by Steve Berry
“Lots of ruined buildings and empty places are still there,” Howell said. “It’s largely rebuilt, but still economically depressed. Though the Croats didn’t realize it at the time, they needed those Serbs.”
“Did any of them come back?” Malone said.
Howell shook his head. “Precious few.”
“Bet it made a good place to hide,” Luke noted.
“I thought so. Then I met Jelena and decided it was a great place to hide.”
Howell sounded upbeat for a moment.
“You’re going to have to string Kim along and keep him dangling,” Malone said. “Use the truth. Less thinking on your part that way. Lies can be tough to keep straight under stress. He’ll want to hear the story, so tell him bits and pieces, but never the whole thing.”
“Isn’t that risky?” Luke asked. “He knows too much already.”
He shook his head. “He’s not going anywhere. We just need him rocked to sleep until that train stops in Solaris. I’ll be there, waiting.” To Howell, he said, “Luke and Isabella are your backup. We have the upper hand since Kim doesn’t know they exist. But watch out for the daughter. She’s the wild card. We know nothing about her, except that she likes to stick people with needles.”
If this played out right, he should be able to corner Kim in a remote Croatian village, a hundred-plus miles inland, with nowhere to go. International communications would exist, but be spotty at best. And how many Koreans could be there? His places to hide would be few, his escape options limited. All in all, an excellent trap.
“One thing,” he said to Howell. “You cannot ever let him think that you know Jelena is gone. At that point your value to him becomes zero. He will kill you.”
“I get it. I know how to play this game. You forget I’ve been on the run for three years.”
“What about the Chinese?” Luke asked.
“Still an unknown, but Stephanie is working on finding out, as we speak, if they’re really here.”
Luke nodded. “In this part of the world, they use a lot of freelancers. So you never know from where they’ll strike.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Howell said.
“It’s not good,” Malone said. “The Chinese and North Koreans want what Kim has, and they’ll kill any of us to get it.”
“We won’t let that happen,” a new voice said.
He turned and saw Isabella.
“That’s the main thing you and Luke have to be worried about,” Malone made clear. “Let Howell handle Kim. You two make sure that any strangers stay out of this. If trouble is coming, it will be with you.”
The envoy from the embassy rounded the corridor and reentered the American Corner. Malone had sent him on an errand, which apparently had been accomplished. The man in the bow tie now carried a leather briefcase.
“You got ’em,” Malone asked.
The envoy laid the case on one of the tables and opened it, removing two semiautomatic pistols. Malone took one, then handed the other to Luke. The envoy reached back inside and produced a third.
“That one’s yours,” he said to Isabella.
She palmed the weapon.
The envoy gave them each a spare magazine.
“What are you going to do with Kim, once you have him?” Howell asked.
That was a good question, one he and Stephanie had yet to answer. He could guess what she’d like to happen. There was no way they could allow a prosecution. That would be way too much of a public forum. Hiding him away was both impractical and ineffective. No. Dying was what she’d want. Just like a month ago in Utah, with another fanatic. That had turned out okay for Stephanie, not so much for himself. In the process, he’d lost someone he cared a great deal about.
But that was then, and this was now.
He motioned to Howell. “Send the email to Kim.”
* * *
Kim had re-donned his clothes, which the hotel had cleaned and pressed. Hana’s had likewise been rejuvenated. She’d already dressed and was downstairs checking out their options for leaving. His watch read 6:40 P.M. This day had turned out to be quite eventful. He was still disturbed by the news report of the six executions, made even worse by a second report on the slaughter of his other half brother’s entire family, which also gained worldwide press attention. Not that he harbored any special feelings toward any of them. They were essentially strangers. But the message being sent his way came loud and clear.
Dear Leader was angry.
The fate of his own children and grandchildren weighed heavy. If any doubt existed about whether they could become targets, it had been erased by what he’d read today in news accounts. Some observers had postulated that the entire execution story was false, fabricated by journalists with a bias against North Korea. That happened quite often, actually. Just another repercussion of a society having totally closed itself off from the world. But he knew with certainty that his half brother’s family was gone. That was the way of the Kims. Nothing would interfere with their grasp of power. His younger half brother surely knew about the lost $20 million. And though he hadn’t been responsible for that fortuitous occurrence, he would definitely shoulder the blame. No way existed for him to protect his children or grandchildren but, to be honest, he had no desire to do that. They’d all abandoned him when he was replaced, their loyalty quickly transferred to their half uncle. Time for them to see the error of their ways. Kill them all, for what he cared.
The laptop dinged.
He’d been waiting nearly half an hour for an answer to his question. How do you suggest we accomplish all this?
Take the 7:40 p.m. train east from Zadar to Knin. I’ll be on it. Have Jelena with you. What you want is located in Solaris. We’ll talk on the ride.
He hit REPLY and said he would be there.
The door opened and Hana reentered the suite.
“Two men are lurking downstairs,” she said. “They’re here for us.”
Another chill frosted his spine.
The battle had just drawn closer.
Thankfully, Hana was here. He’d learned to trust her. Fourteen years in a labor camp had honed both her suspicions and her survival instincts. The storm was gone, though the day remained dreary. Nightfall was not far away, and they had less than an hour to make the train.
