by Trevor Scott
Danko shook his head and ran his hands over his bald head. “What about Jake Adams?”
“What about him?” Alex glanced around his friend at the woman, who seemed to be slumping over more, her head almost in her lap.
“He gave the flash card to this Agency whore,” Danko said. “He set the encryption code. We just need to pick up him and get the code.”
“Or find the scientist, Tramil,” Alex reminded his friend.
Danko laughed. “In a perfect world. I thought that’s why they hired Milena in the first place. She’s supposed to be a computer genius.”
Shaking his head, Alex said, “Not even Milena can break five-hundred-twelve bit encryption.”
Suddenly a figure appeared in the shadows alongside the door to the outer warehouse.
“Let me take care of this,” Alex said to Danko.
Moving in closer, Danko whispered, “Make sure he knows I want to have this woman ‘before’ she dies.” He smiled and squeezed his friend’s arm.
The bald man walked off and stood next to the woman in the chair, as if wondering what to try next.
Alex went to the doorway and considered shaking the lobbyist’s hand, but then remembered the guy would never make skin-to-skin contact. Not that they would have anyway, since Alex had never seen the guy without his black leather gloves.
“Has she told you anything?” the Lobbyist asked.
Glancing back across the room, Alex turned to the man and said, “No, sir. I have never seen anything like it. She seems oblivious to pain.”
“Everyone has a button to push, Alex. You just need to be creative enough to find what motivates her. I heard she and Jake Adams were an item at one time. Can you exploit that?”
Alex shrugged. “If we had Jake Adams. But we let him go so he would lead us to the scientist.”
The Lobbyist tightened his jaw and smirked. “And how did that work for you?”
“It was not our fault,” Alex assured the man. “Adams killed Bogden before we got to Montana and then took Tramil somewhere.”
“And you lost them in a state with more cows than people,” the Lobbyist said with derision.
“Have you been to Montana? It is huge. He could be anywhere.”
“I don’t want excuses, Alex. Obviously Jake Adams came back here to drop off the flash card to his Agency contact.”
“His old girlfriend,” Alex corrected with a smile.
The Lobbyist shook his head slightly. “Will she ever give you anything?”
If Alex said no, he knew that the game would be over. “I don’t know for sure. Like you said, everyone has a breaking point.”
“But we don’t have time for this.” The Lobbyist walked into the room toward the woman in the chair. “Let’s see her face,” he said to Danko.
The bald man grasped the Agency woman’s hair and pulled back her head. The woman’s eyes seemed to open wider when she saw the Lobbyist.
“You,” the woman whispered through bloody, puffy lips.
“So you know me,” the Lobbyist said. “How much longer do you plan on holding out on us?”
She laughed. “I work for the government. I get paid if I sit here in this chair or at Starbucks.”
“But not if you’re dead. How would Jake Adams feel about that?”
“You don’t have the balls to kill me,” she said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you know Jake Adams. He’ll hunt down every one of you and kill you. Then he’ll find those who pay you and kill them.”
The Lobbyist laughed. “You think he cares that much about you? Where has he been the last ten years? All over the globe, but not in your bed. With other whores. He might simply shrug with your death.”
“Then put a bullet in my head you fucking pussy,” she screamed at him and struggled as best she could against her restraints.
With one swift motion, the Lobbyist pulled a silenced gun from his pocket and pressed it against the woman’s forehead. He pulled the trigger and the gun simply clicked without firing.
The woman didn’t budge.
The Lobbyist laughed and racked a .22 round into the chamber of the automatic pistol. Then he shoved the gun against her forehead again and pulled the trigger again. This time the gun coughed and the woman’s head slumped. She was dead immediately.
“Christ, you actually killed her,” Alex yelled. “What the hell?”
The Lobbyist pointed the gun at Alex. “You have a problem with that?”
“Yes! Danko and I wanted to. . .you know.”
Danko nodded but said nothing.
The Lobbyist laughed aloud. “I was never going to let you do that. Now clean up this mess. We have a little trip to take in less than twelve hours.”
“Not Montana again,” Danko pled.
“No. I just found out that Jake Adams is in Korea. We’ll meet up with our friends there and get what we need from Adams.”
Danko and Alex both nodded.
“Should we cut her up and dispose of the body?” Danko asked.
“No,” the Lobbyist said. “We want her body found and identified quickly. I want Jake Adams to know his old girlfriend was just tortured and murdered.”
“But why?” Alex asked.
“Because that’s when Jake Adams makes mistakes. When he’s so pissed off he can’t see straight. He’ll be thinking only of getting back to Washington and won’t see us coming for him.”
The three men all laughed now.
22
Seoul, South Korea
Jake grabbed a quick breakfast, then rolled all of his fresh clothes into his pack and checked out of the hotel. His Agency contact, Kim Chin-Hwa, was waiting for him out front in a taxi. Jake didn’t like the idea of a babysitter, but his Korean was also non-existent. He needed the young officer. He shoved his bag into the trunk of the taxi and got into the back seat with Kim.
“Hope you slept all right,” Kim said. “That’s a nice place.”
