Vital Force

by Trevor Scott

  Standing to Jake’s right was Lt. Col. Stan Bailey, a serious look on his face. Bailey stopped the aircrew and started talking with them, while Jake came over to the third man.

  “You must be Drew Fisher,” Jake said, extending his hand to the man.

  They shook briefly and the guy said, “Yeah. Jake Adams?”

  Jake nodded and the two of them started walking toward a side door.

  “I got a short briefing on you en route,” Fisher said. He stopped and pointed his finger at Jake’s chest. “I don’t give a shit who you think you are, but this is my case. I’ve been following this woman for days. I was undercover for months.”

  Smiling, Jake said, “I’ll let your finger survive this time, since you might need it soon. Now, you tell yourself anything your little ego needs to hear. I don’t give a shit. I was hired to do a job. You do it with me or not. That’s your choice. In the end, when you’re layin’ on your back with blood oozing from your chest, it doesn’t mean shit who’s in charge. You’re still just as dead.”

  Fisher laughed and started walking. “They said you were a tenacious bastard. Finally, a truthful briefing.”

  Jake caught up with the agent, his hand catching the guy’s arm and pulling him to a halt. “Listen, I’m afraid I have you at a disadvantage. I got a full briefing on you while you were in the air.”

  Fisher looked disturbed by that revelation.

  “That’s right Mr. Internal Operations man,” Jake said. “You’ve never operated in a foreign country. Maybe that’s why they let you come here. You aren’t a known commodity. But let me tell you something. I’ve been working on foreign soil since your face was still in acne back in Kentucky. I’d call you a Southern Redneck, but that’s both redundant and probably, in your mind, a compliment.”

  Suddenly, Stan Bailey approached, a hand on each of their shoulders. “You boys done comparing dick size? I understand you gotta get to Seoul.”

  The colonel escorted the two of them to a car used by the Osan OSI for undercover work that was waiting outside. Bailey drove them to the operations building, where Fisher showered and then changed into a set of civilian clothes that were exactly his size. Then they got back in the car; Bailey driving, Jake in the front passenger seat, and Fisher alone in the back. Moments later they passed through the front gate, got onto the expressway, and headed north toward Seoul.

  “What the hell you expect me to do without my gun,” Fisher said. He had brought his gun on the flight, but it was taken from him while he showered.

  Jake turned toward the back. “You shouldn’t need it. We’re only here to follow the woman to her source.”

  “You don’t understand. This woman is a cold-blooded killer. I think she cums every time she pulls the trigger.”

  Jake smiled. “Really? We might get along, then. The photos we were sent were not very good. You’ll have to point out this woman for me. And when I say point, I don’t mean that in the literal sense.”

  “You fuckin’ putz. Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “I might be the guy who’s gonna keep you alive in the next few days,” Jake said, turning his attention to Bailey. “How much longer?”

  “Thirty minutes,” Bailey said. Then he looked into the rearview mirror at Fisher. “There will be an Agency crew from Seoul as back up. They’ll see you, but you won’t recognize them. They’ll look like every other passenger.”

  When they got to the airport outside Seoul, Bailey simply drove up to the arrivals area and dropped the two of them off.

  “You boys need anything, Jake has my cell phone number,” Bailey said before pulling away.

  Jake had been given a new cell phone; a tiny model that fit in the palm of his hand. He had made a few local calls to make sure it worked.

  The two of them walked toward the Korean Airlines international arrivals area. They had about an hour to kill.

  “Listen,” Fisher said. “We had a rocky start here. I’m sure that’s partly my fault. I didn’t get a helluva lot of sleep on that air mattress.”

  Jake had heard he slept like a hooker after a six-John night, but the guy sounded like he wanted to save face. “Hey, no problem. The briefing you got was right, though. I can be a pain in the ass at times.”

  “At times?”

  “Yeah. While I’m awake.”