He stared at her and said, “We must leave.”
FIFTY
Hana liked the fact that her father depended on her. In that he was different from her mother. The camp forced both isolation and independence. No one could really care for anyone else. Sun Hi’s death proved that reality. Her mother had repeatedly given herself to the guards, thinking they would take care of her. But she’d been wrong. No mercy had ever been thrown her way. Guards cared nothing for prisoners. They were mere pieces of property to do with as they pleased.
By the time her father found her she was working in the factory every day. Her body had developed enough to attract the guards’ attention, and it would have been only a matter of time before one of them had taken her. But she’d already decided that whoever that might be would pay a heavy price. Unlike her mother, she would kill or maim him and take whatever punishment came, which would have surely been death.
But she’d been spared that ordeal.
Once identified as a Kim she’d been treated for the first time as a person. The fear on the guards’ faces that day when her father claimed her had been pleasing. Watching Teacher die had satisfied her even more. It had taken nearly an hour, but he finally succumbed. Afterward, she asked that he be cut down and left to lie on the filthy floor until the day ended.
Just like Sun Hi.
“You have a cold heart,” her father said to her.
“I have no heart.”
He gently laid a hand on her shoulder. She hated being touched, but knew better than to repel the gesture.
“Your time here is over,” he said. “Life will be different.”
But she knew that was not true. Though she may be leaving t
he camp, the camp would never leave her.
She was a product of its evil.
As impossible to change as the camp rules.
She left the hotel suite for a second time and headed back down to the lobby. Her father had listened carefully as she explained what she wanted him to do. He’d assured her that he would follow her directions. She was reasonably certain that the two men she’d spotted had no idea of her identity. They hadn’t seen her earlier, of that she was sure, and she told herself to make sure that they did not see her now.
The Hotel Korcula was a renovated mammoth with walls of swirling marble, gilded details, and wood-paneled elevators. She’d explored its upscale restaurant and surveyed what was described as the Emerald Ballroom. The lobby was spacious, dominated by three large aquariums full of colorful fish and swaying plants. She stepped off the elevator and avoided the main reception area, turning right and walking down a short corridor to where the restrooms were located. She entered the ladies’ room and saw that the space was empty. The bathroom facilities were as upscale and elegant as the rest of the hotel. Three marble sinks lined the stone counter before a long mirror. She stood before one of the sinks, washed away her anxiety with some cold water, and waited.
* * *
Kim had checked. The train east from Zadar to Knin was an evening express with only four stops. Two just outside Zadar, and the next to last in Solaris, about twenty miles from the end of the line in Knin. The trip should take less than two hours. He had no choice but to go. He needed to understand everything and Howell was the fastest way to accomplish that goal. He was carrying the black satchel and their travel bag. He was trusting Hana to make their escape possible, though he was still concerned about who had been able to locate him so fast. It had to be his half brother. Who else? And the fact that he’d been found only added to the sense of urgency. Before he could formulate the final stages of his miraculous comeback, he had to secure whatever there was to find and learn whatever there was to know. To accomplish that, he had to outsmart his opponent.
He rode the elevator down, stepped off on the ground floor, and turned left. He entered the lobby and marched past the aquariums, his eyes noticing the two men Hana had described. Both were clean-shaven Europeans, dark-haired, dressed in long coats. Neither concealed their interest in him, immediately stepping his way.
He stopped, made a parade-ground turn, and walked back down the short corridor to the elevators, turning right as Hana had instructed. No need to glance back. He knew they were coming. Double doors for what was labeled THE EMERALD BALLROOM were visible ahead and he kept his course straight for them.
“Stop,” a male voice said behind him in English.
He kept walking.
“I told you to stop,” the voice said again.
He entered the ballroom, a cavernous, carpeted hall with a towering ceiling decorated by whirls of plaster. No one was inside, the chairs surrounding the bare tables empty, the only light coming from a few incandescent fixtures that kept the place from becoming a cave. Hana had described the interior perfectly. He heard the double doors open, then close behind him.
“Halt,” the voice said.
He stopped and turned.
The two Coats blocked his way out.
They stepped closer.
One of them produced a gun and said, “We’ll take that black satchel.”
“I do wonder, did Pyongyang send you?”
Before either man could reply, both shrieked in agony and lurched forward, arms reaching back over their shoulders. One of the men turned, but never made it all the way. Both collapsed to the carpet, revealing Hana standing behind them, each hand gripping a syringe, thumb on the plunger. She’d waited in the restroom down the hall until he’d lured the men here, carefully making her way inside and taking them down with the same sedative used on Larks and Malone.
Unlike his other children, who’d become traitors, this one was a joy to behold.
* * *
Hana tossed the syringes away and immediately searched both men, finding their guns and wallets. Both weapons were equipped with sound suppressors. Apparently they’d come prepared. They were identified as Austrians, nothing on them pointing to whom they may be working for. She pocketed the wallets. The less the authorities knew about these men the better. She handed one of the guns to her father and kept the other. She accepted the travel bag from her father, slipping the strap over her shoulder. He kept the satchel.
