“Maybe it’s not money they’re after,” Tokaido suggested

“Maybe they’re angling for an exchange. Maybe they want to barter my cousin for the members of the nuclear team they can’t get their hands on. What’s the latest on that?”

“Well, so far, assassins have killed one of the defectors and nabbed another,” Kurtzman said. “We stopped them, though, in D.C. and Chicago, and Mack’s on his way to Vegas in case they try to make a move on the guy there. That leaves Shinn, who’s dropped under the radar.”

Moments later Colonel Michaels burst into the comm room. “Your cousin just contacted his business partners in Seoul,” he informed Tokaido. “His family’s being held in North Korea along with three other friends. The North is asking for a ransom.”

One of the world’s hot spots just got hotter.

Other titles available in this series:

Takedown

Death’s Head

Hellground

Inferno

Ambush

Blood Strike

Killpoint

Vendetta

Stalk Line

Omega Game

Shock Tactic

Showdown

Precision Kill

Jungle Law

Dead Center

Tooth and Claw

Thermal Strike

Day of the Vulture

Flames of Wrath

High Aggression

Code of Bushido

Terror Spin

Judgment in Stone

Rage for Justice

Rebels and Hostiles

Ultimate Game

Blood Feud

Renegade Force

Retribution

Initiation

Cloud of Death

Termination Point

Hellfire Strike

Code of Conflict

Vengeance

Executive Action

Killsport

Conflagration

Storm Front

War Season

Evil Alliance

Scorched Earth

Deception

Destiny’s Hour

Power of the Lance

A Dying Evil

Deep Treachery

War Load

Sworn Enemies

Dark Truth

Breakaway

Blood and Sand

Caged

Sleepers

Strike and Retrieve

Age of War

Line of Control

Breached

Retaliation

Pressure Point

Silent Running

Stolen Arrows

Zero Option

Predator Paradise

Circle of Deception

Devil’s Bargain

False Front

Lethal Tribute

Season of Slaughter

Point of Betrayal

Don Pendleton’s

Mack Bolan®

Ballistic Force

Ambition,

The soldier’s virtue.

—William Shakespeare,

Antony and

Cleopatra, III, i

Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and generally return upon him who began.

—Lucretius,

99–55 B.C.

All too often innocents suffer because of the grand ambition of people in lowly positions of power. The way I see it, my job is to even the score, to restore balance and mete out justice.

—Mack Bolan

Much thanks to Feroze Mohammed for continued patience, support and understanding

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

CHAPTER ONE

Koreatown, Los Angeles, California

The two men huddled in the littered backstreet alley. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?” John Kissinger asked Mack Bolan, a.k.a. the Executioner.

Bolan smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “A little late to be asking that, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but still…” Kissinger didn’t finish his sentence.

Bolan was years removed from the time when his actions were motivated primarily by a hunger for vengeance, but Kissinger had asked for help in avenging the torture execution of a long-time DEA field agent he’d worked with before he’d been brought into the Stony Man fold. Given the number of times Kissinger had covered his back in the heat of battle, Bolan wasn’t about to turn down his friend’s request.

“Let’s do it,” Bolan told his colleague.

The two men stood in an alley located at the periphery of L.A.’s Koreatown, home for more transplanted natives of that long-divided Asian peninsula than any other locale on the planet. Most of the signs and billboards in the neighborhood—as well as the majority of the omnipresent graffiti scrawls—were in Korean, and the few early morning pedestrians Bolan and Kissinger had driven past while approaching their staging position had been Korean, as well.

The population was continuing to grow and so it was no surprise that this rundown neighborhood of warehouses and loft buildings was slowly being converted into residential housing. Work crews were already out in full force across the alley, gutting the one-time shipping headquarters for a long-defunct furniture manufacturer so that it could be turned into an apartment complex. Bolan and Kissinger welcomed the noise and clouds of dust. They were being backed up by three DEA agents, but there were an estimated twelve Korean gang members holed up in the building they were about to raid: any diversion would help level the playing field once the action began.

The building in question, located around the corner from where the two men were readying their weapons, was a four-story cinder block with faded paint, boarded windows and a condemnation notice posted next to the main entrance. For years the absentee landlord had ignored the city’s demands to make repairs following the ’94 earthquake and any day the structure would come under the wrecking ball. In the meantime, according to DEA intel, the Korean gang—self-christened the Asian Killboys—had taken up residence and made the site the waystation for their drug-dealing. It was there that DEA agent Rick Starr had been taken after a botched stakeout the week before. The feeling was that he’d refused to cooperate while being interrogated, because when his body had been discovered three miles away in a vacant lot next to a strip mall on Western Avenue, he’d been covered with cigarette burns and was missing his tongue as well as three fingers. Kissinger had learned of the torture while attending Starr’s funeral and even before the agent’s body had been laid to rest he’d vowed to strike back against his friend’s tormentors. Now, as he glanced at his watch and confirmed that the raid was about to begin, Kissinger steeled himself and murmured under his breath, “This one’s for you, buddy.”

At 7:35 p.m., right on schedule, a garbage truck rumbled past the renovation site and headed toward the condemned building. Both Kissinger and Bolan knew that a DEA agent was behind the wheel and that another officer was hiding in the rear hold. Bolan leaned forward and peered around the corner, glancing at the rooftop of the building directly adjacent to their target. There, the third agent soon appeared. He rose from a crouch once he reached the roof’s edge and took a few tentative swings before tossing a grappling hook across the twenty-foot gap separating the two structures. His aim was true and when he pulled the line taut, the hook snagged on the other roof’s outer ledge and held firm. Shifting hands, the agent grabbed a short-stocked rifle loaded with tear gas rounds and took aim at one of the few top-floor windows still paned with plate glass.

“Showtime,” Bolan muttered.

In unison, the Executioner and Kissinger charged from the alley and sprinted toward the condemned building. Bolan was armed with a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. Kissinger’s M-16 carbine had a flash-bang grenade loaded in its submounted M-203 launcher. As Stony Man’s resident weaponsmith, Kissinger had further tinkered with the rifle, shortening the barrel by three inches and the stock by an inch and half, making it more maneuverable in close quarters without sacrificing performance or accuracy.

The Stony Man operatives were halfway to their target when the garbage truck’s hydraulic arms groaned to life, lifting its mawlike scoop out of the hold. As the scoop swept up toward one of the boarded windows on the second floor, the agent hiding inside rose into view. He had a MP-5 subgun slung over his left shoulder, leaving his hands free to use a crowbar on the slab of plywood. Once he’d started to loosen the plank, his colleague on the adjacent rooftop fired a tear gas round into the top floor. By then, the driver of the garbage truck had gotten out of the vehicle and was circling to the rear entrance of the target building, cradling his own MP-5 close to his chest.

When planning the raid, Bolan and Kissinger had taken dibs on the front entrance. As they expected, they found that the windowless, reinforced steel door was locked.

“I got it,” Kissinger said.

Bolan stepped back and quickly donned a gas mask as Kissinger chewed away at the lock and door frame with rounds from his M-16.

Once Kissinger had on his mask, the two men lunged forward, shouldering their combined four hundred pounds of weight against the door—which gave way. They jerked it to one side and charged inside.

The ground floor of the structure had been gutted years earlier and was empty except for loose debris and a few scraps of litter left behind by transients. There was no sign of the Killboys, however. The element of surprise had paid off, Bolan figured. Hopefully they could close in on the gangsters before they spread throughout the building.

“Take the elevator,” Bolan shouted to Kissinger through his gas mask. “I’ll get the stairs.”

The men split up. Bolan rushed through the beams of sunlight slanting in through gaps in the boarded windows. Once he reached the stairwell, he could hear gunshots being exchanged on the next floor up. He took the steps two at a time and hesitated a moment on the second-story landing, then charged into the hallway.

A cloud of tear gas filled the corridor, but through the haze Bolan was able to make out a pair of Koreans who’d just emerged from one of the rooms. They were cursing and gagging but still had their wits about them and had managed to gun down the DEA agent who’d pried open the far window to climb from the garbage scoop into the hall. Wounded, the agent returned fire before slumping to the floor. His shots were off the mark, but he’d held the gangsters’ attention long enough for Bolan to get the drop on them. By the time they turned to face the Executioner, both men had been clipped by rounds from the Desert Eagle.

Bolan then cautiously stalked down the hallway, pausing to check each room he passed. The rooms were all vacant. Once he reached the fallen agent, the soldier crouched and quickly fingered the man’s wrist. He couldn’t find a pulse.

“We’ll get them,” Bolan assured the dead man. “All of them.”

Bolan was rising to his feet when he heard someone enter the far end of the corridor. He whirled and took aim but held his fire when he recognized the DEA agent who’d been driving the garbage truck.

“Keep going!” Bolan shouted, gesturing to the floors above. The other man nodded and disappeared into the far stairwell.

Bolan reloaded his .44 as he sprinted to the other landing and made his way up to the third floor. He entered the hallway just in time to see Kissinger bail out of the elevator. That same instant a grenade went off inside the shaft, shaking the walls and stinging the weaponsmith with shrapnel as its concussive force knocked him to the floor and jarred loose his gas mask.

Bolan rushed forward and slipped his comrade’s mask back in place, then helped him to his feet. Kissinger winced when he put his weight on his right foot, and his left arm was bleeding where a chunk of flying debris had struck it. He ripped open his shirt sleeve and inspected the wound.

“Just a nick,” he said. His ears were ringing from the explosion and he could barely hear his own voice.

“What about your ankle?” Bolan asked.

Kissinger took a tentative step forward and clenched his teeth. “Feels like a sprain. I’ll live.”

Glancing upward, Bolan said, “My guess is they’re all up top, but let’s do a quick sweep here just in—”

Bolan fell silent as Kissinger put a finger to the mouthpiece of his gas mask and pointed to an open doorway two doors down from the ravaged elevator. Sunlight poured out through the opening, betraying the shadow of someone moving inside the room.

Both men dropped to a crouch. Favoring his bad ankle, Kissinger inched forward and took aim at the doorway, then fired the stun charge from his carbine’s grenade launcher. By the time the grenade went off inside the room, Bolan was already on his feet and rushing the doorway.

Just inside the room, one of the Killboys screamed and grabbed at his ears as he writhed on the floor. Bolan kicked away the automatic pistol the man had dropped, then swung around and fired at another two Koreans standing ten yards away next to an upended row of Army cots. Both men went down, but not before one of them had sent a 9 mm Parabelum round whizzing past Bolan’s ear. The shots just missed Kissinger as he hobbled his way through the doorway.

When he saw the first Korean grabbing for his fallen handgun, Kissinger lunged forward and knocked the man out with the stock of his carbine, then took aim at the gangster’s head. He stopped short of pulling the trigger, however, when he detected motion off to his right. He glanced over his shoulder and saw yet another Korean crawling out a far window onto the fire escape.

Bolan spotted the man at the same time and veered away from the toppled cots toward him.

“I got him!” Bolan called.

The Killboy paused halfway out the window and drove Bolan back with a quick shot, then disappeared from view. As the Executioner gave chase, he could hear a steady exchange of gunfire up on the fourth floor. Kissinger could hear it, too. He made sure the man he’d cold-cocked was still unconscious, then limped his way back to the doorway.

“I’ll help them finish things upstairs,” he shouted to Bolan.

The soldier nodded, then crawled out the window onto the fire escape. Glancing down, he spotted the fleeing Killboy. The Korean had already reached the second floor and was getting ready to jump to the ground. Bolan leaned out over the railing and took aim at the man.

“Freeze!” he ordered.

The gangster ignored the command and leaped down to the alley.

One of the renovation workers, wearing white coveralls and an oversize work cap, had wandered over from the adjacent building, and the Korean grabbed hold of him from behind, using him as a shield and pressing the barrel of his pistol to his captive’s skull.

“Damn it,” Bolan cursed as he yanked off his gas mask. There was no way he could get a shot off without risking the worker’s life.

Bolan was debating his next move when, to his amazement, the worker suddenly lashed out with an elbow, jabbing his captor squarely in the ribs. In the same motion, the would-be captive torqued free of the Korean’s grasp and stabbed at the man’s shins with a well-placed karate kick. The Killboy’s leg buckled and he let out a pained cry as he was struck by a second blow, this one to the base of his skull. His gun clattered to the asphalt and he soon followed suit.

In the fracas the worker’s cap had fallen off, and when a spray of long brown hair tumbled out, Bolan realized for the first time that it was a woman. His shock was surpassed moments later with a flicker of recognition.

“Jayne Bahn?” Bolan whispered under his breath.

He quickly clambered the rest of the way down the fire escape, catching up with the woman as she pinned the Korean to the ground, twisting his arm behind his back in a full Nelson. When she glanced up and saw Bolan, Bahn shook her head with equal disbelief.

“Well, well,” she chided. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

CHAPTER TWO

Jayne Bahn was a veteran field agent for Inter-Trieve, a globally active bounty hunter service whose abnormally high success rate had drawn an ever-growing list of high-profile clients, both in the U.S. and abroad. Jayne had done more than her share to bolster the company’s reputation, and several times she’d crossed paths with Bolan while on assignment overseas, most recently during a mission in Indonesia involving jihad insurrection. Now, once again, fate had thrown them together. Bolan wasn’t sure why.

“What are you doing here?” Bolan asked the woman once he caught up with her.

“I think they call it surveillance,” Bahn replied.

The Korean she’d taken on slowly came to, and when he began to struggle against Bahn’s hold had, she gave the man’s arm another sharp twist. He grimaced and began cursing her in his native tongue.

“Yeah, I love you, too, sweetheart,” the woman told him.

By now the neighborhood was alive with the wailing of police sirens. Three squad cars soon screeched into view and the moment they rocked to a stop, out spilled a handful of armed officers. Some went to work cordoning off the area from the throng of curiosity seekers drawn by the bedlam; the others strode toward Bolan and Bahn, guns drawn.

Bolan flashed a badge packet identifying him as a special agent for the Justice Department. His affiliation with Stony Man Farm—not to mention the existence of the Farm itself—was a well-guarded national secret and whenever pressed to identify himself, Bolan usually relied on his Justice credentials. When the officer in charge balked at Bahn’s ID, Bolan quickly vouched for her. Squared away, they turned over their prisoner and headed back toward the Killboys’ hideout. The garbage truck’s engine was still running, but the building itself had fallen eerily silent.

“Okay, now,” Bahn said once they’d reached the broached front entrance, “you’re here because…”

“Uh-uh,” Bolan countered. “Ladies first.”

“Since when was I a lady?” Bahn wisecracked.

“The jury’s still out,” Bolan said, “but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Such flattery, how can I resist?”

Once inside, Bolan led the woman to the nearest stairwell. As they started up the steps, Bahn explained that Inter-Trieve had been hired by the family of slain DEA agent Richard Starr to track down the head of the North Korean outfit supplying the Killboys gang with heroin and methaphetamines.

“That would be Kim Jong-il,” Bolan told her, referring to the rogue nation’s enigmatic leader. “Do they really think you’re going to bring him in?”

“There’d be one hell of a bonus if I could,” Bahn said. “But I think they’d settle for somebody further down the food chain. One of their generals or else the guy who middlemans their stuff to the States.”

“Good luck,” Bolan murmured skeptically. The tear gas had begun to dissipate inside the building, but neither Bahn nor Bolan had bothered to put on a mask and their eyes stung from the lingering residue. The smell of cordite was still heavy in the air, as well, as they bypassed the first three stories, making their way to the top floor.

“At any rate,” the woman went on, “there I was, casing the place out, when some guy plays Batman and goes crashing through one of the windows here. Next thing I knew, all hell was breaking loose.”

She pointed to the top-story window the DEA agent stationed on the adjacent rooftop had crashed through using the grappling hook line. A slain Korean lay dead on the floor just inside the window, an AK-47 at his side.

Halfway down the hall, Bolan and Bahn caught up with John Kissinger and the two surviving DEA agents. They were in a large room where the Killboys stored their drug wares. The agents were looking over a folding table stacked high with street-ready bags of heroin and several cardboard boxes filled with methaphetamine capsules. Kissinger stood over two of the gang-bangers killed in the firefight. Bolan recognized one of them as the man the weaponsmith had knocked out on the third floor; apparently he’d regained consciousness and decided to die fighting instead of making a run for it. Kissinger’s right ankle was still bothering him and he’d bound his wounded arm with a strip of cloth that was fast changing color from white to red. He did a double take when he saw who Bolan had brought into the room with him.

“What do you know…Our favorite party-crasher,” Kissinger said.

“I’ve been called worse,” Bahn countered evenly. “Nice to see you again, too.”

“Let’s wrap this up,” Bolan said.

Leaving the DEA agents to inventory their drug haul, Bolan, Kissinger and Bahn ventured into the hallway and conducted a room-to-room search of the rest of the building. They encountered no further resistance and wound up back in the third-floor room the Killboys had used as a crash pad. Bolan sized up the toppled Army cots and quickly did the math.

“We’ve got two more beds than we do Koreans,” he surmised. “We better take another look around.”

“I don’t think we need to,” Bahn told him.

“Why not?” Kissinger interjected.

“I saw two guys leave right after I got here,” she explained. “They were in a late-model van. Dodge, I think.”

“Did you get a look at the plates?” Bolan asked.

“Hey, I was two buildings away. Give me a break.”

“Not much chance of them coming back here after this,” Bolan said.

“Rats like this have more than one nest,” Bahn theorized. “I’m sure they’ll turn up.”

“Let’s see what else we’ve got here,” Bolan said.

He was already beginning to search the compound. There wasn’t much to go through. Besides the cots, there were a few sheets and pillows, a couple heaps of rumpled clothes and a cardboard box overflowing with fast-food wrappers and soda cans. Kissinger tipped the box over and started looking for clues and evidence amid the trash. Bolan and Bahn turned their attention to the clothes, checking pockets.

“No help here,” Kissinger grumbled, coming across only a few back editions of a local Korean newspaper and a foreign language porno magazine. He flipped through a few of the magazine’s glossy pages, then glanced over at Bahn.

“Nope,” he said. “Thought for a second that might have been you in the Miss November spread here.”

“Har-har,” Bahn deadpanned.

“Hang on,” Bolan said. He’d come across a folded sheet of paper in the back pocket of a pair of jeans. Bahn and Kissinger approached as he unfolded the paper, revealing a computer printout with two columns of names. The printout was in English, but there were Korean characters scribbled alongside either column. Most of the names in the second column had addresses listed beneath them. Only one of the addresses was in Los Angeles; the others were in Nevada, Illinois and Washington, D.C.

“Distribution network?” Kissinger wondered out loud.

“I don’t think so,” Bolan said. “Otherwise all the names would have addresses. Besides, they probably have other distributors back east. It’s gotta be something else.”

Bahn peered over Bolan’s shoulder, then whistled to herself as she pointed at one of the names in the first column.

“Yong-Im Hyunsook,” she whispered.

“Ring a bell?” Bolan asked her.

“I might be wrong, but, yeah, I think so.”

When she didn’t elaborate, Kissinger prodded her. “And?”

“Again, I might be wrong, but if I’m right about this guy’s name, we just might have opened up a whole new can of worms.”

“Get to the point, would you?” Bolan snapped.

“Touchy, aren’t we?” Bahn teased. She went on, “Okay, let me put it this way. If this Yong-Im guy’s who I think he is, we’re definitely not talking about just street gangs and drug-dealing anymore.” Tapping the paper for emphasis, she added, “What we’ve got here is a hit list.”

CHAPTER THREE

Canoga Park, California

It was a little past eight in the morning when Hong Sung-nam pulled his rental van to a stop halfway down the block from Dr. Yong-Im Hyunsook’s one-story tract home. He’d planned on arriving sooner but had gotten hung up in traffic. It had also taken longer than expected to apply the slap-on decals that would make the van appear as if it were part of the local cable company’s truck fleet. Hong was dressed in a plain navy-blue outfit that closely matched the uniforms worn by the company’s field workers. He’d picked up the outfit at a secondhand store in Koreatown the previous afternoon. It was missing the Trident Cable logo, but Hong doubted anyone would notice. If anything, he was more concerned about the short sleeves, which barely covered the freshly inked Killboys tattoo on his right bicep. There was also the matter of the name tag sewn above the right pocket of his shirt. There weren’t many Koreans named Norm.

As he waited inside the van, Hong saw an overweight, middle-aged man in a peach-colored sweat suit jogging his way on the sidewalk. The hit man quickly grabbed the clipboard on the seat beside him and glanced down at it, scribbling gibberish as he waited for the jogger to pass. Moments later, however, he was startled by a rapping on the passenger-side window. Hong looked up and saw the older man gesturing for him to roll down the window. Hong tensed, then leaned over and cranked the handle, lowering the window a few inches.

“What’s up?” the jogger said. “They told me on the phone it’d be a couple days before they could get somebody out here.”

Hong thought quickly and responded, “Change in schedule.” His English was fluent but bore a heavy Korean accent.

“Decent.” The jogger pointed back the way he’d come. “Only thing is, you’re at the wrong end of the block. I’m the last house on the right—22421.”

Hong glanced at his clipboard, pretending to look over his work orders for the day. “I have three calls on this block,” he told the man. “You’re on the list.”

“Perfect,” the jogger said. “With any luck, I’ll be able to catch the ball game tonight, right?”

“Right,” Hong said.

The older man stepped back from the van and resumed his jogging. Relieved, Hong tossed the clipboard onto the seat and glanced behind him.

Crouched in back of the van was a twenty-year-old Korean-American wearing an outfit similar to Hong’s. Ok-Hwa Zung was a new initiate into the Killboys. His older brother was already a gang member, and this day Ok-Hwa hoped to come at least one step closer to earning his stripes. As such, he was nervous with anticipation. Looking out through the van’s rear windows, he watched the jogger turn the corner, then lowered the 9 mm pistol he’d just yanked from the waistband of his slacks.

“I hope he doesn’t cause us any problems,” Ok-Hwa murmured.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Hong told him. “We’ll be finished with our business and out of here before he realizes he’s not getting any service today.”

“And when that happens he’ll call the cable company,” the younger man countered. “They’ll figure out we were impostors.”

“We have no control over that,” Hong said. “Besides, by then we’ll be halfway to Nevada.”

“If nothing goes wrong,” Ok-Hwa said.

“Nothing will go wrong,” Hong assured him. “Now put the gun away and stop worrying.”

The younger man fell silent. Hong turned his attention back to Dr. Yong-Im’s house. They were in an older neighborhood on the western fringe of the San Fernando Valley, an hour’s drive north of the Killboys’ Koreatown headquarters. Large shade trees lined the parkways and over the years their roots had buckled the sidewalks, requiring asphalt patches to keep people from tripping over the raised edges. A few of the yards were well-kept, but most had balding lawns riddled with weeds and surrounded by scraggly, overgrown plants. Hong knew that by U.S. standards this was a lower middle-class neighborhood, but compared to conditions back in North Korea, these people were living in the lap of luxury. And yet they were still concerned about such frivolous things as cable reception. Back home, Hong’s people were lucky if they even had a television capable of picking up state-sponsored broadcasts on the only available channel. Ball game? Back home the only thing to watch was propaganda speeches and reruns of the previous year’s victory parades down the streets of Pyongyang.

Hong’s envy was surpassed only by his hatred for Americans, which had intensified during his surveillance of the neighborhood the past few days. He’d had his fill of the self-satisfied way these people went about their business, oblivious to hardships endured by the rest of the world. If he had his way, instead of a panel van he’d be here in a tank, blasting rounds into these homes and then picking off the residents with a machine gun when they rushed outside in fear. That would show them.

At half-past eight, Dr. Yong-Im, a short, balding man in his early fifties, emerged from his house and picked up the copy of the morning paper lying in the driveway. He took the paper with him as he got into his Camry sedan and backed out into the street, then headed away from Hong’s van toward the far end of the block. If he stayed true to his routine, Yong-Im would soon be at the local Starbucks coffee shop, where he’d spend the next hour nursing a latte as he worked his way through the paper. Hong figured that would be all the time he and Ok-Hwa would need.

“Let’s go,” Hong told his colleague.

Hong grabbed the clipboard and a tool kit, then the two men got out of the van. An unseen dog yapped a few times at them from one of the neighboring backyards, but they reached Yong-Im’s house without any further run-ins. On the remote chance that anyone might be watching from inside one of the nearby homes, Hong and Ok-Hwa lingered a few moments in the driveway, dividing their attention between the clipboard and the roofline of the house. Hong made it appear that he was trying to track down the cable junction box, then led Ok-Hwa through a side gate to the backyard. There, tall cinder-block walls covered with creeping fig blocked their view of the adjacent yards and, by the same token, insured that no one could see them as they carried out their assignment.

Ok-Hwa had been tapped for the mission because of his experience as a electrician’s assistant, and he put that experience to quick work, pinpointing the home’s security system and then tracking the wiring to an outside circuit box. Once he’d shut down the system, he signaled Hong, who proceeded to use a locksmith’s pick on the sliding-glass door that led to Dr. Yong-Im’s family room. It took him all of thirty seconds to trip the lock and slide the door open.

Yong-Im lived alone, and inside Hong was relieved to see that the place was sparsely furnished. That would make things easier.

“I’ll start in here and work my way to the kitchen,” Hong told Ok-Hwa. “You take the den and the bedrooms. You know what to look for.”

Ok-Hwa nodded. “If he’s lucky, we’ll find it. Otherwise…” The younger Korean grinned malevolently and dragged an index finger across his throat.

Hong corrected Ok-Hwa. “If we don’t find what we’re looking for, the good doctor will only wish he were dead.”

CHAPTER FOUR

South Kangwon-do Province, North Korea

General Oh Chol of the Korean People’s Army grumbled under his breath as the military jeep carrying him through the mountains bounded over yet another deep rut in the narrow dirt road. His lower back was aching, and he’d forgotten to bring along his pain medication. There was a part of him that wished he’d forgone security considerations and taken a helicopter from Kaesong. It would have been faster and a hell of a lot more comfortable, but he understood the need for caution.

After all these years and all the setbacks, things were finally falling to place for Kim Jong-il’s regime, and there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks. Oh knew the U.S. and her allies had spy satellites combing the entire country for signs of suspicious activity, and the sight of a chopper setting down on this supposedly uninhabited side of the Changchon Mountains would be sure to raise a red flag. Traveling by ground was by far the safer course, and Oh figured he could endure a little discomfort for the cause. Besides, once he reached the installation, he figured he’d be able to get his hands on something for the pain.

While the other side of the mountain range overlooked the demilitarized zone and was overrun with heavily armed military posts, here on the north face there was little sign of civilization other than the dirt road, one of several that threaded its way through the rolling terrain. A few bald escarpments and promontories poked up through surrounding vegetation, but otherwise the mountains were so pristinely verdant that global conservation groups were lobbying to have the area declared a wildlife sanctuary. Oh knew there was little chance of that ever happening. After all, why should Kim Jong-il give a damn about a handful of endangered species when the hillsides could be converted to poppy fields?

After another twenty minutes on the road, Oh came upon an area that had already undergone such a transformation. Under the vigilant eye of several dozen armed soldiers, more than a hundred laborers were busy at work on a twenty-acre parcel that just this past spring had been clear-cut and replanted with poppies. The crop was well along and the workers were going from plant to plant, cutting into the podlike bulbs and then scraping the resinous ooze into small containers. Once accumulated into cargo vats, the raw opium would be transported cross-country to government-run pharmaceutical plants in Chongjin and processed into heroin for distribution abroad. Changchon presently contributed only a fraction of the opium grown in the northern provinces, but if things went well here in the trial area, more tracts would be carved out of the local mountainside. The way Oh had heard it, inside of three years, Changchon could be matching the output of all the collective farms combined, doubling the country’s heroin trade and helping to further subsidize Kim Jong-il’s military ambitions.

There were two obstacles to the Changchon enterprise. The first, climatic conditions, was beyond the regime’s control. Poppies thrived best in a warmer terrain with better soil than what the mountains here provided. But the feeling was that by cultivating more and more land, quantity could offset the inferior quality of North Korean heroin compared to that harvested in more favorable environments such as Afghanistan and Myanmar.

The second problem involved the work force, and as Oh’s jeep carried him along the periphery of the poppy fields, he was given a vivid demonstration. Twenty yards to his left there was a sudden flurry of activity. Seven carbine-toting soldiers broke from their positions at the edge of the fields and stormed through the waist-high plants to where one of the workers, a woman in her early sixties, had just slumped to the ground.

Oh motioned for his driver to stop the vehicle and he watched as two of the soldiers jerked the woman to her feet. Blood flowed freely from where she’d slit her wrists with the sharp-edged tool she’d been using to cut open the poppy bulbs. Apparently the soldiers hadn’t gotten to her in time, because she hung limply in their arms until, disgusted, they finally dropped her back to the ground.

The other workers shrank back as one of the soldiers shouted at them while pointing at the body. Oh could hear the officer demanding to know why no one had stopped the woman or at least notified the guards the moment she’d turned the blade on herself. When none of the workers responded, the man barked a command to his fellow soldiers, who promptly raised their carbines and fired. Three workers reeled from the impact of the gunfire and pitched forward, disappearing from view amid the poppies. The others let out an involuntary cry, then quickly fell silent when the rifles were turned on them.

Oh knew this was an all-too-frequent occurrence here in Changchon. The laborers were all interred prisoners at the nearby rehabilitation center, and because it was common knowledge that assignation to the camp was the equivalent of a life prison sentence, all too many workers had taken advantage of the tools they were provided with and opted to commit suicide rather than suffer through an extended incarceration. Those who ran the camp had made it clear that anyone who stood by and allowed a fellow worker to take his or her life would face execution, but obviously the deterrent wasn’t working.

Oh had no stake in the struggling venture, which was run under the aegis of the Ministry of Security, but when Lieutenant Corporal Yulim Zhi-Weon, the camp’s supervising officer, wandered over to exchange a few words, the general couldn’t help offering an opinion.

“Maybe you need to run things more like in Chongjin and the northern collectives,” he suggested. “Use schoolchildren to do the harvesting.”

“And where do we get the schoolchildren from?” Yulim retorted. “Ship them in from Kaesong? I don’t think so.”

“There has to be a better way.”

Yulim glanced at the fields, where soldiers where dragging away the slain workers, then turned back to Oh and shrugged. “There are always more prisoners,” he said. “One way or another, we’ll make our quota.”

“That’s what our Great Leader would like to hear,” Oh responded.

Yulim changed the subject. “You’ve been away the past few months,” he told Oh.

“My services were needed in Pyongyang,” the general replied.

“There has been a lot of activity inside the mountain,” Yulim reported. “Not to mention all the late-night shipments. At least four times a week.”

Oh nodded. “That’s what I’m here to check up on.” The general didn’t bother explaining that the bulk of his time at the North Korean capital had been spent choreographing the clandestine deliveries Yulim had just mentioned. And even though the facilities Oh had come to inspect were located directly adjacent to the concentration camp, what went on inside the mountain was classified and Yulim lacked the necessary security clearance to be brought inside the loop. The lieutenant corporal could pry all he wanted, but he wouldn’t be getting any answers from Oh.

The men were interrupted when a dilapidated army truck suddenly appeared out of the foliage twenty yards to Oh’s right. The truck had arrived at the site by way of another of the dirt roads leading up into the mountains. The rear bed was covered by a canvas shell, but Yulim had apparently been expecting the vehicle and knew what kind of cargo it was carrying.

“Speaking of more prisoners,” he said.

Once the truck came to a stop, officers immediately encircled the vehicle. The rear tailgate was lowered and, one by one, more than a dozen men and women climbed down to the ground and were herded into a single file. Half of them wore peasant rags and had the emaciated look of farm laborers. The others, however, were far better dressed, and a man, woman and a girl in her midteens looked to be part Japanese. Since most of the repatriates had long since been weeded out of the general populace, Oh suspected they were from the south. Spies, perhaps.

Yulim’s attention had been drawn to the Japanese-Koreans, as well, and he seemed particularly focused on the young woman, who had long black hair and striking features. And, unlike the majority of prisoners her age, she showed no signs of starvation and had at least the semblance of a full figure.

“What do we have here?” Yulim murmured, a smile creeping across his face. By the time he turned back to Oh, the smile had bloomed into a wide grin. “Forgive me, General, but it would appear I have some inspecting of my own to attend to.”

“I think you have more in mind than ‘inspection,’” Oh countered.

“Perhaps,” Yulim said.

The lieutenant corporal snapped off a quick salute and moved off toward the new prisoners. Oh had no interest in watching the other officer act out on his lechery, so he signaled his driver and they continued along the road, leaving the poppy fields behind.

After another ten minutes of unrelieved jostling, the jeep reached flatland and soon came to the base of a large gorge cordoned off by three concentric rows of tall cyclone fences, each topped with razor-edged lengths of barbed wire. Prior to its fortification for use as the Changchon Rehabilitation Center, the compound and its honeycomb network of mountain tunnels had served as one of North Korea’s primary mining centers, yielding untold tons of coal, iron ore and magnesite. Most of the mine shafts had been long played out, but chain gangs made up of prisoners capable of more strenuous work than the poppy fields offered were sent daily into the mountain bowels with shovels and pickaxes to seek out new veins or to fill their carts with chiseled leavings.

Once Oh’s jeep had passed through the security checkpoint at the main entrance, the general rode past the crude barracks and the work yard where inmates sifted through the latest haul from the mines. Beyond the yard there were at least a dozen visible openings bored into the base of the nearby mountain. Oh was taken to the most heavily guarded of the openings. There, he climbed out of the vehicle and rubbed his lower back as he left his driver behind and made his way past the sentries, barely acknowledging their salutes.

A well-lit passageway, paved and large enough for a semi-truck to pass through, led him fifty yards deep into the mountain before giving way to a large subterranean bunker the size of an airplane hangar. Unseen generators powered banks of overhead lights that bathed the chamber in a glow so bright that Oh had to squint. Portions of the surrounding walls consisted of bare rock, but for the most part the enclosure—floors, walls and ceiling—was lined with a four-foot-thick layer of reinforced concrete. The far wall had been partitioned off with a row of prefabricated offices and laboratories, and to the general’s right was a two-story housing facility every bit as full of amenities as the concentration camp barracks were deprived. Oh had stayed in one of the officers’ quarters a few months earlier when he’d overseen the initial construction of the bunker facilities, and it heartened him to know there would be a warm bed waiting for him once he’d completed his inspection.

Oh strode to his left, bootheels clomping loudly on the concrete, until he reached the chamber’s storage area. There, concealed inside thick, cylindrical metal canisters mounted to large, seven-axle transporters, were six Taepo Dong-4 intercontinental ballistic missiles. The missiles, three generations removed from the two-stage, Scud-derived, Taepo Dong-1 that North Korea had lobbed into the Sea of Japan back in 1998, had been originally manufactured a hundred miles to the north at the army’s R&D facilities in Sin’gye. Once built and deemed operative, the ICBMs had been dismantled and, over the course of the past three months, using circuitous routes and staggered delivery schedules, Oh had seen to it that the armament had been transferred, one by one, to Changchon. The final missile had arrived two days earlier and reassembly had been completed only a few hours before the general’s arrival.

Oh was looking over the missiles when he was joined by Major Jin Choon-Yei, a short, lean career army officer in his early sixties. Jin, a long-time colleague of Oh’s, had taken charge of operations at Changchon when the general had been called back to Pyongyang, and the major had supervised the site’s transformation into the primary hiding place for North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Prisoners at the concentration camp, along with Lieutenant Corporal Yulim and the camp’s security force, had been kept in the dark about the nature of the facility and construction had been carried out by military inductees and trusted private contractors.

“Things are coming along nicely, yes?” Jin remarked after the men exchanged greetings.

Oh nodded. “So far, so good. What about the warheads?”

“Over here.”

Jin led Oh past the missiles to a garage-size steel vault imbedded in the mountainside. The door to the vault was closed and guarded by a pair of sentries who stood as rigid as statues, diverting their gazes from the two officers.

“We have four warheads ready for deployment,” Jin told the general, pointing past the sentries at the safe. “The others, as you know, are en route from Yongbyon and Pyongyang.”

Oh nodded. “The next shipment should arrive by tomorrow morning, with the others to follow soon after.”

“We’ll be ready for them,” Jin assured the general.

“Good,” Oh said. “There’ve been no problems, then? No setbacks?”

“None,” Jin said. “The closest thing we have to a problem is some crumbling of the bedrock where we didn’t encase it in concrete. It’s very minor, though.”

The major pointed, dragging Oh’s attention to the area where the warhead vault was imbedded into the raw cavern walls. Small heaps of fallen rubble had accumulated on the ground at the base of the vault and Oh could see faint stress fissures in the nearby rock.

“Keep that monitored,” Oh suggested. “If the fissures widen, I’ll have someone brought in to see if we need to fortify the rock.”

“It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Jin conceded.

Oh made a mental note to call the KPA’s Corps of Engineers regarding the matter, then quickly turned his thoughts to other matters.

“Now, then,” he said, “what about the launch site?”

“I just spoke to your nephew and he says things are coming along,” Jin reported. “And the access tunnels are close to merging, as well.”

“Already?” Oh was pleasantly surprised. He’d made a point not to pry into his nephew’s handling of construction at the missile base, and it appeared now that his faith in the younger man’s talents had paid off.

“Here,” Jin said, leading Oh away from the site, “let me show you.”

Jin’s office was located in the first of the prefab rooms situated along the far wall. Once they’d entered the room, the major directed Oh’s attention to a bulletin board mounted on an easel across from his desk. Tacked to the board was a topographical map of South Pyongyang Province, which was bordered to the west by the Yellow Sea and to the south by the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. Two thick lines drawn with a marking pen snaked through the Changchon Mountain Range. The longer line, stretching for nearly seven miles, wound its way south from the facility. The second line was far shorter, barely a quarter-mile long, reaching northward from Kijongdong, a controversial North Korean installation located just north of the DMZ. A barely discernible gap marked where the two lines would eventually intersect.

“We’ve been working around the clock in both tunnels,” Jin told Oh. “If all goes well, by morning the tunnels will have connected. Once that happens, it will only be a matter of widening a few stretches and clearing away debris, then we can haul the missiles and warheads to the launch site.”

Oh smiled faintly. From the sound of it, they would achieve launch capacity within a week, well ahead of even the most optimistic projections made a few months ago. Kim Jong-il would be pleased.

“I’ll check the tunnels in the morning,” the general told Jin. “In the meantime, I’m exhausted.”

“Your room’s the way you left it,” Jin assured him.

“Good,” Oh said. “Before I retire, though, I was wondering. My back has been acting up and I forgot my medication. If you could help me out…”

The major smiled indulgently and went to his desk, unlocking one of the side doors. He removed a vial and handed it to the general. “This should take care of the pain and help you sleep.”

There was no label on the vial, but Oh knew the capsules were filled with doses of morphine, a byproduct of the rehabilitation center’s heroin operations. Oh thanked Jin and quickly helped himself to one of the capsules. He was about to excuse himself so that he could get to his quarters before the morphine kicked in when Jin broadsided him with a pointed query.

“Forgive me for bringing this up, General,” the major said. “I know things seem to be going well, but I’ve been hearing certain rumors about the missiles. About how well they might perform.”

Oh’s smile faded as quickly as it had appeared. He turned to Jin, eyes flashing with irritation.

“What rumors?” he demanded.

Jin blanched. He took an involuntary step backward and stiffened.

“Forgive me,” he repeated. “It wasn’t my place to bring this up.”

“What rumors?” Oh pressed.

Jin hesitated, then said, “What I’ve heard is that these missiles are based on designs first drawn up by the Project Kanggye Team. The team that defected.”

Oh struggled to maintain his composure. The mass defection of all five nuclear weapons specialists comprising the Kanggye Nuclear Research and Development Team had supposedly been kept under tight wraps ever since it had been carried out two years ago. The crew, which had devised the means by which to nearly double both the range and accuracy of the Taepo Dongs, had been replaced by other physicists and military scientists who’d discovered that several members of the original team had tampered with their work data prior to defecting. The need to scrutinize every scrap of data to try to rectify errors had effectively derailed the missile program for the better part of fourteen months, and there was still concern that the replacement team had failed to contend with all the problems the defectors had created. And because there was no way to test the Taepo Dongs without attracting the attention of the outside world, the odds of failed launchings or errant trajectories were far greater than hoped for. The ranking brass had done its best to downplay the risks while fast-tracking production of the ICBMs, but in the back of everyone’s mind, including Oh’s, was the concern that a glitch planted by one of the defectors would avoid discovery and prove the undoing of the whole enterprise.

Oh saw no point in trying to deny the rumors. Instead he tried to alleviate the major’s concerns.

“We’ve had teams at work tracking down the defectors,” the general explained. “Once we have them in custody, hopefully they can be convinced to come back and verify whether the missiles can be successfully fired.”