The driver got in and started to pull out of the parking lot.
Jake reached forward and said, “Seoul Station.”
Kim broke in, “We’re going to Incheon Airport.”
“We were,” Jake said. He pointed to the driver and repeated, “Seoul Station.”
The taxi driver shook his head, figuring the fare would be much less. They were almost within walking distance of the main train station in Seoul.
“What’s going on?” Kim asked. “I was told to escort you to Incheon and take the flight with you to Gyeongju.”
“I know. But I haven’t stayed alive this long by following orders.”
“I’ve heard you can be difficult.”
“Careful,” Jake corrected. Perhaps warned as well. “I have no ability to travel in Korea with weapons.”
“I was ready to put those in my bags,” Kim said.
Jake half laughed and let air out of his nostrils. “I’d rather have them on me. You know the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared.”
Kim considered his options. “We’ll get into Gyeongju much later.”
“The flight leaves in more than ninety minutes,” Jake said. “The KTX bullet train leaves in fifteen. Travel time for the flight is an hour and fifteen minutes. The KTX will get there in two and a half. Almost the same time. Plus my children can come with me. Win-win.”
They got to Seoul Station, bought tickets with cash, and walked right onto the first class car on the KTX train. Seconds later and they were slowly making their way out of the city. Less than thirty minutes later and they were up to more than 300 kilometers per hour. Jake had traveled nearly every bullet train in the world, from the TGV in France to the Shinkansen train in Japan. They were all smooth and elegant. Even if he didn’t have to worry about carrying his guns, he would have taken the opportunity to ride the KTX.
While the countryside cruised by to his left, where sprawling high-rise apartments gave way to factories and eventually to rice fields, Jake took the opportunity to check his e-mail on th
e train’s wi-fi. He rarely had any messages by e-mail anymore. He really wasn’t taking on new cases now. But he still maintained his server that routed his mail through a dozen countries and encrypting them and scrubbing them for viruses before sending them on to him. The scrubbing often dumped legitimate e-mail. But if someone who knew him really wanted him, they could go old school and call him on his cell. He might even pick up. As suspected he had only one e-mail, and that was from an old friend Chad Hunter, who was a weapons designer living off the grid on an island in southeast Alaska. Chad simply asked how in the hell he had come across the technology from Professor Tramil. That and the fact that his preliminary calculations confirmed that this technology would work. Of course Jake guessed as much, otherwise there wouldn’t be people trying to kill to get it.
Smiling, Jake fired back a message saying to keep the info close to the vest, explaining that people are willing to kill to get that technology. Chad was a civilian, but Jake knew the guy could keep a secret.
“Everything all right?” Kim asked Jake.
“Hmm.” Jake put his phone back into an inside pocket. “Did you see the woman in her mid-thirties pass by three minutes ago.”
“Of course,” Kim said. “She was quite the looker.”
“You’re right. But she was pretending to text and she fired off a photo of us from her phone as she passed.”
“Seriously?” Kim looked back behind him toward the car behind them. “I was looking at. . .”
“Her short black skirt,” Jake finished. “Or her tight white silk blouse?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
Jake leaned toward the young man. “Don’t be sorry. Just be more observant. Did you notice the car that followed us to the train station?”
“Are you serious? No.”
“When you aren’t driving it can be more difficult,” Jake instructed. “But you can usually line yourself up to see out one of the side mirrors. When I turned to talk with you, I verified the car through my peripheral vision. Driver was a Korean in his mid-forties with military posture. He abandoned his car at the station and bought a ticket just after us. His eyes met those of our young lady. And he wasn’t checking out her legs. She bought a ticket just as we were heading toward the KTX, and she barely got aboard before the doors closed.”
Kim shook his head. “How did you see all of that?”
“You need to see without being seen seeing.”
“Is that rule number one?”
“No. Rule number one is don’t let someone get the drop on you unless you want them to.”
“Why would you want someone to get the drop on you?” Kim asked.
“It’s a calculated risk, of course,” Jake explained. “You have to believe that they don’t want to kill you. If you think they might kill you, then kill them first.”
“Of course.” Kim looked confused. “But how do you know?”
“Easy. Their eyes give away their intentions. They don’t teach you that at the Farm anymore?”
“Not really. It’s more high-tech than that. You know, facial recognition software, satellite intercepts, drone surveillance, etc.”
Jake shook his head. “Great. What happens when the Chinese or the North Koreans shoot down our satellites with missiles or pulse weapons? All that technology is great. But it doesn’t do you a helluva lot of good on this train right now.”
Kim looked around. “I count three cameras in this car alone. One on each end and a globe in the center.”
“Don’t forget those on each TV screen. That’s three more. But it’s not my point. Unless we have real-time access to the images, your own eyes are much more useful. Hang on.” Jake pulled out his cell phone, put it to his left ear as if listening, and then clicked a photo as a man passed to his right.
As the man passed, the young woman headed back toward the front of the car—a classic pass-off. Jake showed Kim the photo. Then he attached it to a text and sent it to Pam Suh, the CIA station chief in Seoul, having her run facial recognition to see who this guy might be.
