Shadow

by James Swallow

The pistol dropped away.

  “I have done this before.” He paused. “You know who I am, yes?”

  “Anyone who pays attention to the war on terror knows who Omar Khadir is,” Saito said levelly. “Former officer in the Egyptian Army. Senior cell commander of the Al Sayf Islamist extremist group. Wanted fugitive.”

  “The war on terror,” Khadir repeated, with a sneer. “As if there could ever be such a thing.” He took the bag and moved to the low table, emptying the contents on to it. “Terror is not a foe that can be defeated. It washes in and out like the tides, but the ocean it comes from remains.”

  Saito resisted the urge to engage with the man, but the reality was that the tide had gone out a long way for Khadir. Al Sayf was virtually nonexistent, all but a few of its cells hunted into extinction by the American military, after Khadir’s plan to kill the president had been thwarted. The CIA and the Secret Service took credit for stopping the attack, but the reality was more complex. It had been agents of Rubicon who had disrupted the plot.

  Al Sayf’s bold strike only progressed as far as it did thanks to the funding of the Combine, one part of their complex plans to enrich the group of power brokers and maintain a profitable level of discord in the nation states of the West. But in the ashes of his failure, Khadir—the amoral nihilist, the killer and schemer—had lost everything that had defined him.

  Never one to waste a useful asset, as Saito knew only too well, Pytor Glovkonin had secretly protected Khadir, given him somewhere to hide—and a purpose as well.

  I wonder what he has promised this man, thought Saito. The chance to take his vengeance on those who wronged him? But only after Glovkonin’s own agenda is served, of course.

  “Who are you to him?” said Khadir, as he pawed though the files. “A messenger? That seems a poor task for a soldier.”

  “I do my duty.” Saito stood there, watching.

  “You do what he tells you to,” Khadir snapped. “I watched you, climbing the stairs. Stiff. Out of step. You were hurt serving the Russian’s needs, yes? But still you march on. Proud and stoic.” Now he looked up and met his gaze. “A Japanese. Like the Samurai of your ancient history.” He nodded to himself. “I’ve read Nitobe’s Bushido and Tsunetomo’s Hagakure. I understand the loyalty of the faithful retainer to his lord. The matter of honor, even if the man who commands you is himself faithless.”

  “Tsunetomo was only a clerk,” noted Saito. “He never carried a weapon.”

  “But you parry words as if you have a sword,” countered Khadir. He walked away from the table, working the joint of his shoulder. “Yes. I think I know you.”

  The man’s penetrating gaze made Saito’s jaw stiffen. He was close to a truth that Saito did not want to study too closely.

  “What does the Russian have over you, Samurai? It cannot just be duty and nothing more. Someone you care for, perhaps? Something you fear will be revealed?”

  The simmering, steady anger underlying everything about the Egyptian rose, becoming visible.

  “You will never know,” Saito said, at length, and he was immediately irritated at himself. Even those meager words were an admission of sorts.

  Khadir stepped back, smiling thinly at the little victory he had gained.

  “I am going to kill him. When the moment is right.” He paused, considering his own statement. “If you stand in my way, you’ll fall with him.”

  “You believe you have nothing to lose. But there is always something. The … Russian is adept at finding what is meant to stay hidden.”

  “Like this?” Khadir tapped a finger on the files. “I see a man here. A person who has been erased from the world by his own masters, and yet not granted the dignity of a good death. Any death, in fact.” He plucked out a blurry, blown-up photo of a Chinese man, malnourished, dejected and bleak of gaze, offering it to Saito. “Lau.” He toyed with the name attached to the image. “This man is like us. You see it, don’t you? In his eyes?”

  Saito said nothing.

  The other man shrugged and returned to the papers.

  “Where did this data come from?” He looked at the maps and reference documents. “It’s extensive, indeed, but how old is it?”