“A wise move,” Jin responded. “But aren’t the defectors all still in America?”

“For now they are,” Oh said. “And for a while they did a good job of hiding from us. But now we know where they are. At least, most of them. Even as we speak, we are moving in to seize as many of them as we can in one fell swoop. With a little persuasion, I’m sure they’ll tell us where we can find the others, as well.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Canoga Park, California

Dr. Yong-Im Hyunsook was two steps inside his house when he realized something was wrong. Normally the security alarm would start bleeping faintly the moment he opened the front door, reminding him that he had thirty seconds to deactivate the system. When he failed to hear the warning bleeps, Yong-Im’s first thought was that he had forgotten to turn the system on when he’d left the house. But when he stared past the entryway and saw that the sliding-glass door in the living room was partially open, a wave of panic swept over him. He recoiled and turned back toward the front door, but before he could make it outside, there was a blur of motion to his left and the next thing he knew someone had grabbed him from behind. In involuntary cry spilled from his lips as he was jerked backward with so much force that he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor, bounding past the entryway tiles to the carpet that blanketed the living room.

He was still down when his attacker strode over and kicked him sharply in the ribs. He groaned in pain and instinctively began to pull himself into a ball. A second kick glanced off his shoulder and caught the side of his head. Through the sudden ringing in his ears he could hear someone sliding closed the door leading to the backyard.

“Don’t hurt me,” the defector pleaded, covering his face with his hands to ward off another anticipated kick. “Just take whatever you want and leave!”

But the intruders weren’t going anywhere. Across the room, whoever had closed the door turned on the living-room television and raised the volume. Yong-Im’s attacker, meanwhile, grabbed him by the shirt collar and began to drag him across the carpet. The collar tightened around the scientist’s neck and cut off his breathing. He gasped and waved his arms futilely, trying to break the other man’s chokehold.

It was only when Yong-Im was on the verge of passing out that Hong Sung-nam eased his grip and gave the other man a final shove before stepping back. Ok-Hwa Zung moved away from the television set and joined him. The younger man had his gun out and was fitting the barrel with a sound suppressor.

Hong, meanwhile, took a small ceramic ashtray off the nearby coffee table and nonchalantly stuffed it into a stray sock he’d taken from Yong-Im’s bedroom.

“We can’t take what we want because we weren’t able to find it,” he told the cowering scientist. “Maybe you can help us out, Dr. Yong-Im.”

Yong-Im froze in place, his horror escalating with the sudden realization that these weren’t mere burglars. That they’d called him by his real name could only mean one thing: they were either from the North Korean secret police or REDI, the dreaded Research Department for External Intelligence. It didn’t matter which entity they represented. Now that they’d found him, Yong-Im knew that he was a dead man. Still, there was a part of him that grasped at the false hope that he could somehow avoid the inevitable.

“You have the wrong house,” the scientist pleaded. “My name is not Yong-Im. My name is Evan Rohri. You can check my wallet. You’ll see!”

Hong and Ok-Hwa exchanged a glance, then Hong suddenly whipped the weighted sock around, striking Yong-Im in the jaw.

The man’s cry was drowned out by the blaring of the television set. A welt began to form on his jaw where he’d been struck.

“I’m sure they gave you a new name when you defected,” Hong taunted the scientist, “but you are Dr. Yong-Im Hyunsook from the Project Kanggye Nuclear Team. There’s no sense trying to deny it.”

“My name is Evan Rohri!” Yong-Im persisted.

Hong lashed out again with the weighted sock. Yong-Im threw a hand up and deflected the blow. His fingers went numb where the ashtray struck them.

Hong signaled Ok-Hwa. The younger man moved forward, grabbing Yong-Im and pinning his arms behind his back. Hong laid into the scientist a third time with the sock, splitting his lower lip and breaking two of his front teeth. Blood began to seep from the corner of his mouth.

“We’ve found you and we know the addresses of the others, except for Shinn Kam-Song,” Hong told the older man. “Tell us where we can find him and maybe we’ll let you live.”

Yong-Im stared at his captors, trembling. He couldn’t help them, even if he wanted to. After they’d defected, the Kanggye Team had been split up and, for their own protection, none of them had been told where the others had been relocated to, much less what their names had been changed to. He spit out the blood pooling inside his mouth and clung to his first defense.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he insisted. “I don’t know about any nuclear team! I’m a retired accountant! I’ve lived here in America since I was a child!”

“Liar!” Ok-Hwa screamed at the prisoner. In a burst of fury, the young Killboy initiate tossed his gun aside and jerked Yong-Im across the carpet, slamming his head against the corner of the coffee table. “Do you think we’re fools?”

Hong reached into his tool kit for a syringe filled with an amber fluid. He had a feeling they were going to need truth serum to get Yong-Im to talk. As he readied the needle, his partner continued to throttle the doctor.

Hong became alarmed by Ok-Hwa’s ferocity and finally set aside the syringe and rushed over to intervene.

“Ease up, you idiot!” he shouted. “We want him alive!”

But Ok-Hwa was caught up in his bloodlust and he continued to hammer Yong-Im’s skull against the tabletop until Hong forcibly pried him away. Even then, Ok-Hwa continued to rage at their prisoner.

“That will teach you!” he seethed.

Hong dragged his protégé aside, pinned him against the wall, then went nose-to-nose with him.

“Who’s running things here?” he demanded.

“He wasn’t cooperating!” Ok-Hwa countered.

“Who’s running things here?” Hong repeated, shaking the younger man.

“You are!” Ok-Hwa relented. “You’re in charge!”

“Don’t forget it!”

Hong released Ok-Hwa and turned back to Yong-Im. The defector lay sprawled facedown on the floor, blood from his mouth discoloring the carpet. He wasn’t moving. Hong crouched over the man and turned him over. Yong-Im’s face was bruised and swollen. His eyes were open, but his stare was vacant. Hong let the man go and slowly stood. Ok-Hwa met Hong’s livid gaze with one of his own.

“I didn’t mean to kill him!” he said. “I was just trying to get him to cooperate.”

“There’s not much chance of that happening now, is there?” Hong said coldly. He turned the television up even louder, then went to a nearby desk and yanked out one of the drawers, spilling its contents onto the carpet. He’d already looked through everything in the desk and taken pains to make it appear that nothing had been disturbed. But now everything had changed. They needed to cover up the real reason for their visit. They couldn’t afford to make it known that the Kanggye Team was being targeted by REDI. Until they got their hands on the other defectors, they needed to maintain the element of surprise.

“Give me a hand!” he shouted at Ok-Hwa. “We need to make it look like he stumbled onto a burglary!”

Ok-Hwa quickly joined in, helping himself to Yong-Im’s wallet as well as his watch and jewelry.

“What do we do then?”

“We stick to the plan,” Hong told him. “We’ll go to Nevada and track down the next member of the team.”

CHAPTER SIX

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

Hal Brognola rarely returned from his White House briefings in a state of good cheer, and this day was no exception. As he disembarked from the helicopter that had brought him from the capital to Stony Man Farm, a clandestine base of operations in the heart of Shenandoah Valley, he trudged wearily past the sun-drenched fruit orchards to the inconspicuous-looking farm house.

As he headed toward the tunnel to the Annex, Brognola ran into Barbara Price, the Farm’s blond-haired mission controller. Price was carrying a file folder filled with intelligence briefs on the North Korea situation.

“I just spoke to Mack and Cowboy,” she told Brognola as she took a seat alongside him in the small electric rail car waiting for them at the mouth of a thousand-foot-long underground tunnel connecting the main house with the Annex. “They knocked out that street gang in L.A., but it turns out drug-running was just the tip of the iceberg as far as what they were up to.”

The rail car purred to life and slowly carried them along the subterranean passage that ran beneath the orchards as well as a stretch of land that had been converted into a poplar grove, the better to sell the Annex’s supposed function as a timber mill. Along the way, Price briefed Brognola on Bolan’s discovery of an apparent hit list involving North Korea’s former Project Kanggye nuclear team.

As he listened, Brognola fumbled through his suitcoat for a cigar. He wasn’t about to light up; he’d cut back on his smoking in recent years and for the most part contented himself to fidgeting with cigars the same way some people used worry beads.

“I’ve got Carmen checking the status of the defectors,” Price concluded, referring to Carmen Delahunt, one of Aaron Kurtzman’s cyber experts. “She should have an update ready for us.”

“Good,” Brognola replied. “If you ask me, though, I’m not sure we’re talking about a hit list, per se.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think these defectors are more valuable to North Korea alive than dead,” Brognola said. “Especially with this whole missile situation going on over there.”

“You have a point,” Price conceded. “What’s the latest on that?”

As succinctly as possible, Brognola rehashed the key points brought up during the White House briefing. For the past three years, the so-called People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea had been using its unchecked nuclear weapons development as a bargaining chip in its demands for economic aid and other concessions from the U.S. and her allies. The ploy had had intermittent success, but each time America had given an inch, DRNK had turned around and asked for a mile, then used balking by the West as an excuse to resume its nuclear agenda. When matters had escalated in recent months, Russia, China and Japan—prompted by concerns about their close geographic proximity to North Korea—had been forced off the sidelines and into the fray. There had been hope that pressure from their closer neighbors would make Kim Jong-il’s regime more willing to make compromises, but the opposite had been the case.

In recent weeks DRNK’s demands had escalated to the point of absurdity. The President was concerned by the sudden change in tact, as it seemed to indicate that the rogue nation now less concerned with negotiation than pursuing its agenda by more aggressive means. The implication seemed clear: North Korea had stalled long enough on the diplomatic front to beef up its nuclear arsenal and was now looking for a pretext to use it. And if all available intel was correct, the range of the DRNK’s missiles was no longer restricted to countries that lay adjacent to North Korea. Word was that the Korean People’s Army now had four-stage ICBMs capable of reaching American targets in a two-thousand-mile-wide swath extending from San Diego to the Great Lakes. And, much as the U.S. had always been concerned about the vulnerability of its troops stationed below the 38th parallel, now a goodly share of the homeland citizenry was lined up in Kim Jong-il’s crosshairs, as well.

Whether North Korea would be foolhardy enough to launch a first-strike attack on the U.S.—thereby ensuring their doom via retaliatory bombing—was still a matter of debate, but the President, for one, wasn’t about to play wait-and-see. At the end of the briefing, his orders had been concise and to the point: find the ICBMs and put them out of commission.

“Obviously we’re working every diplomatic angle possible to diffuse the situation,” Brognola concluded, “but the feeling is that Kim Jong-il is through talking. Which means we’re running out of time. We need to track down those missiles, pronto.”

“Bear’s working OT on the Sat intel,” Barbara Price assured Brognola. “If anybody can use that kind of data to find a needle in a haystack, it’s him.”

“I hope you’re right,” Brognola said. “I could use some good news right about now.”

The rail car finally came to a halt at the underground entrance to the Annex. Brognola followed Price to the Computer Room. The large chamber was subdivided by a handful of computer stations and the far wall was lined with a bank of large, flat-screen monitors. Normally the Farm’s entire cyberteam would be on duty by this time and the area would be a bustle of activity, but at the moment only two of the computer stations were being manned.

Carmen Delahunt, a vivacious, middle-aged redhead recruited from the FBI, glanced up from her keyboard long enough to tell Price and Brognola, “Give me two seconds. I’m in the middle of a download on these defectors.”

“Go ahead,” Brognola told her.

The only other person in the room was crew chief Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, a burly, middle-aged man confined to a wheelchair in the aftermath of the first—and most deadly—of several attacks made on the Stony Man compound during its existence. Kurtzman was a computer genius and had done a yeoman’s job of staying on top of each new development in the ever-changing field of high-tech intel gathering. Not that anyone would know it by looking at his workstation. The cubicle was in its usual state of cluttered disarray, anointed with coffee spills and strewed with food crumbs, sticky notes and enough clipboards to stock an entire football coaching staff. To the untrained eye the area may have seemed chaotic and disorganized but, as Kurtzman had proved time and again, he could reach through the chaos at a moment’s notice and track down specific material faster than his more orderly counterparts.

“Morning, troops,” he called to Price and Brognola as they pulled up chairs. “Are we having fun yet?”

“As always,” Brognola deadpanned.

“Have either Hunt or Akira checked in?” Price asked.

“Zip from Hunt,” Kurtzman said, referring to Huntington Wethers, the one-time Berkeley cybernetics professor regarded as the most analytical member of the Farm’s cyber crew. Wethers was presently in Baltimore, serving as part of the newly founded National Scenario Group, a think tank established to condense daily briefs submitted by the country’s various intelligence agencies into a one-page overview that would hopefully convey a concise view of recent international events and anticipate possible future developments based on the new data. Additionally, NSG had allowed the intel community’s right hand to know what the left was doing, leading to better cooperation and efficiency in field operations.

“As for Akira, he checked in about an hour ago,” Kurtzman went on. “He says the ‘ghosting’ operation is going well, but it’s been a little hit-and-miss trying to tap into any KPA military intel. At least so far. Give him a few more days, though, and I bet it’ll be different story.”

“I’ll second that,” Price said. “Did he manage to squeeze in a visit with those relatives he was talking about?”

“Actually, he said he’s had trouble reaching them,” Kurtzman said, “but I’m sure he’ll get around to it.”

Akira Tokaido, the youngest member of Stony Man’s cybernetic crew, had been born in America but was of Japanese descent and still had relatives living overseas, including a Japanese-Korean cousin living in Seoul. In fact, the latest developments in North Korea had coincided with plans Tokaido had already made to visit his cousin, prompting him to arrange a working vacation whereby he’d squeeze in family get-togethers between stints as a consultant for a U.S. Army Intelligence unit operating out of Camp Bonifas, just south of the DMZ. For months now, AI had been honing in on North Korea’s state-based radio signal and then overlaying counter-propaganda on the so-called “drift band,” a nearly identical frequency that, in certain reception areas, could crowd in and replace the regime’s signal. The “ghost” broadcasts were announced by North Korea defectors who could imitate DRNK spokespersons and were written in such a way as to discredit Party views and make everyday citizens more aware of the extent to which they were being brainwashed by their so-called Great Leader, Kim Jong-il.

“Okay, now that everyone’s accounted for,” Brognola said, setting aside his cigar long enough to retrieve a set of notes from his shirt pocket, “we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so let’s dive right in, shall we?”

“Works for me,” Kurtzman said. “You want me to go first?”

“Yeah, go ahead,” Brognola replied.

Kurtzman punched a few commands into his keyboard, uploading a display map of the Korean peninsula onto a large wall screen, then turned his attention back to his own monitor, splitting the screen several times so that he could quickly access the spate of Sat-Link images he’d spent the past twelve hours sifting through.

For the past few months the U.S. and her allies had stepped up satellite surveillance of North Korea in hopes of pinpointing areas the KPA might use as launch sites for ICBMs. Kurtzman had loaded the lion’s share of these images into his computer and, frame by frame, he’d gone over them in hopes of turning up something the other intelligence agencies may have overlooked.

“Okay,” Kurtzman began, “the only good news—and I’m afraid it’s not much of a newsflash—is that we’ve ruled out any launch by sea. Their sub fleet just isn’t equipped for the task, and the only times they’ve touched port has been for open-air maintenance. Even David Copperfield couldn’t have slipped missiles onto the subs without us spotting them.”

“Understood,” Brognola said. “We’re talking land-based. But that’s been a given all along, so we don’t need to go there.” He absently tapped his cigar against the inside of his right knee as he scanned his notes. “At the briefing, NSA was leaning toward Taechon. Something about truck movements there the past week. You got anything on that?”

“Yeah, right here.”

Kurtzman dragged his cursor to the screen listing image files of Taechon, a city on North Korea’s northeast coast where a half-built two-hundred-megawatt nuclear power reactor had been mothballed during the Clinton administration under terms of the 1994 Agreed Framework. Despite worldwide objections, the plant had been started up earlier in the year and there was concern that its primary function had been the processing of spent fuel rods for the plutonium needed to fashion nuclear warheads.

Kurtzman highlighted a file and a few seconds later the large screen on the far wall displayed a satellite shot that vaguely reminded Brognola of the grainy images that years ago had triggered the Cuban missile crisis. A convoy of three eighteen-wheelers could be seen wending its way up a winding mountain road where there was no visible trace of outbuildings or any other development.

“This is about halfway through a sequence of about twenty shots taken three days ago,” Kurtzman explained. “The trucks pulled out of a warehouse three miles from the nuke plant in Taechon and headed for the hills. The thing is, the road there doesn’t go anywhere. It was supposed to be an overland route to Hyesan, but they wound up building another road out of Kimchaek, about twenty miles to the north.”

Price was intrigued. “Maybe they’ve got a facility tucked away in the mountains somewhere,” she ventured.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too,” Kurtzman responded, “but I ran with it and came up empty.”

He quickly clicked through the next series of images, which detailed the trucks’ advance up the mountain grade, then stopped on a shot in which the vehicles had disappeared beneath a tree canopy. “The convoy stops here for a couple hours, and there’s enough cover that they could have unloaded something. But check this out.”

Kurtzman typed a few commands, converting the image to an infrared scan of the area. “If there was any kind of facility here,” he went on, “we’d get some kind of a heat read. And if there were nukes in the mix, they’d stick out like a sore thumb, just like the readings we’re getting at the reactor plant. But there’s nothing. Nada.

“I don’t know if they just stopped for lunch or whatever,” he concluded, “but once they rolled out, they looped around and by the end of the day they were back at the warehouse. And the thing is, there are stretches leading to and from this covered area where the roads are dirt, so I zoomed in and measured the tread depth on the tires. No difference the whole way.”

“Meaning they didn’t unload anything,” Price guessed.

“Exactly.” Kurtzman yawned and rubbed his eyes, then shrugged. “You want my guess, it was a diversion. Nothing else.”

“Not the first time they’ve pulled that,” Brognola said.

Kurtzman nodded. “And I’ve got footage from Yongbyon and Kumho where they did the same thing, more or less.”

“In other words,” Price said, “they know we’re watching so they’re playing shell games with us.”

“Yep,” Kurtzman concluded. “I keep waiting to come up with a zoom shot where one of the drivers looks up and tweaks his nose at us and starts shouting ‘Nyah nyah…’”

“Meanwhile,” Brognola said, “somewhere down there, they’ve got those missiles tucked away someplace where we can’t see ’em.”

“I hear you,” Kurtzman said. “And I’ll keep sifting through everything from the sat-links, but somehow we gotta beef up our ground intel or we’re going nowhere.”

“CIA’s working on that,” Brognola assured him, “and the Army and Navy are both getting ready to insert covert op teams. If Phoenix Force wraps up its current assignment, we’ll probably want to throw them into this, too.”

“Probably a good idea,” Kurtzman said.

Before they could go on, Carmen Delahunt brought over a computer printout and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention.

“Ready for my two cents’ worth?” she asked.

“By all means,” Brognola said.

“Okay. As far as these defectors go, we’ve got a bit of a mess on our hands,” Delahunt began. “For starters, one of the guys on that list just turned up dead in L.A. He was killed around the same time as the raid on that gang headquarters in Koreatown, so there was no way Mack could have gotten to him in time.”

“Killed?” Brognola murmured. “So much for my theory about them taking them alive.”

Price quickly scanned her notes, then asked, “Are we talking about Yong-Im Hyunsook?”

Delahunt nodded. “They got to him at his house in the suburbs. The place was ransacked to make it look like a botched home-invasion robbery, but we obviously know better. And from the looks of it, Yong-Im was tortured before they killed him.”

“Maybe he didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear,” Brognola suggested.

“That would be my guess,” Delahunt said. “Now, as for the others, the FBI moved in and took as many of them as they could find into protective custody. Unfortunately, they could only get to three out of the other five. One in Las Vegas, another in Chicago and a third here in D.C.”

“What about the other two?”

“One of them lives in Laughlin, Nevada,” Delahunt explained. “It’s a small casino town about two hours south of Vegas on the Colorado River. The guy wasn’t home when the Bureau showed up, so they’ve got the place staked out and are keeping an eye open for him.”

“How far is Laughlin from L.A.?” Brognola asked.

“About five hours,” Delahunt said.

Brognola checked his watch and calculated the time on the West Coast. “So there’s a chance the Koreans got to him after they whacked Yong-Im.”

Delahunt nodded. “That’s cutting it close, but, yeah, they might have beat us to him.”

“There’s also a chance REDI has more than one team out looking for these guys,” Price interjected. “Especially when you consider how spread out they are.”

“True,” Brognola conceded. He turned back to Delahunt. “What about the last guy?”

“His name’s Shinn Kam-Song,” Delahunt said. “And of the whole batch, he’s probably the most valuable. He was the point man on missile development and guidance systems, and he’s also the one who did the most tampering with the R&D data before he defected.”

“Meaning he’s the one they’d want to make sure they got all the bugs out when they moved ahead without him,” Brognola surmised.

Delahunt nodded. “Yeah, he’s the one they want alive more than the others combined.”

“Where is he?” Price queried.

“Well, that’s the problem,” Delahunt said. “Up until three months ago he was living with his wife in Phoenix. Then they both just up and disappeared.”

“How is that possible?” Brognola said. “Weren’t we keeping tabs on them?”

“Not close enough, obviously.”

“Maybe REDI already has their hands on him,” Price suggested.

“I don’t think so,” Delahunt said, “otherwise Shinn’s address would have been on that list Mack found in Koreatown.” Referring to her notes, she added, “And the thing is, Shinn and his wife didn’t leave everything behind. They took most of their belongings with them. According to the FBI, Shinn was getting tired of all the debriefings they kept putting him through. The feeling is he wanted to slip through the cracks and not be bothered anymore. Not that I’d blame him. I mean, if you risk your life fleeing a police state, the last thing you want is another Big Brother looking over your shoulder all the time.”

“I’m sure it was for their own good,” Kurtzman said.

“Doesn’t mean they had to like it,” Delahunt countered. “In any event, I think Shinn and his wife are still out there somewhere.”

“If that’s the case, then we damn well better get to them before the Koreans do,” Brognola said. “Any idea at all where they might’ve relocated to?”

“Nothing definite,” Delahunt said. “But we do know that Shinn was close friends with Li-Roo Kohb, the guy from Laughlin. After they defected, their orders were not to contact one another, but maybe they made an exception.”

“It’s worth looking into,” Brognola said. He turned to Price. “Put Mack on it. If this Shinn fellow is the key to North Korea reaching first-strike capacity, we need to get to him before they do.”

“I’ll make the call now,” Price said.

As she moved over to the phone at Akira Tokaido’s workstation, Brognola turned back to Kurtzman.

“And let’s keep looking for that hidey-hole where Kim Jong-il’s hiding his arsenal.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

Lieutenant Corporal Yulim Zhi-Weon finished his lunch of fried oysters, bacon and scrambled eggs, then pushed the plate away and pulled a silver cigarette case from his uniform shirt pocket. By the time he’d lit a cigarette, a prison trustee had taken away the plate and replaced it with a fresh cup of coffee, a crystal ashtray and a small basket filled with fresh pastries delivered earlier in the day from Kaesong. Yulim’s quarters was an air-conditioned, three-room bungalow set on a tree-lined bluff overlooking the prison yard. There was a satellite dish on the roof, giving Yulim more than eighty different channels to choose from on the high-definition television in the spacious den set off from the dining room. Back in his bedroom, the sixteen-year-old girl he’d taken a fancy to back at the poppy fields was sleeping off the sexual workout he’d just put her through.

As he slowly smoked his cigarette, Yulim stared down at the prison yard. He could see a row of inmates filing past the mess tent for their daily rations, a cup of rice soaked in chicken broth. In light of today’s suicide and the subsequent killing of three more workers, Yulim wondered if it might be a good move to increase the rations slightly. Nothing major; maybe a cube of tofu or a few string beans. It would be a small price to pay if it would pick up morale at the camp. Yes, he’d told General Oh that he was sure he’d make his quota in terms of opium production, but that had been spin control. In truth, the Changchon fields had fallen drastically short of their projected output, and Yulim knew he could only bribe officials in Chongjin for so long before they refused to falsify the delivery tallies any further.

He needed better work from the inmates, and cracking the whip obviously wasn’t the solution. Of course, if the other plan Yulim was pursuing bore fruit, the shortcomings here at Changchon would become a moot point. If the other plan were to succeed, Yulim would no longer have to concern himself with incurring the wrath of Kim Jong-il and his military hierarchy. Everything would change; everything would be different.

Yulim took a last puff from his cigarette, then stubbed it out in the ashtray and sorted through the pastries, settling on a chocolate éclair. He dunked it in his coffee and was taking his first bite when there was a knock at the front door. Yulim nodded to one of the two security guards posted inside the doorway. The guard opened the door to yet another sentry.

“Major Jin Choon-Yei to see the Lieutenant Corporal,” the sentry announced.

“Send him in,” he called out, adding, “and wait outside. Everyone.”

The guards ushered the prison trustee out of the bungalow, then the major entered and joined Yulim at the dining-room table. Yulim held out his cigarette case, but Jin waved it away and helped himself instead to one of the pastries.

“So,” Yulim said, “how did the grand tour with General Oh go?”

Jin shrugged as he bit into his pastry. “It was the usual. I told him what he wanted to hear and he was suitably impressed.”

“So he still suspects nothing?”

The major shook his head. “In his mind, it’s all systems go.’ He’s sleeping now, but come morning he’ll see his nephew at the launch site and he’ll hear more of the same.”

“Good,” Yulim responded. “If all the other generals are so easily duped, it will make things that much easier for us.”

Jin chuckled. “I still can’t believe he would think you’d have no idea what was going on inside the mountain. All those night shipments moving directly past the camp here. Does he think no one notices anything?”

“He takes me for a good soldier who doesn’t ask too many questions. He figures that for all I care you could be building an apartment building instead of a missile compound.”

Jin finished his pastry, then confided, “I guess I’m a bad soldier, then, because I asked him about the defectors.”

A scowl crossed Yulim’s face. “Was that wise?”

“Don’t worry,” Jin assured his colleague. “The general and I go way back together. He trusts me like a brother.”

“I hope so,” Yulim said. “What did he say?”

“He confirmed what we already suspected. REDI is trying to apprehend the defectors and bring them back to look over the missile data.”

Yulim continued to frown. He lit another cigarette and took a nervous puff.

“That could pose a problem,” he said. “Especially if they manage to bring the team back before we’ve made our move.”

“What are the chances of that?” Jin countered. “Slim to none, I would say.”

“Don’t be so certain,” Yulim cautioned. “Kim Jong-il is determined to make sure the missiles are operational. I’m sure he’s sent his best men to the States.”

Jin shook his head. “Our Great Leader waited too long to play this hand. Even if they do get their hands on Shinn and the others, it will be too late for them to make a difference. Trust me, by the time the REDI agents return, with or without the defectors, we will already be in control. If anything, REDI is doing us a favor. If they bring back the Kanggye Team, we’ll take them into custody and have them do the verification for us. If we can prove that the missiles are functional, their price will only go up.”

The major mulled over Yulim’s words and decided the man had a point. “It’s a win-win situation for us.”

“Exactly,” Yulim said. “Our biggest concern isn’t the defectors. We just need to make sure we can keep a lid on our plans until it’s time to carry them out. If all goes well on that front, Kim Jong-il will never know what hit him. The country will be ours.”

WHEN LIM NA-LI WAS awakened by the sound of laughter in the other room, it took her a moment to remember where she was. Then she recognized Yulim’s voice and it all came back, bringing tears to her eyes.

When she’d been singled out after she and her parents had been transported to the concentration camp, she’d braced herself for the worst, but nothing had prepared her for the brutal assault Yulim had subjected her to. She was so sore that even the slightest movement was painful.

Lying beneath the satin sheets in the lieutenant corporal’s oversize bed, Na-Li fought back a sob. She closed her eyes and tried to fall back to sleep, anything to blot out the memory of Yulim’s rough touch and the rancid, smoke-tinged smell of his breath. But even when she pulled a pillow over her ear she could still hear the men talking and Yulim’s voice was like a prod, taunting her.

Finally she tossed the pillow aside and struggled out of the bed and wrapped a towel around her waist as she went to the window, which looked out on the mountains. The view was breathtaking, but the young woman spent little time dwelling on it. She wanted to escape, to climb out the window and just run. She didn’t care what happened to her. She just wanted to get away from her tormentor. As she feared, however, there were two soldiers posted at the rear of the bungalow. They stood only a few yards from the window, backs to her, carbines at the ready. Na-Li knew they would apprehend her before she was even halfway out the window, in which case she would have to face Yulim’s rage for attempting to escape.

Stepping back from the window, Na-Li was overcome by a sense of futility surpassed only by her morbid curiosity at what the men in the other room might be discussing. Against her better judgment, she found herself moving to the bedroom door, then leaning to one side so that she could press her ear close to the wood. It took only a moment for the men’s voices to become more than a rumbling drone. Now she could hear what they were saying. And the more she listened, the more she began to tremble. No, she thought to herself. It wasn’t possible.

Yulim and the other man were plotting to overthrow the Great Leader!

With horrified fascination, Na-Li continued to eavesdrop, trying to piece together the details the men were discussing and commit them to memory. She had no idea what she might do with the information she was overhearing, and there was a part of her that began to fear that Yulim would remember she was in the room and have her killed just as a precaution.

Moments later, it looked as if her fears were about to be realized. She heard Yulim mention her to the other man, but he did it laughingly, with no concern that she might pose a security risk. She was his plaything. No more, no less, and no threat.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Airspace over Southern California

“With everything going on, I didn’t get a chance to thank you,” John Kissinger told Mack Bolan.

The two men were on a Laughlin-bound private jet the FBI had charted back in Los Angeles. The Bureau had stepped into the picture as soon as the focus had shifted from the Killboys’ drug-running to their likely involvement with the men being held responsible for the death of Yong-Im Hyunsook. There were two G-men riding in the plane, across from Bolan and Kissinger. Jayne Bahn had sweet-talked her way aboard, as well, and was sitting across the aisle from the Stony Man operatives, cell phone pressed to one ear as she conferred with her colleagues back at Inter-Trieve’s West Coast headquarters in San Francisco.

“No thanks necessary,” Bolan told Kissinger. “I was happy to help out. How’s that ankle doing?”

“Feels okay as long as I’m sitting down,” Kissinger said. “They said if I keep my weight off it for a few days I’d be fine.”

“Knowing you, that’s not going to happen,” Bolan said with a grin. “My money says you wind up ripping loose those stitches in your arm, too.”

“No bet,” Kissinger replied. Thinking back to the firefight that had left him wounded, he went on. “I just wish we could’ve gotten them all. I mean, you gotta figure those two who drove off before the raid are the ones that whacked that guy in the valley.”

“We’ll catch up with them,” Bolan said evenly.

“I hope so.”

Bahn had gotten off the phone in time to hear the tail end of men’s conversation. “I hope you’re not saying it’s my fault they’re still on the loose,” she told Kissinger. “Hell, even if I’d been close enough to stop them, it would’ve tipped off the others and we wouldn’t have stumbled onto this whole hit-squad thing.”

“Nobody’s blaming you for anything,” Kissinger assured the woman. “Matter of fact, you kept another one of them from getting away. That makes you woman of the hour.”

“A lot of good that did,” Bahn scoffed. “Two hours of interrogation and the punk didn’t give up a thing.”

“Well, he’s just lucky we got called away,” Kissinger said. “Two minutes in the I-room alone with him and I’d have had him talking.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Knock it off, you two,” Bolan intervened.

Bahn smiled at Bolan. “Come on, he’s just flirting with me, that’s all.”

“In your dreams,” Kissinger said, suppressing a grin.

As the plane carried the group over the arid desolation of the Mojave Valley, the head of the FBI detail, Ed Scanlon, strode up from the rear of the plane. He was a tall, lean man in his midforties, wearing an off-the-rack suit and well-scuffed Oxford shoes.

“Got a wee bit of good news,” Scanlon announced, as he flipped his cell phone closed. “We went another round with that gang-banger and got him to spill. He confirmed what we’ve been expecting all along. One of the guys who rode off just before the raid is just the baby brother of a Killboy we’ve got chilling the morgue. The other guy’s a major player, though.”

“REDI?” Bahn guessed.

Scanlon eyed the woman, surprised. “You know about them?”

She nodded. “It’s the closest thing North Korea has to our CIA. Espionage, wet work. You name it, they get the call.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Scanlon continued, “Anyway, this guy’s name is Hong Sung-nam, and he’s bad news. We’ve got his crew linked to a handful of assassinations over in Asia, and last time we checked he was still over there.”

“Obviously you’ll need to update your records,” Bahn taunted.

“So it would seem,” Scanlon conceded. “We don’t know how he slipped stateside, but according to our stoolie, he showed in L.A. with a heroin shipment about a month ago and insinuated himself into the gang. Got the tattoos and everything. Apparently there were concerns that the Killboys needed more supervision so they’d spend less time butting heads with rival gangs and more time pushing the product. Of course, somewhere along the line he was rounding up info on these nuke defectors. And as long as he’s on the loose, we gotta figure he’s gonna work his way down that list you guys found.”

“Which means unless our raid scared him off, he’s probably on his way to Nevada,” Kissinger surmised. “Just like us.”

Scanlon nodded. “DEA’s selling that raid you were in on as strictly a drug bust. Hopefully Hong’ll buy it and stick to his game plan. We’ve got California Highway Patrol on the lookout for him, but if he’s worth his salt he’ll be able to evade any spot checks on the highways. I think our best bet’ll be to nab him when he tries to go after his next target.”

“If I remember rightly,” Bolan recalled, “the next guy on that list lived in Vegas, not Laughlin.”

“Good memory,” Scanlon said. “We’re changing our plans accordingly. You guys wanna play along?”

“What do you have in mind?” Bahn asked.

“Well,” Scanlon replied, “judging from how the three of you went gangbusters during that raid, I’m thinking you’d rather see some action instead of sniffing around Laughlin for this guy who’s third on the list.”

“You get points for flattery,” Bahn countered, “but you’re going to have to cough up more specifics.”

Bolan figured he knew where this was going and told Scanlon, “You want us in Vegas instead.”

“Bingo,” Scanlon said. “We’ve got the defector there under lock and key, but we figure if we plant a look-alike at his digs along with some backup, REDI’ll come in light and we’ll be able to get the upper hand on them.”

“And you want us for the backup,” Kissinger guessed.

“At least part of it,” Scanlon said. “We’ll have a crew there, but we’re spread thin looking for the Laughlin guy at the same time, so a few extra bodies couldn’t hurt.”

“Works for me,” Bahn said. “I just talked with my people and I’m green-lighted to follow through and see where this takes us.”

Bolan quickly weighed his options. Barbara Price had already asked him and Kissinger to help with the search in Laughlin, but Scanlon had been right in pegging him as someone who preferred the more proactive course. Fortunately his standing as a Stony Man operative was such that he could unilaterally change his plan of attack as developments dictated. He turned to Kissinger.

“How about if we split up,” he suggested. “You can take Laughlin and give that ankle a breather.”

“While you have all the fun?” Kissinger retorted. “I don’t think so.”

“Look, before this is over you’ll have more chances to jump into the fray.” Bolan nudged the aluminum crutches Kissinger had propped against the seat next to him. “You might as well give yourself a chance to recuperate.”

Kissinger thought it over, then nodded. “All right, all right. Laughlin it is.”

Bolan turned back to Scanlon. “Count me in.”

“Same here,” Bahn chimed in.

Kissinger stared at the woman bounty hunter, then grinned at Bolan. “Looks like I bailed just in time. Good luck, buddy. You’re going to have your hands full.”

CHAPTER NINE

Laughlin, Nevada

Although the casinos in Laughlin were set along the banks of the Colorado River, the town’s population, for the most part, lived a few miles inland, just west of a huge, coal-burning power plant that today, like most days, disgorged a steady plume of dark smoke from its towering exhaust chimneys. Randall Howland, a thirty-year veteran of the FBI, had spent most of the morning choking on the smoke as he maintained surveillance on the home of Li-Roo Kohb, one-time propellant expert for the Kanggye nuclear team. Howland had parked his nondescript Chevy sedan on the shoulder of a crestline road overlooking the defector’s neighborhood. Another two agents were biding their time downhill in a second car parked just past the stop sign where Li-Roo’s street intersected with Casino Drive. They’d been on stakeout now for the better part of three hours, waiting for the defector to return home or, better yet, for a sign of the REDI crew that was supposed to be in town looking to kill Li-Roo or at least abduct him and drag him back home to North Korea.

Howland was beginning to think they’d begun their stakeout too late. Maybe, he thought, the reason the man hadn’t answered the door earlier was because he was lying dead inside his house, already taken out by the same men who’d killed his colleague, Yong-Im Hyunsook, back in Los Angeles. That, or maybe the scientist had already been abducted. In any event, Howland had had his fill of twiddling his thumbs and breathing the exhaust from the power plant. Reaching inside his car, he keyed the dash mike and contacted his colleagues down the hill.

“This is getting us nowhere,” he told the others. “I say we go back to Li-Roo’s place and invite ourselves in.”

There was a moment’s hesitation before the driver of the second car replied, “Done. We’ll meet you there.”

Howland got into his car and drove down to Casino Drive, then circled around the power plant to Yancy Drive. Li-Roo Kohb lived halfway down the block in a small, twenty-year-old starter home set back on a small plot of land that, like most of the other residences on the street, had forsaken lawns in favor of cacti, succulents and other drought-resistant plants capable of withstanding Laughlin’s brutally hot, arid summers. There were a few people out, some tending to plants, others lazily basking on their front porches in the late-afternoon heat. One of Howland’s colleagues had already gotten out of the other car and was approaching the defectors’ next-door neighbor, holding out his FBI badge. The man’s partner, Agent Sandra Pearle, was standing next to the car, which had been parked two houses down from Li-Roo’s home.

“We should’ve done this in the first place,” she told Howland after he’d parked and joined her.

“Hindsight,” he murmured, leading the way up the front walk. When they reached the door, Howland knocked, then rang the bell. Pearle glanced around as she nonchalantly pulled a G-issue Colt pistol from her shoulder holster. She kept the gun concealed from view of the neighbors and waited for Howland to trip the lock. Her partner drew his gun, as well, then swung the door open.

“FBI,” he announced.

The only response was the chirping of a canary somewhere inside the house. The two agents did a quick room-by-room search. There was no sign of Li-Roo Kohb and the house seemed undisturbed. The canary was caged in an alcove just off the kitchen.

“I’ll check the garage,” Pearle told Howland.

Howland nodded, then began to retrace his steps through the house, inspecting each room more thoroughly for some clue as to Li-Roo’s whereabouts. He was in the den when Pearle rejoined him.

“He’s got a canoe and some fishing gear in the garage,” the woman reported, “and there are a couple pairs of hiking boots by the door, so obviously he’s the outdoors type.”

“Not much to go on there,” Howland muttered. They were interrupted by a knock at the front door. Howland whirled with his gun but held fire. It was the third agent, Bryce Thompson.

“Easy,” Thompson said. “It’s just me.”

Howland filled Thompson in on what little they’d found, then asked, “You come up with anything?”

“Couple things,” Thompson reported. “The gal next door says Li-Roo likes to keeps to himself, so she doesn’t know much about him. She says most days he’s out of the house by eight and doesn’t get back until after sundown.”

“We just missed him,” Howland said, recalling that their stakeout had begun shortly before nine. “What else?”

“She says there were a couple cable guys here yesterday afternoon,” Thompson said. “They were here nearly an hour.”

“Korean?” Pearle asked.

“She’s not sure. Definitely Asian, though.”

“Sounds like the same MO REDI used with that guy in L.A.,” Howland said. “Which means they’ve probably already tossed the place.”

“Maybe we should check for prints,” Pearle suggested.

“Yeah, maybe so.” Howland considered another possibility. “Could be they’ve been watching us during our whole stakeout, too.”

“If that’s so, we’ve pretty much blown our cover.”

“Not much we can do about that now. Let’s keep looking around here,” Howland suggested. “We still need to figure out where the hell Kohb spends his days.”

“If REDI’s been here, they probably already know,” Thompson remarked. “Which puts us a step behind them.”

“Thanks for sharing that,” Howland groused. He turned his attention back to the den. Li-Roo had a state-of-the-art sound system with a karaoke counsel and a carousel filled with more than a hundred CDs, mostly by jazz artists and Korean pop singers. There was a bookcase built into the wall, but it was empty except for a few library books, two devoted to local hiking trails and a third entitled How to Win at Texas Hold ’Em. On the bottom shelf, though, there was a ceramic bowl filled with candies, stray keys and a few packs of matches. On a hunch, Howland zeroed in on the matchbooks. The hunch paid off.