In just a couple of minutes Jake got a text back saying to call her.
“That my boss?” Kim asked.
“Yeah. Hold down the fort. She wants me to call her.”
Jake got up and walked back toward the bathroom at the rear of the car. Once he was there, he called and waited.
Pam Suh picked up on the second ring. “Jake. Where the hell are you?”
He ignored her. “Did you run the man through facial recognition?”
“I didn’t need to. The man’s name is Kwan. Real name is Ryang Myung-Ki. He’s a North Korean intelligence officer. Is he on your flight?”
“Not exactly.”
“Why? Because you’re not on a flight?”
Jake pulled his phone away and looked at it carefully, knowing there was no way she could be tracking him. “Are you tracking your young man’s phone?”
“You didn’t lose him?” she asked.
“Of course not.” Although he had considered it, Jake knew that would be useless since they both knew where he was going. “We’re on the KTX.”
“I know. Making good time at about three hundred K. Heading into Daejon. Why not fly?”
Jake felt the gun in his right front pocket. “I had a couple weapons I needed to carry.”
“Kim would have taken those for you,” she assured him.
“Right. Let’s just say I’m on a mission to travel on every bullet train in the world. All that remains now is China.”
“Might not want to get on that one for a while,” she said. “Let them get the bugs out.” She hesitated, as if unsure what to say.
“What?” he asked.
“Kwan is a brutal, bad man,” she said. “We don’t know how many people he’s killed. He worked for a while with our counterparts here in the south. But he became too difficult. The Agency refused to work with him. We should have put an end to his activities a long time ago.”
“So you want me to take care of. . .”
“No. That’s not your concern.”
“But he’s following me.” Jake explained how the man had tailed them from the hotel to Seoul Station and got on the train just after them.
“Let him follow.”
Jake laughed. “But don’t let him know I know he’s following?”
“Right. It’s better that we know where he is. He’s just one of many we guess will be lingering around that conference in Gyeongju. There will be just as many at the DMZ meeting. But security will be much tighter there. So you need to be careful.”
“Careful is my middle name,” Jake said.
“That’s not what I’ve heard,” Pam said derisively.
Somebody tried to open the restroom door, despite the obvious occupied symbol outside.
“Gotta go,” Jake said. “Oh, one more thing.” He quickly described the young woman on the train.
“Let’s see. Mid-thirties, nice legs, great figure. You just described half of the young women in Korea.”
“I didn’t get a picture,” Jake said. “But she got one of me.”
“Maybe it was just some woman who thought you were cute,” Pam said, a slight laugh.
“No. I’m too old for her.”
“Koreans respect their elders.”
The door handle shook again.
“Ha, ha. Gotta go.”
Jake swiped the door inward quickly and nearly ripped the arm off an old man who was sub five feet. The old guy looked frightened, so Jake bowed slightly and slid past the man toward his seat.
Sitting down, Jake saw that the train was starting to slow down somewhat.
“Everything all right?” Kim asked.
“Yeah. I’ll explain later. Any movement from our tails?”
“A little. When the man saw you head out, he got up and was about to follow you. He must have realized you were only going to the bathroom, so he pretended to get something from his overhead bag. What do we do?”
Jake thought about what he
would have normally done in a situation like this. He might shove the guy into the bathroom and choke some information out of him. Like who in the hell hired him. But in this case, Pam Suh had just given him that information without getting any blood on his hands.
“At this time we do nothing. Ignore the both of them. Well, mostly ignore the guy. Don’t let him know you know he’s watching you. With the girl, make sure you check her out every chance you get. I have a feeling she’s the shiny object of their operation. We’re supposed to notice her.”
Kim laughed internally. “Sounds like a plan. Like I could not look at her?”
Jake leaned back against his first class seat and closed his eyes. “I’m going to catch an hour. Keep your eyes open.”
The young officer nodded his head. Jake could barely see it through a slit in his peripheral vision.
23
Jake and Kim got to Gyeongju, the ancient Korean city splattered with burial mounds of Kings, a little after noon. Kim rented a car and drove them to the resort hotel at the doorstep of Bulguksa Temple, the most important site in all of Korea.
Checking in to the hotel, Jake stared out his sixth-floor window at the plush trees and snow-covered hills that led up to the mountains to the east. He had to admit that this was a much better venue than any city in Korea. There weren’t many distractions at this time of year. The tennis courts were useless, as was the huge outdoor pool. The area would need a major warming trend to melt the snow enough for the congressional delegation to hit the links.
When he heard the door close to the room next to his, Jake smiled and knew it was time for the grand reveal.
He left his room and stood at the next door down. Then he tapped his knuckles on the wooden door and waited, trying on his best smile as an image appeared in the peep.
The door swung open and Congresswoman Lori Freeman stood with her hand on her hips. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a plaid western shirt, her cowboy boots pointing right at Jake.
“Are you following me?” she asked. “What happened to your hair?”
Jake looked up and down the corridor. “The video happened. May I come in?”
“How do you know I’m alone?”
He shook his head. “Because my room is next door and I only heard you come in.”
