“You’re tracking them?” Lambert asked.
Fisher checked his OPSAT. “Yeah, hold on . . . They just stopped.” As he watched, the cluster of blue dots that represented Stewart and the Korean split in half, one staying in place while the other headed forward, in the direction of the bridge. “Okay, I think they parked him somewhere. Gotta move. Sandy’s going to give me twelve minutes before she hails them again. Don’t know if they’ll move him again, but I’d better assume so.”
“Agreed,” Lambert said. “Go.”
Zooming and panning the Gosselin’s blueprint as he went, Fisher followed Stewart’s RFID cluster down three decks, deeper into the bowels of the ship, then finally into the aft cargo area. He found himself at the mouth of a long, dark alleyway bordered on both sides by winch-lifted cargo bins, each the size of a mobile home and fronted by a padlocked ten-foot-by-ten-foot door.
He flipped down his goggles and switched to NV, then tracked the signal to the end of the alley and stopped before the last bin on the port side. On his schematic, the blue cluster was pulsing steadily on the other side of the door.
Fisher knelt before the door and went to work. The padlock was tough, resisting his picks for a full two minutes before popping open with a muted snick. He hooked the padlock on his belt, then unholstered his pistol and flattened himself against the bin, opposite the hinges. Using his foot, he swung open the door and peeked around the corner.
There, lying in the fetal position on the floor of the bin, was Stewart. He looked asleep, but as Fisher stepped through the door, Stewart gave a whimper and curled himself into a tighter ball, forehead touching his knees. He started rocking.
“Please, please, please . . .” he muttered. “Leave me alone . . .”
Good Christ, Fisher thought.
He swung shut the door, then knelt down and flipped up his goggles. He touched a button on his web harness, and an LED light came out, casting the still-balled-up Stewart in a pool of light.
“Mr. Stewart.”
“Please, please, please . . .”
“Mr. Stewart,” Fisher repeated, this time more firmly. “I’m here to help you.”
Stewart stopped rocking. He cracked an eyelid and squinted at Fisher. “What?”
“I’m here to help you.”
“Who are you? What’s going on?”
This was going to be a tough conversation, Fisher knew. He needed Stewart to cooperate, and he couldn’t risk taking him off the ship. This man was his only link to Carmen Hayes; she his only link to whatever had gotten Peter killed—and in turn the PuH-19 itself. It was a chain he couldn’t afford to break.
He briefly considered using Spigot, but Stewart was clearly frazzled, both physically and mentally. Spigot could turn him into a vegetable. So, how to convince Stewart to remain a prisoner, in what was likely his closest imagining of hell, keep his mouth shut, and play the role of human beacon while Fisher tried to put the puzzle together? There was no easy way to do that. He decided to play it straight.
“Mr. Stewart, I need a favor. Can I call you Calvin?”
“What?” Stewart replied. “What, yes, okay, sure. You’re going to get me out of here, right? Let’s go . . . now, before they come back.”
“Calvin, the favor I need from you is this: I need you to stay here, keep your ears and eyes open, and play dumb.”
“Huh?”
“The people that kidnapped you also kidnapped a woman a few months ago. She’s a scientist, like you.”
“I’m sorry about that, really, but I can’t—”
“If I take you off this ship, these people will—”
“I don’t care what they will or will not do. Get me out of here.”
“Keep your voice down, Calvin. You’re a physicist, aren’t you?”
“Yeah . . .”
“You know what PuH-19 is?”
Stewart’s face changed, his eyes and lips narrowing. “Yeah, I know what it is.”
“We believe someone connected to the people who took you and this other scientist have some PuH-19. They’ve already killed one person with it. We don’t know how much they have or what they plan to do with it. You take a coffee can full of that stuff, disperse it in a city . . . Well, you know what happens.”
“Yeah.” Something interesting happened as Fisher watched Stewart’s face. The color returned to his skin, and the muscles on both his jaws bunched. He took a deep breath and said, “PuH-19. You’re sure?”
Fisher nodded.
“Oh, God,” Stewart rasped. “Good God, I was afraid of that.”
