by Sam Powers
‘That’s why my mother wanted me to marry a doctor,’ Lee suggested. ‘You’re a class above.’
Duk’s phone began to buzz and he checked its screen. ‘I have to take this. Shan’t be long!’ And then he strode out of the office.
The bodyguard didn’t move, eyes locked on her, grin persistent. She tried to turn her left hand, to pinch it together tightly so she could slip it out of her bonds. But she couldn’t get enough leverage. ‘Your employer is deceiving you,’ she said to him, the fluent Korean surprising the large man enough that he raised his eyebrows. ‘He didn’t tell you I speak Korean so that he could speak Mandarin with me and you wouldn’t understand our conversation.’
His expression had shifted from jovially psychotic to just dour in a split second. ‘Shut up!’ he barked at her. ‘Don’t speak to me unless I ask you to.’
‘He called you an ape and a fool,’ she said, ‘who is only good at breaking things.’
He didn’t answer right away, considering the notion for a split-second. ‘You lie,’ he said. ‘Doctor doesn’t have a reason. No reason to say that.’
‘He said after he was done with me, he’d let you break my legs, as that’s the only thing you’re good for.’
Lee needed him to turn around, even just for a few seconds. ‘He said he has a file on you in which it says your parents were basically apes, too. He nodded toward the desk drawers when he said it, so maybe you can check for yourself.’
The guard didn’t move, but he didn’t say anything, either. He glanced quickly over his shoulder at the desk. ‘You lie,’ he repeated, this time less certain.
‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m tied to a chair. So… look for yourself if you don’t believe me! Aiyah!’ She gave her best performance of ‘exasperated.’
The goon looked over his shoulder at the desk again. Then he eyeballed Lee. Then he looked back at the desk again…
As he turned his head the second time, Lee threw her left shoulder back as far as it would go and wrenched upwards, dislocating it from its socket with an audible ‘crack’. He turned quickly.
‘What did you do?’
‘Top drawer, fool! It’s right there!’
He turned again. She held her shoulder back, the acute angle turning her bound-but-limp forearm at the wrist until her hands were almost back-to-back. The pain in her shoulder was excruciating, but it had created enough play in the rope to wiggle her right hand free.
The bodyguard opened the top drawer. ‘There’s nothing in here,’ he said. Behind her, she heard the office door swing open again.
‘Now,’ Duk said as he strode over to the chair, ‘where were we?’
Lee’s hand shot out from behind her with lightening speed and precision, snatching the hypodermic from his hand as soon as the doctor was within reach, then plunging it into the side of his neck. Duk screamed, the piercing shrink accompanied by him stumbling backwards as he flailed at the needle to pull it out.
Mr. Kim turned and charged her as Lee scrambled to clear the ropes with her one good arm. Her feet were still bound, but she rolled away from the chair just in time, his sledgehammer fists shattering it. Duk stopped stumbling backwards, the syringe withdrawn but the serum kicking in, a dazed look overtaking him; he sunk to his backside and sat against the wall.
Kim turned and charged, Daisy rolling to one side again, her shoulder throbbing from stabbing pain. She reached her other hand over and yanked hard, down and in, popping the shoulder back into joint with a pained grunt of her own.
He was deceptively quick for such a big guy. As she turned, Kim grabbed her long black hair and slung her sideways, tossing her into the rolltop desk. She slid off and as he ran at her again, reached over and yanked the file drawer wide open, the Korean running face first into it. He staggered back a step and Lee threw herself into a leaping side kick, heel catching his solar plexus, knocking his wind out. Kim stumbled into the wall but quickly righted himself. He went for the pistol inside his jacket, but she danced ahead, a sweeping round kick catching his wrist and sending the weapon flying.
In close, Lee kneed him in the groin, took a quarter-turn, and spun into a sideways elbow strike to his throat. But the big man merely turned his head, her blow catching him in the side of his tree-trunk thick neck. He smiled and laughed as she rained blows down upon him. Even catching him square in the face was like a mosquito trying to swat a person, the strikes doing no damage.