  “Approximately eight months,” Saito told him. “It was gathered by a team of hackers … Their services have unfortunately been terminated. We have had their data corroborated as closely as possible.”

  “Eight months is forever,” Khadir snapped. “Every factor here could be invalid.”

  “That is true. But you are capable of adapting to a fluid scenario. Mr. Glovkonin is confident you will be successful in locating the captive.”

  Khadir looked at the photo again.

  “Who is this man? Why is he so significant?”

  “Lau is a means to an end.”

  “What end?”

  “The destruction of Ekko Solomon and the Rubicon Group.”

  Saito had been given permission to reveal that fact, although he knew little of how Lau might bring that about.

  It had the desired effect, however. Khadir’s dark eyes flashed at the mention the name.

  “You should have led with that,” he replied. “So. This man, is he to die?”

  “This is a recovery, not an assassination. You are to secure Lau and get him out alive.”

  Khadir grunted. “I will need equipment. Transport. Papers. Weapons.”

  Saito produced an encrypted sat-phone and handed it over.

  “Already taken care of. A vehicle is on station, waiting to take you from…” He gestured at the walls, letting his disgust show. “All this.”

  Khadir pocketed the phone.

  “You don’t like this place? The filth and the stink, you are disgusted by it.” He showed his teeth. “You don’t understand. This slum, this place is true. It is the world, Samurai. Humans living ankle-deep in their own shit. But the difference here is, they are free of the lies that try to hide it. Here, you can see the whole truth at once.” The Egyptian pointed at him. “You could use some of that perspective.”

  “I see clearly enough,” said Saito, and it almost sounded as if it were true.

  * * *

  Allowing her to go outside was the first remotely human thing her captors had done since the moment the woman in the mask stepped into her home.

  They gave her a heavy coat and allowed her to see the sky for the first time in what had to be days, to breathe in the open air and take a moment to reflect on her changed fortunes.

  They didn’t send a guard after her, and she wondered why until the door opened and the icy chill hit the bare flesh of her face. She was confronted by a stark, alien landscape that vanished toward a cloudless blue horizon in the near distance. Black volcanic earth extended away in all directions, broken only by the shapes of steel geodesic domes and concrete bunkers, interconnected by metal pipes. Low chimney stacks vented massive plumes of brilliant white vapor into the air, the hard and constant wind pulling the trails over until they were parallel with the ground.

  There was no fence, no guard towers with sharpshooters as she expected. There was no need for them. The obvious remoteness of this place, the desolation of it—those were the walls to stop her from running. To flee would be to risk exposure and death.

  The hard cold was familiar; it reminded her of a time at a research base in the Taebaek Mountain range where she had worked in the first years of her enforced military service. But the dryness of it, that was very different.

  The French woman ignored every question she had put to her, and no one explained where she had been brought. At each stage, she hoped that she was at the end of the nightmare, but with every new revelation, she was only falling deeper and deeper into the abyss.

  At the lab, she had given them what they wanted, accessing the storage facility and the MaxaBio research database. She watched them load their van, the echo of the shot that had killed the security guard still ringing in her ears.

  His name had been Ko. She had never really spoken to
him, only nodded vaguely as they passed in the corridors. Now he was dead because of her. Another life taken, and added to her burden. The line of ghosts trailing her was already so long, she was afraid to look behind her in case it became visible. Afraid that Simon and Michael might have joined it.

  Thinking of them made her next breath turn into a shudder, an almost-sob that she stifled by putting her gloved hands over her mouth. Still, it escaped through her fingers in a thin white mist, dragged away by the chilling breeze. She thought of the two of them, of the disbelief in their eyes slowly turning to betrayal. Susan had lied to them about so much—about who she was, about the woman she had been before knowing a life with them.

  Susan Lam was the fabrication she had fooled herself into thinking was real; scratch the surface and beneath was Ji-Yoo Park, the defector who had fled her home carrying a lifetime of guilt and a deadly secret.