  They continued on until they found the customs area where all international passengers would have to go upon arrival into Korea. The plan was simple. Fisher would sit off to the side with a good view of arriving passengers through customs. Jake would get the signal from Fisher and they would follow her from there. The other Agency officers from Korea would follow them. The only glitch, as far as Jake was concerned, was transportation. They were supposed to hop into cars with the local officers, who would reveal themselves when needed. Since neither of them knew the local officers, Jake and Fisher were working in the blind. But Jake had one ace up his sleeve. Something the local boys would not know about.

  When the two of them got to the customs area, there was already a crowd of people waiting for friends and family members to arrive. That would be a problem, Jake knew. There were only a few other non-Koreans waiting.

  Fisher took up a position along a wall of glass barriers where he could see passengers come through the customs stations and file down a ramp through double doors manned by two Korean security officers with automatic weapons.

  Jake got among the Koreans and pulled out a piece of white paper with the name “Kim” in dark black block letters and held it in his left hand. He put his right hand in his pocket and waited, trying his best not to scrutinize the others waiting there.

  Soon passengers started shuffling down the ramp, pulling carts full of suitcases.

  “Black pants. Leather coat.” Fisher whispered in Jake’s ear as he passed behind him and went off to the side again.

  Looking at the woman he had mentioned, Jake ran the face through his mind. He guessed she matched the grainy digital photos he had seen at the briefing earlier that morning. Leather, he thought. That would be tough.

  Jake slipped through the crowd as the woman came through the door, his sign prominently in front of him. As she approached, he pulled his right hand from his pocket and reached out for the woman’s left sleeve.

  “Excuse me,” Jake said, startling the woman with his hand on her arm. “Are you Kim?”

  Her eyes opened wide as she pulled her arm from his hand. She simply shook her head and quickened her pace away from him.

  Jake turned and asked a few more women the same question, before he turned and started down the corridor after Fisher, who was now some twenty feet behind their target. Jake didn’t want Fisher to get too close, since the woman might have seen the agent’s face when he had tailed her across the Pacific Northwest. Or even at Brightstar.

  What happened next, neither of them could have anticipated. Two men in plain clothes grabbed Fisher up ahead, and as he struggled, armed security guards moved in from behind. Jake, unsure what to do, passed Fisher and the scuffle, his eyes concentrated on the woman ahead. The others were on him just as quickly as they had scooped up Fisher. He tried to pull free, but it was no use.

  Jake’s eyes concentrated on the woman fading in the distance through the crowd, her head straight forward, ignoring the commotion behind her.

  A real pro, Jake thought, as the police dragged him away.

  44

  The woman walked confidently through the airport terminal away from all the commotion toward her objective. There. Ahead. Standing in front of a bank of computer screens looking at departing flights, was her contact.

  She moved in next to him, her ticket out, and her eyes alternating from her ticket to the screens. The pass was nearly impossible to see; two hands sweeping down past each other. Then the bald man walked away and she kept her eyes on the screen. She would not look at the note here. Take a seat in the waiting area.

  Nodding her head to herself, she returned her ticket to her purse and
then made her way down the corridor two more gates until she reached an area with a departing flight to Hong Kong. She would stay there until her real flight was about to depart.

  ●

  Standing across the corridor at a table in a small café kiosk, Chang Su watched the woman sit in the half-full waiting area for the Hong Kong flight. There was no way she would go to that city, she thought. Not after making the brush pass with that bastard. She too had been trained to sit in another area until just before the departure of her actual flight.

  She looked at the cast on her left arm and thought about Jake Adams. He had been so good to her and so good for her, yet she had been forced to deceive him and run like a rat from a sinking ship. Maybe he would understand.

  Focus, Su. There would be no way to follow her if she jumped on a plane at the last minute. No way to get a ticket that fast. No way to be sure the flight was not full.

  Where would she go? That depended so much on the buyer, Su was sure. And who would that be?

