by Pamela Clare
Speaking quickly, she explained, “This tunnel was a second attempt that does not go under the river.”
Nick muttered, “Fuck.”
Tanner agreed.
Jin tossed a glare in Nick’s direction for a second then kept selling Tanner on her plan. “We have maybe twelve minutes until they reach the next turn in that tunnel where they will probably meet up with another unit of soldiers alerted by now. If we go quickly, we can make it to a point that they cannot pass.”
Blade asked, “How can we get through if they can’t?”
“I know the secret passage, but I can show you faster than I can explain. The longer we stay here, the less chance we have of getting out ahead of them.”
Dingo piped up to point out, “I don’t like it either, but we’ve come this far with the woman …” His voice trailed off as in how much worse can it get?
Tanner knew better than to test the fates by asking that.
Nick muttered, “What the fuck? It’s that or do our own version of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at their last stand.”
Jin’s face struck a totally confused expression.
Tanner considered his options, which weren’t plural. He took a step toward Jin and grasped her arm so he wouldn’t surprise her when he spoke close to her ear.
She tensed and backed away.
His gut clenched. Did she think he’d harm her? He might be pissed off at the situation, but he’d never injure a woman unless she attacked him or one of his men. “You and I’ll take the lead.”
He said for his men, “We’re all in at this point. Let’s see this other way.”
She visibly relaxed and nodded, allowing him to move his fingers to her hand and walk her past the two physicists.
He lifted her hand to his belt next. “Hold on.”
“I thought you wanted me to lead.”
“Even a blind squirrel could stay on this path.”
He’d gone another seventy-five meters and a ten-foot drop in elevation when his boots splashed water.
A wet tunnel? And this one was close to the river.
When the water came halfway up his shins, he paused. “Tell me we’re not stuck in a flooded tunnel.”
“I would be lying.”
Guess he asked for that one. “Does it get any deeper?”
“Yes.”
A wet tunnel could mean this passage had weak areas above, below or on one side.
He growled, “Are you sure you know where you’re going?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know this was a flooded tunnel?”
“Yes. No surveillance here.”
“Better chance of a cave-in, too.”
She murmured, “You are not what your people call a glass-half-full person, are you?”
Nick’s voice in Tanner’s ear interrupted his conversation. “We got company.”
So much for twelve minutes. It might have been eight. Tanner let go of Jin’s arm. “We’ll have to make a stand here and fight our way out.”
Jin grabbed his sleeve, tugging. “No!”
“You have no vote in this.”
“Follow me thirty meters.”
He heard exasperation, or panic, but he gave her his attention. “What happens then?”
“If you want to fight, it will be a better spot.”
“Keep moving.”
The temperature down in these tunnels felt closer to forty and the cold water about the same. As long as they kept their internal body temperature elevated by moving, he might not end up with someone dying from hypothermia. The water reached waist deep on him. That meant it was hitting the two physicists at their chests.
What about Jin?
A quick glance to his right confirmed that she was bouncing on the balls of her feet as she moved, pushing through the water.
In the next thirty meters, the tunnel split again. “Which of those tunnels goes to a higher elevation?”
“The one on the left, but we must take the one on the right.
Of course.
She slowed as the water turned her movements even more sluggish. At the fork, she said, “Come on.”
Tanner grabbed her arm. “Keep going and let you lead us deeper so all they have to do is shoot us like ducks in a barrel.”
“Have a little faith.”
“Based on what?”
“I am here, too. I am not suicidal. Can you fight hundreds of soldiers? Do you have that much ammunition?” She made a small sound that he couldn’t decipher and hushed out, “Then stay where you are and die.”
She jerked away and kept moving.
Nick was bringing up the rear. His voice came through Tanner’s comm set. “They’re getting close enough for me to hear them talking.”
“Roger,” Tanner said, then ordered his team deeper into the tunnel on the right and followed Jin. He led his group into a dark void that continued losing elevation.
When he looked up, he lost all sight of Jin.
He should be able to see the outline of her black hood with his NVG.
He lunged forward, ready to go underwater and search for her, but her head popped up into view and her oval face brightened at seeing him. Water sluiced off her. She gasped a breath and said, “Stepped in a hole looking for the cable.”
As if no more explanation was needed, she waved him forward to where she bobbed.
He didn’t want to assign a name to the sick drop his stomach had taken at thinking she’d fallen into a hole where she’d drown.
She had one arm stretched above her head, clinging to the wall.
Tanner cupped her free arm that she’d been moving back and forth in the water to stay afloat.
She said, “Everyone must grab this cable.”
His gaze tracked her other arm up to where her fingers gripped a cable bolted to the wall. The cable drooped from there to the next bolt twenty feet away where the tunnel shifted to the left.
She urged, “Quickly. We do not have much time to get out of sight.”
Tanner explained to his men who brought Pang and Har up to speed. Pang looked appalled once he understood what the plan was, but that was the same expression he’d worn pretty much all night.