“We’ll need a taxi out front,” he said. “Keep the gun hidden.”
She concealed the weapon behind the travel bag. Her father did the same utilizing the satchel. They left the ballroom and headed back toward the lobby. Just as they made their way across its center, two more men appeared from her left. An additional problem materialized near the exit doors. The first two shifted positions and rounded one of the aquariums, intent on cutting them off from any retreat toward the elevators.
She whirled and revealed the gun, firing.
Not at them.
But into the aquarium’s glass front.
A wall of water erupted outward, washing over both men, splashing to the marble. Both men lost their balance and slipped to the floor among the fish and plants. Chaos erupted from the twenty or so other people scattered about. They took advantage of the commotion and darted for the exit. The other man near the doors drew a weapon. She was about to take him down with a shot to his thigh when her father fired two suppressed rounds into the chest.
The man collapsed to the floor.
“Hurry, my dear,” he said.
She kept moving through the exit doors, past the body, and out to an exterior walk among a wall of plants that led to a ground-transportation arrival area. Never losing a step they came to the drive and waved for one of the waiting taxis.
The vehicle motored up and they hopped into the rear seat.
“The train station,” her father said.
FIFTY-ONE
Malone settled down in the passenger seat of the Mercedes coupe, the embassy envoy driving. The trip from Zadar to Solaris would take a little over an hour. Along the way the train had stops to make and would not leave for another twenty minutes, so the head start and the straight shot by highway should vault him ahead of Luke and Isabella.
He planned to use the time in the car wisely, trying to see if he could decipher the rows of numbers. Stephanie had told him about George Mason during their two calls, secure-texting him a few minutes ago and advising him about Mellon’s philanthropy toward Mason’s family home, which showed even more of a connection.
He knew his American history and was familiar with George Mason, one of the unsung Founding Fathers. The Virginian had believed in a weak federal government and strong states’ rights. And though he helped mold its language, he refused to sign the Constitution, arguing that it did not adequately protect the individual. His arguments eventually led to the Bill of Rights. And when James Madison drafted those proposed amendments, he drew heavily on an earlier document—the Virginia Declaration of Rights—adopted in 1776, written by George Mason.
The similarities between the two were remarkable. Both, in nearly identical language, confirmed the freedom of press and religion, the right to confront an accuser, the ability to call witnesses and have a speedy trial before a jury. Cruel and unusual punishments were forbidden, as were baseless searches and seizures and the deprivation of due process. Even the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms found its roots in the Virginia Declaration. Madison had actually helped Mason draft those earlier articles so, in 1789, he incorporated Mason’s final thoughts into his proposed Bill of Rights. Jefferson, too, had drawn on them when crafting the Declaration of Independence. Stephanie had told him that Andrew Mellon used the term tyrannical aristocrat when speaking to Roosevelt. If Isabella’s suspicions were correct, the four rows of numbers he now held could be something similar to the Beale cipher. The five letters from the dollar bill formed the word Mason. The Beale cipher had apparentl
y utilized the Declaration of Independence as its key. So maybe Mellon had used another document, one that provided protection from tyrannical aristocrats. One connected to someone named Mason. Malone had printed out a copy of the Virginia Declaration of Rights to test his hypothesis. It was a long shot, but a calculated one. If this path proved unproductive, once the business in Solaris was over, he’d try something else. But this seemed as good a place as any to start.
“It must be exciting to travel about and deal with all this intrigue and danger,” the envoy said.
They were headed out of Zadar on what appeared to be a freshly paved two-laned highway, its smooth surface unblemished, the thick road lines visible in the headlights freshly painted. The time was approaching 8:00 P.M., the sun gone to the west.
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
And it wasn’t.
Having your life in jeopardy every second may be a rush for some, but not for him. He liked the task, the mission, the results. Years ago, when he shifted from the navy to the Justice Department he’d wondered if that move was the right one. He quickly discovered that it was. He had a talent for thinking on his feet and getting things done. Not always according to plan or without some collateral damage, but he could deliver results. Now he was back in the saddle. An agent, in charge of an operation, one that could have dire consequences if he screwed up.
“I’ve been stationed all over,” the envoy said. “Germany, Bulgaria, Spain. Now here in Croatia. I love the challenges.”
He needed this man to shut up, but the gentleman inside him refused to say so point-blank. Luckily, when he didn’t comment on the career observation, the man returned his attention to the road.
After Luke, Isabella, and Howell had left for the train station, he’d read more about the Beale cipher. The tale spoke of how a treasure was buried in 1820 by a man named Thomas Jefferson Beale. The secret location was somewhere in Bedford County, Virginia. Supposedly Beale entrusted a box containing three encrypted messages to a local innkeeper, then disappeared, never to be seen again. Before dying, the innkeeper gave the three encrypted ciphers to a friend. The friend spent the next twenty years trying to decode the messages, able only to solve one. That friend published all three ciphers and his solution to the one in an 1885 pamphlet. Interestingly, the original messages from the box were ultimately destroyed in a fire, so only the pamphlet remained.