He threw a roundhouse punch, missing by a mere inch as she leaped backwards, then ran out through the office door, into the hall. He ran after her and, as he reached the doorway, the office door slammed hard into his face, staggering him once more. She kicked him in the groin again, this time putting everything behind it, catching one of his testicles. Kim’s face contorted in sour agony, and the second his eyes closed she was on him, hammering him with fast, solid punches to the jaw, face and throat. He staggered back and she hit him again, and again, and…
The last shot caught him on the submaxillary ganglion, a cluster of chin nerves known to put many a boxer to sleep, no matter how big the man. The giant’s legs folded underneath him and he crashed, glassy-eyed, to the floor. Her kick caught him square in the jaw once more, knocking him unconscious.
Daisy slumped to the floor, exhausted, the pain in her shoulder an almighty throb, like someone hitting it with a hammer from the inside.
Duk was still on his backside, even more glassy eyed than the now sleeping foot soldier. ‘What’s happening to me…’
‘You took the full dose of whatever was in that vial. Are you dying?’
He shook his head slowly, haphazardly, like a besotted drunk. ‘Don’t know. Only… supposed to take small dose…’
‘Hmmm. How unfortunate.’ If the drug was anything like traditional ‘truth serums’ it would simply make him more susceptible and open to talking. Whether anything he said was reliable was another matter. But it was worth a try.
‘Your father’s files. They’re not in the desk, are they?’
He shook his head slowly.
She rose and moved over to the bodyguard, retrieving the rope Duk had used to bind her and using it to secure him. He lay on his stomach, and she pulled one of his shoes off, then bent the leg up at the knee. Then she tied one end of the rope to his big toe. She bent his left arm behind him, then tied the other end in a sheath knot that pulled his thumb back and down, so that the string between toe and thumb was taut from tension.
‘What…?’ The stoned doctor looked confused.
‘There are incredibly painful nerves between the thumb and forefinger, as well as between the big toe and the arch of your foot. With proper application you can immobilize someone for as long as you like by tying them together. Any movement on his part will be…uncomfortable.’
Kim stirred, groaning slightly. Feeling his arm pulled behind him, he tried to pull it free… then screamed, a piercing, unmanly shriek that sounded like someone was flaying skin from his body. He stopped pulling and was audibly panting from the stress of the moment.
‘See?’ Lee smiled at the doctor. ‘Now, what I’m going to do to you will be so much more painful if you don’t’ tell me where your father’s files are located. Can you imagine having two of those bonds attached, one to each foot and hand simultaneously. I’m not sure a man could survive the agony. I rather think his heart might explode.’
Even in his drugged state, Duk recognized the implications. He gestured sloppily toward the far wall and a painting, a copy of a Dutch master. ‘Safe,’ he said.
‘What’s the combination? Quickly; I can affect the same method of torture with a shoelace, in case you’re wondering. I don’t need to go find another rope.’
SOUTH AMBOY, New Jersey
For the sixth time that week and the umpteenth-thousandth time in thirty years of living in South Amboy, Pearl Vincent walked her Yorkie-Terrier cross Scooby down Henry Street, trying to keep a brisk pace. She’d had her hip replaced two years earlier, but Pearl considered hers
elf lucky to still be active at sixty-six, and she had no intention of giving up her beloved companion.
So walkies were a must. But every time she got to that one corner, she got an uneasy feeling.
Except for on this day.
For the first time, the white stucco house with the narrow, tinted windows was quiet. No booming country music; no drunken loudmouths sitting on the front patio under the fluttering flag, drinking tallboys, yelling insults at her.
Normally, she had to rush by with Scooby, and they’d mock her, maybe even throw an empty beer can in her general direction, albeit never with enough weight to reach the curb. And thank Goodness they were too stupid to figure that out, she thought, as she maintained their pace and her peripheral vision remained glued to its front door.