“I think I’ve got something,” he called, grabbing the phone next to the stereo. He dialed the number on the one of the match packs. After a few rings he found himself talking to the operator at the Laughlin Shores Casino.

“Do you guys have a poker room?” Howland asked.

CHAPTER TEN

Camp Bonifas, South Korea

Akira Tokaido awoke with a start to the persistent bleeping of his travel alarm. He muttered to himself as he untangled one hand from under the covers and reached over to shut off the alarm. It was a little after four p.m., South Korean time. Tokaido had hoped a quick catnap would take the edge off the fatigue he’d been battling since arriving at Camp Bonifas, but he felt every bit as tired as when he’d nodded off. And the situation he’d gone to sleep worrying over promptly began to hound him all over again.

After several years of corresponding and talking by phone with his cousin, this was to be the first face-to-face meeting between Akira and Lim Seung-Whan, and Tokaido had been under the impression that Lim was looking forward to the occasion as much as he was. But since arriving at Camp Bonifas, Tokaido had tried several times to reach his cousin without success. No one was answering the phone, either at his home or at Lim’s cell number. He’d left messages, as well, but his calls had yet to be returned and the young man was troubled by the silence. He knew that Lim had planned to take his family on a weeklong fishing trip on the Yellow Sea, but they were supposed to have returned two days earlier, not only because of Akira’s visit, but because the Seoul Sky-Eagles—the professional baseball team partly owned by Lim—were in the thick of a pennant race and Seung-Whan had made it clear how much he was looking forward to taking in this weekend’s crucial home series with the first-place Lotte Giants. Given all this, Tokaido knew that Lim wouldn’t have deliberately prolonged his fishing trip, and yesterday he’d double checked maritime conditions on the coast near Incheon, thinking inclement weather might have waylaid his cousin. But the sea had been as calm as the skies had been clear, so there had to be some other explanation for Lim’s being incommunicado.

Tokaido’s cell phone was on the dresser of the officers’ quarters where he was staying for the week. He’d left the phone on in hopes Lim might call, and his spirits rallied when he saw that someone had indeed left a message. It turned out, however, that the call had been from Barbara Price back at Stony Man Farm. Tokaido showered first, then dressed and pulled his long black hair into a ponytail before returning the call. The mission controller wasn’t available, so Tokaido asked to be patched through to Aaron Kurtzman at the Annex.

After they exchanged a quick greeting, Kurtzman told Tokaido the reason Price had called.

“Look, I know your plate’s full out there,” Kurtzman said, “but there’s a new wrinkle to this whole mess that you might want to keep an ear open for.”

Tokaido quickly tracked down a pen and paper, then scribbled notes as Kurtzman apprised him of the latest developments involving attempts by North Korean REDI agents to abduct members of the Kanggye nuclear team.

“If you come across any intel mentioning the defectors,” Kurtzman concluded, “you might want to give it top priority, because if the KPA spells out where they plan on bringing these guys, odds are we’ll find the missiles there, too.”

“It’s definitely worth a shot,” Tokaido admitted. “I’ll get on it first thing.”

“Listen, Akira,” Kurtzman went on, “I don’t know if it’s just the connection, but you sound exhausted. Were you out partying with the relatives last night?”

“I wish.”

Tokaido told Kurtzman about the problems he’d had getting in touch with his cousin.

“That’s strange,” Kurtzman said. “If you’re really concerned, maybe you ought to head down there and check things out. It’s only an hour drive to Seoul from where you are, right?”

“Something like that,” Tokaido said. “I can probably wrangle a chopper ride and get there even quicker. I want to wait until a little later, though. I keep thinking there’s been some kind of mixup and I’ll still hear from him.”

“You don’t sound very convinced of that,” Kurtzman said.

“Maybe not,” Tokaido confessed, “but it beats thinking about the alternatives.”

“I can understand that,” Kurtzman said. “Well, keep us posted. And if you come up with anything on that defector angle…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get right on it and give you a holler if we get lucky.”

Tokaido wrapped up the call, then tried Lim again. There was still no answer. Anxious for some kind of news, he tried Lim’s office. Seung-Whan was CEO of a computer-electronics firm in Seoul bearing the family name: in fact, it had been the profits from Lim Systems International that had allowed him to buy his share of the Sky-Eagles baseball team. Tokaido managed to speak with Lim’s executive secretary, but she hadn’t heard from Lim and wasn’t expecting him back in the office until the beginning of the following week. She offered him some fleeting hope, however, explaining that Lim owned a beach house near Incheon and might have stopped over there after the fishing trip. The house didn’t have a phone, but Tokaido assumed Lim had his cell phone with him and should have received his earlier messages. Things still didn’t add up, at least in any way that was reassuring.

“Where are you, Seung-Whan?” he muttered as he hung up.

Tokaido slipped his cell phone into the same carrying case that held his laptop and the notes he’d compiled during his long hours at the base’s Communications and Radio Control Center. Though he wasn’t hungry, he stopped by the cafeteria for an early dinner. The food was standard Army fare: bland but filling. He stared into space as he ate, trying to suppress his growing concern over Lim’s whereabouts. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice an officer approach his table. The man had to wave a hand in front of Tokaido’s face to get his attention.

“Sorry,” Tokaido said in apology, staring up at U.S. Army Colonel Thomas Michaels.

“You weren’t in your room, so I figured I might find you here,” the officer told him.

Although Camp Bonifas was technically home of the United Nations Command Security Battalion, the U.S. Army’s 2nd Armored Division comprised the majority of the base’s actual manpower, and Michaels, who headed up intelligence operations along the DMZ, was third in command at the facility. A tall, hawk-nosed Seattle native, Michaels had been Tokaido’s primary contact the past week. Normally the man had a surprisingly easygoing demeanor, but as he took a seat, Tokaido noticed that the colonel’s expression was grim.

“I think we might have something on your cousin,” the colonel told the Stony Man cyber warrior. “If we’re right, I’m afraid the news isn’t good…”

LESS THAN TEN MINUTES later, Tokaido was sitting at his station at CRCC. The room, half the size of the Annex Computer Room back at Stony Man Farm, was located on the second floor of the UNCSB Administration Building. A bank of windows along the north wall overlooked the exercise yard, where a handful of new Hummers delivered from Seoul were being unloaded from a semi-rig. Beyond that, uniformed troops were out training in the surrounding hills and, far in the distance, a South Korean flag flapped in the breeze from the center of Daeseong-dong, the only inhabited village located inside the DMZ. Tokaido was oblivious to the activity, however. He was still reeling from Colonel Michaels’ news.

Less than an hour ago, the Army Intelligence radio crew had intercepted a KPA military communiqué in which a senior officer boasted that the day before a naval unit of the Bureau of Reconnaissance had managed to get their hands on a South Korean fishing yacht moored just off the coast of Gyondongdo, a small island in the Yellow Sea forty miles north of Incheon. They’d incarcerated those aboard the boat, which was presently en route to the North Korean military port in Sinsaeng. For now, according to the pirated dispatch, the plan was to dole out use of the yacht as a perk for naval officers with high-performance ratings.

“I know there aren’t many specifics,” Michaels said, pointing to the transcript Tokaido had just read over for a second time, “but there are just too many coincidences. It sounds like the same-size boat you said your cousin had taken out fishing in that area.”

“Yes, I know,” Tokaido conceded wearily. “But I don’t understand. Gyondongdo is located on our side of the maritime line. Seung-Whan wouldn’t have strayed into North Korean waters. He knows better.”

“Even if he stayed on our side,” Michaels said, “North Korea has been disputing that line ever since it was drawn up, and they have no qualms about crossing it, believe me. This isn’t the first ship they’ve snatched. Hell, they’ve even come ashore on a couple of these islands looking to abduct people. It’s happened twice this month that I know of.”

“Still,” Tokaido murmured. “It’s so hard to believe.”

“I hear you,” Michaels said, “and I’m sure it’s the last thing your cousin expected. No offense, but he’s well-off and it’s easy for people of his station around these parts tend to get a little complacent. They don’t realize how much can go wrong if they stray out of their element. We’re in a war zone.”

Much as he wanted to defend his cousin, Tokaido knew the colonel had a point. A number of times when he’d conversed with Seung-Whan, Akira’s cousin had dismissed Seoul’s close proximity to the DMZ and said he’d decided years ago that there was no point to living in fear of things he had no control over. Tokaido understood the rationale, but there was a difference between being fearless and foolhardy. Now it was looking as if Seung-Whan was paying a price for the latter.

Tokaido glanced back down at the transcript and read it over yet again, hoping somehow to glean more information. There was so little to go on, however. It wasn’t even clear how many people had been aboard the yacht when it was seized. For that matter, Tokaido didn’t know for sure how many people Lim had taken on the trip besides his wife and daughter. “Some friends” had been all he’d said.

On his third read-through, one word in the transcript jumped out at him. He looked it over, then glanced up at Michaels.

“It says here that those aboard the ship were ‘incarcerated,’” he said. “Are you sure that’s the right translation?”

Michaels nodded. “I heard the message myself. Yeah, whoever was on board that ship was taken into custody. They weren’t executed, if that’s what you mean.”

Tokaido nodded bleakly, already beginning to fear the worst. “At least, not yet,” he said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

Lim U-Pol and her life-long friend Ji Lhe-Kan had been laboring in the poppy fields for nearly five backbreaking hours when one of the guards blew a whistle announcing the end of their workday. The two women were every bit as filled with fear and apprehension as when they’d first stepped off the truck that had brought their families here to the camp, but the work had numbed them, and exhaustion had turned them into automatons. Just as they’d lost themselves in the redundant task of extracting resin from the poppies, the two women now mindlessly followed the example of the other workers and turned over their scraping tools and the small plastic containers they’d filled with resin, then fell into line for the long march back to the prison camp.

U-Pol was so drained that it took all her concentration merely to stay awake and put one foot in front of the other. There was one saving grace to her fatigue: as with work ordeal in the fields, it proved a potent distraction, leaving her with little time to dwell on the fate of her husband and daughter, who’d been led away, along with Ji Lhe-Kan’s husband and son, shortly before the women had been first put to work. No indication had been given as to what lay in store for the men, but U-Pol assumed they had been diverted to some more strenuous labor. As for Na-Li, U-Pol had seen the way the commandant had looked at her daughter, and the thought of what he might have had in mind for young woman was unbearable to contemplate, so she’d struggled to block the matter from her mind.

Soon, the prisoners found themselves heading past a clearing where a handful of soldiers had begun to fling several corpses, one after the other, into a shallow pit barely deep enough to hold them all. The sheer horror of sight alone was enough to unnerve U-Pol, but when it dawned on her that her loved ones might be among the dead, her pent-up emotions suddenly erupted in a sob so loud and wrenching that it doubled her over. Fortunately she wasn’t alone. An equally profound wailing broke out among some of the other prisoners, men and women alike, and several of them strayed from the column, rushing toward the makeshift burial site. They were intercepted by the guards, who brusquely herded them back while shouting for silence.

During the commotion, Ji Lhe-Kan hurriedly spoke with the prisoner ahead of her, then turned to U-Pol and whispered that those being buried were prisoners that had been killed during an incident that had occurred before their arrival at the camp.

“Our men are still all right,” she added quickly. “Na-Li and Rha-Tyr, too. You’ll see.”

U-Pol nodded faintly, but she was consumed by doubt and she saw that her friend, too, was nowhere near as confident of their loved ones’ fate as she was pretending to be. The two women clutched hands briefly, as if attempting to lend strength to one another.

“Move on!” one of the guards shouted, further startling the women by firing a warning shot into the air with his carbine. “Unless you want to join them!”

When another soldier aimed his rifle at U-Pol and Lhe-Kan, the two women pulled their hands apart. U-Pol struggled to regain her composure, but as the prisoners resumed their march back to camp, the image of the mass grave continued to haunt her. She wept quietly, biting her knuckle each time another anguished sob swelled in her throat.

As the procession reached the camp and wound its way around the periphery fence, U-Pol and Lhe-Kan found themselves horrified anew as they were led past a spot where a young male prisoner had just made an unsuccessful escape attempt. He’d apparently made it as far as the top of the innermost fence before sentries in one of the nearby lookout towers had gunned him down, and though he’d been killed, his shirt and one of his pant legs had snagged on the thick coils of barbed wire topping the fence and he hung suspended, arms and legs pinned at an angle that made it look as if he were still alive and dancing in midair. A pair of guards had just reached the body, one carrying a ladder and bolt cutters, the other tugging at a leash to keep a full-size Rottweiler from sniffing at the pool of blood collecting on the ground directly beneath the bullet-riddled corpse.

“The third one this week!” a guard walking alongside U-Pol and Lhe-Kan said with a snicker. “You’d think they would know better by now!”

U-Pol tore her gaze from the grisly sight, blinking away a fresh flow of tears. She could hear Lhe-Kan weeping directly ahead of her, as well, but moments later the other woman’s sobbing stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and soon U-Pol saw the reason why. As they were herded through a side gate into the prison yard, she saw Lhe-Kan’s son, Rha-Tyr, standing bare-chested amid a handful of other young men who’d been given sledgehammers with which to pound away at some of the larger rocks that had just been brought down from the mines.

Rha-Tyr spotted the women in midswing and offered them a faint smile before he brought the hammer crashing down. He glanced around him, making sure that none of the guards was watching him, then gestured faintly over his shoulder. U-Pol looked past him to the side of the mountain overlooking the camp and saw the openings to several mine shafts.

“Seung-Whan and Pho-Hwa must be in the mines,” U-Pol whispered to her friend. Now that they were within the confines of the camp, the guards had moved away, leaving them free to talk.

Lhe-Kan nodded hopefully. “I told you they’d be all right,” she said.

“I don’t see my daughter anywhere,” U-Pol murmured, scanning the grounds for her daughter. Na-Li , however, was nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe she’s already in the barracks,” Lhe-Kan suggested, indicating the flimsy structures they were heading toward.

But U-Pol had her doubts, and a quick glance inside the barracks confirmed her fears. While the others began to collapse onto the wood-planked floor, eager to escape into the clutches of sleep, she and Lhe-Kan left the barracks and continued to search the grounds. Finally, U-Pol looked past the far perimeter of the camp and saw a small bungalow resting on a knoll surrounded by trees. Judging from the condition of the structure and the surrounding landscape, U-Pol guessed it had to be the headquarters for those who ran the camp. Again she recalled the way the commandant had looked at her daughter and she began to shudder. Lhe-Kan put an arm around her and the two women dropped slowly to their knees without taking their eyes off the bungalow.

“No,” U-Pol sniffed. “Please, not my daughter…”

WHEN NA-LI awoke, hours later, the clothes she had worn to the concentration camp were missing. In their place, a pair of crude sandals lay atop a coarse muslin frock that had been placed haphazardly at the foot of the bed. As she fingered the material, she felt the urge to cry yet again, but this time the tears wouldn’t come. She dressed slowly, her body still aching.

She was slipping her feet into the sandals when the door opened. Na-Li let out an involuntary gasp and recoiled as Yulim entered the bedroom, followed by one of the guards, who was carrying two overnight bags. Na-Li recognized the bags. One belonged to her, the other to her father. The bags, along with those belonging to her mother and the Ji family, had been confiscated from the family yacht and tossed into the front cab of the truck that had brought her and the others to Changchon. She’d doubted she would ever again see her tote or the belongings it contained, and yet here they were.

“Did you sleep well?” Yulim casually asked Na-Li as he took her bag from the guard and set it on the bed.

Na-Li stared at the man, incredulous. After what he’d done to her, how could he stand there and speak to her as if he were some loving uncle checking up on a favorite niece who’d come visiting the for weekend? She tried to muster some righteous indignation, but, as with her stifled tears, she found herself unable to act on her emotions.

Yulim nudged Na-Li’s bag closer to her and zipped it open.

“Go ahead,” he encouraged her. “Everything’s there, more or less. See for yourself.”

Na-Li stared at the bag, then glanced up at Yulim.

“Why?”

Yulim smiled benevolently. “I thought there might be something you’d like to take back with you to the barracks,” he said. “You can take one item. Anything you want.”

Na-Li remained on her guard as she tentatively opened the bag and inspected its contents. Her wallet had been confiscated along with her CD player, her music and a sharp-handled comb, but otherwise, as Yulim had assured her, everything else she’d packed for the fishing trip was still there. A few days ago, if told to pick one item from the bag, she, without question, would have taken her makeup kit. In light of everything that had happened, however, the last thing she wanted was to make herself look more attractive. So, instead, she selected her charm bracelet, a cheap piece of jewelry to which, over the years, she’d attached a handful of small knick-knacks, each one reminding her of a special time in her life.

“That would have been my guess,” Yulim told her. “It has sentimental value, yes?”

Na-Li’s first instinct was to scream at the man and tell him to quit trying to be so nice to her. She wanted to damn him for the way he’d abused her and let him know that she’d overheard him conspiring with the other officer. She wanted to tell him that if was the last thing she did, she’d find a way to use that information to make him pay for what he’d done to her. Instead, however, she merely nodded demurely and closed her fingers around the bracelet.

“I can go, then?” she asked.

“Of course,” Yulim told her. He indicated the guard and said, “He’ll take you back to your family. In a moment. First we need to reach a little understanding.”

Abruptly the smile left the lieutenant corporal’s face. He reached forward and grasped Na-Li by the jaw, tilting her head upward so that she had no choice but to stare into his eyes.

“You’ll be back,” he advised her, his voice cold with menace, “and no one is to know about what goes on in this room. Is that clear?”

Na-Li’s eyes widened with fear. The way Yulim was holding her jaw, it was impossible for her to speak. All she could do was nod.

“If you talk—to anyone—I swear I’ll kill your mother and father, right in front of you,” Yulim warned. “And they’ll die slowly and they will be in great pain. Do you want that?”

Na-Li shook her head as best she could. Yulim glared at her a moment longer, then slowly removed his hand from her jaw. The smile returned to his face.

“I’m glad we understand each other,” he said. “And I look forward to our next visit.”

Na-Li felt a sickening knot in her stomach. Yulim stepped back and gestured to the guard, who, in turn, snapped his fingers and motioned for Na-Li to come with him. Trembling, the young woman followed the guard from the bedroom and through the bungalow to the front door.

Outside, the late-afternoon sun shone brightly and Na-Li had to squint as she took the first few steps down the walk leading to the camp barracks. Once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she noticed the activity in the work yard. Rha-Tyr’s back was turned to her as he hammered away at the rock pile. The teenager belonged to their high school water polo team back in Seoul and Na-Li had always been captivated by his swimmer’s physique, but now the sight of his glistening torso reminded her of the sweating man who had just raped her. Repulsed, she looked away and her gaze fell on her mother and Ji Lhe-Kan. The two women were standing near the barracks, watching her. U-Pol had her hand to her mouth and even from a distance Na-Li could see the look of horror in her mother’s eyes.

Once she’d been led to the entrance to the compound, another guard threw the gate open and impatiently waved her through. Na-Li continued to walk slowly until she realized that she was no longer being followed by the soldier who’d brought her from the bungalow. She quickly lengthened her strides, then finally broke into a run, rushing past Lhe-Kan into her mother’s waiting arms.

“My poor child,” U-Pol sobbed as she held her daughter close. “My poor baby! What did they do to you?”

Recalling Yulim’s warning, Na-Li bit her lower lip, fighting back the urge to tell her mother everything that had happened. When she failed to respond, U-Pol broke their embrace and stared at Na-Li, whose jaw was still discolored where the officer’s hand had clenched it in his viselike grip.

“What did they do to you!” she repeated.

“Nothing,” Na-Li murmured. Grasping for some convincible lie, she told her mother, “They just had a lot of questions. They were just questioning me!”

U-Pol put her fingers to Na-Li’s jaw. “This is not from questioning,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter, Mother,” Na-Li said. “Please, can we not talk about it?”

Now that she had seen evidence of the unthinkable, the older woman could no longer turn a blind eye to what had happened. And, forced to confront the issue, U-Pol felt herself consumed by a sudden rage.

“They swore you to silence, is that it?” she guessed.

“Mother, please…”

U-Pol pulled her daughter back into an embrace, then stared over her shoulder at the surrounding mountainside.

“Don’t you worry,” she assured her daughter. “When your father learns of this, he’ll see that they pay! He won’t let them get away with this!”

LIM SEUNG-WHAN angrily stabbed his shovel into the heap of loose rock at his feet, then heaved the load into the ore cart resting on the rusting tracks extending deep into the mountainside. Beside him, his long-time friend Ji Pho-Hwa was attacking the cave wall with a pickax. When Pho-Hwa glanced his way, tears streaked through the soot caking his cheeks. Lim looked away, his face turning red with shame.

How had he allowed this to happen? Just two days ago the two men were enjoying themselves on the rear deck of Lim’s yacht, drinking and swapping stories as they waited for tuna to strike the heavy lines trailing from their fishing poles. Their wives were in the cabin playing mah-jongg and Pho-Hwa’s teenaged son was up on the foredeck flirting with Lim’s young daughter as they listened to some obnoxious rock-and-roll music on the radio. And after the fishing trip, Lim was looking forward to taking both families, along with his American cousin, Akira Tokaido, to watch his beloved Seoul Sky-Eagles at Freedom Stadium. Life was good. More than good. Things were perfect. And now? Now here he was, a prisoner of the KPA, separated from his wife and daughter, doomed to slave at the mines until the North Koreans decided what to do with him. All because he’d ignored Pho-Hwa’s warning not to venture too far north of Gyondongdo. “We’re here to fish,” Lim had teased his friend. “We need to go where the fishing is best.” He’d chided Pho-Hwa for being so worrisome, and after his friend had reeled in his first tuna of the trip—a four hundred-pounder that had put up a wonderful fight—Ji had stopped complaining and started to enjoy himself. Less than two hours later, the North Koreans had pulled up alongside the yacht and everything had changed.

There were eight other men working the vein alongside Lim and Ji, and so far they’d filled four carts with the rock they’d hacked loose from the cave walls. They were beyond the reach of daylight and had to work by the wavering glow of a kerosene lamp. Three armed guards watched over the group, filling the cave with the smoke of their cigarettes. Lim’s palms were bleeding where there had once been blisters, and the only thing that ached more than his arms was his lower back; it throbbed constantly and whenever he pitched another load of rock into the cart he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his right hip. He didn’t dare stop what he was doing, however. When one of the other workers had slacked off a few minutes ago, complaining of leg cramps, the guards had laid into him with the stocks of their carbines, first targeting his arms and shoulders, then taking turns at his skull until they’d killed him. They pitched the man’s body into one of the carts and left it there as a warning for the others to keep working.

As he was shoveling yet another load into the cart next to the one containing the body, Lim Seung-Whan mustered the nerve to lean close to his friend and look him in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Pho-Hwa” he whispered. “Please forgive me.”

Ji stared at Lim but said nothing. There was no need to. Lim could see there was no forgiveness in his friend’s eyes. He was about to plead further when he felt something slam into his back, directly between the shoulder blades. Crying out in pain, Lim pitched forward, colliding with Ji, then falling past him to the ground. The guard who’d struck him strode over and loomed above him, glaring, rifle stock poised for another blow.

“No talking!” he warned. “You’re here to work!”

Lim rose slowly to his knees. He was queasy and his back felt as though it was on fire where he’d been struck. But when the guard kicked his shovel across the ground toward him and shouted for him to get back to work, he did his best to shut out the pain and comply. He grabbed the shovel and used it as a crutch as he forced himself to his feet. Ji, meanwhile, was dragged to the other side of the cart and told to work another area of the cave.

For another two hours Lim, Ji and the other prisoners continued to mine the cave. Then, once they’d filled all six carts lined up on the tracks, one of the guards climbed into a small electric locomotive hooked up to the carts and started the engine. The prisoners were ordered to climb aboard, and Lim’s grim fate was to ride out of the tunnel lying next to the body of the man killed earlier. Lim was too exhausted to care, however. Within moments after the carts began to roll, he passed out.

The ore train had emerged from the mountain and come to a stop in the work yard. Lim had been doused with a bucket of water, and as he came to, he was half blinded by the bright halogen lamps that illuminated the grounds. He straggled down from his cart, joining Ji Pho-Hwa and the other prisoners, who were assembling into a line. One of the guards told them that they would be given rations, then sent to a reeducation meeting for two hours before being allowed to sleep.

“You’ll start work again at dawn,” the guard concluded.

Lim shuffled slowly along with the others as they made their way toward the ration tent. He could only hope that he would be allowed to see his family now that he’d endured the day’s ordeal. Ten yards shy of the tent, however, Lim was suddenly singled out and led away from the others. He was about to ask the guards where he was being taken but checked himself, not wishing to provoke another beating.

From the prison yard, Lim was led uphill to the bungalow headquarters of Lieutenant Corporal Yulim Zhi-Weon. When they reached the foot of the steps leading up to the front door, one of Lim’s guards motioned for him to stop, then produced two sets of cuffs, a shorter pair for his hands and a wider set for his ankles. Lim didn’t feel the restraints were necessary. As it was, he barely had the strength to walk. Again, though, he refrained from speaking his mind. He allowed himself to be shackled, then, with considerable difficulty, made his way up the steps and into the bungalow.

Lim was taken aback by the unexpected splendor Yulim had surrounded himself with. He had little time to dwell on the lavish appointments, however, because the commandant had just emerged from his bedroom, buttoning a familiar-looking silk shirt.

“It turns out we’re the same size,” the lieutenant corporal said to Lim, glancing down to admire his new wardrobe. In addition to the shirt, he was wearing a pair of Lim’s tailored cotton slacks as well as the South Korean’s favorite leather sandals. Lim felt a stirring of outrage but refused to act on it. Better he lose his possessions than his life.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” the officer told Lim as he made his way to a wet bar near the television area and calmly poured himself a drink. “How was your day in the mines?”

Lim glared at Yulim but said nothing.

“I know. A foolish question,” Yulim said, taking his drink to an antique mahogany desk in the den. He gestured to the guards, who dragged Lim over to a straight-backed wooden chair that faced the desk. They forced him to sit, then stepped back, flanking him on either side.

Yulim went on, “A man as wealthy as Lim Seung-Whan has probably forgotten what’s like to roll up his sleeves and do some actual physical labor.”

Lim was startled to hear Yulim call him by name. Then he saw the commandant glancing over a computer readout as well as a few smaller items laid out on his desk. Lim figured they were most likely his identification papers.

“Let’s see what we have here,” Yulim said. “Lim Seung-Whan. Founder of Lim Systems International, co-owner of the Seoul Sky-Eagles, and chairman of the board for two other corporations. Very impressive. And according to this,” he went on, referring to a newsclipping retrieved for him by the same intelligence agents who’d spent the afternoon checking on Lim’s background, “you’re one of the fifty richest men in all of South Korea. Where would you rank yourself? First? Fifth? Twentieth?”

Up until this moment, Lim had felt certain that he as well as his family and abducted friends were doomed, that they would be degraded and then killed, in essence, for sport by their captors. But now, however bleak his situation seemed, Lim felt the faintest glimmer of hope, because it was clear that his tormentor wanted something from him. And that gave Lim something he’d felt he’d been stripped of from the moment the North Koreans had stormed aboard his yacht.

A sense of control.

A reassuring feeling of calm came over Lim as he stared at Yulim, sizing up the situation.

“So that’s why we’ve been taken captive,” Lim told Yulim. “You’re after ransom money.”

Yulim shrugged. “I had no say in your capture,” he assured Lim, “but my understanding was that you’d ventured into our waters and our men just—”

“That’s a lie,” Lim countered. “We hadn’t even crossed the disputed maritime line. We were seized from South Korean waters.”

“That’s beside the point now, don’t you think?” Yulim said.

“Of course,” Lim replied. “The point is, as you say, I’m a wealthy man. Wealthy enough to buy my freedom.”

“Just yours?” Yulim inquired. “What about your friends? Your wife? Your daughter?”

“Let’s not play any more games,” Lim said. “Just name your price and we can start making the arrangements.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Bullhead City, Arizona

When the FBI’s charter jet landed at Bullhead City Airport, the plan was to drop off Kissinger, then promptly take back to the air for the short flight north to Las Vegas. But while Bolan and Kissinger exchanged a few parting words, Bryce Thompson, who’d driven across the river from Laughlin to rendezvous with the jet, boarded and quickly briefed Ed Scanlon on the latest news regarding Li-Roo Kohb, and suddenly things had changed.

“Sorry, guys, but we need to go back to Plan A,” Scanlon told the others after he’d spoken with Thompson.

“Why?” Bahn asked. “What happened?”

“I don’t have all the specifics yet,” Scanlon said, “but it looks like REDI just got their hands on Li-Roo Kohb. The trail’s still fresh, so we figure the more bloodhounds we can throw at them, the better.”

“Fair enough,” Bolan said.

Jayne Bahn winked at Kissinger as she grabbed her overnight bag. “Just when you thought we were going to have to make do with love letters.”

“How about that?” Kissinger grabbed his crutches and played along. “And here I was really looking forward to missing you.”

Thompson had already arranged for a taxi, and by the time everyone had disembarked, the cab had pulled up alongside the tarmac. Scanlon got into the taxi along with the two other Bureau agents who’d accompanied him on the jet. Bolan and Kissinger took the back seat of Thompson’s sedan while Jayne Bahn rode up front.

As both vehicles pulled away from the airport, Bahn asked Thompson, “Okay, I heard the part about there not being a lot of specifics, but how about giving us at least a little to go on?”

Thompson started to fill the others in on his aborted stakeout and the news that REDI agents had apparently beaten them to a search of Li-Roo Kohb’s home, using the same cable company ruse they’d employed in Los Angeles prior to killing Dr. Yong-Im. Two blocks north of the airport, he took a left turn and crossed the bridge leading back to Laughlin. As Bolan listened to Thompson, he looked past the gleaming waters of the Colorado River and saw more than a dozen casinos lined up like gilded dominoes along the banks. The resorts were every bit as large and gaudy as their Vegas counterparts and, judging from the traffic, it looked as though business was booming.

“Anyway,” Thompson went on as he turned onto Casino Drive, “once Howland found the matchbooks, he called the Laughlin Shores and it turns out Li-Roo spends most of his waking hours in the poker room there chasing bad beat jackpots. We tried to page him to tell him to wait for us at security, but the poker room manager said he’d stepped out for a cigarette and never come back. They had to pull his chips off the table because he was gone for so long.”

Bolan pieced it all together. “So we’re figuring REDI grabbed him while he was away from the tables.”

Thompson nodded. They were coming up on the Laughlin Shores, the newest of the casinos, located at the end of the strip between the Palms and Harrah’s. As he pulled into the parking lot, the agent concluded, “Our guys are with security, going over the surveillance tapes. Hopefully they picked up something we can use.”

“Even if they do,” Kissinger said, “If REDI already made the nab, they’ll be long gone by now.”

“We’ll see,” Thompson said.

The group got out of the car and waited for Scanlon and the other G-men, then headed for the casino, which was surrounded by a thirty-foot-wide moat stocked with koi and a few algae-covered underwater statues of sleek mermaids. A quarter-size pirate’s galleon rested in the murky waters near the main entrance. Unlike a similar ship in Las Vegas that engaged in nightly combat with a British frigate, the boat here was merely a decoration, manned only by flocks of pigeons and seagulls.

The Shores’ security headquarters were located on the third floor of the casino. Scanlon flashed his badge to the desk officer, who told the group, “It’s kinda crowded here. Do you all need to come in?”

Scanlon asked Kissinger and the other Bureau agents to wait in the hall, then led Bolan and Bahn past the lost-and-found lockers to a back room where FBI agents Randall Howland and Sandra Pearle were going over the surveillance tapes with Chief Security Officer Harmon Wallace, a tall, dark-haired man with an ample midsection.

Scanlon handled introductions, then asked Wallace, “Did you come up with anything?”

“Even as we speak,” Wallace responded.

The security officer called everyone’s attention to the main console he was using to review back footage from the dozens of ceiling-mounted security cameras positioned throughout the casino. On the screen in front of him was a black-and-white image of a slot carousel situated just off the food court.

“This is about a hundred yards from the poker room,” Wallace explained. He pointed to a figure hunched over one of the slot machines. “Here’s our guy, just a couple minutes after he left the tables.”

“Cigarette break?” Jayne Bahn guessed after seeing Li-Roo Kohb blow smoke at the machine he was playing.

“Yeah,” Wallace said. “I talked to the poker room manager and he says the man usually gets up once an hour for a smoke. He’s never gone more than five minutes. Until today, of course.”

Bolan looked closer at the footage and saw three men near a railing separating the food court from the gambling floor. The footage wasn’t clear enough to get a good look at them, but he could tell their features were Asian.

“Are those the guys we’re looking for?” he asked.

“Yep,” Wallace said. “We’ve got them on tape a few minutes earlier near the poker room. They hung back near the railing, same as here. Li-Roo had his back to them, so I don’t think he knew he was being watched.”

“What time are we talking here?” Scanlon asked.

“Just a sec.” Wallace cued up the time print and a digital readout flashed on the upper-right hand of the screen. “It’s 10:24. About forty minutes ago.”

“We just missed them,” Scanlon scowled. “Damn it!”

“Hold on,” Wallace interrupted, slowing the footage. “Here’s where it goes down.”

The others fell silent and watched the screen. Li-Roo Kohb was finishing his cigarette when the couple playing the machines next to him got up and left the carousel. At the same time they were walking off-camera, the three men by the railing strode forward, boxing Li-Roo in. They were all wearing coats, but it was easy for Bolan to see that they were armed, and even though he couldn’t see a gun, it was clear that the man who’d sat next to Kohb had flashed his weapon for the defector to see. The man directly behind Li-Roo leaned forward a moment and whispered something in the defector’s ear. The gambler dropped his cigarette, but one of the other men quickly stepped over to crush it out on the carpet. Moments later Li-Roo was on his feet, sandwiched between two of the men. The third followed close behind as they moved away from the carousel.

“This was as far as I got, so hang on,” Wallace told the others. Switching from camera to camera, the security officer tracked footage showing Li-Roo Kohb being led around the periphery of the playing floor and past the registration desk, where a clot of people were lined up waiting to check into their rooms. At one point Li-Roo made a feeble attempt to break away from his abductors, but he was quickly hemmed in and brusquely shoved toward the doors leading outside.

“Why the hell didn’t he just shout for help?” Bahn wondered out loud.

“Beats me,” Wallace said, pointing to the edge of the screen. “There’s one of our guys standing right over there. If Li-Roo had gotten his attention, we might’ve been able to do something.”

“Like what?” Scanlon said. “Start a shootout in the casino?”

“He was probably scared out of his wits,” Bolan said. “It’s hard to think straight when somebody’s got a gun planted in your ribs.”

Once he saw the footage of Li-Roo Kohb being escorted out of the casino, Wallace switched to footage from the outside cameras. It took three tries before he could get an angle on Li-Roo and the REDI agents. They were standing curbside in the dropoff zone. Moments later, a dust-covered Ford Explorer pulled up to the curb. One of the abductors opened the rear door and held it open as the others guided the man into the vehicle. The man stayed on the curb afterward, exchanging a few words with his colleagues, then closing the door and stepping back. Seconds later, the SUV disappeared offscreen.

“Doggone.” Wallace toggled switches to get footage from the other outside SUR-CAM. “We don’t have any cameras trained on the exit, so I can’t tell which way they went.”

“Never mind that right now,” Bolan said. “Stay on that guy they left behind.”

“Good point,” Wallace said.

“I don’t get it,” Bahn said. “They’ve got their man. Why would they have somebody stick around here?”

“You got me,” Wallace said, “but it looks like you guys have cut yourself a break.”

Reversing the sequence he’d just called up, Wallace tracked the Korean who’d remained behind. The man returned to the casino and made his way across the playing floor to a corner bar overlooking the river. There, he slid on a bar stool next to a tall, slender brunette wearing a tailored pantsuit that accentuated her voluptuous figure. The man signaled the bartender and gestured that he wanted to buy the woman a drink, then turned to the woman.

“Philly,” Wallace muttered. “I should’ve guessed.”

“What’s that?” Jayne asked.

“The woman,” Wallace explained, pointing to the monitor. “She calls herself Philly. Works this end of the strip.”

“Prostitute?” Bolan said.

Harmon grinned darkly. “She likes to call herself a ‘goodwill ambassador.’”

The security officer sped up the footage, skipping past the banter between the REDI agent and the prostitute. Finally the Korean paid for the drinks, then helped Philly off her bar stool. Wallace had to switch camera views a few times more before catching a final glimpse of the couple as they boarded the South Tower elevator.

“I take it she has a room here,” Bolan said.

“Officially, no,” Wallace said. “Off the record, though, I think I know where you’ll find your guy.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Cho Il-Tok had been a field agent for North Korea’s Research Department for External Intelligence for nearly twenty years, and during those twenty years he’d been shot at more times than he could remember. He could count the number of bullets he’d caught in the line of duty just by counting his scars: six in the chest area, two on his right thigh and one on his neck, where doctors had left the slug because it was lodged less than a quarter inch from his spinal cord. All things considered, Cho’s feeling was that if he decided to take time out from a mission to get laid, he figured he’d damn well earned and deserved it. And as far as he was concerned, he’d done his share on this assignment already.

After all, he’d been the one who’d raided Li-Roo Kohb’s home and figured out the defector was a regular at the Shores poker room, and he’d been the one who’d kept Li-Roo in line when he’d tried to make a run for it when they’d apprehended him in the casino. Bryn Ban-Ho, the team leader, was the one who handled interrogations; getting Li-Roo to talk before they hauled him back to the homeland was his problem, not Cho’s.

Cho continued to justify his daytime tryst with Philly Lambrosia as he stood in front of the window of her hotel room on the third story of the Laughlin Shores South Tower. He’d stripped down to his boxer shorts and was nursing bourbon from a thumb-size bottle he’d taken from the minifridge. He had a view of the river, and he watched with interest the parade of Jet Skiers and speedboat enthusiasts out on the gleaming waters.

When he heard the bathroom door creak open, Cho turned from the window. Philly Lambrosia stepped out of the bathroom wearing a scarlet-red teddy that left precious little to the imagination. She pursed her lips and blew the Korean a kiss as she sashayed to the nightstand, helping herself to the four crisp hundred-dollar bills Cho had set out for her. Cho hadn’t bothered haggling over Philly’s going rate. After all, the money was counterfeit and he had a suitcase half filled with more of the bills back at the safehouse where Li-Roo Kohb had been taken.

“Whoa, you have just a few scars there, don’t you?” Philly observed. “Are you some kind of war hero or something?”

“Something like that,” Cho said.

“But so much for small talk,” Lambrosia cooed. She knelt on the bed and then leaned forward to give Cho a better glimpse of her surgery-enhanced breasts. “Shall we have our little party now?”

Cho didn’t need a second invitation. He quickly downed the last of the bourbon, then tossed the bottle aside and swaggered toward the bed. He was fingering the waistband of his boxers when the woman’s expression suddenly changed. She’d glanced over at the Korean’s clothes, which he’d dumped on the chair next to the bed, and her eyes were fixed on an unmistakable bulge in the pocket of his jacket.

“Wait a second,” she said. “Is that a gun?”

Cho misunderstood and looked down at his groin, then winked at Lambrosia knowingly.

“A big gun,” he joked. “And you have the holster, yes?”

But the woman wasn’t in a joking mood. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” she said.

She crawled across the bed and then leaned out, reaching for Cho’s jacket.

Cho realized what she was doing and suddenly lunged forward, grabbing for the jacket, as well. In the ensuing tug-o-war, the gun fell clear and thumped to the carpet. It was a 9 mm Glock semiautomatic pistol.

“What is this?” Lambrosia demanded as she let go of the jacket. “Soldier, my ass. You’re a cop, aren’t you?”

“No, no,” Cho told her. He picked up the gun and assured her. “I work private security, that’s all.”

“If you’re a cop, this is entrapment,” Lambrosia complained. “And for the record, we never talked about sex!”

“I’m not a cop!” Cho shouted. “Don’t you listen?”

But Lambrosia wasn’t buying it. “Let me see some identification,” she demanded.

Cho Il-Tok’s ardor had dampened, replaced by a growing anger. The last thing he was interested in was being talked down to by some American whore. Glowering, he raised his gun and thumbed off the safety, then drew bead on the mole over Philly’s right cheek.

“You want some identification?” Cho taunted. “How is this?”

“Hey, hey, wait a minute. Let’s calm down here, big fella,” Lambrosia said, a trace of fear in her eyes as she stared down the bore of the Korean’s gun. “Point that thing somewhere else, would you?”

Cho kept the Glock trained on the woman. “Take it off!” he told her, nodding at her teddy.

“I will. Just get that gun out of my face!”

“Take it off!” Cho repeated, holding the gun steady. “Now!”