He did spare a moment to sneer at Jin.
What the hell? Shouldn’t those two men show her some appreciation for helping them escape? Didn’t Pang and Jin work together doing research?
She was an Amerasian woman, sure, but that didn’t explain his negative attitude toward someone who was risking her life to find a way for him and Har to escape.
Pang was getting under Tanner’s skin.
Could Har tell the State Department what they needed to know about the North Korean nuclear plans if, oops, Pang drowned?
Nick reported from the rear on the Norks closing the gap behind them. “I estimate maybe a minute until the threat reaches us.”
“Get everyone up here now,” Tanner whispered to the team.
The physicists passed by and the team moved into position between them and the enemy. As soon as Nick caught up to Tanner, Jin whispered, “Everyone must be still. No water moves.”
Tanner relayed that to the team.
Har started making a sniffing sound, the kind that ended in a sneeze.
Jin reached over and pinched his nose and hissed, “Silence.”
Tanner hated standing still with the enemy approaching. He’d rather be proactive than reactive any day, but they were evading the soldiers one minute at a time.
This was the minute for standing quiet as a statue.
Muted noises tumbled along the tunnel walls until the first splash.
Cursing followed. Tanner knew those Korean words.
Someone didn’t like getting his uniform wet. When he translated stupid and suicidal, Tanner glanced at Jin who maintained an indignant frown at everyone—even the Norks—criticizing her choices.
Once the sounds of the soldiers began to fade and it was obvious that Jin had predicted accurately, Pang and Har’s faces
sagged with relief.
Tanner didn’t have to look at his men to know they shared his bad feeling that the reason the soldiers walked away was because no one in their right mind would go this way. He hooked Jin’s arm, drawing her close while barely disturbing the water.
She cut wary eyes at him, waiting for him to speak.
“What’s next? No more surprises.”
“This tunnel was abandoned when it filled with water. People I know dug another one that meets this one. The soldiers think this goes nowhere, because the water is over their heads half a kilometer from here.”
“Then it’s over your head, too.”
“But only for sixty meters, then we reach the other tunnel and start back up to higher ground. We cannot reach the passage under Taedong now, but this will take us out of the heart of Pyongyang. The water does not go to the top of the tunnel because the original excavators kept raising the ceiling until they realized it would not work.”
“Har can barely breathe. He sure as hell can’t hold his breath for sixty meters.”
“I have straws for breathing.”
“How many?”
“Six, but I can hold my breath a long time and push up to gulp air when I need it. I have practiced.”
She’d known there was a chance she’d have to go this way.
He was torn between admiration and suspicion. Tanner didn’t know what to make of this woman, but he was finding it tougher to be angry with her for interfering when she kept coming up with options for escape.
If she hadn’t, they might have been captured by now.
But she thought she was going to leave this country with them.
A lead ball of guilt landed hard in his stomach.
Tanner relayed the plan to his men then he eyed Pang and Har. “You two understand what we’re going to do?”
Pang’s sour expression stayed in place, but he said, “Yes.”
Har nodded, then shook his head. “I cannot swim.”
“No swimming required. Just hold on to the cable and if you slip, don’t make a lot of noise. Nick will pull you up. You won’t drown.”
For that he got another confused yes, and it came without a bit of confidence.
Tanner took the lead this time so he’d know when the water was too deep for them. Jin was right beside him, then Dingo, Pang, Blade, Har and Nick.
The silence hung thick, interrupted only by an occasional splash.
Just as Jin had said, they reached the spot where the water would rise above the heads of everyone except him and maybe Nick. The cable that sagged from point to point was already underwater, which meant their three North Koreans would have to use the straws to breathe.
Jin passed one out to everyone then handed the last one to Tanner.
He pushed it back at her. “I’m fine.”
“No, you will not be fine. It is over your head soon.”
“I’ll get air.”
“No. You will use the straw.”
His men were busy getting Har and Pang situated so Tanner dropped his face down to Jin’s and spoke for her ears. “You will do as I say.”
“Not if it means you dying.”
He was taken aback by her fierce tone. He’d expect that from one of his three sisters or his mother, but not this young woman. He quipped, “If I do, you won’t have to listen me order you around anymore.”
“You are stubborn man.”
“Pot?”
“What?”
He fought a laugh. “Never mind.” She wouldn’t get the pot-meet-kettle reference. She was going to continue to fuss so he compromised. “I’ll use the straw—”
“Good.”
“But I carry you so you can keep your head above water. And if you say no, then I’m going without the straw.” That wasn’t much of a threat if she was only blowing smoke about keeping him alive.
“Okay.”
What did it mean that she agreed so quickly? That she cared? He brushed off the ridiculous thought. He was the hated American and even she’d said she needed him alive to get her out of this country.
A woman with an ulterior motive.
Now that he understood.