“If you can hang on for just a little while longer, we can put the pieces together and track these people down. But it only works if you stay here and ride this out. I know it’s a crappy deal, and believe me, if I could do it any other way, I would. Can you do it?”
Stewart swallowed hard, hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah, I can do it. One thing, though.”
“What?”
“Don’t forget to come get me, huh?”
Fisher smiled. “You have my word.”
Fisher checked his watch. Time was up. He held up a finger for Stewart to be quiet, then said into his SVT, “Talk to me, Sandy.”
“The Japanese cargo ship is two miles off Gosselin’s bow. We better do it now before they’re close enough for a visual. If that happens, the jig is up.”
“Go ahead.”
Fisher switched comm channels, turned back to Stewart, and said, “In a few minutes they may come back and take you back to the cabin. If they do, I’ll come find you.”
“Okay.”
“Be right back.”
Fisher slipped out of the bin and crept to the end of the alleyway. He planted a Sticky Ear at the entrance, set the OPSAT to STICKY EAR—ALERT ON CLOSE PASSAGE, then returned to the bin. In his ear he heard Sandy’s voice:
“Cargo vessel Gosselin, this is the Canadian Coast Guard patrol ship Louisbourg, over.”
“Louisbourg, this is Gosselin, roger, over.”
“Be advised, Gosselin, we have been ordered to break off and assist a search and rescue. You’re released; continue on course, over.”
“Uh . . . roger, Louisbourg, continuing on course. Gosselin out.”
Fisher switched back to the primary channel and said, “Nicely done, Sandy.”
“At your service. Standing by for extraction.”
Fisher sat down beside Stewart. I’ve got an alarm set; if they come back, I’ll know.”
Stewart nodded.
“What can you tell me, Calvin? Who’s the Korean?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you first meet him?”
“Just when I got aboard here. They had me locked up somewhere, I don’t know where. It sounded close to the water. They had a hood on me.”
“Earlier, when I mentioned PuH-19, you said, ‘I was afraid of that.’ What did you mean?”
“That guy—the Korean, I guess—he’s been asking me about PuH-19 . . . about its properties . . . how much experience I’ve had working with it—that kind of thing.”
“And?”
Stewart hesitated. “I don’t know if I can . . . you know. Classified stuff. Sorry.”
“Okay. I’ll find out.” Grimsdottir will find out. Fisher assumed it was weapons research. “But, suffice it to say, you’re an expert on PuH-19?”
“Yeah. I wish I wasn’t, but yeah.”
An odd couple, Fisher thought. A hydrogeologist and a particle physicist who specializes in what was probably PuH-19-related weapons research. What did the two have in common? At first glance, the hydro part of Carmen Hayes’s specialty, combined with Stewart’s knowledge of PuH-19, suggested someone had plans to introduce PuH-19 into a water supply, but you didn’t need a hydrogeologist for that. One of New York City’s primary sources of drinking water was the wide-open and largely unguarded Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskills, and the story was the same for most cities in the United States, large and small. The trick was finding a toxin de
adly enough to survive dilution; PuH-19 would certainly do that.
So, again, why these two scientists? What was the overlap in their specialties that had made them targets for kidnapping?
Either way, it sounded like Stewart’s Korean interrogator was simply probing Stewart’s knowledge level. Stewart showed no signs of physical abuse, which told Fisher that whoever had snagged Stewart needed more than just his knowledge; they needed him alive. They needed his hands-on expertise for something tangible.
Fisher didn’t want to think about what that might be.
16
THIRD ECHELON SITUATION ROOM
“GOT a match,” Grimsdottir announced, pushing through the situation room’s door. She strode to the conference table where Fisher, Lambert, and William Redding, Fisher’s occasional advance man and field handler, were sitting. As of late, however, Redding’s role had become that of free safety: research, weapons and gear, brainstormer at large. His de facto uniform of the day was a sweater vest, pocket protector, and horn-rimmed glasses that looked as old as Fisher. Though Fisher had never seen it personally, Redding’s personal library of books—both contemporary and arcane—was rumored to exceed twenty thousand.