What was it the one had yelled last time? ‘Sand flea.’ That’s what he’d said. ‘Hey, Sand Flea: just what kind of nigger are you?’ he’d called out.
She hadn’t heard that kind of talk since she was a little girl, in the Fifties, back when her family name was still Vahabzade, and her parents were newly arrived in America, fleeing the Shah of Iran’s hit squads. But she knew well enough to not react, to not feed their notion that they were important just because they hated people different from themselves.
She was almost past the house when the strange silence struck her. Yes, it was preferable. But it was odd, to have something so intrusive and loud suddenly disappear. A loss, albeit a good one. Pearl wondered if the house would go up for sale. She looked down at Scooby. ‘What do you think, Scoob? Would my daughter want to buy a house around the corner from her mom?’
Scooby looked up with baleful eyes.
‘Hmmm. Uh huh, that’s kind of what I thought, too. Come on, sweetie. Let’s get going again. When we get home, I’ll get you a biscuit, okay?’ She knew she wasn’t supposed to spoil him, but Scooby was nine, and a little overweight, and he still fell asleep in her lap like a puppy.
From inside the home, the man at the front window stayed slightly back from the curtain gap, watching the woman and her dog. He’d seen her once before, when he’d staked the place out three days earlier.
‘Problem?’
Gessler turned around. Codename Air was exacting, always on top of the situation. Gessler didn’t like him, but he had no idea why. He didn’t remember Donny Taylor, or Christopher Platt-alias-Ben Levitt, or any of it. But he knew in some other place, he’d have hit Air just for asking a question.
‘No, I don’t think so. One of the neighbors was keeping an eye on us. But given the nature of who lived here and her complexion, that’s not all that surprising.’
The firefighter who’d lived there – a man befriended and ‘catfished’ online by Levitt through his white supremacist militia group – was still technically there. Gessler had slit his throat and left him to bleed out in the upstairs bathtub and had yet to realize the tub was stoppered. With the door closed, the man was beginning to smell, despite the powerful extractor fan.
As Levitt had predicted based on their online talks, the man had an extensive arsenal of weapons in the home, dutifully stored away in a locker. Levitt picked its lock in under a minute. The C4 explosive and detonators were a positive surprise, he’d noted, a little old but still usable. They’d amended the plan as a result. They knew they were expendable if it meant Dorian Fan’s glorious ascension. They would trap and ambush the convoy as planned, then detonate the C4 while making their escape. The combination of the noise, smoke and damage would finish off any stragglers in the Chinese premier’s retinue and provide cover.
‘What time does Water arrive at the trigger point?’ Gessler asked.
Levitt frowned. He already felt unnaturally nervous around the bigger man, like an old score hadn’t been settled. ‘You’re supposed to be clear on everything by now. You should know the plan backwards and forwards.’
‘I’m just double checking.’
‘She’ll be there at ten forty-five, bringing up the rear of the procession, well back from the target car. She has one secret service agent accompanying her. By the time the target reaches us, she’ll have dealt with him and be about two blocks back, closing off their safety valve.’
‘And the papers, the arrangements? You had no problem phishing the identities…’
‘Completed, I told you,’ Levitt said, trying not to show annoyance. ‘We’ll show on the duty roster as loans at the station house, while my online friend will show as off sick. Water has contacted the appropriate senior managers to let them know they’re getting some help for the day. We begin shift at Battalion Forty at six, exit the facility with you driving at seven-forty-five, in place on route by eight-fifteen.’
Gessler nodded. ‘Then we’re ready.’
Levitt nodded once. ‘A glorious new dawn awaits.’
42/
SONBONG, North Korea
Anna Choi slept soundly, despite her treachery.
After all, from her perspective, Daisy Lee was a traitor herself, a rogue agent using Choi’s employer as cover for her own activities.
When she’d received the call from the surgeon, she’d initially been terrified of discovery. But Beijing not only didn’t care, it wanted her to cozy up to Dr. Duk, find out how many people he held files on, and where.