  The sickening fear and the remorse were heavy like lead, and she held herself tightly, trying hard to hold back the need to cry. She had already wept, long and mournful, as she rode out the journey that had brought her to this place. After the house, after the lab, the French woman had forced her into a cargo container, the kind they carried in the belly of an aircraft. They gave her this coat and gloves, some food and water, a bucket, and then locked her in.

  She sat in the corner and waited for the end. She cried until fatigue dragged her into a dreamless sleep, waking now and then to hear the vibration of jet engines coming up through the ice-cold decking. She lost track of time, convinced that they were taking her home, back to the North she had abandoned. Later, she awoke to juddering motion and the thudding of rotor blades. She called out for help, but someone outside smashed a fist into the metal and that silenced her. It was torture, being trapped in that steel box with only the worst of her terrors to keep her company.

  But when the hatch was opened and she staggered out into the light, there was no firing squad awaiting her, no men in uniform ready to judge her for traitorous acts against the Dear Leader.

  The French woman and the others brought her to another laboratory, appointed with banks of the most advanced digital biomodeling systems she had ever seen.

  “This is where you are going to work,” said the woman. “Make yourself comfortable.”

  And then she saw what they wanted her to do.

  The gasp-sob came again, and this time she couldn’t hold it in. Her eyes misted with tears and she took a half step away, the urge dying before it was fully formed.

  If only I had the courage to kill myself, she thought. Then they would have nothing.

  But the French woman had been quite clear on that matter. Any act of rebellion, large or small, would be taken in kind by punishing Simon and Michael.

  Her hands shook. For the first time in years, she desperately wanted a cigarette, but, like her old life, that vice was something she had left behind in the North.

  Behind her, boots crunched on the frost-rimed earth.

  “I know that look,” said a voice in Korean. “Here, take one.”

  She turned around and saw a ghost.

  “Kyun?”

  He wore the same winter jacket she did, his oval, pockmarked face peering at her. He was offering a packet, a single cigarette extended from it like a gift.

  “Yes.” He waved them at her. “Go on, take it.”

  She gave in and snatched the cigarette up, shakily putting it to her lips. Kyun produced a butane lighter, lit hers, and then took one for himself.

  She pulled on a long inhale, and at first her lungs rebelled. But the taste was embedded in her memory, and in a moment it settled.

  “Are these…?”

  He showed her the distinctive red packet with its gold lettering.

  “Lake Samilpo,” said Kyun, referring to the make. “I tried often but I couldn’t stop,” he added, with a chuckle.

  In a rush, the incongruity of it caught up to her and she shook her head violently.

  “No. No! What is happening?”

  She stared at the cigarette in her hand. A North Korean brand? And who better to give them to her than a man she had left behind there when she fled?

  “How are you here? Where is here? What is going on?”

  “Calm yourself,” said Kyun, with that sly little smile of his she had always loathed. He reached out and patted her on the arm, oozing insincerity. “That isn’t important. What matters is that you do what you are told.” He flashed what he thought was a friendly grin, but to her it seemed like a sneer. “Dear Ji-Yoo. This doesn’t have to be an ordeal!”

  His mendacious tone pushed her over the edge and she exploded.

  “An ordeal? Do you know what I have gone through? I was abducted, my husband and stepson stolen from me, my life ruined—”

  “Your fake life?” Kyun snapped, and his expression shifted in an instant, becoming hard and unsympathetic. “Do not shout at me! I am your superior!”

  She couldn’t count how many times he had said that to her, before. But even if he outranked her, Kyun was half the scientist that she was, and he knew it.

  “No longer!”

  “Wrong!” he spat back. “You always thought you were better than the rest of us, didn’t you, Park?” His face reddened and he waved the lit cigarette in her face. “Do you know what they did to us when you ran away? Ch’oe and Khoo were executed in front of the laboratory when they didn’t denounce you swiftly enough! The rest of us were suspects just because we worked alongside you!”