  She would not have to wait long. A half an hour later, the woman got up from her seat and walked down through the terminal only four gates and strolled through the ticket agents toward the aircraft.

  What? This made no sense. Standing across from the ticket counter, people flowing across in front of her, Su checked again the destination. That made no sense, she thought.

  The woman was boarding a Korean Air flight to Vladivostok, Russia.

  Su had to get on that flight. She hurried across to the ticket counter to try to exchange her ticket to Shanghai for one to Russia.

  ●

  Jake Adams, sitting on the cement bench in the small holding cell, shifted his gaze from the dank floor to Agent Fisher across from him. They had been there for seven hours and had not said more than a few words to each other, each knowing they were being observed through a two-way mirror on one wall.

  Why had they not tried to question them, Jake wondered? They had pulled all of their identification and were probably doing a thorough check on both of them. What would they find? Not much in the public system on him, that was for sure. However, if they looked beyond the normal law enforcement channels, he could be in trouble, even though he had done nothing wrong. Nothing they knew about anyway. What about his new partner, though?

  “I told you to pay those damn parking tickets,” Jake said to Fisher, breaking the silence. He had to do something drastic to get the hell out of there.

  Jake got up and went to the mirror, pressing his face against the glass. “Listen you fuckin’ fascists, I’m an American citizen. I’ve done nothing wrong but buy your damn T.V.s and radios for the past ten years.” He pounded his fists against the glass.

  Fisher laughed. “You’re a funny guy, Jake. Appeal to their capitalism. I like that.”

  “You got a better idea?”

  Rising from his chair, Fisher unbuckled his pants, turned around and then lowered them to the floor and bent over, exposing his white ass to the mirror.

  “Shit,” Jake said. “That’s gonna show up on the Internet.”

  Fisher pulled his pants up and tucked his shirt in before closing them and zipping up.

  “Yeah, and I haven’t worked out in weeks.”

  Suddenly, the door unlocked and swung inward. The first to enter was a Korean officer in a uniform. Jake expected an escort, but what he saw next surprised him. In walked his friend, Lieutenant Colonel Stan Bailey, wearing civilian clothes.

  Bailey shook his head slightly before saying, “My name is Stan Bailey with the U.S. embassy here in Seoul. There has been a huge misunderstanding, gentlemen. It appears that the two of you were mistaken for international terrorists on an Interpol watch list.”

  “We’re tourists,” Jake said.

  “Yes,” Bailey said. “They know that now.”

  The Korean officer, not saying a word, simply bowed his head in shame.

  “Well. Thank you, Mr. Barney.”

  “Bailey.”

  “Sorry,” Jake said.

  Bailey opened a folder and handed back their wallets, which the two of them accepted.

  Without saying another word, Bailey escorted the two of them out the building into his car in the visitor’s lot. They drove through the center of Seoul, the darkness of dusk and the headlights of cars swerving in and out of traffic a confusing blend of chaos.

  Jake said, “What the hell was that all about?”

  Bailey shook his head. “Bullshit. They were pissed that we had not turned over the woman to them. They had some shit on you, Jake, but they wouldn’t tell me what.”

  “But why pick up me?” Fisher asked.

  “We’re not sure. Guilty by association, I guess.”

  “Where’d the woman go?” Jake asked him.

  Bailey hesitated as he honked the horn and weaved around a small bus. Finally, he said, “Korean Air flight to Vladivostok.”

  “Russia?” Fisher asked.

  Bailey nodded.

  Jake contemplated that. Russia. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but he knew that things were becoming clearer now. “Do you have her by satellite?”

  “Clear as day,” Bailey said. “We’re sure she has no idea you slid a tracking device into her leather jacket. From what the guys said, that was one smooth exchange, Jake.”

  “Do we follow her to Russia?” Fisher asked.

  Bailey glanced at one then the other. “Not officially.”

  “What about the other signal?” Jake asked Bailey.

  Fisher was confused. “What other signal?”