“Okay, okay!” Lambrosia’s hands trembled as she fumbled with the teddy, unable to take her eyes off the gun.

“Look, I’m s-sorry,” she sputtered, “I didn’t mean to be so nosy. It’s just—”

“No more talking!” Cho told her. “I liked you better with your mouth shut!”

When Lambrosia continued to have trouble with the teddy, Cho moved forward and grabbed at the fabric. The woman let out a faint shriek as he jerked hard, ripping the teddy at the seams and then yanking it away from her body.

“Stupid American bitch!” he seethed, shoving her back on the bed.

Cho was about to climb out of his boxers when he suddenly froze in place and turned his gaze to the door. He thought he’d heard someone on the other side sliding a card key into the lock. When he saw the doorknob turn, the Korean dropped to a quick crouch behind the bed.

A second later the door flew open. Cho didn’t wait to see who it was. He opened fire, aiming chest-high at the doorway. He didn’t hit anyone, but his shots had managed to keep whoever it was from charging into the room.

Cho’s instincts told him that he was probably outnumbered, so rather than stay put, he pivoted and put a round through the window behind him, shattering it into small pieces. Even as the last few fragments were tumbling to the carpet, the Korean was on his feet, racing toward the window. Gunfire sounded behind him and he heard the loud thud of a round plowing into the wall to his immediate right. Somebody called out for him to freeze but he ignored the command and instead hurdled his way out the window.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Desert Eagle in hand, Bolan charged into the room, followed by Jayne Bahn and Ed Scanlon.

“The window!” Bahn shouted.

“I saw him!” Bolan yelled.

He bolted to the window, ignoring Philly Lambrosia, who remained atop the bed, covering herself with the torn remnants of her teddy.

“It’s not what you think!” she cried. “He was just some guy I picked in the bar. It was consensual—”

Jayne cut the woman off. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, cupcakes,” she told her. “We’re not Vice, okay?”

Bolan braced himself, then leaned out the window. Even though they were on the third floor, the South Tower had been built into the hillside, so it was only a two-story drop to a bed of flowers encircling a small park area located directly below the window. Cho Il-Tok had landed amid the azaleas and, unharmed, was already back on his feet, sprinting across the thin sward of grass separating the tower from the Riverwalk. Bolan was taking aim at the Korean when Cho suddenly whirled around and drove the Executioner back with a round from his Glock.

Behind Bolan, Bureau agents Pearle and Thompson had crowded into Lambrosia’s room. The prostitute, realizing her life and livelihood were no longer in danger, had shed her fear almost as quickly as Cho had rid her of her teddy.

“What is this, a convention?” she exhorted. “I don’t do groups.”

“Put a sock in it, sister,” Bahn told her.

Agent Scanlon keyed the walkie-talkie linking him with the other Bureau agents posted on the ground floor.

“He’s out on the Riverwalk!” he reported.

“We’re on him,” came the crackling response from Agent Howland.

Bolan tried the window again. Cho had bounded over the inner railing and was shoving his way through a throng of startled tourists mingling on the Riverwalk. There was no way for Bolan to get off a safe shot, so he climbed up to the windowsill and pushed off. He bypassed the flower bed and landed in the grass, rolling on impact and then quickly scrambling to his feet, gun still in hand. He raced diagonally across the park strip in hopes of gaining ground on the Korean, who by now had reached the concession area just off the dock that serviced the water taxi. In addition to refreshment kiosks, there were booths where guests could rent anything from personal watercraft and mountain bikes to window-view seats on one of the twice-daily helicopter excursions to Lake Havasu or the Grand Canyon.

“Out of my way!” Bolan shouted to the tourists as he vaulted over the railing and onto the Riverwalk. As he gave pursuit, the people he scattered weren’t sure what to make of the fracas.

It was only when Cho fired at Bolan and clipped one of the tourists that people began to realize they were caught up in something other than free entertainment. The moment the first victim went down, howling that he’d been shot, people saw blood and the first screams of terror began to sound along the Riverwalk. By then, Jayne Bahn had jumped to the ground and Scanlon’s backup agents were spilling out of the rear entrance to the casino.

“Everybody down!” Bahn shouted as she sprinted across the parkway. Her command was lost in the cacophony, however, and only a few of the tourists heeded her warning. Others were fleeing in all directions, and those racing for the casino immediately blocked the progress of the Bureau agents.

Cho was slowed down as he made a point to keep himself surrounded by as many pedestrians as possible. The ploy worked in terms of keeping the authorities from firing at him, but Bolan and the others were gaining ground. The Korean knew he had to change tact. Abandoning the Riverwalk, he veered to the dock and stiff-armed his way through a small crowd queued up to board the water taxi, a glorified barge that could carry up to forty people at a time to the other casinos. There was a second, shorter line to the right for those who’d rented pontoon boats or Jet Skis and were waiting for their turn on the water.

The combined noise of the water taxi and the personal watercraft had drowned out the earlier sound of gunfire and, when Cho started elbowing his way to the front of the second line, people began to grumble, mistaking him for a drunken crasher. The man who’d been at the head of the line—a vacationing football linebacker—took particular offense and grabbed the Korean by the arm.

“Not so fast, asshole!” the linebacker shouted. “Wait your goddamn turn like everybody—”

The man’s voice dropped off when Cho twisted around and pointed the Glock at his face.

“Asshole? Is that what you called me?”

Before the linebacker could fully realize his mistake, Cho fired a point-blank shot through the linebacker’s forehead. The man’s head snapped back and his brains splattered the tourists behind him as he pitched to one side, then toppled over the railing and into the water. The same panic that had gripped the Riverwalk now spread along the dock. Cho ignored the pandemonium and clambered down the steps leading to a floating platform where a worker had been showing a teenage boy how to use the personal watercraft he’d just rented. The worker quickly realized what was happening and just as quickly stepped aside, throwing his hands in the air.

“Don’t hurt me, man!” he pleaded.

The teenager was a little slower on the uptake and stayed put until Cho grabbed him by the collar and forcibly yanked him off the watercraft, then took his place at the controls.

Cho had only been on a Jet Ski once, but he hadn’t forgotten how to operate one and within seconds he was speeding away from the docks, cutting a wake as he veered around the water taxi out into the middle of the river. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that Bolan had just reached the loading platform. The Korean fired a wild shot Bolan’s way, then tucked the Glock inside the waistband of his boxers so he could have both hands free to maneuver the Jet Ski.

Back on the platform, Bolan pointed out the remaining personal watercraft and asked the worker, “Is one of these faster than the others?”

The worker nodded and pointed to a larger model tethered on the other side of the platform from the others.

“That one’s mine,” he said.

“I need to borrow it,” Bolan said.

“Yeah, I figured,” the worker said. He was already fishing through his pockets for the keys. As he handed them to Bolan, he asked, “What’s going on, anyway?”

“I think you can figure that out, too,” Bolan said.

He quickly mounted the Jet Ski and started it up. He had to back his way out into the water, and as he was looking over his shoulder, he saw that Jayne Bahn had commandeered one of the rental mountain bikes and was bicycling down the Riverwalk, following the same downriver course Cho had taken. There was no way she’d be able to keep up, but Bolan had to give her points for quick thinking.

Once he had the Jet Ski pointed out toward the river, Bolan opened up the throttle and held on tight. The craft lunged forward with a high-pitched whine. The river was calm and he had no problem keeping control as he sped after the fleeing REDI agent. Twice, however, he had to change course sharply to avoid colliding with other skiers. Slowly, he began to close the gap between him and the Korean. He knew there was no way Cho would be able to use his gun, so it was down to a chase, and if the worker was right about the added horsepower Bolan had at his disposal, the Executioner liked his chances.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

There was a bend in the river just past Harrah’s, and as he rounded it, Cho Il-Tok glanced over his shoulder and realized he was losing ground on the man pursuing him. As if that weren’t disconcerting enough, the constant jarring motion of the Jet Ski had finally loosened the Korean’s Glock. When he felt it slipping through his boxers, Cho nearly lost control when he freed one hand in a frantic effort to grab the gun. Forced to reach back for the watercraft’s handle, he had no choice but to let the pistol clatter off the footrest into the river.

Just beyond the bend, the river widened. To Cho’s left, a Bullhead City mobile home park reached out to the river’s edge, and even though the water was a frigid sixty-three degrees, a few brave souls, mostly young children, were out wading and splashing while their parents watched on from a sandy beach that had been carved out of the embankment. Across the way, though, the Laughlin side of the river had been left to nature’s hand, and tall, scattered patches of cattails and broad-leaved reeds extended more than twenty yards out into the water. Apparently the area around the vegetation was good for fishing, because Cho saw two elderly men in a small boat anchored near the reeds, with lines in the water. Realizing he had no chance to outrun his pursuer on the open water, Cho decided his only option was to head past the fishermen into the reeds and hope that he might somehow use the obstacle course to his advantage.

The Korean let up on the throttle and veered sharply to his right. Straight ahead was the small fishing boat. The man seated next to the motor was reeling in a catch when he heard Cho heading their way. Distracted, he failed to play the fish properly and his line suddenly went slack as the fish wriggled free and swam off. Livid, the man waved an angry fist at Cho.

“See what you made me do, you no good…!”

Before the man could finish, Cho raced past, threading the gap between the boat and the nearest patch of reeds. A second later he vanished into the vegetation, leaving behind a wake violent enough to nearly capsize the fishing boat. The men aboard the boat had to grab the sides and shift their weight to stay afloat. They could no longer see Cho, but that didn’t prevent them from cursing him and promising that he would pay for ruining their outing.

When Bolan came upon the scene moments later, he saw that there was no way he could follow the same course as Cho without striking the fishing boat. He had no way of knowing the Korean was no longer armed, either, and as such he was wary of making himself an easy target by slowing down and taking another route into the reeds.

To make matters worse, one of the fishermen mistakenly thought Bolan was merely out joy-riding with Cho and cast his line the Executioner’s way. When the man’s fishing lure glanced off the front end of the Jet Ski and nearly snagged on Bolan’s shirt, he decided to give the men a wide berth. He steered toward the middle of the river and maneuvered his way around a tour boat on its way back from Lake Havasu, then finally slowed and brought the watercraft to a halt near one of the thick pylons supporting a footbridge spanning the river. He let the engine idle and reached out for the pylon, then pulled himself around so that the structure would protect him from gunfire. Positioned, he waited. The next move would be up to the Korean.

CHO WAS WAITING, too.

Lurking in the tall reeds, he’d shifted his personal watercraft into neutral but was ready at a moment’s notice to put the craft in gear. His plan was to wait until his adversary came into view, then speed forward and ram his pursuer, hopefully with enough force to knock him off the watercraft and buy enough time to head back out onto the river and make another run for it. But there was a problem with the idle on his own watercraft, and he had to continually rev the engine to keep it from dying. Each time he opened up the throttle, the engine seemed to whine even louder. Cho cursed under his breath. This was no way to hide.

Finally the engine sputtered and fell silent. He tried a few times to start it up again, without success. Furious, he was about to abandon the Jet Ski and take to the water when he heard the sound of another motor. It wasn’t the trilling sound of a Jet Ski, however, but rather the lower drone of an outboard motor. Cho realized the fishermen he’d disrupted earlier were making their way through the reeds toward him.

“We know you’re in here somewhere, you son of a bitch!” one of the men aboard the boat shouted.

The other fisherman was equally worked up and yelled, “It’s high time you punks learned better than to go hotdogging around our fishing holes all the friggin’ time!”

Cho stayed as still as he could, but he had to shift his weight back and forth to keep the Jet Ski upright in the water. Peering through the reeds, he finally spotted the prow of the boat headed his way. As it puttered into view, the Korean caught a glimpse of his new pursuers. The men were even older than he’d first thought—easily in their seventies—and each wore a bright orange foam life jacket and wide-brimmed hat. One sat at the rear of the boat, manning the outboard motor. The other man had moved to the front and set aside his fishing pole in favor of a fiberglass oar, which he now held aloft as if it were a baseball bat.

Cho didn’t know what had happened to the man who’d been pursuing him on the other Jet Ski, but for the moment it didn’t matter. For now, his most pressing concern was dealing with the pair of geriatric vigilantes. He sized them up quickly and figured he could take them both on without too much trouble. The trick was to do it without attracting any more attention than necessary.

Shifting his weight, the Korean leaned the Jet Ski into the patch of reeds to his immediate left. At the same time, he slowly swung his left leg around so that he was sitting sidesaddle on the Jet Ski. Then he twisted his upper torso and draped his arms over the handlebars and went limp, craning his head so that if he opened his eyes slightly he would still be able to see the approaching boat. Hopefully, to the old men it would look as if he’d rammed into the reeds and knocked himself out.

The ploy worked.

“Check it out, Virgil,” the man with the oar quipped as the boat came closer. “Looks like Mr. Hotshot bit off more than he can chew.”

“Serves him right,” the other man said, easing up on the throttle as the boat pulled up beside the Jet Ski. “And, hell, look at him, Johnny! Son of a bitch was out racing around in his damn skivvies.”

“What do we do now?” the first man said, lowering his oar. “Not like I’m gonna wallop him when he’s already out cold.”

“Let me see if I can raise the sheriff on the CB,” Virgil said. He leaned forward and reached for citizen’s band radio lying in the bottom of the boat next to the men’s tackle box. “Let him throw the guy in the hoosegow for a couple days and see if that’ll teach him.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Johnny set down his oar and was leaning over to grab Cho when the Korean sprang to life. He caught the old man off guard and drilled him squarely in the forehead with a head butt, knocking him unconscious. When the Jet Ski began to slide out from under him, Cho kicked off the footrest and leaped past Johnny into the boat. In the rear of the boat, Virgil, taken aback by the sudden turn of events, dropped the CB microphone and gaped at Cho. By the time he recovered his wits and reached into the tackle box for a scaling knife, the Korean had already caught up with him. The boat rocked beneath them as they struggled.

Cho had the upper hand and it was a quick, brutal skirmish. The Korean drove his knee into Virgil’s midsection, knocking the wind from the old man’s lungs, then quickly grabbed the scaling knife and thrust it between the ties Virgil had used to secure his lifejacket. The blade was sharp enough to puncture the old man’s chest, and when Cho wrenched the handle from side to side, the serrated edge shredded Virgil’s internal organs and then slashed his heart, killing him instantly.

Cho took a moment to steady the boat, yanked the knife from Virgil’s chest and staggered back to the other man. Johnny had just begun to regain consciousness. Cho leaned over and viciously dragged the serrated blade across the oarsman’s neck, finishing him off. In all, it had taken the Korean less than thirty seconds to kill the men and take control of the boat.

Getting rid of the bodies was a more tedious and time-consuming task. Cho dumped Johnny over the side first, then stripped Virgil of his hat, shirt and life jacket before easing him into the water, as well.

Once he’d donned the dead man’s clothes, Cho pulled the hat brim low over his forehead and took up Virgil’s position on the rear bench. The outboard motor was still running. Cho figured if he would wrangle his way out of the reeds without being spotted, he could race the boat downriver, then ditch it along the banks. After that, he’d try to find a way back to the safehouse.

Using one of the oars, Cho pushed the boat away from the bodies as well as the stolen personal watercraft, then slowly opened the boat’s throttle, heading shoreward as he negotiated his way through more of the reed thickets. All the while he listened carefully for the approaching sound of other boats or the man on the other Jet Ski. All he could hear above the purr of the motor, however, was the quacking of a few ducks as they fluttered up out of the water in front of him. Soon he was less then ten yards from the embankment. The water was so shallow he could see the river bottom.

With all his concern about his pursuer’s whereabouts, Cho had failed to consider the possibility that someone might have picked up his trail from overhead, where a steep, thirty-foot-high cliff rose abruptly from the embankment. He was within a few yards of clearing the reeds when a few stones clattered down the face of the cliff, tipping him off to the fact that he was being followed. Startled, he glanced up just in time to see a woman on a mountain bike streaking through the air directly toward him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Jayne Bahn had done a good job of raising the handlebars as she vaulted over the cliff, but she’d slightly misjudged the distance to the boat, and instead of landing directly on top of Cho Il-Tok, she came up a few feet short, rear wheel striking the outboard motor instead. The boat’s engine died but it had enough play that it gave slightly on impact, tilting to the right so that when Bahn brought down the bike’s front wheel, it glanced off the side of the boat and splashed into the water. Bahn was thrown forward, somersaulting over the handlebars into the nearby reeds. The vegetation was dense and thick enough to help cushion her fall, and saved her from breaking her neck. As it was, however, the crash landing was hard enough to knock her out.

Cho, who’d lunged forward a split second before the bike had struck, had been nonetheless knocked clear of the boat, as well. He hit the shallow water headfirst and caught a faceful of silt from the river bottom before surfacing with a sputter, still shocked by the unexpected nature of the attack.

When he stood, grabbing the side of the boat to steady himself, the water was waist-high around him, so cold that he already could feel his fingers going numb. He splashed some of the mud off his face, then looked across the boat for some sign of his attacker. All he could see at first was the rear tire of the mountain bike; it poked up out of the water at a slight angle and he could see the frame was bent. Then he spotted Bahn, a few yards away, partially concealed by the reeds. She wasn’t moving.

The Korean turned and glanced out toward the river. The surrounding reeds obstructed his view and all he could hear were the drone of a few boats farther out on the river and the lapping of water against the embankment. Cho’s first instinct was to climb back aboard the boat and try to start the engine, but he was still incensed by the way he’d been attacked. So he tracked down the scaling knife he’d used on Virgil and Johnny and waded around the boat, intent on killing the woman who’d tried to thwart his getaway.

The water was only up to the Korean’s knees by the time he reached the reeds Bahn had fallen into. He tightened his grip on the knife and leaned over, using his free hand to part the fronds so that he could plant the blade in the woman’s chest.

“Nice try, bitch,” he murmured.

Cho pulled his arm back, but before he could bring the knife down, he learned the hard way that he wasn’t the only one capable of playing possum. With the sudden speed of a striking cobra, Bahn’s right leg came rising up out of the water in a kicking motion, and while she may have missed her mark earlier, this time her aim was true and the tip of her shoe caught Cho squarely in the groin. The Korean let out a pained yell and backpedaled in the water as he doubled over, giving Bahn the time she need to wrest herself from the reeds. She continued to take the offensive, stiffening her right palm and directing a karate blow toward Cho’s head. He saw the blow coming, though, and managed to throw his left arm up in time to deflect it.

Fighting back his queasiness, the Korean countered with a knife swipe that caught the woman off guard and came within inches of slashing her the cheek.

“Hey, no messing with the face, Killboy,” Bahn snapped.

“I’ll mess with more than your face before I’m done with you,” Cho countered.

He lunged forward, lashing out again with the knife. He deliberately went to Bahn’s left, hoping to coax her closer to shore, where he figured he could use the shallower water to his advantage. Bahn wouldn’t play along, however. She ducked under the swipe and in the same motion skimmed her hand across the water, sending a splash Cho’s way. It was a feeble diversion, but it gave her the time she needed to veer toward the boat, which had listed her way in the water. She grabbed the same oar Virgil had intended to beat the Korean with, then turned back to her adversary. Like Johnny, she held the oar like a club.

“Whaddya think?” she taunted. “Are we getting close to a fair fight now?”

Cho quickly sized up the odds. He had the better weapon, but the woman had more range with the oar. It would be difficult for him to get close enough to stab her. Yes, he could throw the knife, but if he missed, he would have given up his advantage. He decided to stick with his original strategy and took a step back toward the shore. The gravelly river bottom beneath his feet angled up sharply, allowing him to rise farther out of the water. It was now only halfway up his calves, whereas Bahn was still waist-deep. Cho also quickly realized that once he was ashore, he could additionally pelt his foe with stones and small rocks. For that matter, there was a path leading up to the cliff the woman had ridden her bike off. With a head start, he could easily outdistance her and make a run for it.

No, he thought to himself. There was no way he was going to run from a woman. One way or another, he was going to deal with her.

Bahn took advantage of Cho’s hesitation and took a few long strides toward shore, waving the oar back and forth in front of her.

“What’s the problem, Killboy?” she yelled. “You think I’m more of a threat than those two guys you took this boat from? Huh? You didn’t dilly-dally around like this with them, did you?” Bahn swiped the oar across the water, splashing Cho again.

“C’mon. Batter up!”

Cho did his best to look as if the woman’s taunts were getting the better of him. With a worried expression, he took another step backward, then stole a quick look over his shoulder. The embankment was level for a few yards before giving way to the cliff facing. All he had to do was get out of the water and draw the woman in a little closer.

“I don’t have time to deal with you!” he finally scoffed.

Turning his back to Bahn, he bounded out of the water and headed for the path leading up to the cliff top. As he hoped, the woman was quick to take up the chase, thrashing her way through the water toward shore.

Cho lengthened his stride and was about to break into a run by the time he reached the path. At the last second, however, he suddenly changed course and headed directly toward the sheer wall of the cliff. As Bahn closed in on him, he pushed off and sprang upward, kicking his right leg forward. His foot struck the rock facing four feet up from the ground and he immediately pushed off, doing a reverse somersault in midair.

Bahn wasn’t prepared for the maneuver and she missed when she swiped at Cho with the oar, throwing herself off balance. Before she could recover, the Korean landed on top her, knocking the oar from her hands and tackling her to the ground.

Cho quickly pinned her, leaving one hand free. He still had the scaling knife and he sneered at the woman as he prepared to drive the blade into her.

“You thought they could only do that in the movies, yes?”

Bahn struggled but couldn’t break Cho’s hold on her. Staring up, she saw sunlight glint off the steel blade as it came sweeping down toward her.

This is not good, she thought to herself, resigned to her fate.

Before Cho could deliver a death blow, however, he was distracted by a loud droning. He turned toward the river and his jaw dropped in shock.

The man who’d been chasing after him earlier had just thundered through the reeds and was racing ashore! Cho saw that the man at the controls had no intention of stopping, and though he tried his best to dive clear of the watercraft’s path, it was too late. It bounded out of the water and even after its rider had jumped off, its momentum carried it on a straight course and broadsided the Korean, cracking his ribs and forcing the air from his lungs before skidding past him and crashing into the cliff wall.

Bahn had no idea what had happened until she rolled to one side and slowly rose to her knees. She saw Cho immobilized on the ground beside her, gasping for breath a few yards from the crumpled remains of the Jet Ski. When she turned to look the other way, she saw Mack Bolan rising to his feet and heading toward her.

“Next time you want to get my attention,” he told her, “do me a favor and just yell, okay?”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Goffs, California

Hong Sung-nam and Ok-Hwa Zung had been on the road for more than five hours when they reached the Goffs Road turn-off on Interstate 40. The only stop they’d made had been in Victorville, where they’d abandoned their van in an unattended parking lot and helped themselves to a flatbed Ford pickup. Following a two-lane remnant of old Route 66, they soon reached Goffs, an afterthought of a small town located an hour’s drive southwest of Laughlin. There wasn’t even a town to speak of. The highest concentration of business was an intersection near the train line that boasted a general store and long-abandoned filling station. Hong turned right when he reached the junction and raised a trail of dust once the pavement gave way to a gravel road still pocked with chuckholes from the previous winter’s rains.

Two miles down the road, Hong pulled up to a ramshackle, one-story farmhouse abutting a patch of land where weeds were gaining the upper hand on a few haphazard rows of unharvested corn. Behind the house was a rickety barn. A portion of the roof had collapsed years earlier, and it looked as if a strong wind could easily topple the rest of the structure. There was a dust-covered Honda Accord parked inside the barn and there was room for Hong to ease the pickup to a stop alongside it.

Once he’d turned off the engine, Hong reached over and jostled Ok-Hwa, who’d nodded off in the front seat somewhere back near Barstow.

“We’re here,” Hong told the young recruit.

Ok-Hwa stirred and yawned as he glanced out the windshield at the arid wasteland that lay beyond the barn.

“Talk about the middle of nowhere,” he said.

“Why do you thing we chose it?” Hong said. “Let’s go.”

The men left the barn and kicked their way past the tumbleweeds dotting the backyard. As they approached the farmhouse, the rear door opened and a hard-looking Korean in his late thirties stepped out to greet them. Clutched in his right hand was a sawed-off Remington 30-gauge shotgun.

Bryn Ban-Ho had slipped into the country three weeks earlier along with Hong and four other teams of REDI agents. Most of that time he and his men had been traveling back and forth between Laughlin and Las Vegas, keeping defectors Kang Moo-Hyun and Li-Roo Kohb under surveillance and plotting for the day when the teams would finally receive the order to make their move. They’d rented out motel rooms in both cities, but the Goffs hideout served as their base of operations. Bryn had arrived a little more than an hour earlier, fully expecting that Hong would already be there waiting for him.

“What took you so long?” Bryn asked Hong. “And where’s Yong-Im?”

“I got here as fast as I could,” Hong replied, sidestepping Bryn’s query about the defector living in L.A. “Do you think I wanted to get pulled over for speeding?”

“Where’s Yong-Im?” Bryn repeated, glancing past Hong and Ok-Hwa at the pickup.

“There’s no sense in us standing around out here,” Hong responded evasively. “We can talk about this inside.”

Bryn shrugged and stepped back, motioning for Hong and Ok-Hwa to enter. Inside, the farmhouse was even less imposing than the patch of hardpan it rested on. The men strode past an empty kitchen to a living room decorated with a few mismatched chairs, a cheap sofa and several orange crates doubling as tables and cabinets. Another Korean was sprawled across the couch, smoking a cigarette as he watched a game show on the small black-and-white television resting on one of the orange crates. The reception was so poor that it looked like the contestants were being rained on with an endless shower of confetti.

“We had a small problem,” Hong finally explained. Gesturing at Ok-Hwa, he added, “Jackie Chan here got carried away when Yong-Im wouldn’t cooperate.”

“I figured as much,” Bryn said. “And I understand that wasn’t your only problem.”

“What are you talking about?” Hong demanded.

Bryn stared at Hong, surprised. “You didn’t hear?”

Hong frowned. “Hear about what?”

“There was a raid on your safehouse in Koreatown,” Bryn said. “First thing this morning, probably around the same time you were going after Yong-Im.”

Hong swore. Ok-Hwa, however, was more alarmed than angry.

“Was anyone hurt?” he asked.

“Hurt?” Bryn laughed bitterly. “They killed everybody except one.”

“My brother,” Ok-Hwa said, his voice strained. “Was he the one—”

“I don’t know who was killed and who wasn’t,” Bryn interrupted. “I don’t know anything except what we heard on the news.”

Ok-Hwa seemed dazed. He wandered over to one of the chairs and plopped down, raising a cloud of dust. Hong, meanwhile, asked Bryn for more details, and as he listened, he frisked his pockets for the list of defectors he and the other REDI agents had been sent to retrieve. It was a pointless gesture, though, because he knew all too well that he’d left the list back at the safehouse when he’d changed into his cable company uniform.

“But for us it doesn’t change anything,” Bryn concluded. “If they treat the raid as nothing more than a drug bust, we haven’t been compromised. We can still see our mission through.”

Hong nodded. He wasn’t about to tell Bryn about the list. They would just have to take their chances and hope the authorities wouldn’t know what to make of the sheet of paper if they found it.

Bryn led Hong into the rear bedroom. There, yet another REDI agent was standing guard over Li-Roo Kohb, the defector they’d just snatched from the Laughlin Shores Casino. The scientist was unconscious, lying on an unmade bed, his wrists and ankles bound with duct tape.

“Did you get him to talk?” Hong asked.

“Not yet,” Bryn conceded. “But at least he’s still alive, so we can try again when he comes to.”

Hong ignored the dig. “We can try sodium pentothal,” he suggested. “We didn’t get a chance to use ours.”

“So I gathered,” Bryn said. “We still have our supply and, yes, we’ll try it on him. In the meantime, we still have Kang Moo-Hyun to deal with.”

“I’ll take care of him,” Hong volunteered.

“The same way you took care of Yong-Im?”

Hong bristled. “I already told you, that was Ok-Hwa’s doing.”

“You were in charge,” Bryn countered.

“Yes,” Hong retorted, “and because you asked to borrow my team so you could cover both Laughlin and Las Vegas, I was left to rely on the local product. My mistake. It won’t happen again.”

Bryn met Hong’s gaze and replied, “Your point is taken. Go ahead and take Las Vegas if you want. I understand your desire to save face.”

Hong was about to snap at Bryn but caught himself. There was nothing to be gained by any more petty bickering. Forcing himself to calm down, he told Bryn, “I want to leave Ok-Hwa here. I’ll borrow back a couple of my own men for the job, if that’s all right with you.”

Bryn shrugged. “Help yourself,” he said.

“I’ll take Woo-Ki,” Hong said, gesturing at the man guarding Li-Roo Kohb. “And Cho Il-Tok.”

“Cho might be a problem,” Bryn responded. “He’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“After we got our hands on Li-Roo, he decided to stay behind.”

“In Laughlin?” Hong couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why? To do what? Gamble?”

Bryn smiled. “I think it was another vice he had in mind. You know Cho. Give him a chance and he’ll do his thinking with the brain between his legs.”

“You should have ordered him to come back with you,” Hong said. “He has no business staying behind. It’s too risky.”

“I told him as much,” Bryn replied. “But, as you say, he’s your man. Apparently he listens to you more than he does me.”

“How can I reach him?”

Bryn shrugged. “You know we don’t carry phones.” Smirking, he quickly added, “It’s too risky.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Relax,” Bryn told his fellow operative. “Once he’s had his fun, I’m sure Cho will be back.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Laughlin, Nevada

“I’m still trying to figure out how you managed to get there so fast,” Bolan told Bahn.

“I’ll have to take you to my folks’ house sometime,” the woman responded. “They’ve still got all my biking trophies on the mantel over the fireplace.”

Bahn was sitting on the edge of an exam table in an outpatient room at the Laughlin Urgent Care Center. She’d already been looked over and had changed back into her street clothes, which had just been run through the facility’s dryer and were still warm. Bolan had changed, as well, raiding his overnight bag back at the airport across the river in Bullhead City.

“I’m serious,” he told Bahn. “We were going full-throttle before he ducked off into the reeds. There’s no way you could’ve kept up with him.”

“I didn’t have to. The bike path doesn’t follow the river bend. It keeps going straight after the Riverwalk.”

“A shortcut.”

“I think that’s what they call it,” Bahn quipped. “Anyway, I just kept peddling my ass off and wound up on the cliff. A minute sooner and I might’ve been able to help those two geezers he killed. What a bastard!”

“A minute later on my end and I’d be visiting you at the morgue instead of here,” Bolan said. “And it was just a fluke that I happened to be looking toward the cliffs at the same time you did your Evel Knievel routine.”

“Hey, whatever works,” Bahn said. “Bottom line is, we both got through it in one piece and caught ourselves the perp.”

“Now we just need to get him to cough up where they took Li-Roo Kohb.”

“I’m sure they’ll grill him on both sides once he’s out of surgery,” Bahn said.

Cho Il-Tok was down the hall sleeping off the sedatives he’d been given while being treated for rib fractures and a bruised spleen. The doctors were confident he’d be well enough to undergo questioning once he awoke.

The internist who’d examined Bahn returned a few minutes later with the X-rays he’d had taken on Bahn’s skull as well her right knee, which she’d injured during her bike jump but had failed to notice until the aftermath of her face-off with Cho.

“Okay,” the doctor reported, “the good news is there’s no structural damage to the knee. If you stay off it for a few days and do the ice-heat thing along some anti-inflammatory meds, you should be fine.”

“Sure thing, doc,” Bahn said. She shot Bolan a wink and rolled her eyes, then turned back to the internist. “And the bad news?”

“You’ve got a concussion.”

“Only one?” Jayne said. “Hell, I collect those things like stamps.”

The doctor wasn’t amused. “I want to have you transferred to the hospital overnight for observation. Just as a precaution.”

“I’ll pass. We’re not big on caution in my line of work.”

“It’s for your own good.”

“I appreciate the concern, but ix-nay,” Jayne said. “Just be a pal and write up my release so I can get of here, okay?”

The internist turned to Bolan. “Any chance you can talk some sense into her?”

Bolan shook his head. “I’m not even going to try.”

The internist sighed. “All right,” he conceded. “Let me write everything up, then the nurse’ll bring the papers by for you to sign.”

“While we’re waiting, I’ll go check on the others,” Bolan told Bahn. He followed the doctor out of the exam room, walking with him as far as the nurses’ station. There, John Kissinger and FBI Agent Scanlon had taken over a desk as well as one of the facility’s computers. Kissinger was at the keyboard. He’d already set up two secure lines, one allowing Scanlon to access the Bureau, the other linking him with Aaron Kurtzman back at Stony Man Farm. Scanlon stood a few yards away, back turned to Kissinger as he talked into his cell phone.

“So, how’s G.I. Jayne?” Kissinger asked Bolan.

Bolan quickly passed along the bounty hunter’s prognosis as well as that of Cho Il-Tok.

“I’ve already put in dibs for the interrogation,” Kissinger said. Nudging his crutches, he said, “I’ve got a new routine all worked out in case he tries to clam up. It’ll make good cop-bad cop look like kiddie business.”

“I feel sorry for the guy already,” Bolan said. Gesturing at the computer, he lowered his voice and asked, “Have you touched base with the Farm?”

Kissinger nodded. “I’m in the middle of e-mailing back to Bear. They’re all tied up trying to ferret out those missiles Kim Jong-il’s playing hide-and-seek with.”

Scanlon had just gotten off the phone, so Bolan told Kissinger to get back to what he was doing and turned his attention to the Bureau agent.

“Any news on Li-Roo Kohb?”

“Afraid not,” Scanlon said. “But before we go on, I gotta say you and the little lady did quite a job out there.”

“We just went with the flow,” Bolan said. “No big deal. And you might want to make sure you don’t call her ‘little lady’ when she’s within earshot.”

“I don’t plan to,” Scanlon said. “Anyway, what I was getting at is that I took a little heat up front for letting you guys tag along, but now everybody’s singing a different tune.”

“Good for them,” Bolan said. “But let’s move on.”

“Right,” Scanlon said. “Like I said, Li-Roo is still missing, along with the guys that grabbed him. They ditched the Explorer just up the road in the parking garage at Harrah’s. Odds are they stole another car and did a plate switch, but until somebody leaves the casino and realizes their wheels are missing, there’s nothing to go on there except the prints we lifted off the SUV, and we’re not expecting much on that front.”

“Because you don’t have any REDI prints to cross-reference,” Bolan guessed.

“Exactly.” Scanlon reached for a printout he’d just downloaded from the Bureau’s database. “However, we do have a partial gallery of mugshots on these guys, and we picked up a match with one of the guys who was in on the abduction.”

Bolan glanced at the printout, which showed an enlarged still-frame of one of Li-Roo Kohb’s abductors as taken from one of the River Shores casino surveillance cameras. Directly alongside the shot was what looked to be a black-and-white passport photo of a hard-looking North Korean with dark eyes and prominent mole on his right cheekbone. Bolan compared the two photos. It seemed pretty clear that both shots were of the same man.

“His name is Bryn Ban-Ho,” Scanlon explained. “We’ve got him ranked the same level on the pecking order as Hong Sung-nam, so the odds are he’s heading up a separate team from Hong.”

“I take it, then, that Hong and this other Killboy didn’t show up on that surveillance footage.”

“No,” Scanlon said. “Like I said, they’re probably working separately, which means Hong might not have left L.A. after all.”

“Either that or he’s headed to Las Vegas to take out Kang.”

“If they don’t have a third team in Vegas, yeah, that’s a possibility,” Scanlon conceded. “In any event, nothing’s happened up there yet, but we have to figure if they’re going to make a move, it’ll be soon. We’ve got reports that REDI already tried their luck with the other defectors in D.C. and Chicago.”

“But you already had those guys in protective custody, right?” Bolan said.

Scanlon nodded. “Yeah, but REDI didn’t know that. We went ahead and planted look-alikes just like we’re doing in Vegas. We wound up with a shootout in Chicago when they showed up. We took the whole team out but lost a man doing it.”

“What about Washington?”

“Apparently they smelled a rat, because they bolted right after they showed up at the safehouse,” Scanlon said. “Our guys gave chase but lost them on the Beltway.”

Bolan took in all the recent developments. He didn’t like the way it added up.

“I don’t think they’re going to bite in Vegas,” he concluded. “You gotta figure these guys are communicating with each other somehow. With everything that’s gone on, there’s no way they can’t know we’re on to them now.”

“I’d agree with you, except for a couple things,” Scanlon said. “First off, it’s not a given that the teams are in touch with each other. As a matter of fact, all our intel on REDI points the other way. When they send out a team, they don’t bother giving them the big picture. They probably figure it’d be a distraction, plus the fact that if they wind up caught like our guy here, they have less info to give up. In this case, it wouldn’t surprise me if the guys in Chicago and Washington didn’t even know there are other defectors here in the States, much less that there are other REDI crews going after them.”

“For our sake, I hope you’re right,” Bolan said. “But don’t forget that all the defectors were on that list we found in L.A.”

“You’re right.” Scanlon struck himself on the side of the head with the butt of his palm. “What an idiot! So much for that theory. Damn it! And I was just on my way to the airport to fly up to Vegas. Now, hell, I don’t know…”

Before Bolan could respond, Jayne Bahn joined them, waving her release papers.

“Okay, I got my Get Out of Jail Free card,” she said. “What’s our next move?”

“We’re just trying to figure that out.” Bolan quickly filled her in on the latest developments.

“I still think Vegas might be worth a shot,” Bahn suggested. “Yeah, maybe they know their guys went bust in Chicago and D.C., but since they’ve already got Li-Roo, they might decide to push their luck and go after Kang, as well. I mean, if the other teams struck out and they come back with at least two of the defectors, they’ll come off smelling like a rose.”

“Good point,” Scanlon said. “Of course, there’s a chance, too, that they have their orders to go after Kang regardless of what happened.”

“Well, guys, it sounds like a crap shoot,” Bahn said. “Me, I’ll put my money on Vegas.”

“Me, too, I guess,” Scanlon said. “We’ve got enough men to handle things here, so I think I’ll grab that plane flight after all.”

“I’ll come with,” Bahn said.

“What about you?” Scanlon asked Bolan.

The soldier thought it over, then decided, “What the hell. Let’s roll the dice.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Camp Bonifas, South Korea

First thing Akira Tokaido had done after learning that his cousin’s yacht may have been hijacked was place a call to Stony Man Farm. He’d asked Aaron Kurtzman to track down any available sat intel footage of the area where the abduction had reportedly taken place and see if, by some miracle, the eye in the sky had managed to capture the incident. As he waited for a response, Tokaido had resumed his post at the Army base’s CRCC facilities. There, he’d convinced Colonel Thomas Michaels to, at least for the moment, shift focus away from the ongoing ghosting operations and assign all available manpower to tracking KPA mil-com frequencies in hopes of intercepting more information regarding the yacht and those who’d been aboard when it had been seized by the North Koreans. Reciprocating Kurtzman’s earlier request, Tokaido had asked the radio control operators to also keep an ear open for any communiqués dealing with the attempts by REDI agents to drag the members of the Kanggye nuclear team back home so that they could verify the launch ability of Kim Jong-il’s hidden ICBMs. An hour’s worth of eavesdropping, however, had yet to turn up any worthwhile information. In fact, the radio team had discovered that the KPA had apparently changed frequencies during the night and were somehow scrambling their signals so as to avoid interception.

“Bastards,” Michaels cursed once he’d returned from a briefing across the courtyard and been apprised of the situation.

“They’re on to us.”

“It sure looks that way,” Tokaido said bleakly. “I didn’t think they had the technology to pull it off, but obviously they do.”

“They’re doing a great job of having us underestimate them,” Michaels agreed. “And they’ve stepped up their smoke screens, too.”

“What do you mean?”

Summing up the findings of the intelligence briefing he’d just attended, the colonel explained, “They’ve increased activity at their missile facilities in the north, but every time we think we might’ve spotted a nuke site, they throw us for a loop. We’ve got one incident in Yongjo where they put a three-stager on the launch pad, but the payload turned out to be a weather satellite. And in Musudan they pulled the same trick with a sky cam. I think you already know about the shell games they’re playing with truck movements.”

Tokaido nodded, then asked, “Are we positive those payxsloads in Yongjo and Musudan aren’t just dummied up to look like something other than warheads?”

“Afraid so,” Michaels said. “We put them both under infrareds and neither site registered hot.”

“I guess on the bright side, if they keep this up we’ll be able to narrow the possibilities by process of elimination,” Tokaido suggested. “We can just cross off the areas where they’re playing games with us and step up our intel elsewhere.”

“Maybe,” Michaels said. “On the other hand, they might figure that’s what we’d do and then turn around and slip the nukes to one of these sites where they’ve been jerking us off.”

