False Flag

by Jack Slater

  Ikeda opened and closed her mouth silently, stunned by the sight. She knew immediately what had happened. All this time, she’d held on to the slim chance that all this was a charade, that there was no virus, that her imprisonment was just a trick being used to make her break.

  But the blood on Chen’s hands and the pain in her eyes made one thing immediately, absolutely clear.

  The virus was real. And in just a couple of days, each of the prisoners in this room would succumb to its insidious power.

  Including her.

  Eliza acted on instinct, doing something she would regret for a very long time.

  “I need some help. Please, help her!” she yelled at the top of her voice, briefly silencing the drama unfolding in the cramped laboratory prison ward, pointing desperately at Chen.

  The guard stopped yelling, as if surprised to be confronted by another source.

  And that moment, Eliza Ikeda realized her mistake. She’d spoken from the heart, desperate to get Chen some help. But she’d spoken in Korean, not Mandarin.

  And if anyone was listening in the facility’s unseen control room, that meant she’d just brought a whole world of trouble down on her head…

  38

  Eliza Ikeda’s world had rapidly dwindled to a coughing, burning, hacking hell. Barely a few hours had passed since Chen started coughing up blood. It hardly seemed long enough to matter, just a blink of an eye.

  But the virus moved fast, scything through the prisoners with rapacious intensity, turning strong, healthy individuals in the prime of their life into zombies sleepwalking to the cold embrace of death. Strangely, the four Americans were not yet symptomatic, and spent their time cringing from every hacking cough and pain and moan. As far as she could tell, Ikeda wasn’t yet infected either, but it was impossible for her to worry about her mistake when she was in the midst of a hurricane.

  The electronic airlock door to the ward hissed open, and Ikeda’s eyes immediately focused on it.

  This was unusual.

  Ikeda had turned to her stomach in an attempt to tell the time. Back home, she was famous for her appetite. As a result of her training regimen, she could put away a five-inch stack of pancakes and bacon, smothered in maple syrup for breakfast, then four hours later complain of starvation, only to do it all over again.

  What her stomach was telling her now was that it wasn’t yet feeding time in this sick human zoo. She sat up, the chains connected to her ankle and wrist clinking against the metal legs of the bed. Two guards entered, unarmed, followed by the two she’d seen before.

  “What are you doing?” one of the Americans called out, her voice plaintive and broken. “Please, just let us go.”

  As usual, there was no reply. Ikeda had long ago given up on expecting one. The scientists and the guards did what they wanted, when they wanted, and there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.

  But usually, they stuck rigidly to the schedule. This was an aberration. A break with procedure. And in Ikeda’s well-trained mind, that meant that it might present an opportunity. Adrenaline flooded into her system, briefly hushing the anxiety that had begun to build inside her brain. Was this it?

  Was this her moment to strike?

  And then another flash of movement caught her eye. Someone was standing on the observation deck that overlooked the cramped laboratory hospital ward.

  And not just anyone.

  It was the North Korean colonel. The man with the horrific scar on his cheek and the cold, dead eyes of a sociopathic killer. And worse still, his attention was focused directly on her. Despite herself, Eliza shivered.

  In an instant, all thought of escape fled from the captured CIA operative’s mind. She was outnumbered and outgunned. And although she had come to terms with that inevitability days earlier, the colonel’s presence now changed everything. Her only chance of escape rested on the element of surprise. Of somehow taking advantage of a break in procedure, or a guard’s screwup, or an external emergency, and leveraging that opening to even the odds.

  But that was no longer possible.

  A scream broke her concentration—but for some strange reason, Ikeda couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man’s cold stare.

  White-hot rage coursed through Eliza’s veins, burning away the fear. She stared her vicious captor down, willing him to face her like a man, her gaze transmitting an implicit challenge.

  Come down here and fight me like a man.

  The colonel simply smiled a soulless sneer.

  The strange spell broke, and immediately Ikeda turned to the source of the commotion. One by one, the American prisoners were being released from their chains and lined against the wall. She watched on in horror, wondering if this was the end—if the Americans had outlived their usefulness. She couldn’t stop herself from picturing the horrific scene that would take place if the guards took aim and fired.

  In her mind’s eye, her countrymen’s bodies hung for a second, before their legs gave out, painting a trail of red down the wall.

  “What are you doing?” a woman panted. “Where are you taking us?”

  Eliza laid back, glancing up at the colonel to check if she was being observed. She was, but only for a second. The cruel, twisted officer gave her one last smile—a gesture that seemed to say, I’ll be seeing you soon—before turning on his heel and leaving the room.

  Finally, the last American was free from the chains that had for so long held them helpless. Ikeda watched as the man lined up against the wall, her left hand creeping down the side of her bed, searching for the thin piece of wire she had worked on. In that instant, she was hit with a startling flash of insight.

  She was already dead.

  Either Jason Trapp had made it out of Macau, or he too was captured. Either way, it didn’t matter. The flash drive in the North Koreans’ possession was a fake, Emmanuel Alstyne was dead, and the threat—or at least, that threat — to the United States of America had long ago been extinguished.