  “Khoo?” She shook her head. “No, I told him…”

  Words failed her as she imagined the technician’s smiling face.

  More deaths added to my bill.

  “I was beaten every day for a week!” snarled Kyun. “To make sure I was not your co-conspirator!” He took a shaky breath, forcibly calming himself. “Eventually they relented. But the wreckage you left behind, Park. Did you ever stop to think about what your selfish act did to the rest of us, when you were living your bourgeois new life in the West?”

  “Every day,” she admitted, her burst of rage faltering. “So this is my penance, then? My past catching up with me?”

  Kyun gave a callous snort. “The Homeland is a long way behind us both,” he said, regaining his unctuous manner. “I left too … When these people made our leaders a better offer, they traded me. Like a player of football.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “What people?”

  “They call themselves the Combine. They have a … singular vision for order that I must admit is quite attractive.” He took a long draw on his cigarette. “You don’t need to know the details. It’s enough to say they recruited me because of our experience with the Geulimja program.”

  “Those machines … You’ve been rebuilding it here…”

  She felt the blood drain from her face at the horror of that idea. Then another connection came together in her thoughts.

  “I am here because of you.” She let her cigarette drop and backed away from the grinning man. “You could never put it together, that’s why Geulimja was a failure. You never had the insight!”

  “But you did,” said Kyun. “I see now that my past discrimination toward you because of your gender was in error … Back home, I should have been more observant! You knew all along how to make the design work correctly, you just hid that knowledge from the rest of us. Because you were weak! And by the time I realized that, you had already defected.” He spread his hands and chuckled again. “But now we have a second chance to finish what we started.”

  She saw it now. Kyun had always disrespected her, even in the early days, after she had deflected both his advances and his attempts to claim the credit for her lab work. That enmity had hardened into something vicious and spiteful, after her defection had destroyed his plans to rise high in the DPRK’s scientific community. His hatred and jealousy for her would have made it easy for him to have her new life obliterated in kind.

  And he was revelling in it.

  “You are re
aping what you have sown, dear Ji-Yoo. I told the Combine how to find you, what to look for. I knew you were arrogant enough that you could not live a quiet life in the West. I knew you would have to indulge your foolish ideals somewhere. And they unmasked you, Susan Lam, even when our own nation could not.” He laughed again. “You could have vanished and become a no one and this would not have happened! But you had to seek the path of glory, didn’t you? The cure for cancer—as if being a part of that would wash away the blood on your hands.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I never wanted anyone to suffer!”

  Kyun made a mock-serious face.

  “All those unfortunates who perished in the experimental phases—the prisoners, the dissidents, traitors and foreigners, the ones there were no use for. Your flaw was your inability to see them for what they were. An expendable resource.” He shook his head. “Not that it matters. We are almost done. Almost.” Kyun held up his hand, the thumb and forefinger a short span apart. “This close. But that last assemblage phase was always where we failed. I know you know how to complete it.”

  I will not help you.

  The words formed in her thoughts, but they were trapped there, unable to escape her. If she uttered them, she would destroy her husband and stepson.

  The door leading back to the lab banged open and the French woman stepped out, looking around.

  “Here they are,” she said to a man who followed her out.

  The man was broad-shouldered and shaven-headed, and he had a pitiless gaze that locked on to Kyun like a searchlight. Kyun flinched as the woman strode over to him, his fear of her writ large across his face. The man followed, his gait lazy and menacing.

  “We are … uh … We…”

  Kyun switched to English, stumbling over the words. He was trying to find something to say to mollify the French woman, and failing dismally.

  “This is her.” The man pointed in Susan’s direction. “Park. The one you need?”

  Kyun nodded. “Yes. Yes. We’ll be able to finish now.” He was absolutely terrified of the two black-clad Westerners. “It won’t take long.”

  “Forty-eight hours,” said the woman. “We need to stay on track.”