“Chess game,” Tokaido muttered.

“That’s pretty much what it’s come down to,” Michaels said. “One thing I can’t figure out, though. With things going their way, why would they go ahead and do something bonehead like hijacking that yacht? The last thing they need is to stir up some kind of international incident. I mean, your cousin is a big shot around these parts. Once word gets out that he’s been kidnapped, there’s going to be an uproar.”

“Provided it was his boat,” Tokaido cautioned. “We still don’t know that for a fact.”

“You’re whistling in the dark there, my friend, don’t you think?” Michaels replied. “There’s just too much pointing that way.”

Tokaido sighed with frustration.

“I know,” he conceded. “You’re right.”

“For what it’s worth,” Michaels said, “we’re close to slipping a couple special op teams across the border. I’m just on my way to hammer out the details, but I’m going to push for an insertion point near where the boat was taken. With any luck, we can position ourselves to make some kind of move if something breaks.”

“That would be great,” Tokaido said.

Michaels excused himself. Tokaido turned back to his work and tried to busy himself figuring a way to unscramble the KPA’s radio signals. A few minutes later his cell phone rang. It was Aaron Kurtzman.

“We’re in luck, if you can call it that,” the computer expert announced.

Kurtzman went on to explain that an NSA satellite monitoring the Yellow Sea had managed to snare images of a luxury yacht being intercepted by a North Korean gunship near the coordinates mentioned in the radio dispatch CRCC had glommed onto during the night.

“The blow-ups are as grainy as hell,” Kurtzman said, “but we were able to get the make of the yacht and cross-reference with some data files on your cousin. It’s his boat, all right. And from the looks of it, it’s pretty clear everybody on board was taken alive.”

Tokaido was relieved, but his concerns were far from being laid to rest.

“How many people were aboard?” he asked.

“I counted six,” Kurtzman said. “Three men and three women. Any idea who your cousin might’ve taken along?”

“No, but I’ll work on it,” Tokaido said. “Were they in southern waters?”

“Gray area,” Kurtzman said. “They were right near the point where the MMDL splits off from the Northern Limit Line.”

The Maritime Military Demarcation Line was an extended border North Korea had claimed in 1999 in an effort to claim jurisdiction over ferry traffic between Incheon and a handful of islands off its southwestern coast. South Korea had steadfastly refused to acknowledge the ploy, and in recent years there had been countless incidents between the two sides regarding rights of safe passage through the area. This apparently was the latest.

“It’s a moot point, I guess,” Kurtzman said, “because now KPA has the boat and whoever was on board.”

“What about after the seizure?” Tokaido asked. “Is there any footage showing where they were taken?”

“Afraid not,” Kurtzman said. “You know how these satellites work. They pass over an area, then move on to another target. We’re jumping forward and trying to get footage of their nearest naval base, but my guess is they’ll keep the boat under wraps for a while. And I wouldn’t hold out much hope of getting any frames that show where the prisoners were taken.”

“I doubt it, too,” Tokaido said.

“Pardon me for snooping a little when I brought up your cousin’s dossier,” Kurtzman went on, “but you never told me what a major player he was in Seoul. A guy like that would be quite a catch for the KPA.”

“What are you saying?” Tokaido said. “You think they targeted him?”

“I don’t know, but it might not be a bad thing if they did,” Kurtzman suggested. “They’d have to know he’s more valuable to them alive than dead.”

“Ransom?” Tokaido said. It was a scenario he hadn’t considered.

“Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve tried it.”

Tokaido recalled his earlier conversation with Colonel Michaels and said, “But the timing’s all wrong. With everything else going on, why would they want to resort to something like this? It’ll only throw them off their game plan.”

“Good point,” Kurtzman said. “Then again, if it swells up into a brouhaha, we’re going to wind up being as distracted by it as they are. Maybe even more so. They could use it to their advantage.”

Another possibility occurred to Tokaido. “Maybe it’s not money they’re after,” he said. “Maybe they’re angling for an exchange.”

“I don’t follow you,” Kurtzman said.

“The defectors. Maybe they want to barter my cousin for the members of the nuclear team they can’t get their hands on. What’s the latest on that, anyway?”

“Well, so far they’ve killed one of the defectors and nabbed another one,” Kurtzman said. “We stopped them, though, in Chicago and Washington, and Mack’s on his way to Vegas in case they try to make a move for the guy there. That leaves just this Shinn guy who’s dropped under the radar.”

The two men continued speculating as to North Korea’s motives, but several minutes later Colonel Michaels returned to CRCC with news that validated Kurtzman’s initial suspicions.

“Your cousin just contacted his business partners in Seoul,” Michaels explained once Tokaido got off the phone. “His family’s being held in North Korea along with three other friends of his. The North’s asking for ransom.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

Men and women, especially in the same family, were normally not allowed to share quarters at the concentration camp, but one of Lim Seung-Whan’s terms had been that he be allowed to be with his wife and daughter. After negotiating with Lieutenant Corporal Yulim and making the ransom call to his people in Seoul, Lim had been reunited with U-Pol and Na-Li in one of the barracks. His daughter had already fallen asleep on the straw-covered floorboards and Lim stroked her head as he spelled out the rest of the terms to his wife. U-Pol was exhausted, as well, but she forced herself to stay awake, looking for hope in her husband’s words.

“They wanted me to do a straight wire transfer of funds to an offshore bank account, but I refused,” Seung-Whan told her. “There was no leverage for me in doing that, so I told them it would have to be cash and that it would only be turned over once we were safely across the border.”

U-Pol nodded. “At Panmunjom?”

“Yes,” Seung-Whan told her. “The Joint Security Area. It will be our best chance of making sure nothing goes wrong.”

Seung-Whan saw the fatigue in his wife’s eyes so he quickly laid out the rest of the agreement he’d hammered out with Yulim. In addition to the cash ransom, the KPA would be allowed to keep Lim’s yacht. In exchange, Lim would say that he’d unwittingly ventured across the Northern Limit Line and concede that the North Koreans had been within their rights to seize the boat and take them into custody “for routine questioning.” Further, he would offer a public apology for having prompted the seizure and heightening tensions between the two countries. Instead of a ransom, the forfeiture of the boat and the cash payment would be referred to as a conciliatory gesture.

“No one is going to believe any of that,” U-Pol said. “At least, not on our side of the border.”

“I know that,” Seung-Whan said. “Everyone in Seoul will know it was kidnapping and that North Korea is just trying to save face as they line their pockets. Our stature will not be ruined.”

“I don’t care about our stature,” U-Pol said. She wiped back the tears welling in her eyes. “I just want this to be over with.”

“It will be,” Seung-Whan said. “Soon enough.”

“The others will be freed, too?” U-Pol said, glancing across the barracks at Ji Pho-Hwa and his son, Rha-Tyr, who were fast asleep on the floor along with the eighty other male prisoners crammed into the shabby barracks. Yulim had denied Seung-Whan’s request to allow Lhe-Kan to stay with her husband and son; she’d been forced to stay in one of the other barracks with the other women.

“Yes,” Seung-Whan assured his wife. “We’re all going home together and then we can start to put this all behind us.”

U-Pol smiled briefly, but when she looked around the barracks at the other prisoners, the smile faded.

“They won’t be so fortunate,” she whispered sadly.

“I feel for them, but there is only so much I can do,” Seung-Whan said. He reached out and wiped a tear from his wife’s cheek, then motioned to a spot on the floor next to their daughter. “Go ahead, get some sleep. It’s been a hard day.”

“What about you?” U-Pol asked.

“In a while,” he told her. He kissed the tip of his fingers, then pressed them to U-Pol’s lips. She reached up and clutched his hand, squeezing it tightly.

“I love you, Seung-Whan.”

“I love you, too,” he told her. “Now sleep.”

U-Pol eased down beside her daughter. Na-Li stirred slightly as her mother put an arm around her, then resumed her faint snoring. Within moments U-Pol was asleep, as well. Seung-Whan stared at them, feeling a renewed sense of shame for having placed them in this position. He vowed that he would spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to them. For now, however, he had to hope things would work out. There was still much to be done before he and his loved ones would truly be free again, and he knew there was always the possibility that things could go wrong.

Lim had never been a religious man, but as he looked past his family and tried to catch a glimpse of the night sky through the slats in the barracks wall, the Korean, for the first time since he was a child, found himself praying.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Las Vegas, Nevada

Mack Bolan glanced down at his watch and sighed: 12:04. Only a minute had passed since he’d last checked the time. Patience was a virtue, and taking part in a stakeout held about as much appeal to him as dental work. But there was little he could do about it. The first move would be up to the enemy, and there was still the chance that the REDI agents had been warned off and wouldn’t even show up. Bolan had no control over that. All he could do was wait and hope he and the others had made the right choice coming here.

The Stony Man operative was crouched behind a large trash container at the end of a cul-de-sac in Headliner Estates, a new Vegas housing development two miles west of the Strip. The roads running through the complex—all named after legendary Vegas performers—had been paved less than a week earlier, and Bolan could still smell the fresh asphalt in the late-night breeze. A half moon hung in the night sky, flashing its pale light on the skeletal framework of two dozen homes targeted for completion by year’s end. Three of the structures were finished already. One was the display home, located a block away just inside the security gates, where prospective buyers could get a sense of what a half-million dollars would get them in the present housing market. The other two homes were located on the Liberace Lane cul-de-sac where Bolan had positioned himself an hour ago. The house to Bolan’s immediate right had been bought by a family of trapeze artists that performed twice nightly at Circus Circus. The Flying Herreras weren’t home, however. Last night they’d been moved into a VIP suite at the Venetian so that FBI agents could use their place for a staging area as they kept an eye on the house next door.

The second home had been purchased earlier in the month by Kang Moo-Hyun, one of the defectors from the Korean nuclear team. Kang was presently ensconced at a fortified FBI safehouse in Carson City. His home had been taken over by yet another Bureau team headed up by Scanlon and a Korean-American agent who closely resembled Kang. Jayne Bahn was with the second team. Like Bolan, she’d wanted to take up a position outside, but Scanlon had overruled her. If Bahn held to her reputation for constant banter and wisecracking, however, Bolan suspected that by now Scanlon was regretting his decision.

As the minutes crept by, Bolan shifted his position slightly, relieving a cramp in his right calf. No one had ventured out of the two homes and the only activity he’d seen in the past hour had been that of a lone coyote wandering past one of the unfinished houses. Off in the distance he could see the ambient gleam of the Strip as well as the lights of planes lifting off or arriving at McCarran International Airport. Now and then a car would make its way along the main road leading past the housing complex, but Bolan doubted that the North Koreans would make so obvious an approach. More likely, he figured, they would arrive on foot, slipping down from the undeveloped foothills. From his post, Bolan had a clear view of the hills, where the Bureau had placed an additional four agents in the hope of intercepting the assassins before they could reach their destination. Bolan couldn’t see the G-men but assumed they were concealed behind some of the scattered clumps of mesquite and tumbleweed that dotted the otherwise barren landscape.

Bolan’d had a snack back at the urgent care facility in Laughlin, but as the stakeout dragged on, his stomach began to rumble. He tuned out the hunger pangs and busied himself with yet another cursory inspection of his small arsenal. Besides the Desert Eagle pistol clutched in his right hand, there was an M-16 assault rifle propped against the side of the garbage dumpster, and clipped to the ammo belt strapped around the waistband of his slacks were a pair of flash grenades and a wide-barreled Bellhauser 12-A flare gun. The Bureau had additionally given him a pair of night-vision goggles, but Bolan didn’t like the way they compromised his peripheral vision and figured he’d make do with the moonlight.

Bolan was also wearing a light-weight, bi-comm headset and, at a quarter past midnight, he got a call from Scanlon, who was posted at the rear window of Kang’s second-story rec room.

“We have a possible situation in the foothills,” came the whispered message.

Bolan waited for more details. When he didn’t get them, he asked, “How about some specifics?”

“We’ve lost radio contact with our men there.”

Bolan couldn’t believe it. “All four of them?”

“Affirmative,” Scanlon replied. There was tension in the man’s voice. “We’re calling in the chopper.”

The Bureau had an Apache assault helicopter on standby in a desert wash two miles from the housing development. Bolan, however, wasn’t about to wait around for the chopper’s assistance.

“Have someone take my post here,” he barked into his condensor mike. “I’m going to check it out.”

“We’ll handle this,” Scanlon snapped. “Stay your position.”

“I don’t think so.” Bolan had already grabbed his carbine and was moving away from the garbage Dumpster. “I’m on my way.”

ONCE HE’D SLIT the throat of the FBI agent he’d taken by surprise, Hong Sung-nam eased the man’s body to the ground, then crouched behind the nearest brush and wiped the blood from the razor-sharp, serrated edge of his combat knife. Thirty yards to his right, Yokota Ch’ang, the REDI agent he’d selected back in Goffs when Cho Il-Tok had failed to return to the safehouse, was sheathing the knife he’d just driven through the heart of a second Bureau officer. Two other Americans farther up the hillside had already been quietly dispatched by the Koreans. The third member of Hong’s team, Tahnk Woo-Ki, was nowhere to be seen; Hong assumed he was hiding somewhere off in the brush.

The REDI team leader was helping himself to the dead man’s pistol when Yokota caught up with him.

“I don’t like this,” Yokota whispered. “They know we’re coming.”

“I can see that,” Hong snapped. He was getting fed up with the whining of subordinates. Whatever happened to the days when underlings could be relied on to do their jobs without complaint?

“What do we do?” Yokota asked.

“Let me think!”

Hong stared downhill at the housing development. The plan had been for him and the others to slip into Kang’s home and hopefully take him alive so that they could question him as to the whereabouts of Shinn Kam-Song. But now it seemed clear that the Americans were in on the game plan. Hong felt a twinge of recrimination. Part of him suspected that Cho Il-Tok had been apprehended in Laughlin and blown the whistle on the operation, but he also knew there was a chance that the list of defectors he’d left back in Koreatown had provided the tipoff. In either case, it was clear that the mission had been compromised. He doubted now that Kang was even home. More likely, he figured, there were more Americans at the house, lying in wait.

Yokota broke Hong’s train of thought, hissing, “There’s another one!”

Yokota was pointing downhill. Hong peered toward the cul-de-sac and saw a man breaking clear of a trash Dumpster set between Kang’s house and another of the completed homes. The man darted between the two houses and made his way toward the foothills. He was carrying some kind of assault rifle. And, as if this weren’t enough cause for concern, Hong heard a sudden drone to his right and glanced over to see the blinking lights of a helicopter rising up into view less than a mile away. The chopper was mounted with a searchlight; as Hong watched, the high-powered beacon began to rake the ground below. It wouldn’t be long before the Koreans found themselves caught up in the harsh glow.

Hong knew he had no choice but to abort the mission and retreat. And the last thing he wanted to deal with was having a panicked colleague dogging his heels as he tried to escape the trap that had been set for them.

“We need to split up,” Hong told Yokota. “Stay here until I reach the ridge line, then follow me to the car.” Their getaway vehicle was parked a mile away on the other side of the hills.

Hong started to move away but Yokota grabbed his arm.

“I’m not staying here!” the younger man said. “I’m going with you!”

“You’ll wait like I said!” Hong snapped, shoving Yokota’s hand away. “That’s an order!”

Yokota glanced back down the hillside. The American was still a good hundred yards away, but he was clearly headed their way. Behind him, the door leading to Kang Moo-Hyun’s rear patio swung open and another two armed figures bolted out of the house.

“I’m going with you!” Yokota repeated, falling into step beside Hong.

There was no time to argue. Hong rushed uphill a few yards, then abruptly stopped and whirled, raising the pistol he’d taken off the FBI agent he’d just slain. The gun was equipped with a sound suppressor and when Yokota stumbled into Hong, the senior agent jabbed the barrel into the other man’s chest and pulled the trigger. Yokota staggered back a step and stared at Hong, dumbfounded.

“You left me no choice,” Hong told the other man.

Yokota made as if to lunge at Hong but crumpled to the ground before he could make his move. Hong left the man to die and crouched low as he began to retrace his steps back up the hillside. With any luck, he figured he might still yet live to fight another day….

TAHNK WOO-KI, the third REDI agent, had taken cover in a shallow gully fifty yards down from the hill crest. He’d killed one of the Bureau agents and had seen Hong and Yokota take out three others. Like them, he realized that they had lost the element of surprise. And, like Hong, when he’d first noticed the approaching helicopter he’d realized that he would soon be spotted.

But the thought of retreat had never entered Tahnk’s mind. A fifth-generation soldier, the young REDI agent had been raised with an ingrained sense of duty and devotion to country. For him, if worse came to worst, there could be nothing more honorable than to die on the field of battle. For him, the only question was how many Americans he could take out before he perished.

Besides his combat knife, Tahnk was armed with an Israeli-made Micro Tavor assault rifle, but he knew his only chance of bringing down the helicopter would be to lure it within firing range. Several tumbleweeds had collected in the gully alongside him. He reached out and pulled the bushes on top of him, hoping they would provide enough concealment that the chopper would have to swoop down low to spot him. Heart racing, the Korean thumbed off the MTAR’s safety and peered out through the dry, spindly branches at the helicopter. It was a few hundred yards away, but moving closer, following the beam of its searchlight.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Tahnk caught a glimpse of someone moving past him. He shifted slightly, leveling the snub-nosed barrel of his assault rifle, but held his fire when he saw that it was Hong Sung-nam. The squad leader didn’t see him, and before Tahnk could call out to him, Hong had moved out of view. Tahnk assumed the other man was moving to a better position from which to make his last stand, so he turned his attention back to the chopper, only to spot further activity on the ground fifty yards downhill from the gully. Someone was zigzagging up the slope, heading directly toward him.

Tahnk cursed under his breath. He could no longer afford to wait for the chopper before betraying his position. Warily, he shifted beneath his cover and took aim at the approaching figure. His target continued to veer from side to side as he advanced, but the Korean kept his assault rifle steady and rested his finger on the trigger. With any luck, he could kill the advancing figure and still have a chance to take out the helicopter.

Soon the other man was less than thirty yards away. In the moonlight, Tahnk could see that the man was tall and broad-shouldered and that he was toting a carbine. He was varying his zigzags, but every few steps he wound up squarely back in the REDI agent’s sights.

A little closer, Tahnk thought, beginning to tighten his grip on the subgun’s trigger. Just a little closer…

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Mack Bolan was twenty yards from the gully when he saw the tumbleweeds in front of him stir slightly in the moonlight. There was no breeze, so he instinctively suspected trouble and pitched sharply to his right, then threw himself to the ground. A spray of 5.56 mm Parabellum rounds streaked past, barely missing him.

Forsaking his carbine, Bolan rolled to one side, then clawed at his ammo belt for the flare gun. He knew he was an open target and figured there was only one way to protect himself from being hit. Aiming skyward, he fired a flare, then cast the gun aside and closed his eyes as he continued rolling to his right. Once the flare went off, bathing the hillside in a burst of bright light, he unholstered his Desert Eagle and sprang to his feet.

As he’d hoped, the flare had taken his assailant by surprise, temporarily blinding him, and though the gunner continued to shoot from the gully, he was firing blind and his shots flew wide of their mark. Bolan charged forward. When he spotted the enemy, he dived forward, crashing through the tumbleweeds and lashing out with the butt of his pistol. Bolan caught the man squarely on the wrist, forcing him to drop his mini-rifle. The Korean screamed and tried to fight Bolan off, but the Executioner easily overpowered him and knocked him unconscious with a karate blow to the back of the head.

By now the flare’s light was dissipating, but the Apache war chopper had drifted overhead and in the glow of its searchlight Bolan got a better look at his captive. The REDI operative was young, probably in his early twenties, wearing camou fatigues, desert boots and a dark beret. Bolan doubted the man had been working alone, and he glanced up and waved for the chopper to direct its beam elsewhere so that he wouldn’t be an easy target for the man’s cohorts. Crouching low in the gully, he looked around, gun at the ready.

By now FBI Agent Scanlon and Jayne Bahn had made their way up the hillside. Bolan saw them fan out, waiting for the Apache to reveal the other REDI agents. Instead the searchlight shone upon the bodies of Yokota and two of the slain agents. When there was no further enemy fire, the chopper moved off, directing its searchlight elsewhere along the hilly terrain.

Bolan turned his attention back to his prisoner. He stripped the weapons from his ammo belt and used it to bind the man’s ankles together, then converted the Korean’s own belt into makeshift handcuffs, tethering his hands behind his back. By the time he’d finished, the Korean had regained consciousness. His eyes, like Bolan’s, had adjusted to the moonlight and he stared up at his captor with defiance.

“You’re lucky we need a stool pigeon,” Bolan said with a scowl as he yanked the guy to his feet.

If Tahnk understood Bolan, he didn’t let it show. He continued to glare at the Executioner as he wobbled in place, fighting to keep his balance.

“Sons of bitches!” someone shouted in the distance.

Bolan stared past Tahnk and saw Scanlon crouching over one of his fallen comrades. The Bureau agent continued to swear as he rose to his feet and strode back toward the gully. Even in the pale moonlight Bolan could see the rage in the man’s eyes as he glared at Tahnk Woo-Ki.

“You nearly sliced his goddamn head off!” Scanlon railed, stiff-arming the Korean.

Unable to keep his balance, much less defend himself, Tahnk toppled to the ground like a fallen tenpin. Before Bolan could intervene, Scanlon raised his Colt pistol and pumped two shots into the assailant’s head, killing him instantly.

Bolan rushed forward and grabbed Scanlon by the wrist, then twisted his arm behind his back.

“What’s the idea?” he shouted at the agent.

“Let go of me!”

Scanlon tried to break free, but Bolan yanked tighter on his arm until the agent dropped his Colt. The soldier kicked the weapon to one side, then pushed Scanlon away. The field leader staggered backward but managed to stay on his feet.

“We needed him for questioning!” Bolan told Scanlon.

“Screw that!” Scanlon countered. “Nobody takes my men out like that and just walks away!”

Bolan glanced downhill and saw more agents heading uphill from the housing complex. The last thing he needed was for them to misread his confrontation with Scanlon and start firing. Warily, he picked up the agent’s Colt and handed it back to him.

“What’s done is done,” Bolan told him.

“A-freaking-men to that.” Scanlon eyed the man he’d just shot, then glanced back at Bolan. The rage was gone from his eyes, replaced by the subdued look of someone regretting a decision made in haste.

“All right, look,” he told Bolan, “I lost my head for a minute there, okay? Maybe I shouldn’t have off and whacked him like that.”

Bolan stared at Scanlon, feeling a flicker of empathy despite himself. After all, there’d been times in the heat of battle when he, too, had let an urge for vengeance get the better of him.

“Like I said, it’s done.”

“I know,” Scanlon said. “It’s just…I’ve been written up already a couple times for stuff like this. I can’t afford to go on review again.”

Bolan deliberated a moment, then crouched and quickly unfastened the makeshift binds he’d tied around Tahnk’s wrists and ankles. As he stood, he kicked the Korean’s fallen assault rifle closer to the body, then eyed Scanlon.

“He was armed and wouldn’t surrender,” Bolan said. “You did what you had to.”

Scanlon nodded, a look of relief and gratitude washing across his face.

“I owe you,” he told Bolan. “Big time.”

“Let’s finish up here,” Bolan said, strapping the ammo belt back around his waist.

Scanlon was holstering his Colt when Bahn wandered over, gun in hand. She eyed the slain Korean, then looked at Bolan and Scanlon questioningly. Bolan met her gaze and held it. If the woman suspected something was amiss, she didn’t let it show.

“There’s more bodies over there,” she finally said, gesturing up the hillside. “One of theirs, one of ours.”

Scanlon traded a glance with Bolan, then told the woman, “Yeah, I saw them, too.”

“Did you happen to notice that their guy was shot in the chest?”

“Yeah,” Scanlon said. “I figure Fred nailed him, then got his throat slit before the other guy died.”

“One problem with that,” Bahn said. “Fred’s gun is missing, so I’m not sure he was the one doing the nailing.”

Scanlon frowned and unclipped a flashlight from his belt. He shone the light on the Korean’s body, then inspected the gully where the Korean had been hiding.

“It’s not here,” he announced. He glanced around at the surrounding hills. “Must be one of them’s still on the loose. Let’s keep looking.”

Scanlon withdrew his gun again and moved off. Bahn stayed behind Bolan a moment, then whispered to him.

“Look, I saw what he did.”

“Shit happens,” Bolan told her. “Let it go.”

Bahn stared past Bolan a moment, watching Scanlon scramble up the hillside.

“Done,” she said. “Like the man said, let’s keep looking…”

HONG SUNG-NAM’S lungs burned as he sprinted across the pitched terrain of the foothills. He was moving in the opposite direction from where he’d parked the getaway car, but he was afraid the vehicle had already been pegged and might be under surveillance. He would have to find another way out. So far he’d managed to outdistance the chopper, but he could hear the drone of the rotors behind him and any second he expected the aircraft to come into view and nail him with its searchlight. Once that happened, it would be all over. And so he pushed onward, lengthening his stride in hopes of gaining more ground.

The ploy backfired, however, when he misjudged the lay of the land in front of him and came upon a sudden dip in the slope. His leg gave out beneath him and he pitched forward, landing hard on his shoulder and tumbling across the hard-packed soil.

By the time he’d come to a stop, the wind had been knocked out of him. He lay still on the ground a moment, dazed, then quickly came to and glanced upward. A few hundred yards behind him, the Apache helicopter had just cleared a rise and was slowly headed his way, sweeping the terrain below with its searchlight.

Hong looked around and realized he’d come to a rest at the edge of a dropoff. Twenty feet downhill was a natural culvert that had been lined with concrete, creating a runoff channel to divert floodwaters away from the housing development as well as a nearby two-lane road that wound through the foothills. The road was fifty yards away, and parked off on the shoulder Hong saw two cars, one a late-model Toyota, the other a police cruiser. The police officer had gotten out of his vehicle and was helping the driver of the other car change a flat tire. Their backs were turned to Hong and apparently neither of them had heard him. It was a small consolation, however, because with the chopper fast approaching, Hong knew he couldn’t afford to stay put. He had to find some kind of cover before the searchlight swept across the culvert.

Grimacing, Hong inched forward and began to crawl down the steep incline leading to the runoff channel, which was cluttered with loose brush and other debris washed down from the hills during rainstorms earlier in the month. If he could reach the debris undetected, Hong figured he might have a chance.

Halfway down the slope, Hong accidentally dislodged a fist-size rock. He grabbed for it, but it tumbled clear of his grasp and clattered down into the channel along with a handful of loose gravel. Hong froze, then threw caution to the wind and scrambled the rest of the way down. He quickly burrowed his way into the debris, wincing as a tree branch jabbed sharply into his ribs. He ignored the pain as well as the throbbing of his ankle and forced himself to lie still.

He was lying flat on his stomach and could no longer see the road, so he had no idea whether anyone had heard him. All he could do was stay put. Fortunately, through all the commotion he’d managed to keep hold of the stolen pistol he’d used to kill Yokota. He held the gun close and listened intently. It was difficult to hear anything, however, above his labored breathing and the pulsing of blood past his temples.

A seeming eternity passed before Hong could make out the chopper, and in the same instant that he heard it, the searchlight swept its way across the culvert. The beam lingered on the clot of debris the Korean was hiding beneath, and Hong couldn’t be certain, but he thought the sound of the rotors was growing louder, which would mean that the chopper was closing in for a better look. He fought the urge to bolt from cover and remained still.

Finally the searchlight panned away, leaving Hong in darkness. The Korean slowly backed out from under the debris, rose to his knees and stared out at the road.

The chopper was hovering a few feet above the asphalt, and the police officer pressed his cap to his head as he ducked below the rotor wash and approached the pilot. Hong could hear shouting but couldn’t make out what was being said.

Moments later, the officer retreated from the chopper and it rose into the air and banked sharply, then drifted away from the road, continuing its search of the surrounding hills. Hong remained in the channel, gun in hand.

Out on the road, the police officer exchanged a few words with the driver of the other car, then got back into his cruiser and flashed his roof lights as he sped off. Hong saw his chance and went with it. He rose to his feet and furtively made his way up out of the drainage ditch, then headed toward the road.

Up ahead, the driver of the disabled car finished lowering the front end to the shoulder, then retrieved the jack and carried it, along with the flat tire, to the rear of the Toyota. The man wore a Stetson hat and a denim shirt over jeans and a pair of cowboy boots. He’d opened the trunk and was tossing the tire inside when he suddenly stopped and whirled.

Hong was halfway across the road when the man spotted him. A look of fear came over him as he saw Hong’s gun. He was about to cry out when Hong fired. One shot missed but another plowed into the cowboy’s shoulder and a third caught him squarely in the neck. The jack clanged at the man’s feet as he keeled backward off the rear quarter panel of the Toyota, then slumped to the ground. He was dead by the time Hong got to him.

The Korean checked the road to make sure they were alone, then reached over and dragged the dead man to the rear of the car and, with considerable difficulty, hoisted him up and dumped him into the trunk. He was fishing through the man’s pockets for his keys when he saw the headlights of an approaching car.

Hong quickly found the keys and slammed the trunk hood, then grabbed the fallen Stetson hat and put it on, lowering the brim over his forehead. He reached the driver’s-side door just as the other car was driving past. It was an SUV driven by a middle-aged woman. Tilting his head downward so the woman couldn’t get a good look at his face, Hong waved nonchalantly as he opened the car door. The woman waved back and drove on.

With a sigh, Hong eased himself behind the steering wheel and slid the key into the ignition. The sound of the engine turning over was music to his ears. He put the car into gear and eased his way onto the road, then accelerated up to the speed limit. After rounding the first bend, he came to a stoplight. A right turn would take him to the Strip. He chose instead to go left and was soon on Interstate 5. He kept an eye open for the turnoff to Boulder Highway, which would eventually lead him back to the safehouse in Goffs. There he could plot his next move…

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Changchon Mountain Range, North Korea

Anyone looking for evidence of Kim Jong-il’s iron-fisted control over the citizenry under his rule had to look no further than the concentration camps. The camps had first sprouted up in the wake of the Korean War and had targeted primarily Japanese-Koreans, but over the years the ranks of the imprisoned had swelled to the point where now more than a quarter-million individuals—nearly ten percent of North Korea’s entire population—had been yanked from the streets and carted off to the twenty-four “rehabilitation centers” spread throughout the country.

Few of the inmates were criminals in the true sense of the word. According to an estimate by Amnesty International, for every prisoner guilty of a true criminal offense, there were twenty who had been sent to the camps for far more dubious reasons that varied from unlawful assembly or participation in religious ceremonies to such petty infractions as an inability to recite, on command, Kim’s First Inaugural Address. And there were instances in showcase cities like Pyongyang and Kaesong, where those who perceived as to too old, infirm, or merely unattractive were shunted off to the camps so that they wouldn’t sully Kim’s ongoing attempts to portray his isolated country as “heaven on earth.”

Most of those incarcerated came to accept their fate with meek resignation, but, understandably, there were also those who came into the prisons boiling with anger and resentment, and for them the inhumane conditions at the camps only served to fuel their rage at Kim and the regime that had kept him in power since the day he’d been handed the reins of power by his ailing father, Kim Il-Sung.

Nowhere had malcontent festered closer to the boiling point than at the facility in the Changchon Mountains, and for those prisoners who were determined to put an end to the cruelty and barbarism heaped upon them, this day’s incident at the poppy fields had been the last straw.

For weeks, a handful of inmates had been plotting their move, and in that time they’d carefully approached others in the camp, slowly amassing a group of nearly seventy men and women willing to stand up to their torturers and try to overthrow them. And now, in the dead of night, while the others slept, the masterminds behind the plot huddled close in their barracks to discuss their options.

“We’ve waited long enough,” Prync Gil-Su whispered to his co-conspirators. “It is time to act.”

Prync was a rarity among the prisoners. As recently as six weeks ago he’d been a high-ranking officer with the KPA whose loyalty to Kim Jong-il had been unquestionable. All that had changed the day when, while inspecting the latest renovations to the palatial mausoleum where the remains of Kim Il-Sung had been interred following his death, Captain Prync had casually speculated how much food and medicine could have been purchased with the hundreds of millions of dollars that had been poured into the monument.

In the weeks prior to the visit, Prync had been saddled with the logistical task of burying sixteen thousand famine victims in the central province of Pyongan-Namdo—a mere fraction of the three million North Koreans who’d died of starvation over the past dozen years—and he’d spoken out in mere frustration, never expecting his comments to be passed along, much less taken as a direct jab against Kim Jong-il.

But two days later he’d been hauled from his bed, shackled and beaten in front of his family, then shoved into a truck by goons working for the Ministry of Internal Security. It hadn’t been until he was halfway to Changchon that someone had bothered to inform him that he’d been found disloyal to the regime and sentenced to the concentration camps. His pleas of innocence had only earned him further beatings, and since arriving in Changchon he’d been cut off from all contact with his family, though he’d been told that they, too, had been imprisoned at another camp somewhere in the north provinces.

Over the past weeks Prync’s time had been divided between the mines and the rock pile, and during that period he’d overheard enough other tales of wrongful imprisonment to forever shatter his delusions about Kim Jong-il and the DRNK party apparatus he controlled. Far from rehabilitated, Prync had been turned into a revolutionary, and these days he lived for the chance to help wrest Kim from power. First, however, there was the matter of getting out of prison.

None of the others argued Prync’s call to move up the timetable for action. In fact, his closest colleague and confidant at the camp, Vae Jae-Bong, a former college instructor at Kim Il-Sung University in Pyongyang, was quick to second Prync’s motion.

“We have everything in position,” said the one-time professor of anthropology. “I know we said that we were going to wait for the rainy season, but the more we delay, the more deaths there will be.”

“And the greater chance that they’ll learn of our plot,” whispered another of the men.

“There remains the problem of subduing the guards,” Prync replied. He turned to Vae. “Has the trustee come down in his price yet?”

Vae shook his head grimly. “I spoke to Chung-Hee today. He’s holding firm.”

Prync cursed under his breath. Ahn Chung-Hee headed up the camp kitchens and was responsible not only for prisoner rations, but also meals for Lieutenant Corporal Yulim and the entire camp’s security detail. Ahn had access to the black market and claimed it might be possible for him some morning to lace the soldiers’ food with enough morphine and tranquilizers to dull their senses or possibly even incapacitate them for a few hours, greatly increasing the chances of a successful prison uprising. The cost for his treachery was high, however, and no one at the camp had the means by which to smuggle in enough cash to meet his price.

“Tell him we’ll pay him double once we’re free,” Prync suggested.

“I already tried that,” Vae replied. “He agreed, but only if we can come up with at least half the money up front.”

“How does he expect us to do that?” Prync snarled with exasperation.

“We’re shut off from the outside. There’s no way for us to get our hands on that kind of money. He knows that!”

“I’ve told him as much,” Vae said. “He doesn’t care. All he says is, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way.’”

Prync cursed again. For their plan to work it would be necessary to neutralize the guards, especially those that manned the watchtowers and main gates. True, the prisoners could just start a full-scale riot and hope to gain the upper hand in the commotion, but the odds of triggering a massacre were far greater than any chance of success. There was no way around it; they needed the trustee’s help.

A fourth man in the huddle finally spoke up for the first time. “What about him?” he said, gesturing across the barracks.

Prync glanced over his shoulder and saw that the man was pointing at Lim Seung-Whan, who was asleep on the floor next to his wife and daughter.

“What help is he going to be?” Prync asked.

The fourth man—a shoe cobbler named Reir Jin-Tack whose great crime had been the theft of two radishes three years ago from a corner vendor in Haeju—said, “I understand he is from the south. I heard one of the guards say he was kidnapped at sea the other day in a large yacht. He has to be wealthy.”

“So what if he is?” Prync countered. “Here he’s wearing the same rags as us. He doesn’t have money on him.”

“Maybe not,” Reir said, “but if he can finance our back end, maybe we can go back to Ahn with another offer. We can say we’ll triple the price if he’ll lower the amount he wants up front.”

Prync was still hesitant. So was Vae Jae-Bong.

“He might be a plant,” the professor suggested, eyes on Lim. “He was pulled from the rations line tonight and taken to see the commandant. Maybe he’s been placed here to keep an eye on us.”

“Or maybe he was taken to Yulim to discuss ransom matters,” Reir Jin countered. “At least, that’s what I heard the guards say.”

Prync weighed the matter for a moment, then told the group, “Let me talk to him in the morning. I have a good sense about people. I’ll be able to tell if he’s working for Yulim or not.”

“And if he is?” Vae asked.

“If it turns out he’s working with the commandant,” Prync said ominously, “I’ll see to it that he regrets it.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Laughlin, Nevada

John Kissinger was ready to do some interrogating.

The Stony Man weaponsmith had just talked with Mack Bolan and learned of the skirmish with REDI agents in Las Vegas. Bolan had said it looked as though one of the Koreans had managed to get away, and it was assumed that he would be headed back to the same safehouse where nuclear team defector Li-Roo Kohb was being held. The FBI had been scouring the Laughlin area all night for the safehouse but had thus far come up empty-handed. Kissinger figured Cho Il-Tok knew the location and, one way or another, he was determined to get the Korean to cough up the information.

Kissinger was standing bedside when Cho finally awoke in his room at the Laughlin urgent care facility on Chambers Road. FBI Agent Randall Howland was there with him but had agreed to let Kissinger be point man in the interrogation.

“Where am I?” were the first words out of Cho’s mouth. He struggled to sit up, straining the IV line hooked up to his right forearm. Kissinger leaned forward on his crutches and started to unfasten the ties securing Cho to the bed.

“Let’s pretend you died and went to hell.”

Cho looked away from Kissinger, glowering. He noticed his taped ribs and began to recall his failed escape attempt on the Colorado River. He assumed he was in some kind of police custody. As part of his training with REDI, he’d learned early on how to deal with such a situation.

“I want a lawyer,” he declared.

Kissinger turned to Agent Howland. “He wants a lawyer,” he said.

“No lawyers in hell,” Howland said with a faint smirk, playing along.

“You’re out of luck,” Kissinger told Cho. “You got us. That’s it. Of course, everything’s negotiable. Help us out and maybe we’ll see what we can do.”

“I have my rights,” Cho said, sticking to his own game plan. “I want a lawyer.”

Kissinger finished untying Cho’s binds, then moved back, shifting his full weight onto his crutches.

“You guys have a safehouse somewhere around here,” he asked casually. “Where is it?”

Cho didn’t respond. He was still groggy, but the sedatives he’d been given upon his arrival at the facility were quickly wearing off. So were the painkillers. The dull throbbing in his side was growing more intense by the second. Cho sized up his situation. As weak as he was, he still thought he could overcome the two other men if he could lure them off guard. While he waited for the right opportunity, he decided his best course was to stonewall.

A third time he said, “I want a lawyer.”

Kissinger looked at Howland. “I’ll give him points for persistence.”

Howland shrugged. “Maybe so, but he’s still not going to get a lawyer unless he cooperates.”

“Wait, wait,” Kissinger suddenly said, peering under the bed Cho was lying on. “I think maybe I see a lawyer down here.”

Cho frowned at first, wondering what Kissinger was talking about. But when Cowboy leaned over to look under the bed, the Korean dismissed his concerns. Here was his chance, he thought. He braced himself, waiting for the American to bend completely, making himself more vulnerable to attack.

Kissinger had no intention of playing into Cho’s hands, however. He’d crouched only to give himself more leverage so that when he suddenly grabbed the edge of the bed he was able to tilt it with enough force to send the Korean tumbling to the floor. The IV needle ripped free of his arm as Cho landed hard on his cracked ribs. He let out an anguished cry that quickly gave way to a torrent of expletives.

Cho was about to scramble to his feet when Kissinger pretended to lose his balance on his crutches. In one motion he kneed the Korean sharply, knocking him back to the floor. In the next, he let one of his crutches fall out from under his arm. When it landed on Cho, Kissinger sagged to his knees and put his full weight down on the crutch, effectively pinning Cho to the cold tile floor.

Agent Howland quickly chipped in, shoving the bed aside and kneeling close to Cho, grabbing hold of his free leg and pressing it to the floor.

“Oops,” Kissinger said. “Sorry, I’m having a little trouble getting used to these darn crutches.”

Cho tried to move but his interrogators had him completely immobilized and the more he struggled, the more it felt as if his cracked ribs were about to splinter into his lungs.

“Let me go!” he protested. “This is illegal!”

Kissinger shifted the crutch he was leaning on and the rubber tip caught Cho squarely across the bridge of his nose. Cho cried out again. Blood began to trail from his nostrils.

“There I go again,” Kissinger sighed. “I had no idea these things were so darn tricky to get the hang of.”