  Ikeda could not see how she could possibly escape this camp alive. Even if she rode the odds and somehow made it out of this horrific room, she had no idea how many guards were on the other side of the door. If, by some miracle, she survived the initial fight, how could she possibly fight her way out of an entire military base?

  It was impossible.

  And so, for a second time, she came to the conclusion that she was a dead woman already. In a way, it was freeing.

  She might not be able to save herself, but she would be damned if she let her countrymen die without putting up a fight. Eliza Ikeda had already paid her debt to the CIA. She had done everything her training told her to, paid every price the country could possibly ask. The information she had held on to for so long was worthless.

  So, perhaps, it was time to fight back.

  “Please,” a woman wept. “I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt us. Please…”

  One of the guards’ hands flashed up in an instant, delivering a hard slap that rocked the woman’s head back against the wall. The stinging crack shocked Ikeda, though it shouldn’t have. After all, their captors were capable of inflicting a horrific disease on innocent people. Why would hitting a woman be any different?

  “Silence!” he snapped.

  The American prisoners stiffened instantly. The low moan emanating from Chen’s lips, her sightless eyes rolling in the back of her head as her body thrashed in the throes of a burning fever was all the reminder they needed of the penalty that came with disobeying their captors.

  The guard nodded, apparently satisfied with the reaction. He clicked his fingers. “The four of you will come with me.”

  The Americans cast each other worried glances, the husband-and-wife couple reaching to touch each other for the first time since their captivity in this room had begun. Each looked strained—the endless concerns of the last few days, of wondering how long it would be before they too were struck down by the virus—now multiplied by this strange new occurrence. By this
point, none of the captives could possibly believe that freedom lay at the end of this experience.

  So why else, Eliza wondered, were they possibly being moved?

  She was torn, and chewed indecisively on her lip, fingers caressing the thin strip of metal wire. She itched to break it off. She knew in an instant she would be able to free of the primitive cuffs that have held her captive to this bed. A second later, she would be upon the guards, unleashing a week’s worth of fear, anger, frustration horror like a banshee released from hell.

  The conscripts wouldn’t stand a chance. That wasn’t arrogance, just confidence in her own abilities—and the amateurish appearance of her captors. They were weak, underfed men, with filthy weapons and little apparent training on how to hold, let alone fire them.

  But what then?

  The same fundamental constraints that had kept her from making a bid for freedom before still held true now. Action without a plan was no different from signing her own death warrant.

  And while she would happily spend her own life to save those of her countrymen, in her heart of hearts she knew that now was not the time. Though they might well be walking to their deaths, that was not yet certain. A false move might well condemn them to a fate that was not yet set in stone.

  And Ikeda wasn’t willing to risk their lives. Not yet. Not until there was no other choice.

  The Americans, flanked by their guards, shuffled slowly toward the door, the unlocked chains hanging loosely from their wrists. Eliza held her breath. If she was going to do something, it was now or never.

  She chose never.

  As the airlock door hissed shut, leaving Ikeda alone with the dying Chinese prisoners, a single tear streaked down her cheek. She closed her eyes and attempted to commit those four faces to memory. If this was indeed the last time she would ever see them alive, she wanted to remember them for who they had been. Perhaps, if she made it out of here and they did not, she could visit their families and give them some comfort.

  After all, there was no one left to mourn for her. Just an anonymous star on the wall at Langley.

  Only a man she barely knew, and who she would never see again.

  39

  Jason Trapp watched from the hills, binoculars pressed to his eyes, as a procession of six commercial trucks was prepared in the military camp in the plateau beneath him. He lay prone on the ground, covered in a makeshift blanket of fallen branches and leaves. Unless someone happened to step directly upon him, he was effectively invisible.

  As he scanned the encampment, his thoughts drifted to the peril Eliza Ikeda was in. He wondered if she was even still alive, or if the North Koreans had simply executed her the second she arrived in the country.

  Trapp grimaced. He couldn’t allow himself to think that way. As far as he was concerned, Ikeda was alive until he had positive, incontrovertible proof that she was not. And if she was alive, that meant his sense of honor committed him to attempting a rescue. And since he could not acquire such proof without entering the camp below him and discovering her body, whatever happened, he was going in.

  But at this precise moment, Trapp’s attention was focused not on discovering a way to enter the camp without being seen by any of the guards—or dogs—who patrolled its borders with frightening regularity. Instead, it was drawn to the strange arrangement of trucks.

  What are you doing down there?

  The trucks sat in a straight line, unmoving, as a swarm of workers moved around them like ants around a nest. A low cloud hung over the mountainous valley, flattening the light and making it difficult to observe what was happening beneath him in any great detail. The activity had commenced approximately sixty minutes earlier, when the trucks had rolled out of a large concrete warehouse with a corrugated iron roof, and the camp had sprung into life.

  Trapp focused the binoculars on the trucks, studying them intently. The vehicles were marked with commercial slogans written in Mandarin hieroglyphics, which meant they were different from any of the North Korean trucks that Trapp had seen since leaving Dandong.