But he still had to give her a grudging respect for toughing her way through everything to this point. The DPRK would be vicious with any Americans captured while helping a local defect, but the local involved would face far worse. This government made examples of anyone who betrayed them and punished every person in their family plus future generations. Sent entire families to the labor camps for the rest of their lives.
Nick gave the nonverbal thumbs up to move out.
Tanner turned Jin to face him and picked her up.
She stuck the straw toward his mouth and poked him in the cheek.
He said, “You keep it until I tell you I need it. You’ll be able to hold it for me.”
“Do not step in a hole.”
Bossy thing. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her lips drew up on one side. Almost a smile.
He’d like to see a real smile and see her eyes in daylight. She huffed at him. “Are you moving your feet?”
“Yep.” So slowly and carefully she must not feel the water curling past her body. She shivered and he pulled her to him.
That turned her stiff as his mama’s ironing board.
Screw it. She was freezing. Her teeth were chattering.
“Hook your legs around me.”
When she didn’t do it fast enough, he wrapped an arm around her bottom, hoisting her up until her legs came around him. Damn. Now he was glad for the cold water, because Big John was thinking of braving the situation for her. Tanner thought of mucking out stables back on his mama’s ranch.
Anything to discourage growing a bulge in his pants.
Once he got moving along, Jin put her hands on his shoulders and stared at his face.
Water crept higher up his chest.
Her gaze flipped past him to look behind then came back to settle on his face. “Your men have tiny lights on their heads.”
“That’s for Pang and Har to see them.”
“Why don’t you have one?”
“You don’t need to see me.” But he felt like she was looking through him even in this inky darkness. The water now reached his shoulders.
“Pang and Har are slowing your men.”
“My men’ll handle them.”
That unwavering gaze pushed through the darkness, touching his face. He could feel the intensity of her thoughts and how she worked to keep them wrangled into place.
He asked, “Who helped you figure all this out?”
“Friends who will be in danger if you know their names.”
Fair enough. “Where’s your family, Jin?”
“My mother is dead. My sister is … not here.”
That could mean anything, even that her sister had been sent to a prison camp. If that was the case, she was wise not to mention it and draw attention to herself or she might end up there, too.
“What about your father?” Tanner had a pretty good idea what her answer would sound like.
“He did not want children when he lay with my mother, only to be satisfied.”
Water reached Tanner’s chin, and he lifted it to keep his lips above the surface.
He shifted Jin higher on his chest to be sure that her head stayed above his. When the water swirled around his nose, Jin leaned in to hook an arm around his neck. Her slender fingers felt from his cheek to his mouth where she put the straw at his lips. He sucked in the tip and dropped his chin back to a comfortable position, drawing her closer so he could lift her higher.
That put her breasts in his face.
She was wearing that damn ninja outfit, but it didn’t hide the pair of sweet tatas hugging his cheeks. He was drawing hard on the straw and his body was enjoying the warmth of hers tucked around him. Of all the dangers he’d expected on this trip, fighting off a woody hadn’t been one.
His foot bumped a rise in the ground that pushed his
head up into an air pocket. Water cascaded down the sides of his face.
She leaned back slightly.
That movement slid her hips up against him, and he wished like hell that the seven-by-ten-inch titanium plate in his body armor was gone.
He ground out a pained sound.
She peered hard and felt blindly for his face with her hand. “Are you okay?”
Not even. One more brush of her so close and he’d have a helluva time walking. He growled, “I’m good. Just be careful with your head.”
She ducked, which brought her face down next to his.
Close enough to kiss.
What the hell kind of thought was that?
One instigated by the bulge stretching the seam on his zipper.
The bottom dropped off beneath Tanner’s next step.
He gulped a breath of air and his foot landed deep enough underwater to bring Jin beneath the surface with him.
Cupping each side of her ribcage, he lifted fast before he considered how far he’d shoved her in his rush to get her to air.
She stopped short and bounced.
Dammit. He’d been taking short steps to avoid a sudden change, but now he widened his stride and pushed up through the surface on his third one. As he blew air out of his mouth along with the straw, he held her away from him a few inches and looked up at her face. “Did I hit your head?”
“I bumped the rock. Not bad.” She reached up to rub the top of her hood.
There was no way to check it in here. “I’m sorry, darlin’. I just reacted. I didn’t know how deep that was or how long I’d be down there. I was afraid of drowning you.”
Her eyes softened and her lips parted. She caught herself and shook off whatever thought had crossed her mind. “I am fine. We will begin to go uphill, but it will not be as smooth as it has been to this point.”
“You think that was smooth?” He chuckled.
She gave him a wry glance. “They had to push rocks down here to build the floor so that it would rise to meet the new tunnel. Do not fall.”
“Why?” He couldn’t help it. He had to ask again because it pushed her buttons for some reason. “Are you worried about me, ninja?”
Her eyes swam with emotions that threatened to toss him off balance again. No woman, other than those in his family, had wasted time worrying over his sorry hide. Not in many years.