Cho cursed at his tormentors.

“Oh, and that wasn’t a lawyer I saw, after all,” Kissinger apologized to the Korean. “It was a cockroach.”

“Same difference,” Agent Howland wisecracked.

The door to the examination room suddenly swung open and a nurse rushed in, drawn by the clamor.

“They’re trying to torture me!” Cho called to her desperately.

Kissinger shook his head and told the nurse, “Guy was resisting arrest.”

“We’ve got it under control,” Howland told the woman as he continued to keep Cho’s legs pinned to the floor. “As you were…”

The nurse eyed the strange tableau briefly, then retreated from the room. Once she’d closed the door behind her, Kissinger dropped the other crutch. It glanced off Cho’s temple, raising a welt. Kissinger knelt beside the Korean, wedging Cho’s head between the second crutch and the floor.

“Actually, I lying when I said you were in hell,” Kissinger told the Korean. “This is actually just purgatory. Hell is what comes next if you don’t start cooperating.”

Tears of rage began to fill Cho’s eyes. He spit at Kissinger and began to curse again. Kissinger ignored the outburst and glanced over his shoulder at Howland.

“I don’t think he wants to cooperate.”

Howland shrugged again. “What can I say? Maybe he wants to go to hell.”

“That must be it,” Kissinger said.

Cho continued to shout obscenities as he tried to move out from underneath the crutches and the combined weight of his two tormentors. He was trapped, though, and each movement only aggravated the pain in his side.

“Let me help you with that bloody nose,” Kissinger said. He shifted his right knee onto the second crutch, freeing his hand so that he could grab the pillow that had fallen from Cho’s bed. He dabbed away some of the blood streaming from the Korean’s broken nose, then pressed the pillow against Cho’s face and held it there until Cho stopped his shouting.

When it looked as if the REDI agent was about to pass out, Kissinger yanked the pillow away and cast it aside. Cho gasped for air frantically. The fight had finally gone out of him.

“No more,” he pleaded. “I’ll tell you what you want.”

“The truth?” Kissinger said. “Because if you try to lead us on some wild-goose chase, we’re going to take off the kid gloves and show you some real pain.”

“What do you want to know?” Cho said.

“The safehouse,” Kissinger asked again. “Where did they take the defector?”

Cho glared at Kissinger as he caught his breath. It looked for a moment as if he were going resume his cursing, but then he swallowed and hoarsely muttered, “Goffs. They took him to a place called Goffs.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Goffs, California

By the time Mack Bolan reached the isolated stretch of Route 66 running through Goffs, four California Highway Patrol cars had already converged on the turnoff leading to the REDI safehouse. Two of the vehicles were barricading the off-road; the other two were parked at the abandoned filling station. Officers milled around as Bolan disembarked from the Clark County Metro helicopter that had brought him from Las Vegas. The chopper had joined the Bureau’s Apache gunship in conducting the unsuccessful aerial search for Hong Sung-nam, and when Bolan had received word from Kissinger on the possible whereabouts of the REDI agent, the Executioner had convinced FBI Agent Ed Scanlon to secure use of the Metro copter. Scanlon had ridden aboard the chopper with Bolan, as had Jayne Bahn. Once all three of them were on the ground, the copter lifted off again, intent on circling the safehouse and joining another CHP contingent that had blocked off the north end of the off-road.

“We’ve got them boxed in,” CHP Captain Roger Fielder reported once he’d introduced himself to the new arrivals. “There’s no way out except by this road.”

“Good job,” Scanlon said. “Now we just need to figure our next move.”

Storming the safehouse had already been ruled out. Given the likelihood that defector Li-Roo Kohb had been taken to the site, care had to be taken to avoid to prevent the hostage from being killed.

“The road’s all dirt,” Fielder said, “so even if we drive in with out lights out, the dust clouds would tip us off.”

Bolan nodded. “And the chopper’s too loud.”

“I sent out a few men on foot just before you got here,” Fielder said. “Another ten minutes and we’ll at least have some kind of loose perimeter.”

“That’s a start,” Scanlon said.

While the others had been talking, Jayne Bahn’s attention had been drawn to the general store near the filling station. There were no lights on, but there were two 4-wheel-drive Land Rovers parked alongside the building near a flight of stairs leading up to a second-story living quarters. Mounted on racks to the rear of each vehicle was a knobby-tired mountain bike.

“Whose bikes are those?” Bahn asked.

“Folks who own the general store,” Fielder said. “They’re home, but I told them to stay put and leave their lights off.”

“I don’t suppose they’d mind if we borrowed the bikes,” Bahn said.

“They would if they saw the way you rode them,” Bolan told the woman.

“Be nice. I was going to invite you along.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“Well, I guess that’s more good news than bad,” Hal Brognola said once Barbara Price had passed along Akira Tokaido’s latest update on his cousin.

“If this is just a straightforward kidnap-ransom thing, we should be able to resolve things easily enough.”

“You have your doubts?” Price asked.

She had just gotten off the phone with Tokaido, while Brognola had been conferring with Aaron Kurtzman, who had somehow managed to rig up a comp-link between the Sensitive Operations Group database and that of the security detail at the Laughlin Shores Casino. Shores Security Chief Harmon Wallace had contacted John Kissinger shortly after the interrogation of Cho Il-Tok, saying that he’d edited together all available surveillance footage of Li-Roo Kohb’s activities at the casino in the days leading up to his abduction by North Korean REDI agents. Apparently Kohb had met up with several other Asians during his breaks from the poker tables, and now that Kissinger had helped set up the comp-link, Kurtzman was going over the footage, trying to determine the identities of the contacts. Brognola had said he’d be back momentarily to check on Kurtzman’s findings. For the moment, however, his focus had shifted to the matter of Lim’s kidnapping and its possible repercussions on the crisis situation in North Korea.

“I just plain don’t trust these guys,” Brognola told Price. “With them, there’s always some kind of hidden agenda. If you ask me, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble and risk of nabbing somebody as high-profile as Lim unless they had something else in mind besides collecting a little ransom.”

“The ransom’s not that little,” Price countered. “Do the conversion and we’re talking twenty-five million dollars.”

“That’s one black-market arms shipment to the Middle East,” Brognola said. “In the greater scheme of things, it’s a drop in the bucket. I’m telling you, there’s got to be something more to this.”

“Well, I guess time will tell,” Price said as they left her Annex office and headed back to the Computer Room. “In any event, we’re pretty much out of the loop. Akira wants to be at the Joint Security Area when the exchange goes down, but he’ll be strictly observing.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Brognola said. “I hope everything goes off without a hitch and that that will be the end of it.”

“I’ll second that.”

Things were quiet in the Computer Room. Hunt Wethers was still in Baltimore brainstorming with his think tank colleagues and Carmen Delahunt was on break. That left Kurtzman, who was right where Brognola had left him, huddled over his computer station, clicking away on the keyboard like a man possessed.

“Come up with anything?” Brognola asked as he and Price joined the man at his station.

Kurtzman nodded, finishing a few keystrokes before interrupting his work.

“Whoever this Wallace guy is, he’s a computer geek after my own heart,” he told the others. “Guy went on a fishing expedition and landed himself the catch of the season.”

“Something to do with these people Li-Roo met with?” Price interjected.

“Just one of them,” Kurtzman said. “Hang on a second.”

The computer ace closed out a few of the screens on his monitor, leaving the grainy black-and-white image of two men standing on a dim-lit stage in what looked to be a cocktail lounge. Brognola recognized the man holding the microphone as Li-Roo Kohb.

“They have a karaoke night at the casino twice a week,” Kurtzman explained. “Apparently Li-Roo’s a sucker for that stuff.”

“I seem to remember something about the FBI finding a karaoke machine at his house,” Price recalled.

“Yep,” Kurtzman said. He used his cursor to highlight the face of the man standing next to Li-Roo, then blew up the image and positioned it next to a passport photo, much as Ed Scanlon had done back in Laughlin when he’d determined that Bryn Ban-Ho was the head of the REDI team that had abducted Li-Roo at the casino.

“This guy’s the missing link,” Kurtzman explained to Brognola and Price. “Shinn Kam-Song.”

“The defector who skipped town in Phoenix with his wife,” Price said.

“Right again,” Kurtzman confirmed. “Seems he didn’t follow orders not to contact the other members of the nuclear team.”

“When was the karaoke footage taken?” Brognola asked.”

“Over the weekend,” Kurtzman said. “They did their thing here in the lounge, then went out to dinner at one of the restaurants on the ground floor. After that, Li-Roo walked Shinn to the room elevators. They wrap things up, then Shinn gets in the elevator while Li-Roo heads out of the casino.”

“Sounds like Shinn had a room,” Brognola surmised.

Kurtzman nodded. “Wallace fast-forwarded through the elevator footage and Shinn comes out the next morning carrying an overnight bag. We trailed him as he left the casino but lost him in the parking garage.”

“Damn,” Brognola muttered. “But at least we’ve got something to go on.”

“Wallace is going to look over the surveillance-camera footage of the registration area,” Kurtzman reported. “With any luck, we’ll get a look at Shinn when he checked in, then we can use the time print to check the registration records.”

“He’s probably using an alias,” Brognola said, “but hopefully the address will be legit.”

“Depends on whether or not he’s still using his Phoenix driver’s license,” Kurtzman cautioned.

“It’s worth a look anyway,” Brognola said. “We should do a run on Li-Roo’s phone records, too.”

“Already on it,” Kurtzman said. “That, plus the FBI’s going through his computer in hopes they can come up with some kind of e-mail link to Shinn.”

“I hope it works,” Brognola said, “because now that REDI has Li-Roo, odds are they’re going to lean on him until he tells them where they can find Shinn. We need to beat them to him.”

“Well, with any luck,” Price said, “Mack’s tracked down this safehouse of theirs in Goffs. If he can rescue Li-Roo and take REDI out of the equation, we just might be able to nip this part of the crisis in the bud.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Goffs, California

“False alarm?” Mack Bolan murmured as he stopped pedaling his borrowed mountain bike and coasted to a stop along the shoulder of the dirt road leading to the isolated farm the REDI operatives were supposedly using as their hideout. Jayne Bahn slowed to a stop alongside Bolan and stared at the rundown house, located less than a hundred yards up the road. The house was dark.

“Maybe they just called it a night,” Bahn said.

“Or maybe they spotted the choppers,” Bolan suggested.

“I don’t see any cars,” Bahn said.

“Could be they’re parked around back,” Bolan said. “That or in the barn.”

“There’s one way to find out for sure.”

“Yeah,” Bolan said.

He got off his bike and set it among the weeds growing off the side of the road. Bahn followed suit, then they left the road and climbed over the wood-rail fence surrounding the untended farmland. Bolan slid his Desert Eagle from his shoulder holster. Bahn reached behind her and drew the 9 mm automatic pistol she’d tucked inside the rear waistband of her slacks.

“Should we wait for backup?” she asked as they crouched among the ragged cornstalks. Bolan glanced back the way they’d come. They’d passed the CHP foot officers a few hundred yards down the road, and the men were nowhere to be seen in the dim moonlight.

“Let’s get a little closer first,” Bolan said. “No sense knocking ourselves out laying out a perimeter if we’re on a wild-goose chase.”

Bolan remained crouched as he led the way through the corn field, quietly brushing aside the withered stalks. Bahn followed close behind, keeping a steady eye on both the house and the adjacent barn. There was still no sign of activity in either structure. As they neared the edge of the field, Bolan stole a glance over his shoulder.

“I’ll check the house,” he told her. “You want to take the barn?”

Bahn nodded, then split off from Bolan, using the last row of corn for cover as she approached the dilapidated barn.

Bolan’s was a trickier predicament. Except for a few scattered tumbleweeds, there was nothing but open ground between where he was standing and the darkened farmhouse. Anyone peering out one of the south-facing windows would see him the moment he stepped clear of the corn. Bolan figured that was a chance he would have to take.

The Executioner sucked in a slow breath, then let it out just as slowly. Breaking from his cover, he sprinted toward the house, passing by the tumbleweeds. He’d made it as far as the driveway when the sound of gunfire erupted in the night. The shots weren’t coming from the house, however, and Bolan didn’t stop running until he reached the front porch. Then, crouching behind the corner of the porch, he glanced toward the barn, where the shots had come from. He heard a car engine groan to life and seconds later a pickup barreled out of the barn.

Bolan couldn’t see Bahn, and he wasn’t sure if she’d been the one who’d fired the shots. It didn’t matter, because now his total focus was on the pickup, which spit gravel as it raced along the driveway, headlights off.

The soldier took quick aim and fired at the vehicle, sending a .44 Magnum slug through the front windshield. He’d apparently missed the driver, though, because the truck stayed on course and picked up speed, bound for the dirt road.

“Not so fast,” Bolan murmured.

He lunged away from the porch and ran alongside the truck as it raced past. There was no way he could keep up with it, so he instinctively cast aside his gun and grabbed at the tailgate with both hands, then pulled himself up, dropping one knee on the rear bumper and swinging the other leg over the gate. He was pulling himself up into the truck bed when the Ford reached the road and turned sharply to the left. Bolan was thrown forward sharply against the wheel well. His shoulder absorbed the bulk of the blow and he felt a jabbing pain race down his back and along his arm. He ignored the pain and got to his knees, then began to crawl toward the cab. He could just barely make out the silhouette of the man behind the wheel.

The driver knew he’d just picked up an unwanted passenger, and the pickup swerved wildly as he jerked the steering wheel from side to side. Bolan lost his balance and tumbled into one side of the truck bed, then found himself rolling to the other side as the Ford continued to veer back and forth on the dirt road. He was struggling to regain his balance when the driver took one hand off the wheel and hammered at the cab’s rear window with the butt of his pistol. The window finally shattered and the truck slowed as the driver twisted around, trying to get off a shot.

The moment he saw the gun, Bolan rolled to his left. A shot thundered above the sound of the engine and the slug ripped through the fiberglass lining of the truck bed, missing Bolan by a good two feet. Seconds later he heard shouting out on the road, and he was once again crawling toward the cab when there was a loud thud. The entire truck shuddered, and even as Bolan registered the sound as that of someone being struck head-on, there was a quick series of more thuds as a body bounded across the front hood and up over the roof of the cab. Bolan recoiled just in time to keep from being struck when the body sprawled to a stop in the truck bed alongside him. There was just enough moonlight for Bolan to see that it was one of the CHP foot officers.

As the pickup continued to race down the dirt road, the slain officer’s partner fired, striking the cab with several rounds but failing to take out the driver, who managed to keep control of the vehicle without easing off the accelerator.

Once the Ford stopped swerving, Bolan once again started to make his way toward the cab. Off in the distance he could hear sirens squealing to life and up ahead he could see the flashing lights of the CHP patrol cars positioned at the junction where the road hooked up with Route 66.

Bolan was within a few feet of the shattered cab window when the driver suddenly yanked the steering wheel sharply to the right. Bolan was thrown off balance yet again as the pickup left the road and crashed through a flimsy wire fence. It was all Bolan could do to stay aboard the vehicle as it began to bound over the uneven terrain of an open field. The body of the slain officer slid into him, then rolled away, then collided with him again.

The Ford continued to buck and jolt for another hundred yards as the driver tried to make his getaway, refusing to let up on the accelerator or to use his headlights to get a better idea of where he was headed. He finally ran out of luck when the ground suddenly dropped out beneath him and the Ford went airborne, hurtling across a wash. It failed to make it to the other side and instead crashed into the soft, loamy embankment of the far side. The impact threw Bolan forward, over the roof of the cab, his arms and legs flailing as he was flung through the air.

He landed hard, right shoulder first, and somersaulted several times before coming to a stop several yards shy of a tall, gnarly Joshua tree. Dazed, it took him a few seconds to gather his wits. His shoulder was throbbing and he’d skinned both knees, but at least he was alive, which was more than he’d counted on. Groaning, he straggled to his feet. The slain CHP officer had been thrown clear of the pickup, as well, and lay in a contorted heap twenty yards to his right.

As for the truck, Bolan could only see the roof. He staggered toward the wash, snatching up a softball-size boulder, ready to defend himself, if need be, against the driver.

Ok-Hwa Zung, however, was in no shape to put up any more of a fight. The young Killboy hadn’t been wearing a seat belt, and when the Ford had plowed into the embankment, he’d been thrown partway through the windshield. He was slumped over the front hood, blood flowing from his lacerated face.

Past the wash, Bolan saw a trio of CHP cruisers raising clouds of dust as they approached from several directions. Another two patrol cars remained on the road, racing toward the farmhouse. From the other direction, a helicopter was also drifting its way toward the farmhouse.

As he waited for the various vehicles to converge on the wash, Bolan tossed aside the boulder and made his way down the embankment to the pickup. There was no one else in the front seat and no sign that anyone else had been thrown clear of the vehicle when it had crashed into the wash.

“Where the hell are the rest of them?” he wondered out loud.

“BEATS THE HELL out of me,” Jayne Bahn told Bolan ten minutes later when he caught up with her at the REDI safehouse.

They were standing in the front yard near one of the CHP cruisers that had raced to the house after the first shots had rung out. The officers were in the house, looking for evidence as to where the REDI team had fled to with their prisoner, Li-Roo Kohb. Jayne had already done a quick room-to-room search and come up empty-handed.

“The place is a mess, but there was no sign of blood, so we can hope that defector’s still in one piece,” Bahn told Bolan. “My guess is they figured their work was done here and split, leaving your Killboy friend to drive back to L.A.”

“Speaking of blood,” Bolan said, gesturing at a deep, bleeding scratch on the woman’s cheek.

“It’s nothing,” she said, wiping the blood away. “When that guy took a pot shot at me, I hit the ground, quick. The ground hit back. But from the sound of it, I think you got the worst of it.”

“Yeah, he took me for one hell of a ride,” Bolan conceded, rubbing his sore shoulder. His right hip ached, as well, and his left arm was raw with abrasions from his rough landing after being thrown from the runaway pickup.

“The only thing they left behind that raised any kind of flag was a syringe,” Bahn went on. “It was on the floor in one of the back bedrooms and still had some fluid in it.”

“Smack?” Bolan wondered.

“I don’t think so. If somebody was shooting up, it seems like they would’ve taken the needle along with the rest of their kit. I wouldn’t make any bets on insulin, either.”

“They probably used something on Li-Roo, then,” Bolan guessed. “A sedative, most likely, though I wouldn’t rule out some kind of truth serum.”

“Could be,” Bahn said. “And considering what we just found out about Li-Roo being in touch with this Shinn guy, if they got him to talk, they’re gonna be one step ahead of us.”

“Again,” Bolan murmured.

They were interrupted suddenly by a shouting in the back yard. The Clark County Metro chopper, which had been circling the farmhouse with its searchlight, was now hovering in place above the area where the shouting had come from.

Bolan and Bahn jogged around the side of the house in time to see three CHP officers huddled around an old well. One of the officers had just climbed into the well and was using the winch rope to lower himself into the hole. The chopper’s search beam was directed straight down into the well.

“Got ourselves a body,” one of the officers told Bolan when he and Jayne joined them.

“Li-Roo?” Bahn wondered.

Bolan moved closer to the well and peered down. The water table had apparently dried up years ago, because when the officer in the well let go of the rope, he was standing on solid ground twenty feet down. Bolan saw the body but couldn’t get a good look at the face.

“White male,” the officer called, “and from the looks of it, he hasn’t been here long.”

“Not our guy, then,” Bahn said.

The Metro chopper hovered in place a few moments longer, then pulled away and gently set down in the backyard near the barn, where another team of officers was checking out the area where the Ford pickup had been parked before Ok-Hwa had attempted his ill-fated getaway. Even before the pilot had killed his engines, two uniformed Metro officers piled out and scrambled clear of the rotor wash. They joined their CHP counterparts near the well and crowded in for a better look at the body.

“I’ll be damned,” one of the Metro officers muttered.

“What’s that?” Bolan asked. “You know who it is?”

The officer nodded. “Yeah. I helped the guy change a flat tire back in Vegas before I hopped on the chopper.”

“Whereabouts?” Bahn interjected. “Anywhere near the Headliner Estates?”

“Pretty close, yeah,” the officer said. “He was parked off the shoulder on a road just over the hill from there.”

Bolan exchanged a glance with the female bounty hunter. “That explains how that guy we were looking for slipped the dragnet.”

“I think so,” Bahn said. “He must’ve high-tailed it back here and hooked up with the guys who grabbed Li-Roo.”

Bolan turned back to the Metro officer. “I assume you got a make on the car.”

“Sure did,” the officer replied. “It was a ’98 Toyota. I called it in, so we’ve got a record of the plates.”

“Well, if the body’s here, the odds are the car came with him,” Bolan said.

“I hear you,” the officer said. “I’ll get an APB put out.”

“Good idea,” Bolan said. “Now we just have to hope they don’t pull another switch on their way to wherever they’re headed.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Bahn said. “CHP told me that pickup you went joyriding in was stolen, and these guys did a switch right after they snatched Li-Roo. My guess is they’ll stick to the same MO with the Toyota.”

“If that’s the case,” Bolan muttered, “we’re back to square one.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Laughlin, Nevada

Once he’d disclosed the address of the safehouse in Goffs, REDI operative Cho Il-Tok had run out of bargaining chips. Yes, he suspected there were other members of the nuclear team being targeted by North Korean operatives, but as FBI Agent Ed Scanlon had speculated earlier, Cho knew nothing about the ill-fated REDI assignments in Chicago and Washington, D.C. As for Shinn Kam-Song, Cho could only confirm that care had been taken to bring in Li-Roo Kohb alive because it was hoped he might be able to lead them to the missing defector. And now, having heard back from Bolan after the raid on the safehouse, Kissinger felt certain that the North Koreans’ ploy had worked.

“Bad news, huh?” Harmon Wallace said as Kissinger got off phone with Bolan.

“Looks that way.”

Kissinger had left Cho Il-Tok in the care of FBI Agent Holland back at the care center and returned to the Shores, where, for the past hour, he’d helped Wallace root through the casino’s backlogged surveillance footage for some clue as to Shinn’s whereabouts. They’d hope to make quick progress by concentrating on SUR-CAM footage of the resort’s registration area, but, as luck would have it, this week the Shores was hosting a weeklong convention of the Pac-Rim Investors Council, and two-thirds of the people signing up for rooms were either Asian-America or natives of PRIC’s three overseas members: South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

Each time Wallace came across a guest who even remotely resembled Shinn, he had to freeze the footage and wait for Kissinger to download the frame onto the computer linking him with Stony Man Farm so that the image of the guest’s face could be highlighted, blown-up and tweaked by one of Kurtzman’s pixelization enhancers until the features became clear enough to cross-match with a head shot of the missing defector. It was a cumbersome process, and after another ten minutes, Wallace sounded an even more troubling prospect.

“It’ll be a real bummer if we go through all this footage and it turns out this guy never even checked in,” he groused.

“What are the odds of that?” Kissinger said. “I mean, we’ve got footage of him getting on the elevators, then coming out with a tote bag. Add it up.”

“I know,” Wallace said, “but just because he stayed here doesn’t mean he’s the one who took out the room.”

“That’s a long shot,” Kissinger murmured. “I think we’re on the right track here. We just need to stick with it.”

“I know, I know.” Wallace reached for the coffee cup next to his viewing monitor. He took a quick sip, then checked the wall clock. It was a little after four in the morning. Yawning, he ventured, “Well, on the bright side, we’ve already gone through two hundred guests. Only another thousand or so to go.”

“Maybe we’ll figure out a way to speed things up,” Kissinger said.

Wallace managed a grin. “Too bad computers don’t drink coffee.”

The men fell silent and lost themselves in the monotony of the task. Several times they perked up momentarily when it looked as if they might have spotted their man, only to discover, after enhancing the still frames, that the man registering at the desk was somebody other than Shinn Kam-Song.

When they finally did get a break, twenty minutes later, it was from another quarter.

FBI Agent Scanlon strode into the security office, carrying a cardboard tray loaded with doughnuts and fresh cups of coffee.

“Got some good news to go with this,” he told Kissinger and Wallace.

Scanlon quickly explained that while they’d been unable to pull anything useful out of Li-Roo Kohb’s computer, his phone records had turned up three incoming calls made over course of the past week: two the day before Shinn’s visit and one the day Shinn had turned up on SUR-CAM footage of the karaoke lounge.

“All three are from the same cell phone number,” Scanlon went on, “and the last call was a roaming charge, so we’re figuring it was Shinn calling from his car while he was driving here.”

“Nice work,” Kissinger said. “But let’s skip to the chase, okay? I take it you got a billing address.”

“Sort of,” Scanlon said. “He used a P.O. box in Prescott, Arizona. More importantly, though, we’ve got the alias he’s using.” The FBI agent pulled a scrap of paper from his shirt pocket and read the name he’d scribbled on it. “Mi Wi-Zhwin. It’s a different name from the one we set him up with in Phoenix.”

Harmon Wallace exchanged a glance with Kissinger, then kicked away from the desk he was working at and rolled his chair over to a computer next to the one the weaponsmith was using.

“Give me the spelling on that,” Wallace said over his shoulder to Scanlon.

“Here.” Scanlon handed over the slip of paper and hunched behind Wallace, staring at the monitor. “You’re thinking he registered under that name?”

“Let’s hope so,” Wallace said. “Even better, let’s hope he backed it up with his new address.”

As Wallace tapped into the Shores’ registration files, Scanlon turned to Kissinger and said, “Your partner’s riding with some guys we’ve got flying by chopper to Prescott. Hopefully by the time they get there we’ll have an address to give them.”

“What about Jayne Bahn?” Kissinger asked.

“You have to ask?” Scanlon scoffed. “Hell, that woman’s harder to get rid of than the clap. Yeah, she’s on board.”

“Hang on, hang on,” Wallace interrupted. He clicked a final command, then stared at the screen and let out a victorious whoop. “Yes!”

Wallace wheeled his chair back to the video console and entered the time Shinn had registered, then called up the SUR-CAM footage corresponding to the time print. Scanlon, meanwhile, quickly jotted down the address Shinn had given.

“Anybody know where Chino Valley is?” he called.

“About twenty minutes north of Prescott,” Kissinger said. He was in the process of blowing up the still-frame Wallace had just pinpointed from the surveillance footage.

“Then I’d say we’ve hit the jackpot,” Scanlon said.

“Right you are,” Kissinger agreed. “Check it out.”

Wallace and Scanlon moved over and checked the screen on Kissinger’s computer. Comparing the still-frame image with the head shot of Shinn Kam-Song, there could be no mistaking that they’d found their man.

“Good work,” Scanlon said. “All of us.”

“Yeah,” Kissinger cautioned, “but before we break out the champagne, we still need to get to this guy before REDI does.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Chino Valley, Arizona

It was still dark out when Shinn Kam-Song stirred beside his wife in the bedroom of their Arizona trailer home. He checked the clock on the nightstand. 5:10.

Shinn was surprised. In the months since moving to Chino Valley, he’d disciplined his body to the point where, even without an alarm clock, he would unfailingly wake up at a few minutes before 5:00 a.m. This was the first time in weeks that he’d overslept. Of course, the previous night there had been the news item about the escalating crisis back home in North Korea. That, Shinn figured, may have had something to do with it. He’d been particularly unnerved by a sound bite in which one of Kim Jong-il’s military shills had boasted of the KPA’s nuclear capability. We now have it in our power to strike out at those who would do us harm, he’d said. Were they bluffing? Shinn wondered as he lay in bed, letting his eyes adjust to the predawn light. Or had a new crew of nuclear scientists indeed succeeded in picking up where he and the other members of the Project Kanggye team had left off when they’d defected? Had they truly managed to correct all the errors he’d laid into his data before leaving the country? It didn’t seem possible, but Shinn knew how determined Kim could be.

Shinn turned to look at his wife, Mi-Kas, who was dozing peacefully beside him. He suspected that he might have tossed and turned in his troubled sleep and he was concerned that he might have kept her up. In the faint light of the desk clock he could make out her features, and to him Mi-Kas was every bit as beautiful now as twenty years ago when they’d first met. Back then she’d been the wildly popular daughter of a high-ranking general in the KPA. Shinn, fresh out of Kim Il-Sung University with a master’s degree in physics and the high recommendations of his professors, had been sought out and recruited by the army and then given special treatment, including the right to attend social functions at the officer’s club in Pyongyang. It was there he and Mi-Kas had shared their first dance, and when they’d married less than a year later, their future had seemed bright and limitless. But it had been an illusion, and the more deeply involved Shinn had become with the activities of the Kanggye nuclear team, the more he, like his long-time colleague Li-Roo Kohb, had come to regret his path in life. By then, however, it had been too late. His course had been set, and the more time he’d been forced to devote to Kim Jong-il’s nuclear aspirations, the more he’d become dependent on Mi-Kas’ warm embrace and nurturing spirit to overcome his feelings of guilt and despair. Without her, Shinn felt, he was nothing.

The Korean kissed his wife’s bare shoulder and carefully eased out of bed, taking care not to wake her. Lying at the foot of the bed was Shinn’s small pet terrier. The dog stirred and began to wag his tail, thumping the carpet.

“Shh.”

Shinn reached over and stroked the dog affectionately, whispering in Korean, “Quiet, Kyono. You stay here and be quiet.”

Kyono’s tail went limp and the dog lowered its head back to the floor.

“That’s my boy,” Shinn told the dog.

On his way out of the bedroom, Shinn grabbed a loose pair of shorts and a large, well-worn T-shirt from the closet. He quickly changed in the main room of their trailer home. The place wasn’t fancy, and it was a step down from the two-story Phoenix condominium he and his wife had moved into after defecting. Shinn, perhaps a bit more than Mi-Kas, actually preferred the Spartan living arrangements. He’d had his share of material pleasures back in Kanggye, all of them spoils earned by virtue of his allegiance to the Great Leader. In time, he’d come to view his fine furnishings and all the other extravagances as symbols of disgrace, especially in the face of the prolonged famine that was claiming so many of his fellow countrymen. Even his more modest accommodations in Phoenix had somehow seemed dishonorable. These days, he wanted things simple.

Once he’d stabbed his feet into a pair of sandals, Shinn slipped outside. He and his wife lived on a remote stretch of rambling foothills a few miles off the highway that ran from Phoenix north to the Grand Canyon. Their closest neighbors—a Libertarian Web site geek and his herbalist wife—lived nearly a quarter mile up the dusty, unpaved road that linked a handful of other equally remote homes. The closest city, Prescott, was a half hour’s drive to the south, and as far as Shinn knew, he and Mi-Kas were the only Koreans within a fifty-mile radius. But, then, that was fine with Shinn. It was a welcome departure from Phoenix’s Koreatown, where there had been too many reminders of the life and country they’d left behind. Here, it was easier to put the past behind him and try to find some sense of inner peace.

One of the best ways Shinn had found to cleanse himself of troubled thoughts was his morning ritual at the Zen garden he’d created on a terraced swath of land located fifty yards downhill from the trailer home. The garden was roughly the size and shape of a putting green, but instead of grass or plants, there were neatly raked furrows of sand emanating in concentric circles around a large rectangular boulder. Shinn had lined the periphery with smaller rocks the size of bowling balls, but the barrier was too low to keep wildlife from traipsing across the sand. As Shinn came upon the garden he saw that, as was the case more often than not, his handiwork from the day before had been disrupted by a set fresh animal tracks.

Havelinas, he figured, as he reached for his rake. The boarlike creatures were as prevalent in Chino Valley as coyotes had been in the suburbs of Phoenix.

Shinn had barely begun his final sweep around the periphery of the garden when the first light of dawn began to crest the distant mountaintops. He was about to set the rake aside and assume his usual lotus position when the sun’s rays stretched out across the garden, revealing the elongated silhouette of someone coming down the path toward him. Shinn had his back to the path and, puzzled, he was about to look over his shoulder when he heard a thud in the sand off to his left. He turned just in time to see something roll to a stop amid the furrows he’d just raked. Shinn’s eyes widened with sudden horror as he saw blood seep into the sand from the severed head of his pet terrier.

“Kyono!” Shinn gasped in horror. “No!”

Heart racing, the defector whirled to see three men heading down the path toward him. Two of them were dragging Shinn’s beloved wife between them. The woman was barely able to stay on her feet, and she was naked except for a band of gray duct taped wrapped several times around her jaw, muting her cries. One look at the shame and fear in his wife’s eyes and Shinn’s legs weakened beneath him. He slowly dropped to his knees, speechless.

“You’re a hard man to find, Shinn Kam-Song,” Hong Sung-nam attested. “But find you we have.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Joint Security Area, Panmunjom, South Korea

It would be another twenty-four hours before Lim Seung-Whan would be returned to his homeland in exchange for ransom, but when Colonel Michaels asked if Akira Tokaido wanted to check out the spot where his cousin would be dropped off, it was an offer the Stony Man computer expert couldn’t refuse.

Although Panmunjom was just a short drive from Camp Bonifas, the Joint Security Area was a world unto itself. Straddling the DMZ, the JSA was steeped with tension, as sentries from both Koreas faced off against one another from their positions on either side of the bright blue buildings where the U.S. and its allies sat in on the neverending negotiations between the two countries. And yet at the same time there was an almost surreal festiveness in the air, as Panmunjom was also a popular tourist attraction that lured throngs of curiosity-seekers who came to buy souvenirs and take tram rides through one of the infamous tunnels the North Koreans had burrowed through the surrounding mountains in hopes of allowing troop access to the South. Tokaido found it unsettling to see so many people posing for pictures atop the concrete barricade separating the two nations, and when he saw a young couple walk away from a trinket kiosk marvelling at the strip of prison camp barbed wire they’d just purchased, he felt as if he’d stumbled into the Amusement Park from Hell.

“Pretty bizarre, eh?” Michaels said, noting the befuddled look on Tokaido’s face as they past the curio shops.

“To say the least.”

The men were interrupted by the shrill toot of a locomotive and turned to watch a freight train thunder into view a few hundred yards to their left. The train was headed toward a heavily guarded gap in the barbed-wire fence extending westward past the concrete barrier where the men were standing. It had been less than two years since the rails between the north and south had been connected, allowing rail transport between the two countries.

“That’s where your cousin will be dropped off,” Michaels told Tokaido. “And you can bet it’ll be crawling with even more guards when the exchange goes down. Provided Lim’s people get the money together in time, that is.”

“They have all day to make the arrangements,” Tokaido said. “I don’t think it will be a problem.”

“Let’s hope not.” Michaels checked his watch, then told Tokaido, “You can go ahead and take a closer look if you want, but I need to meet with the undersecretary.”

“No, that’s okay,” Tokaido said. “I’ll tag along, if that’s okay.”

“Not a problem.”

The two men backtracked toward the blue buildings. According to Michaels, negotiations in Panmunjom started each day at nine o’clock sharp, with a recess two hours later. It was just past eleven, and Tokaido saw negotiators from both sides filing out of one of the buildings. From the looks on their faces, it didn’t appear that any progress had been made in the talks between the two sides. One member of the Allied team, a hardened-looking woman in her early sixties, broke away from the others when she spotted Michaels.

“Another fun day in the trenches?” Michaels said as he shook the woman’s hand.

“Fun isn’t quite the word I would use,” responded Undersecretary of State Brooke Hilldecker as she raided her purse for some aspirin.

On the way to Panmunjom, Michaels had told Tokaido that he was Hilldecker’s liaison to the intelligence community and routinely conferred with the undersecretary on matters that might have an impact on her negotiations with the North. This morning he wanted to discuss the situation of the Kanggye nuclear team defectors with her. After handling introductions, Michaels assured Hilldecker that Tokaido had adequate security clearance to listen in on their conversation. The undersecretary balked, however.

“Nothing personal,” she assured Tokaido, “but we already have more people in the loop than I’d like.”

“I understand,” Tokaido told her.

He excused himself and wandered over to the surrounding walkway, where armed guards from the DRNK faced off like chess pawns with their counterparts to the south.

As he made his way to one of several observation posts situated along the walkway, Tokaido was once again amazed by the nonchalance of the tourists mingling around him. Some were taking photos of the guards while others had their cameras trained on a sprawling cityscape located two miles past rolling hills of North Korean farmland. One of the visitors, a middle-aged woman with a New England accent, was commenting on how much of a boomtown the city appeared to be.

“I mean, look at all the new building going on,” the woman marvelled. “I don’t get it. I thought North Korea was bankrupt.”

“It is,” the woman’s husband countered as he snapped a picture. “Didn’t you read the brochure, Martha? That’s not a real city. It’s all fake. Nobody lives there. They’re just trying to convince the folks here that life is good across the border.”

“You’re joking, right?” the woman responded.

But Tokaido knew Martha’s husband was right. From a distance, Kijongdong might have looked like a booming metropolis, but Tokaido’s understanding was that the buildings were nothing but empty facades, erected by North Korea as a propaganda ploy. In fact, for years everyone in the know had taken to calling the city Propaganda Village. Tokaido figured that by now North Korea would have realized they weren’t fooling anyone but a handful of uninformed tourists, and yet, here they were, pouring a fortune into expanding its bogus ghost town.

The newest structure going up, located directly behind what was supposedly the world’s largest flag pole, was a four-story building intended to look like a commerce-thriving shopping mall. But Tokaido knew damn well that there would be no shops inside the mall, just as there were would be no consumers. Once the building was finished, it would just stand there, its only tenants an ever-growing population of rats and other vermin. Watching the construction, Tokaido shared the sentiments of the man whose wife had just been duped by the illusion of a prosperous Kijongdong. Under his breath he muttered, “Who do they think they’re kidding?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Changchon Mountains, North Korea

General Oh Chol’s first assignment with the military, nearly thirty years earlier, had been to oversee the digging of tunnels beneath the DMZ. One of his assignments, in fact, had been construction of the infamous Third Tunnel near Panmunjom. Back then, most of the work had been done by hand, using compressed-air drills and conventional pickaxes. It had been slow going, and on a good day crews were lucky to advance more than a few yards through the subterranean rock standing between them and access to neighboring South Korea. On more than one occasion, Oh had given in to his frustrations and resorted to dynamite, and even the progress was slow and painstaking, not to mention costly in terms of lives lost and delays caused by the occasional rupture of underground water tables.

This day, as he made his way along the burrowed conduit leading south from the Changchon Rehabilitation Center, the general—refreshed and pain-free after more than twelve hours of morphine-induced sleep back at the underground missile base—couldn’t help but admire how times had changed for the better. The tunnel had been cleared away at a phenomenal rate of nearly 250 feet a day, practically fifty times as fast as his best crews had ever been able to manage. After a few miles, he came upon the reason for the accelerated excavation.

He’d reached a congested work area loud with the noise of ground crews, machinery and the hum of generators powering halogen work lamps mounted on strategically placed tripod stands as well as sconce-holders hammered into the rock walls. At the center of all this boisterous activity, mounted on a fresh stretch of steel rails marking the meeting point between the Changson tunnel and its shorter counterpart, was a two-hundred-ton, Chinese-built Dae-181 Tunnel Boring Machine.

The cylindrical contraption, vaguely resembling one of the monstrous, first-stage boosters for the Taepo Dong missile systems, was front-fitted with a rotating bore rig that, in essence, chewed its way through any rock unable to withstand the high-torque grating of its diamond-tipped drill bits. The Changchon bedrock, comprised primarily of shale and limestone, had clearly been no match for the TBM.

And the borer was just part of the tunneling crew’s high-tech arsenal. On the rails directly behind the Dae-181 were a pair of co-joined electric locomotives whose combined horsepower was needed to pull the borer backward after a tunneling shift so that crews could move in and widen the gap. Aiding in the latter task was a pair of large, gleaming yellow mucker-loaders. The machines, each the subterranean equivalent of a high-priced bulldozer, were both mounted with crawler treads, allowing them to easily maneuver on either side of the bore machine and help with the removal of debris. The muckers, with their massive, scalloped jaws, were a marvel unto themselves, capable of scooping up to three tons of material a minute, a job comparable to an hour’s work by the chain gang crews of Oh’s day. If the rest of the country’s industries could be even a fraction as productive as the tunneling operations, the general mused, DRNK’s long-dormant economy might actually approach self-sufficiency, eliminating the need to blackmail fat cats like America and Japan for economic aid. But that was a matter for another day.

Laborers milled around the front of the borer, clearing a six-foot gap on either side of the apparatus and scooping loose rock into the mucker-loaders. Oh, who’d reached the juncture by way of a small, battery-powered cart, signaled the men aside long enough to squeeze past them into the shorter tunnel, which had been created by the conventional means Oh was more familiar with. He paused long enough to congratulate both work crews, then rode the last few hundred yards to the spot where the northward tunneling had first begun.