And so, she’d had one more glass of wine and then gone to bed, secure in the knowledge that Lee would no longer cause anyone in the strange little city problems.
She awoke to the click of a hammer being cocked and the press of cold metal against her temple. ‘Don’t make a noise, Anna Choi, or you’ll be having tea with your ancestors…’
‘Lee? Lee… Thank… thank goodness you’re alive…’
‘Oh, don’t even bother. He was crowing about your deception for an hour.’
‘Did you…?’
‘Hmm? The surgeon? No, nor his bodyguard. But they’ll both be wishing they had more friends unless someone stops round soon, as they’re both quite immobile. I imagine they’re both rather hungry. Now, you and I are going to go for a little drive…’
‘It’s… it’s very early. There will be checks, cars being stopped. It’s before the end of the curfew, technically.’
‘Then I’d advise you to avoid them. My Korean is better than yours, Choi, and if that happens, you officially become my ‘captor’ until the matter is taken care of. One way or another. Imagine what some pissed off yahoo DPRK soldiers would do to a kidnapper at five in the morning, after a long shift. Now… get up and get dressed.’
Five minutes later they were in Choi’s aging Mercedes, pulling out into the first light of day. ‘Where are we going?’ Choi said from behind the wheel.
‘The plant you mentioned. The upgrader. I want to see it.’
‘Why?’
‘Not that it matters to you, but it may be relevant to peace talks in which China is currently involved. It’s possible no one there knows it’s an enrichment facility. It’s somewhat relevant to the subject at hand.’
It took them ten minutes to get to the old, cracked road that led to the waterfront refinery’s front gate. ‘Keep driving past it, but find a parking space within sight,’ Lee commanded.
The smaller woman did as she was told.
At the parking spot, Lee got out of the car and moved behind the cover of a nearby rock outcropping. She pulled out her binoculars and sighted the facility’s front door for focus, then panned around, trying to take in everything.
Then she slowly lowered the binoculars, her expression worried.
‘What?’ Choi asked, coming up behind her.
Lee pointed to the center of the complex. ‘That is an oil-fired electrical plant, yes,’ she said. ‘But that building next to it isn’t. Those two towers are for cooling radioactive cores. This is a uranium enrichment facility. And it looks like it’s close to coming online.’
She headed back to the car, motioning with her pistol for Choi to stay where she was.
‘You’re leaving me out here?’
; ‘I am. They’ll either find you here and shoot you or you’ll make your way back into town. Either way, it’s more of a chance than you gave me.’
Lee rolled up the window and threw the car into drive. She had a boat to meet at the port in twenty minutes. It would take her to Posyet, where a charter pilot with a float plane could get her back to the south.
Dorian Fan’s true identity had shocked her. The parade and conference were less than a day away. She needed to get the surgeon’s information to Brennan, before Legacy could complete its terrible task.
BROOKLYN, New York
DAY 19
Drabek sat on the hotel room sofa and watched the two news anchors discussing the parade from their perch, halfway along the route. The city was making a big deal of the event, ‘A Day of Peace’ according to the television sponsors.
‘This is excruciating,’ he said.
A few feet away at the other end of the sofa, Brennan leaned back and took a sip from his coffee cup. ‘What? The commentary? Or the fact that we might be about to witness a terrorist attack on live television and can’t do a damn thing about it.’
Drabek gave him a less-than-appreciative glare. ‘Pick one.’
Zoey was sitting in the armchair to their right, her feet curled up under her. She was leaning on her hand, bracing her chin, her other arm draped protectively over her mid section. Drabek figured she looked like a kid being left out of the school play or something. She looked like she might cry, even though he knew that wasn’t going to happen. She was sturdier than that.
He turned his attention back to the television. There was something bothering him, still, but he didn’t know what, some piece of information, some clue or pointer, stuck at the back of his mind. He just couldn’t quite put it together, but something about the parade itself was off.