It was eight o’clock at night, and the space was lit only by a cluster of blue-shaded pendant lamps hanging over the table; the monitors and status boards were dark.
Grimsdottir sat down opposite Fisher and triumphantly plopped a manila folder on the table before Lambert. Fisher could see the Take that! gleam in her eyes. Nothing pleased Grim more than besting a technical challenge. Evidently, finding a name to match the Korean face Fisher had captured aboard the Gosselin had given Grim a run for her money.
Lambert opened the folder and scanned its contents. “Chin-Hwa Pak,” he announced. “Ostensibly a North Korean salary man, but the CIA had him pegged as an operative for the RDEI.”
The Research Department for External Intelligence was North Korea’s primary foreign intelligence collection agency. Along with the Liaison Department, which was tasked with conducting intelligence operations against South Korea and Japan, the RDEI was overseen by the Cabinet General Intelligence Bureau of the Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee.
Internal security in North Korea was handled by the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) and the State Security Department (SSD). The latter, which was managed directly by Kim Jong-il himself, specialized in political espionage; the surveillance of citizens, government officials, and visitors alike; and the monitoring of communication systems, including television, radio, and newspapers.
Fisher had been in North Korea five times, and five times he counted himself lucky to get back out.
“So, if North Korea’s behind the kidnapping of Hayes and Stewart,” Redding said, “we have to assume she’s already there and that’s where Stewart is headed.”
“It would be best if that didn’t happen,” Fisher said. “If you’re right and Carmen is there, reaching her—let alone getting her out—is going to be tough. Grim, where’s the Gosselin right now?”
Grimsdottir used a remote control to power up one of the forty-two-inch LCD screens, then tapped a key. The screen resolved into a satellite image of Canada’s east coast: Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, including the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Gaspé Passage, where Fisher had boarded the Gosselin. A pulsing red triangle with the annotation GOSSELIN beside it sat in the channel between the Gaspé Peninsula and Anticosti Island.
“Still headed for Halifax, it looks like,” Fisher said.
Grimsdottir nodded. “If she stays on course and speed, she should tie up at Legard’s warehouse there in twenty-nine hours.”
“The beacon Fisher planted on him—still active?” Lambert asked.
Before leaving Stewart, Fisher had planted a long-range beacon on him: a fake, adhesive thumbnail with an embedded chip. The Voodoo Dust had neither the range nor the durability for their purposes.
“Strong and clear. He’s still aboard,” Grimsdottir answered.
Brave man, Fisher thought, recalling the transformation he’d seen Stewart undergo at the mention of PuH-19. He’d gone from a whimpering mess of a man to a determined mole in the space of ten seconds. Nor had Fisher forgotten his promise to go back for Stewart. What was in doubt was whether he could do that before Chin-Hwa Pak managed to spirit him away to North Korea.
Lambert turned to Fisher. “Sam, go home, get some sleep, then come back for prep and briefing. We’ll want you at Legard’s warehouse long before Gosselin docks.”
Fisher nodded and started to rise. The phone at Lambert’s elbow trilled. Lambert picked up, listened for a few moments, then grunted a “Thanks,” and hung up. To Grimsdottir, he said, “Give me MSNBC, Grim.”
She worked the remote again. The LCD screen beside the satellite image came to life.
“. . . now, reports are sketchy,” the MSNBC anchor was saying, “but it appears there is military activity taking place in Kyrgyzstan’s capital city of Bishkek. According to a BBC correspondent on scene, about an hour ago the city came under what appeared to be mortar bombardment. Do we have video . . . ? Yes, I’m told we have video, courtesy of BBC news . . .”
The screen changed to a daylight scene of what Fisher assumed was Bishkek. The BBC cameraman was on a rooftop, panning across the cityscape, as the correspondent spoke. In dozens of places throughout the city columns of black smoke were visible. Sirens warbled in the distance, and car horns, both from anxious drivers and alarms, blared.