Once he stepped off the cart, the general found himself inside the massive, four-story cavity of the most recent building to grace the would-be urban sprawl of Kijongdong. Oh knew there were work teams outside the structure finishing off the building’s mall-like exterior, but their progress didn’t concern him. As long as they gave South Korea and its allies the impression that they were building nothing more than another phony edifice, they were doing their job. It was the work going on inside the new structure that held the general’s interest. And he was encouraged by what he saw.

The central area of the structure’s reinforced concrete foundation had been lined with the same fire-resistant compound used on missile launch pads to the north in Musudan and Paekun-ri, and a similar lining had been placed around two large bunkers crowding the far corner. Once the tunnel from Changchon to Kijongdong was fully cleared away, tanker trucks would haul rocket fuel to the site and transfer it to holding tanks inside the bunkers. The missiles, of course, would follow.

Rising up from the periphery of the launch pad was the girdered framework of a launch tower. Several scaffoldings hung suspended from the sides of the tower, allowing welders to strengthen seams and joints. Oh stared up at the welders as he circled around the structure, taking care to avoid the steady shower of sparks raining from the scaffolds. Parked beside the tower’s hydraulic-powered elevator was a small mobile home that served as the offices for the construction project’s supervisors.

Oh’s nephew had apparently seen the general coming and appeared in the doorway. Decorum forbade him from greeting Oh with anything more than a formal salute, but judging from the beaming smile on his face, it was clear that Park Yo-Wi was thrilled to see his uncle. Beyond familial affection, Park’s feelings for Oh were tinged as well with gratitude, as it was the general who’d greased the necessary skids to secure his nephew with the base construction contract. Prior to that, Park had distinguished himself by helping with the design of other missile sites in Ichon and Chunghwa as well as several of the isolated country retreats Kim Jong-il increasingly preferred over Pyongyang as a base of operations.

“So, how do you like it?” Park asked.

Oh glanced around, nodding with approval. “Very impressive. You’ve done a good job.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” Park said. “I just got off the phone with the outdoor crew. They’re ready to start installing the roof. Come, I’ll give you a look.”

The two men stepped into the tower elevator and began to ascend toward the uppermost platform. The walls of the elevator cab were made of chain-link fencing, allowing Oh a bird’s-eye view of the clandestine missile site.

“It’s hard to believe that when I was last here there was nothing but an empty pit,” the general said. “I was worried that we might have set our sights too high.”

“We’ve been working double shifts to stay on schedule,” said Park. “As you can see, it’s been paying off.”

Oh nodded. “Major Jin tells me you expect to be operational here by the end of the month. Is that true?”

“If need be, yes,” Park said. “We won’t have all the bells and whistles in place by then, but the fuel lines will be installed and the launch pad will be fully functional.”

“Excellent,” Oh said. Offering up a brief smile, he added, “This will shut up everyone who shouted ‘nepotism’ when you were given the contract.”

“I’ve done my best not to let you down,” Park said.

“And it would appear that you’ve succeeded,” Oh responded.

When the elevator reached the top platform, the younger man subtly moved in front of his uncle, keeping him hemmed inside the cab.

“Before we step out,” Park said, speaking low so that the workers on the platform couldn’t overhear, “I’d like a word in private.”

Oh frowned, puzzled by the sudden look of concern on his nephew’s face.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It concerns Major Jin,” Park said, choosing his words carefully. “I know you have been friends with him for some time, but…”

“But what?”

“Do you consider him loyal beyond reproach?” Park asked.

“How can you ask such a question!” Oh snapped, temper flaring. He caught himself and lowered his voice. “Of course he’s beyond reproach. Why would you think otherwise?”

“I don’t know,” Park confessed. “It’s just a feeling.”

“There has to be more to it than that.”

Park was hesitant to elaborate, but when Oh pressed further, he confided, “It was just something I overheard from the workers. About goods being diverted to the black market. The major’s name was mentioned.”

This was news to Oh, but he wasn’t totally surprised and he did his best not to appeared alarmed. After all, as he proceeded to tell his nephew, “There is a difference between being entrepreneurial and being a traitor. You should know that.”

“Yes, I understand, but—”

“Let me finish,” Oh interjected. “You are young still, Yo-Wi. There will be ample opportunities ahead for you to assure a good life for you and your family. But men like Major Jin—men like me—we have been forced to weather hard times and we can see that our time is passing, so if an opportunity arises where we can better our situation and ensure our future…Well, I think you understand what I’m saying.”

Park nodded contritely. “Of course,” he said. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

“An honest mistake,” Oh said. He smiled faintly. “Now, let’s put this behind us. Show me the rest of your work.”

Park nodded and stepped aside, motioning for his uncle to step onto the platform. As he did so, Oh did his best to dismiss his nephew’s concerns about Major Jin. But a seed had been planted, and by the time Park had escorted him to the end of the platform, the general had already made up his mind to place the major under scrutiny. Yes, he had been quick to defend Jin, but, friend or not, there was too much at stake to let the man’s extracurricular activities go unnoticed. Oh knew of too many colleagues who’d succumbed to graft and had eventually placed greed ahead of loyalty. If it turned out the major was headed in that direction, Oh hoped he might be able to intervene and spare his friend from the grim fate of execution that had befallen the others.

Oh was snapped from his reverie when his nephew called his attention to the roofline of the building, where sky cranes had just begun to replace a network of tarpaulin riggings with roof panels. For the first time since coming to inspect the clandestine missile infrastructure back at the Changchon Rehabilitation Center, Oh saw something that struck him as fundamentally wrong.

“I thought the roof was going to be retractable,” he told his nephew.

“It was, in the original plans, but we decided against it,” Park responded. “Our concern was that if we rolled the roof away, there might be time for a satellite to spot a missile before we could launch it.”

“I understand,” Oh said. “But we can’t just launch the missile through the roof, can we? Wouldn’t it throw off the trajectory?”

Park shook his head and pointed at one of the metallic-looking partitions being secured into place. “The sections are made to appear is if they’re made of steel,” he explained, “but they’re really just plastic and barely an inch thick. The missile will go through them as if they were tissue.”

“But the rest of the structure will remain intact, correct?” Oh asked.

“Yes, of course,” Park said. “We’ll have men ready to clear away any debris that drops to the subfloor, then we follow up with more launches.”

Oh smiled thinly. “I doubt that we’ll be able to get away with more than one additional launch before our friends to the south wise up and turn their guns on us.”

“Perhaps,” Park said, “but that would still give us two launches before we lost our element of surprise. It’s better than nothing.”

“Far better,” Oh conceded. “And, of course, if no one forces our hand, we’ll have time to build more launch pads inside some of the other buildings.”

“I’m already drafting the plans,” Park said.

The younger man excused himself for a moment to supervise the placement of the first roof panel. Oh lingered on the platform and glanced southward toward the DMZ. Although the walls enclosing the launch site were thick and void of windows, he imagined being able to see the South Korean troops lined across the raised wall separating the two nations. He knew all about the ridicule South Korea heaped on Kijongdong and how they so contemptuously called the phantom city Propaganda Village. What he wouldn’t give to be able to see the look on their faces when an ICBM came roaring up out of one of the buildings.

“We’ll see who’s laughing then,” Oh murmured.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Chino Valley, Arizona

Mack Bolan stared coldly at the pool of blood surrounding the body of Shinn’s decapitated pet terrier. The dog had been slain just inside the front doorway of the trailer home, and the animal’s killer had left a trail of bloody bootprints leading toward the rear bedroom and then back again.

“We found the head in some kind of sand garden about fifty yards downhill from here,” reported Arizona Highway Patrolman Gregory Davis.

“There were at least five different sets of prints on the trail leading there,” he went on. “Near as we can figure, they must have grabbed the guy’s wife here, then hauled her down to the garden where he was raking the sand. My guess is they let him get a good look at the dog’s head, then told him his wife would be next if he didn’t play along with them.”

“Sounds like their style,” Bolan murmured.

“Look, I know you’ve got a ‘national security’ lid on this,” Davis said, “but we’re not talking about some nickel-dime street gang here, are we?”

Bolan shook his head. “These guys use gang-bangers for pawns. I can’t give you anything more than that.”

“Gotcha,” Davis said. “Well, whoever the hell they are, I hope I’m on hand when we bring them in.” He looked at the slain dog and shook his head with disgust. “You see something like this, it leaves you wondering who the animals really are.”

Bolan tore his gaze from the terrier’s limp carcass and stepped back outside. The sun was out now, its rays glancing off the three highway patrol cruisers parked haphazardly on the yard surrounding the trailer home. The AHP had been notified shortly after John Kissinger and Harmon Wallace had determined Shinn’s address, but they’d shown up too late to intercept the REDI crew that had seized Shinn and his wife. Bolan had arrived less than ten minutes ago. The Nevada Metro chopper that had brought him here along with Jayne Bahn and FBI Agent Ed Scanlon was back up in the air, conducting an aerial search of the surrounding valley. Other AHP officers, meanwhile, were checking with Shinn’s neighbors to find out if anyone had seen anything that might help shed light on where Shinn and his wife had been taken.

Jayne Bahn was talking with a patrolman near one of the squad cars. When she saw Bolan she ventured over and told him, “Well, we’ve got one small break.”

“At this point I’ll take it,” Bolan said.

“They found the car belonging to that guy whose body was stuffed in the well back in Goffs,” Bahn reported.

“But REDI’d already pulled a switch,” Bolan guessed.

She nodded. “They dropped it off at a truck stop up on the interstate near Williams,” she confirmed. “Helped themselves to a panel truck that matches the description of a truck one of the neighbors saw pulling away from here about twenty minutes before the cops showed up.

“He’s just calling in the APB,” she concluded, indicating the man she’d been speaking with. “Even if they swapped plates, hopefully they’re still out on the road and we’ll be able to spot them.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Bolan said. “We need to cover the airports, too.”

“Great minds think alike,” Bahn said. “AHP’s gonna post undercover agents near the entrance to every airfield within a hundred-mile radius. Scanlon says the FBI will take Phoenix and then widen the net if need be. You ask me, that’s gonna be our best bet. REDI might’ve gotten their hands on these folks, but they aren’t going to win any Kewpie dolls from Kim Jong-il until they deliver them back to the mother country.”

“Good point,” Bolan said. “And the one good thing about them being pulled down here to Arizona is that it probably threw off their getaway plans. If they’re scrambling, it ups the chances they’ll make a wrong move.”

“That’d be sweet,” Bahn said. “I was never big on hide-and-seek.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Phoenix, Arizona

Bolan was wrong.

As it turned out, having to come to Arizona to apprehend Shinn Kam-Song proved a stroke of good fortune for the REDI operatives.

Two years earlier, as part of a heroin deal made with the Chinese, North Korea had secured the clandestine ownership of the Far East Trading Company, an import wholesaler specializing in the cheap Made-in-China trinkets that were regularly packaged into giveaways sponsored by a number of America’s leading fast-food chains. FETC was headquartered near the harbor docks in the southern California city of San Pedro, and when the REDI teams headed up by Hong and Bryn had been dispatched to the States, they’d smuggled their way ashore by concealing themselves inside the same Far East cargo bin carrying forty thousand Scooby-Doo compasses as well as a ten-million-dollar heroin shipment earmarked for distribution by the Asian Killboys street gang. And San Pedro was only one of Far East Trading Company’s American distribution outlets. The company had additional facilities in three other Western states, including Arizona, and even before they’d shown up in Chino Valley, Bryn and Hong had both been in touch with contacts at FETC’s distribution center in Phoenix, greasing the skids for their getaway once they’d gathered up Shinn and his wife.

Now, less than forty minutes after the abduction, Bryn was at the wheel of the panel truck they’d stolen in Williams, making his way through the Prescott National Forest. He’d avoided the I-17, relying instead on less-traveled backroads where, hopefully, they would be more able to avoid detection by their pursuers. Hong was riding shotgun, and by using the truck’s citizen band radio to monitor police broadcasts, the REDI operative had already intercepted dispatches from the AHP officers who’d stormed Shinn’s trailer home, and now, as both he and Bryn eavesdropped on the latest transmissions, they knew that an all-points-bulletin had been put out on their getaway vehicle.

“This makes things difficult,” Hong told Bryn, glancing up from the road map he’d unfolded across his lap. “At some point we’re going to have to come out of the mountains and get back on the highway, and then we’ll have a twenty-mile stretch where we’ll be a clear target.”

Bryn nodded gravely, already weighing their options. “We just passed a sign saying there’s a rest stop ahead. We’ll have to make another switch.”

Hong nodded, then both men fell silent, keeping their eyes on the road and the rearview mirror for police vehicles.

In the back of the panel truck, the two other surviving REDI operatives stood guard over their captives. Shinn Mi-Kas was now wearing a summer dress that her abductors had grabbed from her bedroom. She sat on the floor of the truck between her husband and Li-Roo Kohb, and, like the men, her hands had been bound together behind her back with the same duct tape used to bind their ankles. None of the prisoners were gagged, but Li-Roo’s face was still bruised from the pistol-whipping he’d received when he’d tried to talk to Shinn after his friend had been dragged into the truck in Chino Valley. Since then, all three had been silent except for the few times when Mi-Kas, overwhelmed by the ordeal, had begun to weep.

Soon the two-lane road led out of the mountains and, two miles in the distance, Hong and Bryn could see the highway they would have to take to reach Phoenix. They were also coming up on the rest stop, and as Bryn took the exit, Hong quickly scanned the parking lot.

“We’re in luck,” he murmured.

Indeed, there were only two vehicles parked in the lot, a Subaru coupe and a fourteen-foot long Winnebago. The driver of the Subaru had just gotten out of his car, and when he opened the door to the back seat, a large Labrador retriever bounded out, making a beeline toward a grassy sward located on the far side of the restroom facilities. Bryn drove slowly past the parked vehicles, then stopped the truck and shifted into reverse so that he could back up next to the passenger’s side of the Winnebago. There was no one inside the mobile home, but Hong could see an elderly couple standing in front of a bulletin board mounted just outside the restrooms.

“Let’s wait for them outside,” he suggested.

Hong nodded, then turned and motioned to one of the men in the rear of the truck. “Let me show you how to work the radio,” he said.

As the man moved forward and wrangled his way around his colleague, Li-Roo Kohb took advantage of the distraction and leaned to one side, whispering over Mi-Kas’s shoulder to Shinn Kam-Song.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “They drugged me and—”

“No talking!” snapped the man who’d remained with the prisoners. For emphasis, he raised his Glock pistol and pointed the barrel at Li-Roo’s face. The man recoiled and fell silent. Shinn glanced his way and offered a faint, understanding nod.

Up in front, meanwhile, Hong quickly showed the other man how to operate the CB, then left him to monitor things and got out of the truck. Bryn was already standing on the curb, lighting a cigarette. Hong joined him, holding out his map so that it would look as though he was trying to figure out an itinerary. He stood so that he could peer over Bryn’s shoulder and keep an eye on the elderly couple as well as the man from the Subaru. Hong looked the other way, watching as other cars sped past the rest stop, bound for the highway.

“They must have found our place in Goffs,” Bryn said, making conversation as he stared at the map.

Hong nodded. “If they did, I hope they put a bullet through Ok-Hwa for me,” he said. “Never again will I…”

Hong’s voice trailed off and he cast aside his cigarette.

“They’re coming?” Bryn said.

Hong nodded. They continued to look over the map, though Hong raised his glance momentarily as the elderly couple walked past.

“Good morning,” the old man called to Hong, smiling.

Hong smiled back. “Good morning,” he said.

“You fellas lost?”

“No,” Hong said, gesturing at the map. “We’re just trying to figure out our driving time.”

“Well, if you’re heading to Phoenix,” the man’s wife interjected, “it’s about a half hour.”

“Thank you,” Hong said, folding the map.

Bryn stayed on the curb as Hong followed the couple back to their vehicles. He started to open the door to the panel truck, but once the older man led his wife to the passenger’s side of the Winnebago and was about to unlock the door, Hong suddenly whirled around, pulling out his pistol. He aimed the gun at the husband as he clamped his free hand over the old woman’s mouth.

“Go ahead, open the door,” Hong ordered.

“What are—”

“Open the door!” Hong repeated. “Now!”

Trembling, the older man unlocked the door. Hong reached past him and yanked the door open, then told the man, “Get in!”

The man stumbled as he climbed up into the Winnebago. Furious, Hong shoved him the rest of the way inside, then dragged the woman into the vehicle.

Bryn, meanwhile, strode over and opened the back door of the panel truck.

“Get everybody out!” he yelled at his colleague. “Be quick about it!”

The REDI operative in the rear of the panel truck flicked open a switchblade and as he swiftly hacked away at the duct tape bound around the prisoners’ ankles, Bryn told the man up front to disconnect the CB and carry it over to the Winnebago.

The man in Subaru had finished walking his retriever and was heading back toward the parking lot. When he saw the commotion taking place in the other two vehicles, he frowned.

“Hey!” he hollered. “What’s going on over there?”

Bryn cursed under his breath.

“Hurry!” he told the others as he moved away from the panel truck and started walking toward the man with the dog.

“Is there some kind of problem?” the man asked as Bryn approached.

“You’re the problem,” Bryn said, withdrawing his pistol. There was a sound suppressor attached and the gun gave off a muffled pop as he pumped two rounds into the man’s chest. The man died on his feet, a stunned expression on his face, and Bryn was barely able to reach him in time to keep him from keeling onto the sidewalk. The retriever barked faintly and scampered around Bryn as he dragged the man back to the Subaru, then fished through his pockets for keys. He opened the door and eased the man’s body into the driver’s seat, then adjusted the corpse so that it looked as if he were leaning over the steering wheel for a quick nap. The retriever stayed close by, still barking, and when Bryn opened the rear door, the dog bounded into the back seat. Bryn made sure the lock buttons on both doors were pressed down, then tossed the keys to the floor of the car and shut the doors.

The dead man had bled all over Bryn, and a trail of blood led from the car to where the man had been shot. Muttering to himself, Bryn hurriedly crossed the sidewalk and scooped up some dirt and loose gravel from the edge of the parking lot. He sprinkled it over the trail of blood, then scuffed the dirt with his shoes, obscuring the telltale blotches.

By the time he’d finished, everyone had transferred into the Winnebago and Hong was behind the wheel, already backing out of the parking spot. Bryn jogged over and climbed in.

“Let’s get out of here!” he told Hong.

Hong shifted gears and pulled out of the parking lot, just as another vehicle was pulling in. In the back of the Winnebago, the two other REDI agents were retaping the ankles of their prisoners.

“You won’t get away with this!” the owner of the Winnebago shouted at the carjackers.

“No?” Bryn scoffed. He turned his gun on the man and his wife. “You’re of no use to us, so I don’t think you’re going to ever find out.”

With that, the Korean operative pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

Lim Seung-Whan felt his stomach knotting as Prync Gil-Su concluded his proposition.

“And you don’t even have to know the details,” the prisoner whispered. “All I need is your assurance that you’ll be good for the money we need. We’ll handle the rest.”

Lim couldn’t believe what he was hearing. When he’d just woken up from a fitful few hours of sleep, he’d taken consolation that within twenty-four hours the nightmare he’d plunged his family and friends into would be behind them. And now this: a prison revolt scheduled for the same time that his release from the concentration was supposed to be carried out.

“Does it have to be tomorrow?” Lim asked.

Prync nodded. “We’ve waited too long already. Tomorrow morning will be our best opportunity. We can’t let it get away from us.”

The two men were standing near the far wall of the barracks. The other prisoners were milling around nearby, waiting for the guards to lead them to the mess for the paltry morning rations expected to fortify them for a day’s labor in the mines or poppy fields. Lim had been pulled aside from his family, and he could see both his wife and daughter eyeing him as he confided with Prync Gil-Su.

“I need to think about this,” Lim murmured.

“There’s no time for that,” Prync insisted. “We need to put things into motion. I need your answer now.”

“I have to discuss it with my wife,” Lim protested.

“No, you don’t,” Prync countered. “Not a man like you. You can make your own decision.”

“This affects her,” Lim snapped. “This affects my family. My friends.”

“If it’s their safety you’re concerned about, they don’t have to take part,” Prync assured the South Korean. He gestured at the straw-lined wooden floor beneath their feet.

“We’ve loosened some of the floor planks,” he explained quickly. “Women and children will be able to hide down in the crawl space below the barracks when we make our move. They should be safe there. You can wait there with your family if you want.”

“I don’t know,” Lim said.

“Don’t force my hand,” Prync warned.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know all the facts behind your situation,” Prync said, “but I do know that the only reason they’ll let you go is because they know you won’t pose a security risk. You probably convinced them that you won’t mention anything about this camp or the poppy fields. Am I right?”

Lim stared at Prync. Yes, that had been part of his arrangement with the commandant, but he saw no point in divulging any specifics so he remained silent.

“What if the commandant was to find out that you’d told some of us that you were actually a spy for the south?” Prync suggested. “How do you think that news would be received?”

“You’d be lying,” Lim countered. “I’d tell them as much.”

“It’d be your word against mine,” Prync said. “And I know how paranoid these people are. Trust me, the smallest kernel of doubt grows fast in their minds.”

Lim felt trapped, backed into a corner. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to lend a hand to Prync’s cause. The risk to his loved ones was too great. If the revolt failed—and Lim felt in his heart that Prync’s plan would never succeed—the guards would have no problem finding anyone hiding in the crawl space beneath the barracks.

“Well?” Prync said. “Are you with us?”

Lim tried to stall. “If you have no qualms about lying,” he told Prync, “why not just go ahead and tell this person you need to contact that I’ve agreed to help? You don’t need my approval.”

“It wouldn’t work,” Prync countered. “I told you, I know these people. Once I go to them, they’ll come to you for confirmation. They’ll want your personal assurance.”

“Give me a few minutes,” Lim bartered. “I’ll give you an answer once we’ve had rations. Before we’re sent out to the mines.”

The other prisoner hesitated a moment, then said, “Fair enough. I wouldn’t have confided in you if I didn’t think you could be trusted to do the right thing. Think it through, and you’ll see that it’s best for all if you help us.”

Prync walked off, joining the other prisoners he’d conspired with during the night. The men were all watching him, and their look of expectation only added to the burden of responsibility Lim felt weighing on him. Prync had assured him he’d do the right thing, but what was that? Was it right for him to put his family and friends in harm’s way to help these men with their doomed conspiracy? He just couldn’t see the merit of it. He sympathized with the men’s plight, and if there were a way for him to empty his personal coffers and buy the freedom for everyone in the camp, he would. But this? What Prync was asking was sure lunacy. Lim had already subjected his family and friends to enough horror; how could he turn around and put their lives on the line in a lost cause? Lim didn’t see any way that he could go along with the scheme and live with himself.

Lim took in a deep breath, fighting back the sickness in his heart as he slowly trudged across the floorboards to his family.

His wife saw the look on his face and asked him, “What is the matter? What did he want to see you about?”

Lim didn’t want to trouble U-Pol with specifics, so he hedged from the truth.

“Extortion,” he muttered. “He found out who I am and wants money from me.”

“We don’t have any money,” she responded. “Not on us.”

“That’s what I told him,” Lim answered. “I told him I couldn’t help him.”

“We’d help them if we could,” she said. “They have to know that. But there’s nothing we can do for them.”

“No,” Lim agreed. He didn’t want to talk about the matter any further, so he said, “Let’s put this behind us. We have another day to get through here, so let’s just do it and keep our minds on the fact that soon we’ll be free.”

A guard appeared, ordering the prisoners to leave the barracks for rations. As the prisoners began to slowly file out, Lim pondered his situation further. There was one option he hadn’t considered. He could go to the commandant and divulge the conversation he’d just had with Prync. Lieutenant Corporal Yulim would be grateful, and Lim’s disclosure would likely further insure that he and his loved ones would be freed as planned. But just as quickly as the idea had crossed his mind, Lim dismissed it. If he betrayed Prync and the others, there would be harsh reprisals. Most likely there would be executions, and Lim suspected he would be forced to witness them. Did he really want that on his conscience?

Lim was wrestling with his dilemma when he happened to glance down at his daughter’s wrist. For the first time, he noticed that Na-Li was wearing her charm bracelet.

“How did you get that?” he asked her.

Na-Li’s face reddened. “I always wear it,” she told him. “You know that.”

“No,” Lim said. “You weren’t wearing it on the boat.”

“You’re mistaken, Father.”

“No,” Lim insisted. “You took it off because you said it would give you a tan line. I remember distinctly.”

“Please,” Na-Li pleaded. “Can we not discuss this?”

Now it was Lim whose face flushed red. He recalled his rendezvous the previous night with the commandant, and how Yulim had been wearing clothes taken from his luggage. If the man had gotten his hands on Lim’s things, it only stood to reason that he’d had access to his daughter’s belongings, as well. The implication was impossible to ignore.

“You saw him yesterday, while I was in the mines,” Lim said to his daughter, “didn’t you?”

Lim’s wife intervened. “We don’t need to get into this.”

Lim ignored his wife and stared hard at Na-Li. “What did he do to you?”

Before Na-Li could answer, the guard came over, pointing a rifle at Lim.

“Keep moving!” he ordered. “There is work to be done!”

Once they were outside the barracks, other guards stood in front of the doorway, gesturing for the men to split off into a separate line from the women. Lim exchanged a glance with his wife and daughter, then moved off, falling in line behind his friend, Ji Pho-Hwa. He was consumed by rage at the idea of the commandant taking advantage of his daughter, and the more he thought about the matter, the more incensed he became, and in no time his fury had outweighed any reservations he’d had about aiding Prync and the other prisoners with their planned revolt. There was no way he could stand by and let Yulim get away with what he’d undoubtedly done to his daughter. No way.

“He’ll pay,” Lim seethed under his breath, his hands trembling with rage as he took his meager rations and followed the other men out of the mess tent. He looked around until he spotted Prync. The head of the planned revolt had just finished shoveling down his rations and was wiping his fingers on the loose fabric of his work clothes. Lim stared at Prync until he had the man’s attention, then nodded.

To hell with the consequences, Lim thought to himself. He would back the revolt and, when it took place, there was no way he would cower beneath the barrack floorboards. He would take up whatever arms Prync and the others could make available, and then he would personally track down Yulim and kill the man or die trying.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“Isn’t it nice to be back in the thick of things?” Aaron Kurtzman asked Huntington Wethers.

“Definitely,” replied the third member of Kurtzman’s cybernetic team. “You can only spend so much time in a think tank before you find yourself wanting to spend a little less time thinking and more time doing.”

The one-time university professor had been back at the Farm for a little over an hour and was up to date on the various North Korean situations being monitored by Stony Man personnel. Now, seated at his meticulously organized cubicle, Wethers had immersed himself in the foremost task at hand: trying to figure out which avenue of escape the REDI operatives in Arizona would take now that they’d succeeded in capturing two of the three Kanggye nuclear team defectors they’d been assigned to bring back to Kim Jong-il.

“I’m setting up an autosearch of every LE database west of the Rockies,” the gray-templed African-American told Kurtzman as he worked his keyboard. “‘REDI,’ ‘North Korea,’ ‘Asian Killboys’…As many search words as the systems can handle. I know it’s a fishing expedition, but once I have things in motion, I can run the search in background mode and switch over to something else.”

“Sounds like you’re on top of things,” Kurtzman said. “Keep at it. I’ll keep you posted if we turn up any leads on some other front.”

“I’ll be right here,” Wethers said.

Kurtzman backed up his wheelchair and motored his way over to Carmen Delahunt’s station. The redhead was wrapping up a phone call.

“Well, let’s hope things go through without a hitch,” she said. She finished the call and hung up, then turned to Kurtzman. “That was Akira. It looks like all-systems-go as far as making the deal to get his cousin released. They money’s been rounded up and they’ve set up a time for the exchange. First thing tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” Kurtzman said. “That’ll leave us with one less ball to juggle.”

Delahunt nodded and shifted her attention back to her computer monitor. “As for the situation in Arizona, we’ve got AHP and sheriff’s personnel from three different counties helping the FBI lay a dragnet. The airports are covered, and if there’s enough manpower to go around, they’ll have a car at every off-ramp on the highways leading away from—Wait, hold on…”

Delahunt cut herself off and both she and Kurtzman stared at her computer screen. The woman had brought up a partial roadmap of central Arizona and a blinking star had just appeared along a stretch of Interstate I-17 just north of Phoenix. As Kurtzman watched, she placed her cursor on the star and clicked her mouse, zooming in on the flagged area. A text box automatically opened alongside the zoom shot, relaying an instant transcription of LE dispatches from the area in question. There were a few glitches with the voice-recognition software, but Delahunt and Kurtzman were able to make enough sense of the dispatch to realize that the REDI operatives had apparently pulled yet another car switch at a rest stop just off the interstate. They’d left behind a slain motorist, who’d been found slumped over the steering wheel of his locked Subaru.

“He probably witnessed the switch,” Kurtzman surmised.

“And he’s probably the only one who did,” Delahunt said, “which means we don’t know what kind of vehicle they’re in now.”

Kurtzman nodded grimly. “Sure looks that way.”

“At least we know they were heading south,” Delahunt said. “Provided they didn’t backtrack, that would put them on a course towards Phoenix.”

“Not much of a silver lining,” Kurtzman said.

They were interrupted by Wethers, who called from across the room, “I may have gotten a bite.”

“Stay on this,” Kurtzman told Delahunt before wheeling back to Wethers’ station. “What have you got, Hunt?”

“It’s the FBI in Los Angeles,” Wethers explained. “They’ve been getting more information out of the gang member they brought in after that raid in Koreatown.”

“New stuff?” Kurtzman said. “Because we’ve already got all the stuff he spilled yesterday.”

“Yes, I saw all that,” Wethers responded, “This is fresh, within the past hour. This gangster just gave up the location of a port dock in San Pedro where the Killboys were picking up their heroin shipments. The DEA and FBI are both sending teams to check it out.”

“That’ll be a nice break if it pans out,” Kurtzman admitted, “but the Killboys’ drug-dealing really isn’t top priority at the moment. At least not for us.”

“Maybe not directly,” Wethers said, “but there might be a connection to this whole defector business.”

“What kind of connection?”

“Think about it,” Wethers said. “If North Korea is using this port as a conduit, it’s probably not limited to just drug-running. They’re probably running other rackets through it, and it might even be the way they smuggled these REDI agents stateside in the first place.”

Kurtzman grinned faintly and nodded. “Now I know why we pegged you for that think tank, Hunt. Good call.”

“I’m doing a search on the company working out of that port,” Wethers said, scrolling through the steady stream of data coming up on his monitor. “Here we go.

“It’s called the Far East Trading Company. It’s chartered by the Chinese, but obviously North Korea has their finger in the pie somewhere.”

Kurtzman quickly pieced together Wethers’ findings with the information Carmen Delahunt had just come up with. An idea came to him.

“Can you switch gears for a second?” he asked Wethers. “Try doing a cross-reference search for Far East and Phoenix, Arizona.”

“I think I can manage that.” Wethers cued up one of his customized search engines and typed in a quick command.

In less than three seconds, he had the information they were looking for: the address for a Far East distribution center in Phoenix.

“Bingo.” Kurtzman glanced over his shoulder and called to Carmen Delahunt, “Patch through a quick call to Striker. I think we know where that REDI crew is headed.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Phoenix, Arizona

The Far East Trading Company was one of four enterprises sharing the privately owned Cooper Heights airfield four miles north of downtown Phoenix, and as the Clark County Metro chopper carrying Mack Bolan drifted toward the facility, a FedEx cargo plane was in the process of lifting off the runway. A cream-colored FETC jet, meanwhile, was taxiing into position for a takeoff of its own.

“Block that plane!” Bolan told the Metro pilot. “Put us down right on the runway!”

“Will do,” the pilot responded.

Ed Scanlon and Jayne Bahn were riding on a bench seat directly behind Bolan and the pilot. As she glanced out the window, Bahn pointed to the ground below.

“Looks like we’re right on time for the party,” she said.

Bolan shifted his gaze and saw half a dozen armed men in suits piling out of a trio of unmarked sedans that had pulled up to the Far East terminal, which, in turn, was located directly adjacent to a larger warehouse complex. Another handful of AHP vehicles was racing toward the facility, rooflights flashing.

“We’re putting the captives at risk,” Scanlon complained. “Anybody on board that plane’s going to know what’s going down.”

“This is the hand we were dealt,” Bolan said. “I don’t see any other way to play it.”

“Besides,” Bahn interjected, “those captives will be in a hell of a bigger fix if we let that plane off the ground.”

The FETC cargo plane had finished taxiing and was just beginning to pick up speed when the Metro chopper swooped down into its path. The runway was too narrow for the plane to have any chance of veering past the chopper, leaving its pilot with no choice but to ease off on the throttle and apply the brakes.

By the time the plane had come to a stop, the chopper had landed and Bolan was already scrambling out, clutching his .44 Desert Eagle. Bahn and Scanlon were right behind him.

“Fan out!” Bolan shouted.

Bahn moved left, taking cover behind a cargo tram parked just off the tarmac. Scanlon, meanwhile, went right and positioned himself next to one of the fifty-five-gallon drums spaced at intervals along the inner edge of the runway. Bolan went straight, crouching as he passed under the nose of the cargo plane.

Once he’d reached the door to the cockpit, he stopped and waited. The turbines continued to drone, making it impossible for him to hear what was going on inside the plane. Like Scanlon, he was concerned about the safety of the defectors, but he doubted that they would be harmed up front. More likely, he figured, they would find themselves with a hostage situation, with the REDI operatives using their captives as bargaining chips in hopes of securing at least a safe getaway for themselves.

Less than a minute later, the jet’s engines suddenly fell silent. Moments later, Bolan heard the cockpit door opening.

“Hands on your heads!” Bahn ordered from behind the tram.

Apparently her command was quickly adhered to, because several moments later Bahn gestured to Bolan and shouted, “Go ahead!”

Bolan cautiously moved out from beneath the plane and leveled his gun at the cockpit doorway. A uniformed pilot stood in the opening with his hands raised high while another man placed one hand on his head, leaving the other free to lower a swing-mounted staircase. Neither man looked Korean to Bolan. He figured them for Chinese-Americans.

“What’s this about?” the pilot asked, his voice trembling.

“As if you didn’t know,” Bolan said.

Once the staircase had been lowered, the Executioner motioned for the two men to climb down. Bahn, meanwhile, broke from cover and raced toward the plane. Scanlon did the same.

“Go ahead,” the FBI agent said once he’d caught up with Bolan. “I’ve got them covered.”

Bolan slowly made his way up the staircase. Bahn followed close behind.

“There’s no one else,” the pilot called up to them. “It’s just us two.”

“We’ll see about that,” Bahn murmured.

The crewmen, as it turned out, were telling the truth. After reaching the vacant cockpit, Bolan and Bahn warily ventured into the rear cabin, only to find it empty. And when they continued on to the rear hold, all they could see were endless stacks of packed cargo boxes stamped with the Far East insignia. None of the boxes was large enough for anyone to conceal anyone, and there was no place among the stacks behind which to hide.

“Just our luck,” Bahn muttered once she’d finished inspecting the hold. “We’ve got the wrong damn plane!”

Bolan lowered his .44, doing his best to rein in his frustration. “Maybe we got here ahead of them. Maybe they didn’t get a chance to wrangle aboard yet.”

“That or maybe they already flew the coop.”

By the time they’d made their way out of the plane, Scanlon was waiting for them alongside one of the plainclothes officers that been the first on the scene. He confirmed Bahn’s worse-case scenario.

“Missed the bastards again.” Scanlon gestured at the other officer, he added, “He says they already flew out on another jet. Five freaking minutes ago.”

The other officer pointed toward the nearby terminal, where the stolen Winnebago was parked amid a fleet of FETC delivery trucks.

“That’s what they showed up in,” he said. “We just searched it and found two bodies inside. An elderly couple. The ’bago’s probably theirs.”

“So our guys just pulled up and were able to hop on board one of the jets?” Scanlon said. “Just like that?”

“We’re still interrogating a few people to figure out what happened,” the other officer said, “but from the sounds of it, they didn’t have to take over the plane. It was ready and waiting for them.”

“Unbelievable,” Bahn muttered.

“My guess is when we go through their warehouse we’re going to find more than just cheap cup holders and tea caddies,” Scanlon said. “I’m thinking their smack route to Phoenix runs through here.”

“So we’ve made another drug bust,” Bahn rumbled. “Big whoopie. Meanwhile, the people we want are flying off into the wild blue yonder.”

“Look, before you guys start kicking yourselves too much,” the other officer said, “you should know these guys you’re looking for aren’t out of the woods yet.”

“What are you talking about?” Jayne said.

“That plane they grabbed doesn’t have the fuel load to get clear across the ocean,” the officer replied. “They’ve got a scheduled pit stop in Guam. And even if they divert from their itinerary, we’ll have them on radar and know where they’re going.”

“So we can head them off at the pass,” Bahn said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Pretty much,” the other officer said. “We’ll have a force of some kind ready to meet them wherever they wind up landing, but I don’t think you’re gonna be able to get there in time to be part of the reception committee.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Bolan said, already plotting his next move. “That jet can only fly so fast. If I remember rightly, there’s an Air Force base a few miles from here, and they’ve got to have something that can fly faster.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

It was late morning when General Oh Chol returned to the clandestine mountain bunker where his whirlwind inspection tour had begun the day before. Yet another shipment of warheads had been delivered in his absence, and Major Jin was inside the massive vault overseeing the placement of the nuclear payloads.

As Oh waited for the major to complete his task, he took note of the rock wall encasing the vault and noticed still more debris had fallen to the ground. It wasn’t a large amount—barely enough to fill a wheelbarrow—but the displacement was enough to merit concern, a fact that brought the general a measure of relief.

Back at the missile launch site in Kijongdong, Oh had called ahead to Kaesong, requesting that a member of the KPA’s Corps of Engineers be dispatched immediately to Changchon. Since the walls here at the storage facility continued to show signs of crumbling, Oh figured his call for such prompt attention wouldn’t attract undue suspicion. It was important that Major Jin not question the presence of a COE official around the base, because the inspection would be only a pretext, masking the real reason for the visit. Yes, the inspector would be a trained structural engineer, but his COE credentials would be merely a cover, as his primary assignment would entail his expertise as an undercover agent for the Ministry of Internal Intelligence.

MII routinely used the Corps of Engineers as a front for investigating military personnel, as the infrastructure at the KPA’s various bases was almost always in need of some kind of repair or maintenance, allowing internal spies to carry out investigations in conjunction with their engineering tasks. Such would be the case here at Changchon. While the arriving COE official would take care to give due attention to the crumbling walls of the cavern facility, his greater concern would be initiating surveillance of Major Jin and the officials under his command.

Oh had his misgivings about summoning someone to spy on Jin, and he hoped that his long-time colleague would stand up to the scrutiny and be found innocent of anything but the sort of negligible, petty graft that was commonplace among the KPA military brass. Dabbling in the black market was something MII would likely turn a blind eye to, as long as it didn’t raise doubts as to an officer’s loyalty to the Kim regime and its ideals. With any luck, Jin’s reputation would remain intact and he would be allowed to go about his business without ever knowing that Oh had placed him under surveillance based on the rumors his nephew had heard at the launch facility in Kijongdong.

The general was kept waiting only a few minutes before Jin emerged from the vault and joined him.

“Ah, General,” the major said, greeting Oh with a disarming smile. “How was your little side trip to Kijongdong?”

“Like you said, they’re making good progress,” Oh responded. “The tunnels have merged, and the missile base is coming along ahead of schedule.”

“And how is your back after riding in that damnable little cart?” Jin queried. “Do you need any more ‘medication’?”

The general shook his head. “The pain is manageable.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Jin said.

The major’s cheerful concern unnerved Oh. Eager to change the conversation, he brought Jin’s attention to the heap of crumbled debris at the base of the cave wall. As nonchalantly as he could manage, he explained, “I went ahead and called in a structural engineer like we discussed. COE said they would send someone up from Kaesong. He is probably already on his way.”

“There was no real need for them to hurry,” Jin said with a shrug, glancing at the loose rock. “It’s not like the walls are going to start collapsing around us.”

“Maybe not,” Oh countered, “but given what we’re storing here, I thought it best to err on the side of caution.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Jin said. He let the matter pass and told Oh, “I was just on my way to lunch. Join me, why don’t you?”

“I’d like to,” Oh said, “but I’m due back in Kaesong. I really should be going.”

“What difference will an hour make?” Jin said. “Besides, don’t you want to be here when the structural engineer shows up?”

Oh eyed Jin suspiciously, but the major gave no indication that he was asking something more than a straightforward question. Oh would have preferred not to spend any more time than necessary with Jin until after the surveillance, but now he was wary that turning down the major’s invitation might raise a red flag. He decided his best course was to play along and respond as he normally would.

