never should have returned here after her last trip to North Korea, which had been a weak attempt to deflect suspicion before making her next move. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked. She must be slipping. She should have left the moment she’d caught a glimpse of a man with distinct North Korean features leaving the coffee shop she passed earlier today.
Now it might be too late.
She’d defected from North Korea more than thirty years ago, but she knew her recent work continued to put her in danger. Still, she’d taken every reasonable precaution and was good at her job.
Unfortunately, she knew better than most that there was no such thing as absolute safety. Her ties to North Korea were such that those who despised her would never rest until she was dead and buried deep beneath the soil. It was the main reason she’d used her resources there to mine important information that was so desperately needed. The only glimmer of hope she clung to was that no one in the regime knew about her daughter, Sun.
And she would gladly take that secret to her grave.
From the corner of her eye, a glimpse of movement. Nerves stretched to the limit, she reacted instinctively, spinning and pulling her knife, then slashing at the man who’d leaped forward in an attempt to grab her. Her blade struck flesh, but he didn’t utter a sound. Instead, he fell into a fighting stance, ready to strike again.
Her martial arts training was by far her greatest strength, one she’d gifted her daughter. Most men used brute force in an attempt to cause harm, but so far, she’d managed to successfully beat them.
Please, Lord, provide me strength and knowledge to escape!
The North Korean attacked again, a knife in his hand and a glint of anger flashing in his eyes. She waited until the last possible second to strike, using her foot to disarm him, then spinning and kicking again, catching him beneath the chin. The knife flew from his hand, his head snapping back beneath the force of her kick.
Without stopping, she struck again and again, using every bit of training she possessed, hitting hard and fast without giving him time to collect himself. When he fell and hit his head against the unrelenting ground, his body went limp and blood pooled beneath his skull.
Hana instantly turned and ran from the apartment building, knowing the location had been compromised. How Kim Jong-un’s men had found her, she had no idea.
But they had.
She didn’t understand, why had there only been one man rather than the traditional two-man team? Unless the other was upstairs waiting for her in the unit.
She wasn’t about to stick around long enough to find out.
When she was far enough away from her apartment, she caught a bus and headed for the Geneva station where she kept a locker full of cash, a disposable phone, and a fake passport. No gun, but she couldn’t take one with her anyway.
She couldn’t put off going to the United States any longer. Not the way things had escalated. She could only hope and pray it wasn’t already too late.
* * *
January 19 – 12:14 a.m. – Clarksville, MD
Mack eyed Sun warily. Even after not seeing her for the past five years, he recognized her moods and knew something was wrong.
Was it possible she didn’t trust him? Despite how he’d worked alongside her these past few hours?
She had good instincts. Better than most. It could be that she’d sensed he was holding back. Well past time to come clean. He drew in a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Sun jumped up from her seat and dropped into a fighting stance. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you,” she accused, her eyes flashing with fury.
“Whoa, Sun, that’s not it at all.” He winced at how badly he’d handled this. Sitting on the bed, he lifted his hands, palms forward, in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not here to hurt you but to keep you safe. And to help with your case of the potential nuke.”
Her mouth dropped in surprise, but then her expression tightened. “Who do you work for?”
“NSA.” He held her gaze. “You want to see my creds?”
“Yes.” She didn’t relax her guard, and he very carefully opened his winter jacket and pulled out his billfold and badge.
He held them up for her to see, then set them on the bed beside him. Once again, he raised his hands in the air. “I swear on the Bible that I’m not here to hurt you, Sun.”
“How much of what you told me was a lie?” she challenged.
“None of it.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I was attacked in New York’s Central Park, and I did fly in from LaGuardia. I took the Metro to your place, but when you weren’t there, I circled the area, looking for clues as to where you might be. When you walked up from the Metro stop, I felt certain you must have been meeting with the North Korean defector, Hyun-woo.”
She stared at him without blinking. It was just as unnerving now as it had been when they were kids. “That’s how you knew about my role with Security Specialists, Incorporated.”
“Yes. Your boss, Jordan Rashid, reports to Clarence Yates, the Deputy Director of the FBI, correct?”
She nodded but still didn’t relax. A tough nut to crack.