“These are very concentrated strikes,” the correspondent was saying. “Not your typical mortar barrage, I would say. I’ve been in both Afghanistan and Iraq during these types of attacks, so I’m certain what we’re seeing is in fact a mortar attack, but the precision is astounding . . .”
The camera continued to pan, then paused and moved back, focusing a half mile down an adjoining street where what looked like an armored personnel carrier sat burning, a geyser of black smoke jetting from its top.
“There . . . there’s an APC that’s been hit. Johnny, can you zoom in . . .” The camera zoomed in. “See there, no visible crater near the vehicle. That appears to be a direct hit.”
On the screen, a cluster of people, mostly women and children, dashed across the street in front of the APC and disappeared down an adjacent alley. Closer in, an open truck full of soldiers wheeled around the corner, swerved around the burning APC, then turned again out of camera range.
“Government troops are clearly scrambling at this point,” the correspondent continued, “but so far we’ve heard no sounds of small-arms fire, nor seen any close-quarters fighting. However . . .”
“Mute it,” Lambert said. Grimsdottir did so. “Here we go again.”
Since March 2005, when President Askar Akayev had been forced out of office, Kyrgyzstan had been a political powder keg as various factions, extreme and moderate, religious and secular, had fought for control of the country. As one of the Central Asian “stans” that sat atop what was likely one of the world’s greatest untapped oil deposits, Kyrgyzstan’s strategic importance to the United States was immeasurable, which was why in late 2005, after signs of the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan became undeniable, and a moderate government had finally taken control of the Kyrgyz government, the Bush administration had begun pouring money and resources into Bishkek.
All that changed the following spring with a grassroots rebellion fomented by the Hizb ut-Tahrir, in which an extremist Rasputin-like Uygur warlord named Bolot Omurbai seized power and declared Kyrgyzstan an Islamic republic. Omurbai’s rule, which almost immediately returned Kyrgyzstan to a Taliban-style country, lasted less than a year before a moderate rebel army, backed by U.S. and British materials, money, and advisers, toppled Omurbai and sent him and his army running for the mountains. Omurbai was captured three months later, tried, and executed; his army scattered.
“If the BBC guy is right,” Redding said, “and that was a mortar barrage, someone needs to hit the panic button. Th
ere’re only a few ways they—whoever they are—could get that accurate: eyeballs on the ground to measure and map target points and/or satellite-linked, computer-controlled mortars.”
“Bad news, either way,” Grimsdottir agreed.
If rebels had in fact infiltrated the Kyrgyz government so thoroughly they had perfectly pinpointed targets in the capital, the government’s underpinnings were already crumbling. Worse still, if Redding was right and the rebels had gotten their hands on sophisticated weaponry, it was likely they had more at their disposal than precision mortars. It meant they had money, resources, and a sponsor interested in seeing the moderate Kyrgyz government gone. And the United States, still deeply entrenched in Iraq and Afghanistan, was in no position to help. The good news was, most of Central Asia’s oil reserves had yet to be exploited, so there was little infrastructure with which the Kyrgyz extremists could meddle and no oil flow they could garrote. However, that wasn’t true in all the neighboring stans. One of the West’s greatest fears was a country like Kyrgyzstan falling to extremists and then setting off a domino effect in the region.
“Well,” Lambert said, “right now, that’s someone else’s bad news to address. For us, PuH-19 is still missing. Sam, let’s have you back in here in fourteen hours. You’ve got a ship to meet.”
17
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
WITH time to spare, Fisher took a commercial shuttle flight, the last one of the night, from Boston to Halifax and touched down shortly after midnight at Stanfield International Airport. As he walked off the Jetway, he powered up his cell phone; there was a text message from Grimsdottir: CALL ME. URGENT.
Fisher dialed, and she picked up on the first ring. “Change of plans,” she said without preamble. “The Gosselin made a sudden stop off Michaud Point—the southern tip of Cape Breton Island.”
“And?”
“And they’re moving Stewart. Looks like a small boat’s taking him ashore.”
Damn. As the crow flew, Michaud Point was one hundred sixty miles north of Halifax; by road, probably another fifty on top of that. “We have any assets there?” Fisher asked.
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