  He knew, of course, that Unit 61’s stated mission was to acquire hard currency for the North Korean regime by any and all means necessary. The shadowy organization was involved in extortion, counterfeiting, human trafficking and the manufacture of methamphetamines. Any and all of those nefarious activities might require access to disguised trucks capable of exiting North Korea’s borders without suspicion.

  But none, as far as Trapp could tell, necessitated this level of airtight security. He had spent the last sixty minutes trying to work out how to enter the camp without being detected, and every single plan he had contemplated, he’d immediately discarded. Whatever was going on down there, it had the North Koreans on high alert.

  Until—and if—the trucks left, Trapp had to play the waiting game. There was no sense in going off half-cocked and getting himself caught.

  So the question remained: what the hell was going on? What was in those trucks that was so damn important?

  It was time to phone home. It was five in the evening in North Korea, which meant it was 4 a.m. back in Washington DC. If an international crisis hadn’t been brewing, deputy director Mike Mitchell would undoubtedly have been tucked up in bed.

  But the United States of America was on the brink of a nuclear war with the world’s only other superpower, so Trapp had no doubt the man would be glued to his desk.

  He pulled the bulky encrypted Japanese satellite phone from a pocket of his combat pants, attached a wired headset, so that he could leave both hands on the binoculars, and powered the unit up. He’d left it switched off until now, both to reduce the chances of the signal being detected and to conserve power.

  The phone only rang once before Mitchell answered, the relief in his voice evident. Trapp had no idea how the man managed it—sitting on his hands thousands of miles away from the action, waiting for his operatives to check in. Waiting for some who never would.

  “Hangman, how you doing?”

  “I’m hungry, thirsty, and I’ve got six inches of rock digging into my thigh. What about you?” Trapp said quietly.

  “Staying alive,” Mitchell replied. “Just about. What if you got?”

  “I’m not exactly sure,” Trapp said, pressing the binoculars to his face once again as a burst of activity took place on the plateau beneath him. “Hold on.”

  Mitchell knew better than to distract one of his operatives during an active mission, and though Trapp knew the pause would have driven the man crazy, he didn’t say a word.

  Trapp watched through the high-power lenses as a lone ray of sunshine broke through the foreboding clouds overhead, lighting upon something metal that was being carried between two men in gray overalls. The process was being directed by two soldiers, their weapons ready, but not aimed.

  He zeroed in on the glinting surface, focusing the binoculars on the payload between the two men. It looked like a canister of some description, almost like an old-fashioned milk urn. Trapp registered absently the way that the gray overalls the men were wearing were stained with filth, and the way they hung freely from the men’s shoulders.

  Trapp grimaced as he realized they were prisoners. And not just prisoners, but practically concentration camp victims. The idea that something so barbaric could exist in the modern world sickened him, but he pushed the thought from his mind.

  Right now, it didn’t matter who they were—it mattered what they were doing.

  The two men paused, lowered the canister to the ground, and packed it into a wooden crate lined with straw, which they promptly nailed shut. Finally the crate was loaded into the rearmost truck, and the two prisoners returned to the warehouse.

  “I’ve got something here,” Trapp said. “How are you guys doing for overwatch?”

  Mitchell hissed sharply. “NRO and NSA have re-tasked some surveillance satellites, but the coverage is patchy, and getting stick time is a bureaucratic cockfight.”

  “I’m sure,” Trapp said drily. T
he bureaucrats back in the Beltway mostly seemed to forget their job was to keep America safe, not further their own careers. That was bad enough when the world was at peace, but in Trapp’s opinion, it was inexcusable when things were this close to boiling over into open conflict. “I need you to get an eye in the sky on my location, ASAP.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t exactly know,” Trapp admitted. “There’s something going on here.”

  “Give me something to work with, Hangman,” Mitchell said, stifling a groan. “The Joint Chiefs have got whatever sats we have left pointed squarely at the Chinese. Getting them to turn them the other way is going to take a little more than just telling them you think there’s something going on here.”

  “Call it a hunch, boss,” Trapp said, watching as a second canister emerged from the mysterious warehouse, carried by the same two prisoners. The same sequence he’d seen before played out a second time. “But I think this is serious. Maybe chemical or biological.”

  “Shit,” Mitchell muttered. “Can you follow them?”

  “No can do,” Trapp replied quickly. “I haven’t got any transport, and if I move before dark, I’ll be a sitting duck.”

  “Shit,” Mitchell said for a second time. “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “You need to do a damn sight more than that,” Trapp growled, an iron sense of certainty clenching his stomach in a vise. “This is it, Mike. I know it is. This is the key to this whole mess. We can’t lose sight of it now.”

  Mitchell didn’t say a damn thing in reply. Trapp didn’t mind. He wasn’t worried about pissing off his boss. In this line of work, it was better to speak plainly than to let something go unspoken that might end up having devastating repercussions.

  “Okay,” Mitchell finally muttered. “I’ll get it done. What’s your plan?”