“After the attack in Central Park, I went to my boss, Ken Tramall, to request a leave of absence so I could come find you. Turns out, Tramall knows Yates and felt certain that a second pair of hands, one that could also understand North Korean dialects
, would be a good thing to have working the nuke case. Sounds like Tramall worked with Yates in the past, loaning out an agent to participate on Yates’s multiagency task force with great success. I snapped up the chance.”
“And you didn’t tell me all this right away because—?”
He grimaced. “I was worried you’d kick me out of your place and off the case.”
“I still can.” She still didn’t relax her fighting stance, and he could tell he’d ticked her off big time. “I trusted you, Mack.”
“I still trust you more than anyone I know, Sun.” He spoke from the heart, even though he sensed she wasn’t in the mood to hear it. “When I learned you were in danger, I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from coming here to back you up. In fact, I was prepared to resign my position on the spot if Tramall didn’t approve my working with you.” Learning about the possibility of a nuke being in DC had been an added bonus. Not that he wanted a nuke to go off here, but the ability to work with Sun had been too good of a chance to pass up.
With infinite slowness, Sun relaxed her guard. He lowered his hands yet made sure to keep them within view. He trusted Sun but had sparred with her often enough to know that beating her in hand-to-hand combat wasn’t a piece of cake.
In fact, they were about dead even in the competitions they’d done over the years.
And if anything, she appeared to be in better shape now than she had back then.
“What do you know about the nuke?” Sun asked. “Do you have more intel than I do?”
“Doubtful, as I wasn’t at the meeting with Hyun-woo. What did he have to say? Anything concrete about where we might find this thing?”
“No.” Sun tipped her head from side to side as if working kinks from her neck. “He was scared to death, kept looking over his shoulder as if he was expecting men from the regime to show up and grab him.”
“What was the point of meeting with him, then?” Mack felt certain there had to be more.
Sun crossed over and picked up his badge from where he’d set it on the bed. “NSA, huh? For how long?”
“Six years,” he admitted. “Remember when I told you at the last roundtable that I was doing computer work? That’s how I started with them, but after eighteen months, my affinity for languages got me promoted into an agent role.”
“Agent, huh?” She tossed the badge and billfold back onto the bed. Still moving slowly, he picked them up and returned them to his pocket. “I’m going to verify your story when Jordan calls me back.”
“I know.” He wouldn’t expect anything less.
There was a brief pause. “He claimed no one within the North Korean regime would want to bomb the US, especially not in Washington, DC.”
It took a minute for him to switch gears. “Hyun-woo said that?”
“Yes.” She lifted a slender shoulder in a shrug. “Claims that the regime doesn’t want a war with us, which is exactly what would happen if a North Korean nuclear bomb went off on US soil.”
“There’s an element of truth to that,” he acknowledged. “Kim Jong-un isn’t stupid. The US military would squash him like a bug.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Sun began to pace. “But why would there be any chatter about a nuke at all, then? A scare tactic?”
“Maybe.” It was difficult to understand what went on in a criminal mind. “But what’s the fun of that? Thirty-six hours of fear, but then the suspense is over.”
She halted mid stride. “The NSA thinks the presidential inauguration is the target?”
“Yes, that seems to be where a terrorist would get the biggest bang for his buck.” He grimaced. “No pun intended.”
Sun nodded slowly. “If there’s any possibility of there being a nuke here in DC, we have to find it. While dodging the North Koreans, if that’s who has come after me.”
“I know.” And they didn’t have much time.
The clock was ticking. No way would anyone in the White House call off something like a presidential inauguration without a really good reason backed up by hard-core facts.
Neither of which they had at the moment.
* * *
January 19 – 12:36 a.m. – Clarksville, MD
Sun’s phone vibrated. Recognizing Jordan’s number, she answered. “It’s about time you called me back.”
“I know, I’m sorry we’ve been playing phone tag. Diana isn’t feeling well, so I waited until she fell asleep.” Jordan’s voice was barely a whisper. She knew Diana was pregnant, and so was Natalia, Sloan’s wife. The guys at Security Specialists, Inc. were settling down to be quite the family men.
Where that left her, she wasn’t sure. Certainly, they needed to support their families, so it wasn’t like they were going to shut down the business.
At least, she hoped not.
Not her problem at the moment. She decided to get straight to the point. “I got your message. Were you calling about the NSA involvement in this?” She kicked herself again for missing his call, must have been when her Jeep exploded. She’d been a little busy then.