  “Before you got here,” Jake said. “We put a tracker on Chang Su. My contact in China. She helped me get the photos. She had broken her arm. So, we weaved a satellite tracker into her cast.”

  “I don’t understand,” Fisher said.

  “Su took off,” Bailey explained. “She has been a double agent in the past, so we weren’t sure we could trust her completely.”

  “That’s not true,” Jake said. “You weren’t sure.”

  “Turns out I was right.”

  “She left. We don’t know she’s working both sides.”

  Bailey sighed as he entered the southbound freeway toward Osan.

  “What?” Jake said.

  “She got on the same plane to Vladivostok.”

  “Shit. Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Our guys watched her. She stayed back a ways, watching the other woman. Then, when the woman got on the plane, Su followed her.”

  Fisher broke in. “Sounds like she was surveilling her.”

  “Right,” Jake agreed. “When’d she buy her ticket?”

  “Why does that matter?” Bailey said.

  “Matters a whole helluva lot.”

  “At the counter, just before she got on,” Bailey said. “Traded in a ticket to Shanghai.”

  Fisher had a look of incertitude on his face. “Why buy a ticket to Shanghai?”

  “Two reasons,” Jake said. “First, she needed a ticket to get past security into the international terminal.” This second part Jake was only guessing on, but he was fairly sure he was correct.

  “And second?”

  “Second. . . she thought the woman would go to Shanghai. She was just as confused as us.”

  “That sounds hard to believe,” Fisher said.

  “That she knew where the woman was going?”

  “No. That she was as confused as me. Why Russia?”

  “I had seen the woman before,” Jake said.

  “Li?” Fisher said. “The woman I had been following all across the west coast?”

  “Yeah. And she recognized me. When I asked her if she was Kim, there was no way for her to hide her recognition of me. She was truly shocked.”

  “Where did you know her from?”

  Jake thought about that. He was close to eighty percent certain, even though it had been dark when he had pulled the mask from her head before his run through the snow.

  “Russia,” Jake finally said. “Her and a friend took
me for a ride and got me into this whole mess.”

  They drove on through the darkness toward Osan.

  45

  They had gotten back to Osan Air Base by five in the evening, Jake and Fisher both a bit tired and confused, and Lieutenant Colonel Stan Bailey with another surprise for them.

  First, Bailey had brought them to an electronic surveillance facility, with dozens of language experts from the Air Force and Army in front of computer terminals, headsets on, and listening to the North Koreans, Chinese and Russians.

  The three of them settled next to a 40-inch plasma screen with a map of the entire region displayed. There were blips all over the place, Jake noticed. Each contact was coded and could be called up with a mouse click. The colonel moved a staff sergeant away and took a seat in his swivel chair, directing the mouse on two blinking dots, one red and one white.

  “The red one is the woman you know as Li,” Bailey said. He clicked the mouse twice and a box opened in the upper right quadrant of the screen. Inside the box was a photo of the Asian woman, along with a description of her background.

  “You know that much about Li?” Fisher asked.

  Bailey looked up at a confused Agency officer. “Yes.”

  “What about the white contact?” Jake asked.

  Bailey moved the mouse to the white blip and clicked twice. Another box opened with Chang Su’s information, along with a photo that must have been a few years old. The information stayed on the screen for only a few seconds, because Bailey clicked both off and maneuvered the mouse back up to the region with the two contacts.

  “Now here’s the problem,” Bailey said. “The two of them left Vladivostok, and are heading toward Khabarovsk Province in the Russian Far East. Jake is familiar with this area.”

  Jake thought about that, and it seemed like months ago. Yet, it had been less than a week since he had been in Russia for the missile launch.

  Bailey highlighted a square section surrounding the two contacts and then enlarged that area. “Judging from the speed, and local sources on the ground, they’re both on the Trans-Siberian Railway about two hours out of Vladivostok, with another ten hours to Khabarovsk. That train is scheduled to arrive there by midnight.”