“Yes, I didn’t want to give you all the details on a voice mail, just in case. I spoke to Ken Tramall at length about the possible attack.”
She grimaced, knowing he was right about not leaving details on a voice mail. “What did Tramall say?”
“Just that he had an agent who could speak flawless North Korean and was very interested in helping us on this case. Why? Is there a problem with the guy? We can send him on the first flight out of here if needed.”
“No, it’s fine.” She let out a soundless sigh. She knew no one in the federal government really believed a nuclear bomb had been smuggled into the city without someone hearing about it. Jordan obviously considered this mission somewhat of a wild-goose chase.
And wasn’t that what Hyun-woo thought as well?
“Is there something wrong with the agent?” Jordan asked.
“No. As it happens, I know Mack from the Mensa program.”
“Good, glad to hear it. Did Hyun-woo have any intel?” Jordan asked.
“No.” She quickly repeated her brief conversation with the North Korean. “I’m not sure where to go next. DC is a big area, if there truly is a bomb stashed somewhere, it would have to be brought within shooting distance of the White House.”
“I’ve been thinking that it could have come by boat,” Jordan mused. “It’s the most accessible way to sneak into the city.”
They’d searched numerous warehouses along the shoreline back when Jordan and Diana’s daughter Bryn had been kidnapped. She didn’t relish the thought of doing that again. “Okay, I’ll try to come up with something. Oh, and we’ve run into a few problems as well.”
“Like what?” Jordan was instantly on alert.
She filled him in on her Jeep explosion and the alleged danger, but she didn’t mention her safe house since that had been done on her own dime. “We suspect the regime is tracking me down and that they’re looking for my mother.”
“A credible threat?” Jordan asked. “Maybe you should go into hiding, we can have Remington work the nuke case.”
“No need, I’ll handle it.” She could take care of herself, as Jordan well knew. “I promise to let you know if things change.”
“Okay, I’m going to hold you to that,” Jordan said in warning. “And if Remington gives you any problems, let me know.”
“Later.” Sun disconnected from the call, thinking that Mack was already giving her problems. She’d gone from being glad to see him, to suspicious about him, to being glad to have him covering her back, to being suspicious of him once again.
This yo-yo of emotions had to stop.
It would be easier if she hadn’t cared about him. More than she should. The way he’d claimed to trust her more than anyone had surprised her.
“My story checked out?” Mack asked.
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t mention the safe house,” Mack noted.
She narrowed her gaze. “Because it
isn’t part of Security Specialists, Incorporated.”
“I see.” Mack eyed her thoughtfully. “But the attack there could have been from the regime.”
“Maybe.” She yawned. “We need to get some sleep, we’ll need to start searching for the nuke at dawn.”
“Okay, sounds good.” He gestured toward the bathroom. “Do you want to go first?”
“No, you go ahead.”
He shrugged, then headed into the small bathroom. The minute the door closed, she punched in the number she’d memorized years ago. Holding her breath, she waited for the answering service to pick up.
The familiar voice invited her to leave a message, but Sun wasn’t sure that was the right move. There was no message from her mother, and she couldn’t be sure this method of communication hadn’t been compromised.
Sun shut down the disposable phone and tried to quell a flash of fear. Even if she wanted to fly off to meet with her mother, she had no idea where to go.
Hana had told her in no uncertain terms to call the answering service only as a last resort. That they were both safer if they never met in person.
What did it mean that her mother didn’t leave a message for Sun?
Sun broke into a cold sweat. She shivered and hugged her arms across her body.
Had the regime already found and killed her mother?
* * *
January 19 – 1:01 a.m. – Chicago, IL
Despite Geoff’s kind hospitality, Jarek had trouble relaxing enough to sleep. It wasn’t just the wind causing the old home to creak and groan. In his mind’s eye, he could still see the Asian’s anger as he’d been wheeled out of the airport.
The man would not stand around wringing his hands at how Jarek had gotten away. No, he’d have a plan B. Maybe even a plan C.
Was he crazy to think about borrowing Geoff’s passport to fly to Geneva? What if he couldn’t find Hana once he got there?
One thing was for certain, the woman he’d once loved was in trouble. The only reason the Asian would follow him was in an attempt to find Hana.