“I guess I am a little hungry,” he told Jin, “but my memory of the food here doesn’t exactly arouse my appetite.”

“We have a new chef,” Jin said. “Stick with the beef dishes and you can’t go wrong. Come, come…”

Oh saw that there was no way he could beg off any further, so he relented and followed Jin to the complex’s dining facility, a small enclosed area located between his office and the housing units. There was no one in the food line and Oh followed Jin’s cue, helping himself to some beef strips, rice and a medley of fresh, chopped vegetables. Once they’d taken their trays to a table near the entrance, a uniformed private brought over a pot of tea and two ceramic cups, then vanished into the kitchen.

As the men began to eat, Jin casually inquired about Oh’s family and some of their mutual friends and colleagues. The conversation left Oh increasingly unsettled and soon his paranoia resurfaced, making him wonder if the major was deliberately bringing up so many personal matters as a ploy to increase the guilt the general felt for having summoned someone to come spy on him. Oh answered Jin’s queries tersely while trying, whenever possible, to tactfully steer the conversation back to military matters.

They discussed the latest delivery of warheads as well as the logistics of transferring a portion of the nuclear arsenal to Kijongdong once the co-joined tunnels had been widened enough to accommodate the missile transporters, and when Jin jokingly compared the maneuver to the first time he’d deflowered a virgin, his mirth and laughter seemed so genuine that Oh’s paranoia vanished, replaced by more pangs of guilt. The general found himself wishing that his nephew had never brought up the rumors about Jin and, even more, he wished he hadn’t overreacted and made the call to bring in an agent from MII to investigate the major. It all seemed like a big mistake.

Finally, Oh made up his mind that he would try as best he could to warn Jin to be more discreet about his under-the-counter dealings. Once he’d made his point, he figured he could then tell the arriving MII agent that there’d been a false alarm and that Jin and his fellow officers had already been carefully checked out and found to be unfailing in their loyalty to Kim Jong-il. The agent could then tend to the issue of the crumbling walls and return to Kaesong without the need for subterfuge.

As the two men were close to finishing their tea, Oh eased into his plan. He casually reaffirmed his conviction that things were going well at Changchon and suggested to Major Jin that the developments mirrored an overall change in the country’s fortunes.

“It feels like we’ve reached a turning point,” he concluded. “I think our hardest times are behind us.”

“One would hope,” Jin said.

“We’ve all had to be a little resourceful to get through these past few years,” Oh confessed. “I don’t know about you, but there have been a few occasions when I’ve bent the rules to make things easier for myself. I’m not proud of it by any means, but I guess one does what once has to.”

Jin paused in midsip and glanced briefly at Oh, then slowly set down his tea cup. Finally he offered a shrug and responded cryptically, “Sometimes one has to create one’s own opportunities.”

“Yes,” Oh concurred. “Within limits, of course.”

“Of course.”

“One mustn’t be too brazen,” Oh went on. “There is a point when one might become a slave to his opportunities.”

Jin fell silent again and slowly stirred sugar into his tea. His neck had reddened, however, and soon he glanced up and stared hard at Oh.

“What have you heard?” he asked the general point-blank.

Oh did his best to look puzzled. “Heard?”

“Come, now,” Jin said. There was now a harsh edge to his voice. “If you’re going to make accusations, you can at least be specific.”

“I’m not accusing anyone,” Oh maintained. “I was just speaking in general terms.”

Jin wasn’t buying it. “Was it the workers in the tunnels? Your nephew? Who’s accusing me?”

“I just told you,” Oh countered defensively. “None of this was directed at you. If anything, I was pointing the finger at myself. I was just saying that once the country is back on its feet, I want to make an effort to steer clear of gray areas. I want to set a better example for those who serve under me.”

The color faded from Jin’s neck and he relaxed slightly. He sipped his tea again, then said, “I suppose there is room for improvement with all of us. We are, after all, only human.”

“Exactly,” Oh said. “And I apologize if my remarks were misconstrued.”

“No offense taken,” Jin said.

The officers were interrupted when the uniformed private returned to their table.

“You have a visitor, General,” he told Oh. “A Sergeant Dahn from Kaesong.”

“That was fast,” Jin interjected.

“He came by motorcycle,” the private explained. “He’s waiting at the main entrance.”

“I’ll be right there,” Oh said.

As the officers rose from their table, Oh told Jin, “There are a few things at the launch facility that I want to discuss with him. I’ll bring him in afterwards, and you can put him to work surveying the walls around the vault.”

“Very well,” Jin said. “I’ll most likely be in my office.”

Jin watched Oh head off toward the main entrance, then strode back to his office. Once inside, he closed the door behind him and locked it. Six weeks ago, when Jin had first joined ranks with Lieutenant Corporal Yulim in the plot to overthrow the government, he’d been concerned that overly curious subordinates might stumble upon the conspiracy and sound the alarm to the Ministry of Internal Intelligence and had consequently rigged his office with a pair of well-concealed Web Cams. His paranoia had proved unfounded, however, and after a few weeks of uneventful surveillance, he’d stopped monitoring what went on inside his office while he was away. He hadn’t bothered removing the cameras, however, and now he was glad for the oversight. Using the chair from behind his desk as a foot ladder, he quickly inspected the minicams, which had been concealed in the overhead light fixture as well as the smoke alarm posted over the doorjamb.

Convinced that neither camera had been disturbed or tampered with, Jin then went to his desk and hauled out his laptop. Once he’d uploaded the software necessary to activate the minicams’ microwave transmitters, he found himself staring at two separate views of his office, each of which clearly showed him poised in front of his desk.

“Perfect,” Jin whispered under his breath as he shut down the computer. It seemed that all the time and expense he’d put into rigging the cameras might finally pay off. Or, as he’d heard it said on more than one occasion among his fellow officers in the KPA, sometimes to catch a spy you had to be a spy yourself.

ONCE HE STEPPED outside of the storage facility, General Oh spotted Sergeant Dahn Yun-Bok standing fifty yards away along the Suzuki Intruder 1500 he’d ridden from Kaesong to Changchon. The motorcycle was equipped with a sidecar from which Dahn was removing an instrument kit. Oh suspected that, along with the expected array of engineering tools, the kit also contained bugging devices and other spy paraphernalia.

The general was heading toward the undercover agent when he was intercepted by the driver that had driven him to Changchon the day before. Apparently he’d discovered a problem with the jeep’s water pump when he was refueling the vehicle. It would take at least an hour for the jeep to be repaired.

“We’ll wait, then,” Oh told the driver, waving him off. “Excuse me, but I have an important matter to attend to.”

The general moved on toward the MII sergeant, who was a lean, wiry man in his early thirties with pronounced cheekbones and a slight list to his right eye. Oh had never met Dahn personally, but he knew of the man’s reputation as a no-nonsense official with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a common trait among those in MII who’d had an opportunity to ferret out the indiscretions and character flaws of those who ranked above them.

“It was good that you called,” Dahn told Oh after they’d exchanged introductions, “but it turns out that I would have been coming here to Changchon regardless.”

Oh was stunned. In an instant, it became clear to him that his plan to steer Dahn away from any investigatory work had just been foiled. Now, instead, he found himself wondering what development aside from his phone call might have prompted MII to place the Changchon facility under suspicion. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

“I’ll still be taking a look at Major Jin,” Dahn confided, “but we’re also interested in Lieutenant Corporal Yulim.”

“Yulim?”

Oh stared past Dahn and the parked motorcycle at the nearby rehabilitation center. His first thought was that MII was reacting to one too many reports of prisoners being gunned down in the opium fields, but it turned out to be another matter entirely that had targeted the camp commandant for investigation.

“It has to do with Operation Guillotine,” Dahn said gravely.

The sergeant’s response was so unexpected that Oh let out a gasp and paled with shock.

“The coup attempt?” he said. “I don’t understand. I thought that plan had been thwarted last month in the purge.”

“Not completely thwarted, it turns out,” Dahn told the general. “Yes, there was a purge, but it seems that the cancer had already spread beyond the ranks of those we dealt with.”

Oh still couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Less than five weeks ago, after months of investigation, MII had moved swiftly to disrupt Operation Guillotine, a plan within the upper echelons of the KPA to assassinate Kim Jong-il and overthrow the government. Eight high-ranking generals had been rounded up and hauled in front of a military court and subsequently executed along with nearly sixty other officials thought to be part of the conspiracy.

Oh had known some of the conspirators personally, and he himself had been briefly under suspicion, a case of guilt by association that might have proved his undoing had Kim not personally vouched for his loyalty. Once the executions had taken place, the matter had been quickly swept under the rug, and to Oh’s amazement, no one outside the country’s borders had so much as heard of the executions, much less the failed plot. It had remained as well kept a secret as the location of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, and Oh had assumed the matter was closed. This was the first he’d heard of any ongoing investigation, much less the possibility that plans for a coup might still be afoot. And the thought that his colleague might be implicated staggered him.

“You suspect both Jin and Yulim?” Oh asked once he managed to regain his composure.

“I’ve already told you more than I should have,” Dahn replied. “But I think you can draw your own conclusions.”

Oh still couldn’t believe it, and though he knew that defending Jin under such circumstances might yet again place himself under suspicion, he felt compelled to speak out on the major’s behalf.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if Major Jin was involved in some minor infractions,” he stated, “but part of a conspiracy of this magnitude? I just can’t see it.”

“In light of what we know and the fact that he has been privy to so much of our nuclear strategy, there is no way that we can not place him under surveillance,” Dahn said. “Especially considering this whole kidnapping business.”

“What kidnapping?”

Dahn looked hard at Oh. “Come now, General. Surely you know about it. A businessman from the south was seized along with his family two days ago in the Yellow Sea. They were brought here to Changchon.”

Oh was about to insist that Dahn was mistaken when he thought back to the day before and recalled the new prisoners he’d seen being dropped off near the opium fields. Now he understood why a handful of them seemed to have come from better circumstances than the others. In that same instant, he also felt a sudden surge of anger toward Yulim.

“That idiot!” he snapped. “Didn’t he stop to think that bringing them here might jeopardize the secrecy of this location?”

“It wasn’t entirely his decision,” Dahn said. “The southerners were sent here on orders from the same general who ordered their abduction. A general who, it so happens, is atop the list of those we feel are attempting to resurrect Operation Guillotine.”

“What general are we talking about?” Oh wanted to know. “What’s his name?”

“I can’t give you that information,” Dahn said. “But the fact that he arranged to send the abductees here to Changchon naturally makes us wonder about his relationship with Yulim.”

“But if they’re plotting a coup, why would they bother drawing attention to themselves with a kidnapping?” Oh wanted to know.

“I asked the same question when I heard the news,” Dahn confided. “But you have to consider that the reason we were able to break up the first group of conspirators was that, while shrewd, they weren’t particularly smart, especially in terms of covering their tracks. It might be the same case here. My guess is they saw the kidnapping as an unexpected opportunity and went ahead with it without considering the consequences.”

“An opportunity for what?” Oh wondered.

“The ransom is several million U.S. dollars,” Dahn said. “Revolutions need to be financed, like everything else. We know that Yulim had been short-shipping opium hauls to the north, so we expect he’s probably dealing some heroin on the side, but here is a chance for an even quicker cash infusion.”

Oh nodded absently. He was still reeling from Dahn’s earlier revelations. So many things were happening, and he’d been oblivious to them all. He felt foolish, and although he could see no evidence linking Major Jin to Yulim’s involvement in a conspiracy against Kim Jong-il, he’d now reached the point where it seemed that nothing would surprise him.

“What can I do to help?” he asked Dahn.

“I can take it from here,” the sergeant told him. “Besides, you’re due back in Kaesong, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Oh said, “but there is a problem with my jeep. I won’t be leaving for another hour at least.”

“I prefer to work alone,” Dahn said, “but if you’ve had any dealings with Yulim, I could use a pretext for visiting his quarters. Any suggestions?”

Oh thought a moment. At first nothing occurred to him, but then he recalled the unsavory interest the commandant had taken in the teenage girl that had been brought by truck to the opium fields the day before.

“I know that on occasion Yulim likes to indulge himself with some of the female prisoners,” he told Dahn. “I think he arranges for some of the officers here to do the same. That might be a way to go.”

“I might have guessed as much,” Dahn said, grinning ruefully. “You have no idea how often an officer’s weakness for women has proved his undoing.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Zane Island, Pacific Ocean

It took Mack Bolan, Ed Scanlon and Jayne Bahn slightly more than forty-five minutes to reach Phoenix’s Luke Air Force Base and secure passage aboard a Learjet C-21A originally chartered for a flight to Guam. The jet was nearly fifty percent faster than the converted Young-333 cargo plane carrying the two defectors and their REDI captors, however, allowing the pursuers to quickly make up for lost time: so much so, in fact, that the C-21A touched down on the runway at the USAF base on Zane Island nearly a full hour ahead of the Young-333’s estimated arrival time.

Zane Island was a five-mile swath of palm-infested flatland located eighty miles due west of Oahu. After failed incarnations as a pineapple plantation and a haven for off-shore bankers, Zane had been appropriated by the Air Force, which in 1993 had converted the west end of the island into an alternate refueling stop for military craft diverted from their usual cross-Pacific itineraries by inclement weather. When an upgraded air base had been built farther inland two years earlier, the Air Force had leased the original facility to a Japanese consortium that, in turn, sublet hangar space and airstrip access to a handful of international cargo outfits, including the Far East Trading Company.

“On the bright side, it’s unlikely that anyone from Far East works the control tower,” Major William Cook explained once Bolan and his colleagues had disembarked from the Learjet, “so it’s not like somebody’s going to be able to sound the alarm once we move in.”

Cook had been apprised of the situation well in advance of Bolan’s arrival, and he’d already assembled a small force to storm the cargo facility. A team of twelve special-op Rangers were huddled in the rear of a canvas-shelled supply truck parked just off the tarmac, and there were two Apache war choppers idling on the nearby runway, prepared to lend aerial assistance.

“We use one of the other carriers to help out on cargo shipments when we’re short-handed on planes,” Cook went on, laying strategy for the siege. “So we’ll be able to Trojan Horse our way to within a few hundred feet of the Far East hangar before we have to show our hand. After that, it’s just a matter of how much fight they have in them when our boys pile out like clowns in a circus car.”

Bolan glanced into the rear of the supply truck, then told Cook, “It looks a little cramped in there. We were hoping to be able to get in on the action.”

“Not a problem,” Cook told him. “I think we can throw one of our Hummers into the mix without raising any eyebrows. You guys can ride inside with me and we’ll convoy behind the truck.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jayne Bahn said.

Ed Scanlon, who was glancing over a schematic map showing the layout of the cargo facility, put in his two cents’ worth.

“I know you said the control tower isn’t run by Far East,” he told Cook, “but it’s located right behind their hangar, so we gotta make sure we get in there and commandeer it before they can gain access.”

Bolan interjected, “Once we’re close enough, we can peel away from the supply truck and pull up to the control tower in the Hummer.”

“That should do the trick,” Scanlon said.

“I’m wondering, though,” Bahn said. “Maybe the North Koreans aren’t in the loop as far as the control tower goes, but if the island’s as crucial to their smuggling operations as we think it is, you gotta figure they’ve got their own radio facilities somewhere. Probably in the freight hangar.”

“Good point,” Cook said. “And the thing is, nobody flagged these bastards for what they are until today, so we don’t have much intel on the inner workings over there.”

“If you can get me a secure line out of here,” Bolan suggested, “I know some people who might be able to help out on that end…”

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

ONCE THE ELECTRIC tram car delivered John Kissinger to the Annex at Stony Man Farm, he put his crutches to use and hobbled his way to the Computer Room. Aaron Kurtzman was the first to spot him.

“Hey, Cowboy!” the cyber commander called, glancing up from his station. “Got yourself a war wound, I see.”

“Something like that,” Kissinger replied, “but I take war over flying coach any day.”

Kissinger had caught the first available plane out of Laughlin shortly after helping Harmon Wallace track down the address of Shinn Kam-Song, and the flight had been an overbooked gambler’s special. The cabin had been cramped and he’d quickly lost track of the number of times his bad leg had been banged into. Sleep had been out of the question, so he’d had to endure more than five hours of sad luck stories from passengers who’d been cleaned out at the casinos. The incessant complaining had given him a headache that was just now beginning to let up.

“Striker sends his regards,” Kurtzman said. He quickly filled Kissinger in on Bolan’s failed attempts to intercept the REDI agents before they’d left the States, concluding, “Looks like he’ll have a chance to have the last laugh, though, once that cargo plane lands.”

“And we’re sure the plane’s gonna land where it’s supposed to?” Kissinger asked.

Kurtzman nodded. “We’ve had it on radar nearly from the get-go, and we’ve managed some radio intercepts that confirm they’re planning to refuel on schedule at Zane. I was just telling Striker they’ve got a separate radio link with Far East at their hangar facility there, and unless they’re speaking in code, neither the pilot nor the ground crew know that we’re sending a welcoming committee.”

“Sounds promising,” Kissinger said. “Is Jayne Bahn still tagging along?”

“Yep. And it sounds like she’s earned her keep.”

“Only if you don’t take off points for being obnoxious,” Kissinger said with a grin. “I tell you, if you thought we were bad when it came to slinging the trash talk, let me put you in a room alone with her sometime.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Kissinger said. He eased back in his wheelchair and gestured over his shoulder at Carmen Delahunt and Huntington Wethers, who were preoccupied at their work stations. “If you want, you’re more than welcome to roll up your sleeves and pitch in.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Kissinger said, stifling a yawn. “Is it all right if I use Akira’s station?”

“Help yourself,” Kurtzman said. “Looks like you could use a cup of my special coffee, too.”

“Go ahead, lay it on me.”

Kissinger exchanged quick greetings with Wethers and Delahunt, then settled in at Tokaido’s work console.

“What’s up with Akira?” he asked Delahunt. “Any update on that kidnapping situation with his cousin?”

“Not really,” Delahunt reported. “The money’s ready and the time’s been set for the exchange, so we’re down to watching the clock. Akira spent the morning checking out the drop site in Panmunjom, but by now he should be back at Camp Bonifas.”

“Sounds like things are falling into place.”

“Well, maybe as far as these defectors and the kidnapping goes, yeah,” Delahunt said, “but we still have this small matter of Kim Jong-il playing hide-and-seek with enough nukes to sprout mushroom clouds all the way from California to Wisconsin.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Changchon Mountain Range, North Korea

Major Jin Choon-Yei was in his office conferring by phone with the tunneling crew when Sergeant Dahn Yun-Bok appeared at the doorway, carrying his instrument kit. Jin waved Dahn into the room and quickly wrapped up his call.

“I have some preliminary findings,” Dahn reported once Jin was off the phone.

“That was quick,” Jin said, checking his watch. “You’ve been here barely an hour.”

“As I said, they are preliminary findings,” Dahn emphasized. “I still need to have some more sophisticated equipment brought in to verify everything, but it looks to me as if we might be able to get away with just building a reinforced collar around the area where the vault lies flush with the rock.”

“Sounds like a big project,” Jin said.

“Not really,” Dahn said. “We’d probably be able to do the work without disrupting any other activity.”

“That would be preferred, of course.”

Jin rose from his desk. Now seemed as good a time as ever to set the trap he’d planned for the MII undercover agent.

“I’d like to go over the specifics a little more,” he told Dahn, “but I have another matter to attend to. It should take only a few minutes, so if you’d like to just wait here…”

Dahn went for the bait.

“I’ll do that,” he said, opening the side pocket of his instrument kit and taking out a calculator as well as a small pad and pen. “I need to take a few notes and make some calculations anyway.”

“Make yourself comfortable, then,” Jin said. He pointed out the coffee machine in the corner of the room as well as a side table stocked with snacks. “And help yourself if you’re hungry.”

“Thank you.”

Jin excused himself, closing the door behind him as he left the office. He already had his keys out and he strode quickly past the room adjacent to his, then unlocked the door to a small conference room. Once inside, he made his way to a long oak credenza and unlocked one of the cabinet doors, pulling out the laptop he’d stashed there a half hour before. In less than thirty seconds he had the machine up and running and was staring at a split screen showing the view from the two minicams concealed in his office.

The major was startled at first, because there was no sign of Dahn on either screen. Jin began to wonder if the other man had left the office right after him, but moments later Dahn appeared, rising up into view from behind Jin’s desk.

“That would have been my first choice, too,” Jin murmured to himself. “That or the phone.”

As if in response to Jin’s ruminations, Dahn next picked up the phone and began tinkering with the handset. From Jin’s perspective it was difficult to see exactly what the undercover agent was doing, but when the sergeant went to his instrument kit and removed a small object the size of a button, there could be no doubt but that he was planting a second bug.

Jin had seen enough. He quickly shut down the computer and tucked it back in the credenza, then exited the conference room. He paused a moment outside his office and called across the chamber to one of his subordinates, raising his voice enough so that Dahn would have no trouble hearing him. It was enough that he’d caught the sergeant in the act of bugging his office; he didn’t want to force a confrontation here in the storage facility. Things would work out better, Jin figured, if they dealt with Dahn elsewhere.

As he’d hoped, by the time Jin had reentered his office, Dahn had moved away from the desk and was busying himself near the coffeemaker.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Jin apologized.

“Don’t worry,” Dahn assured him as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

Jin nonchalantly returned to his desk, making a point not to pay any undue attention to the bugged phone or the area beneath the desk where, he assumed, the MII agent had placed a second listening device.

“Now, about this collar around the vault,” he prompted. “Would that be a stopgap measure or something permanent?”

“It could be either,” Dahn responded. “Up front it will truss back any loose debris, and that might be all that is needed. But if the more detailed studies show a need to wall off the area like we did elsewhere here, most likely we’d just incorporate the collar into the reinforced wall, which would, of course, wind up being more than thick enough to bolster its holding capacity.”

Jin chuckled lightly. “I’m sure all of that might make sense to another engineer, but you’ve lost me with all the jargon.”

“The matter will be taken care of,” Dahn said. “That’s really all you need to know.”

“Of course,” Jin said. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Perhaps,” Dahn said. He lowered his voice and leaned forward slightly, then said, “I know this is a little off topic, but as I was riding here in my motorcycle I passed by the opium fields, and I couldn’t help noticing the number of women at work there. One or two of them seemed attractive, especially for prisoners.”

Jin smiled faintly. Dahn was playing right into his hand. It almost seemed too easy.

“There are some choice ones there, I have to agree,” he told Dahn. “And from what I hear, they can be most accommodating. With the right persuasion, of course.”

“Of course,” Dahn replied with a grin. “The thing is, I’d just returned from another assignment when I got the call to come here, and its been a while since I’ve had a chance to, well, I think you understand my plight.”

“All too well,” Jin said. “And it should be an easy enough matter for you to have your plight addressed.”

The major picked up the phone, again showing no sign that he was aware it had been tampered with, then told Dahn, “I’ll put in a word for you with the commandant. By the time you reach his bungalow, I’m sure he’ll be ready to take care of you.”

CHAPTER FORTY

Zane Island, Pacific Ocean

After a short, uneventful drive, the two-vehicle caravan carrying Mack Bolan, Jayne Bahn, Ed Scanlon and Major William Cook’s hastily assembled strike force reached the airfield leased out to the island’s cargo carriers. Cook was behind the wheel of the Hummer, with Bolan riding shotgun. Bahn and Scanlon shared the rear with two Rangers, while the rest of the special ops was concealed beneath the canvas shell of the second truck.

The watchman tending the front gate recognized Cook as soon as he stopped the Hummer and lowered his window. And, as predicted, the major had little trouble convincing him that he was making just another routine army drop-off.

“We’re running a little late, though,” he added, “so if we could just scoot on through…”

“Sure thing.”

Foregoing any inspection of the vehicles, the guard stepped back and opened the main gates, then waved Cook and the other driver through.

“What if he’d asked to check the vehicles?” Bolan asked as they drove onto the premises.

“Come off it,” Cook scoffed. “We own this place, remember? When the landlord asks a favor, what the hell’s a tenant supposed to do except go along with it?”

“Far East is a tenant,” Bolan reminded the major, “and I don’t know about you, but my guess is they aren’t going to be as easy of a pushover.”

“They’re an exception,” Cook replied with a grin.

As they made their way toward the hangar facilities used by the various cargo companies, Bolan stared out at the nearest runway, watching a C-5 cargo plane pick up speed and take to the air just as it was about to run out of tarmac. It continued to gain altitude as it flew out over the Pacific and banked slightly, righting its course for a flight to the States. Seconds later another cargo jet was already coming in for a landing, lining up with a second runway that angled slightly away from the one used by the C-5. Bolan knew that soon it would be the plane carrying the Project Kanggye Team defectors that was touching down on the island. If he and the others wanted to have a trap set by then, they were going to have to make their move quick.

Following a narrow spur road flanking the runways, the caravan was soon approaching the warehouse and hangar facilities for Global Express Cargo Lines. The Far East Trading Company complex was another hundred yards down the road, with the control tower rising up from behind the FETC’s main hangar.

“Here’s where it gets tricky,” Cook said.

Following customary procedure, a Global Express officer standing by the turnoff to the GEC complex waved to the approaching Hummer and then motioned for the vehicle to turn into the lot. Cook ignored the man, however, and drove past, as did the truck bringing up the rear. The GEC official shouted out and waved his arms frantically as he broke into a jog, trying to keep up with the errant caravan.

“Give it a rest, buddy,” Cook muttered, eyeing the official in his side-view mirror. “You don’t have to alert the whole goddamn island!”

But the other man continued chasing the two vehicles, shouting that they’d missed their turnoff. His cries forewarned some of the workers standing outside the FETC facilities, and when one of them grabbed for a walkie-talkie clipped to his waist, Bolan was instantly on his guard. While he’d yet to see anything more than a bare-bone security force, but as Cook had cautioned earlier, intel on the carrier was limited, and given the amount of black-market cargo now suspected of being trafficked through the site, it seemed a safe bet that the operation was being safeguarded by more than a handful of rent-a-cops.

“Let’s kick it into gear here!” he told Cook, slipping his Desert Eagle from his holster.

“I hear you.”

Cook gave the Hummer more gas and bore down on the FETC compound. A security guard frowned at the sight of the approaching vehicle and stood in front of the turnoff, then quickly dived to one side as the Hummer barreled past. The larger truck followed suit. It had been decided that the Hummer crew would take the hangar, so once they were on the FETC grounds, the truck veered sharply to the right and headed for the control tower.

As Bolan had feared, it quickly became clear that taking over the facility would be no cakewalk. Several more armed security guards had already appeared just outside the hangar, and the Hummer was still fifty yards shy of its objective when at least a dozen more men rushed outside, brandishing AK-107 assault rifles.

“Hang on, boys and girls!” Cook shouted, ducking behind the wheel as the first fusillade of enemy fire smashed through the front windshield.

Bolan had seen the rounds coming and was bent over in the front seat, one arm raised to deflect the shower of glass. In his other hand was his Desert Eagle, safety off, ready to fire. Once the first volley had done its damage, he peered up over the dashboard and fired through the shattered windshield, nailing one of the enemy gunmen. Behind him, Bahn, Scanlon and the two other soldiers were crouching in the rear of the Hummer, ready to make their move. Scanlon had his hand on the door latch.

“Just tell us when,” he called out.

“Wait until we stop,” the major shouted back at him.

The plan had been to drive up to the main entrance and then have everyone pile out, but in light of the stiff resistance they were facing, Cook decided to improvise. He yanked sharply on the steering wheel and veered left, heading toward one of the service bays where the hangar door was only a quarter of the way closed. Two FETC goons stood between the Hummer and the opening. One raised his AK-107 to fire, then changed his mind and somersaulted to his right, putting himself out of the ATV’s path.

The other soldier froze in place, clearly caught off guard. By the time he’d pulled the trigger on his rifle, the Hummer was upon him. With a sickly thud, he was knocked into the air, rifle flying as he bounded off the right front quarter panel and was sent crashing to the ground with a shattered pelvis.

The Hummer, barely jostled by the impact, continued to speed forward. Someone inside the hangar tried to lower the door, but it was too late. Wood and metal splintered as the Hummer crashed through the half-drawn barrier.

Only then did Major Cook apply the brakes, skidding the massive vehicle to a halt several yards shy of a small Cessna that had been undergoing service.

“All right!” Cook bellowed even before the Hummer had come to a complete stop. “Get to that radio of theirs, quick!”

Scanlon heaved open his door and led the charge out of the rear of the Hummer. Bolan, meanwhile, rolled out of the front seat, dodging a spray of gunfire coming from the doorway leading to a walled-off enclosure just inside the main entrance. He dived to the concrete and rolled twice, then came up firing. A 3-shot burst took out the man who’d been gunning for him, and Bolan quickly lunged forward, hoping to reach the radio room before someone else could take up position by the doorway.

Three other FETC goons joined in the fray, not by way of the radio room, but from behind rows of crates stacked near the far wall of the hangar. They managed to strafe the Hummer crew with a deadly spray of 5.56 mm NATO rounds from their AK-107s before they were spotted. The two Rangers caught the worst of it and died without ever knowing they’d been ambushed from behind.

Scanlon was hit in midstride, as well, taking a slug that nicked a rib and plowed through his internal organs before lodging close to his spine. Losing all feeling in his legs, the FBI agent went down hard and fast on the concrete.

“Son of a bitch!” he yelled as he tried to crawl to cover. “My legs!”

Bolan had been halfway to the radio room when the enemy had begun firing from behind the crates. He turned in time to see Scanlon go down and was about to backtrack to his aid when Bahn waved him off. She was only a few yards from the downed FBI agent, using the Hummer for cover as she fired back at the riflemen in the rear of the hangar.

“I got him!” she called. “Go ahead!”

Bolan hesitated long enough to take aim and drop one of the men near the crates, then dodged return fire and shifted back to his original course.

Another armed guard had appeared in front of the doorway to the radio room, but he took a split second too long sizing up the situation. Bolan was able to take him out the same way he had the man who was lying dead at the guard’s feet.

Six Rangers from the convoy truck had apparently split off from those storming the control tower and fought their way into the hangar. Four of them quickly fanned out and took up positions that allowed them to hold at bay the enemy gunmen still lurking behind the crates. Another raced to help Bahn drag Scanlon to safety behind the Hummer, while the sixth caught up with Bolan as he stormed the doorway leading to the FETC comm room.

Only two men remained inside the large cubicle, and at the sight of Bolan and the Army Ranger, they both quickly threw up their arms in surrender. Bolan rushed toward the man sitting at the radio controls and put his gun to the dispatcher’s head. “There’s an incoming flight due here from Phoenix within the hour!” he said. “When’s the last time you spoke with them?”

The dispatcher trembled as he stared at Bolan.

“No English!” he pleaded. “No speak English!”

“Don’t give me that!” Bolan fumed.

The Ranger moved in and quickly spoke to the dispatcher in Korean. One he got a response, he told Bolan, “He says their last communication was three minutes ago.”

The Ranger’s voice trailed off as a dispatch came through over the radio’s small speakers. Whoever was calling in was speaking in Korean.

“It’s them,” the Ranger told Bolan. “They say they’re running ahead of schedule and want clearance to land early.”

“We’re going to need more time. Stall them!”

The Ranger nodded, then yanked the dispatcher out of the chair and quickly took his place. “My Korean’s not going to win any awards, but I can tell them we’re backed up and try to put them in a holding pattern.”

“Do it,” Bolan said.

Once another Ranger entered the room, Bolan turned the prisoners over to him and rushed back out into the hangar. The riflemen firing from behind the crates had just been taken out and the large enclosure had fallen silent save for the clomp of Rangers searching the confines to make sure that the threat had been neutralized.

As Bolan made his way toward the Hummer, he saw Bahn crouched over Scanlon, who was lying on the concrete, blood pooling around him. She caught his gaze and shook her head grimly.

Bolan joined them. Scanlon was conscious, but he was fighting for each breath and spitting up blood when he tried to talk.

“Looks…like…” Scanlon gasped, struggling for the words.

Bolan put a finger to his lips and cautioned Scanlon, “Look, just lie still and be—”

“P-payback,” the agent stammered. “For that guy…the one I killed in Vegas…”

Scanlon sucked in a raspy breath, but before he could continue, the life went out of him. He died with his eyes open and his mouth askew. Bahn watched on as Bolan reached out and gently lowered the dead man’s eyelids, then eased his mouth shut. Sighing, she slowly rose to her feet and said, “Shit happens is right.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“They’ve secured the airfield,” Carmen Delahunt told Hal Brognola as he stopped by her workstation. “From the sounds of it, though, it wasn’t pretty.”

“Casualties?”

Delahunt nodded. “Mostly on their end, but we lost a couple Rangers along with the point man for that FBI team Mack was working with.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Brognola said.

“We’ve got people monitoring the control tower along with their radio facilities,” Delahunt reported. “They’ve been in touch with the cargo plane and put them in a holding pattern while they clean things up.”

Brognola rolled an unlit cigar between his thumb and index fingers as he sized up the situation. “Looks like wait and see, then.”

“At least for now,” the redhead said. “I’ll keep you posted if there are any changes.”

“Do that.”

Brognola was heading across the room when Kissinger called out to him from Tokaido’s workstation.

“I know this is a sidebar, Chief,” Cowboy said, “but a DEA team just shut down that harbor warehouse the Koreans were using in San Pedro. Between that and knocking off the Killboys in Koreatown, I think we’ve pretty much slammed the door on their West Coast smuggling operations.”

“At least for now,” Brognola said. “You can bet they’ll work some other angle first chance they get.”

“You’re probably right,” Kissinger said.

The two men were interrupted when Kurtzman let out a sudden whoop.

“Whoa, Daddy!”

Kissinger eyed Brognola and smirked. “He either finally drank one too many cups of coffee or he’s found something.”

“Well, with Bear there’s no such thing as too much coffee.”

The two men made their way over to Kurtzman’s station.

“You found something?” Brognola asked.

“More like a hat trick,” Kurtzman said. “Check this out.”

Brognola and Kissinger glanced over the man’s shoulder at the computer screen, which was filled with a sat-cam image of a heavily forested mountain area.

“This is the north flank of the Changchon Mountain Range,” Kurtzman said. “It’s about ten miles north of the DMZ.”

“Okay, I know the area,” Brognola said. “Looks pretty benign to me.”

“From a distance, yeah,” Kurtzman conceded. “According to all our intel, the only thing going there is an old mining site, and word was they’d pretty much played out all the veins inside the mountain. But let’s move in for a closer look.”

Kurtzman cursored the zoom command and once the screen had adjusted, Brognola and Kissinger found themselves staring at the one-time mining center. It was clear at once to both men that the site had been converted to another purpose.

“Barracks,” Brognola noted. “Barbed-wire perimeter fences.”

“Concentration camp?” Kissinger said.

“I think they call them something else, but yeah, that’d be my guess,” Kurtzman said. “There’s another angle shot that shows a few dozen people working a field about a quarter mile north of here. Poppies, from the look of it.”

“Lets have a look,” Brognola said.

“Nah, just take my word for it,” Kurtzman said. “I want to get to the good stuff.”

“There’s more?” Kissinger said.

Kurtzman nodded. “See that service road that leads right up to the mountain? It’s dirt, so I was able to get a good read on the tire tracks leading there.”

He entered a few commands, splitting his computer screen so that it depicted two similar side-by-side images. “The left set of tracks are from the sat-cam,” he explained. “They’re deep enough that you can see they’re made by a multiaxle vehicle with four tires to an axle. I ran with a hunch and did a cross-check on the missile transporters they’d most likely be using. Bingo!”

Kissinger whistled low. “And by missile launchers, I presume we’re talking nukes.”

“You’re darn tootin’!” Kurtzman said. “We might want to get NSA to redirect a couple satellites over the area for some infrareds, but even now I’d bet my paycheck we’ve just found the needle in the haystack.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

“This can’t be happening!” Lieutenant Corporal Yulim stormed out in frustration.

It was bad enough the commandant had just learned that the Ministry of Internal Intelligence was apparently looking into his and Major Jin’s involvement with Operation Guillotine. Now this?

“A prison revolt!” he exclaimed.

He glared at Ahn Chung-Hee, the camp cook, who’d just come to him with the revelation. In his frustration, Yulim grabbed for the first thing in reach, a crystal ashtray lying on top of his desk in the den of his bungalow quarters at the concentration camp. When Yulim cocked his arm, the cook flinched, fearing that he was about to pay the price for being the bringer of bad news. But when Yulim let fly with the ashtray, it was his high-tech television set that took the hit. The soft plasma screen didn’t shatter when struck; instead, there was dull splat, followed by a brief sputtering inside the set, after which it gave off a small wisp of smoke.

His fury spent, at least for the moment, Yulim turned away from the ruined set and went to the wet bar. As he poured himself a drink, he stared back at the cook.

“Give me the details,” he said. “All of them!”

“I don’t have any specifics,” Ahn explained. “At least not in terms of how they plan to carry it out. I only know that it’s supposed to happen tomorrow morning. I was supposed to put something in the food given to the security detail. Enough to knock them out, or at least make them drowsy.”

Yulim frowned.

“You’re in on it?”

“I only pretended to be,” the cook insisted. “I played along, hoping I could get more details before I came to you.”

“And how long has this been going on?” Yulim demanded. “How long have they been plotting this?”

“Again, I don’t have that information,” the cook said. “They came to me earlier in the week. I stalled, pretending that I wanted more money than what they were offering, hoping that somewhere along the line they would trip up and give me more details. But beyond drugging the guards, they’ve kept the plans to themselves.”

Yulim quickly downed his drink, then said, “Who’s behind it all? No, wait. Let me guess. Prync Gil-Su? Is he the one?”

Ahn nodded. “I would say he’s the mastermind. At least, he’s the one I’ve been dealing with. I can’t say for sure who else is involved, but I’ve seen him hanging around with Vae Jae-Bong and a few others during rations.”

“Why tomorrow?” Yulim asked. “Why have they decided to try this tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” the cook said. “Prync came to me this morning and said they’d come up with a way to meet my price, or at least most of it. I was concerned that if I tried to stall any longer, they would take me out of the loop and try another way. So I agreed, and that’s when they said they want to do it tomorrow.”

“How did they propose to pay you?” Yulim demanded. “None of them has any money on them, and most of them were stripped of all their possession before they were sent here.” Before the intern could respond, a possibility occurred to the commandant and he quickly added, “Have they been siphoning opium from the fields?”

“Not that I know of,” Ahn said. “They claim to have some kind of currency on them, and said they’d be good for more once they were free.”

“In their dreams,” Yulim scoffed.

“I didn’t really believe them, but, as I said, I kept bartering in hopes I’d get more information,” the cook said. “As for them finally meeting my price, it has to do with one of the new prisoners. The businessman from the south.”

Yulim’s face flushed red with rage.

“Lim?”

“I think that’s his name. He promised to put up the money I asked for once he was back across the DMZ.”

Yulim glanced past the intern at the door to his bedroom. He’d had Lim’s daughter, Na-Li, brought to the bungalow after morning rations, figuring to repeat the ravishing he’d enjoyed with her the day before. He’d been interrupted before he could indulge himself, however, first by the call from Major Jin regarding the undercover agent from MII, then by this unexpected bombshell from Ahn. Now, in light of everything that was happening, the last thing on Yulim’s mind was sexual gratification. If anything, he was of a mind to haul Lim’s daughter to the mines and have her killed in front of her father as a way of punishing his treachery. But even that would have to wait. The MII agent was on his way over and Yulim could deal with only one crisis at a time.

Still, he couldn’t help but mutter out loud, “If Lim thinks he’ll ever see the other side of the DMZ after this, he’s very much mistaken.”

LIM NA-LI FELT nauseous as she sat at the foot of Yulim’s bed. Lying on the bed beside her was a set of red silk thong underwear with a matching bra and camisole. Yulim had told her to change into the garments, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. That had been more than an hour ago and she’d yet to touch the lingerie. The thought putting it on and being forced to parade around for the commandant’s amusement repulsed her almost as much as the thought of what he would do to her after he’d finished his ogling. She wept quietly, trying her best to take solace in the fact that the abuse would not go on beyond today. Just keep thinking about tomorrow, she told herself. Then she would be back across the border and this nightmare would be behind her. She would kiss the ground once she was back on South Korean soil, she promised herself, and never again would she take her freedom for granted.

Na-Li was beginning to wonder what was keeping Yulim when the bedroom door opened. The commandant stood in the doorway and stared at her.

“You didn’t change as I asked you,” he said.

Na-Li glanced at the lingerie, then looked back at Yulim, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I just—”

“No matter,” Yulim interjected. “It’s just as well, because there’s been a change in plans. The guards will take you back and you can spend the rest of the day in the fields with your mother.”

Na-Li was stunned. “I can go?”

“Yes,” Yulim told her. “Now. Come along, I have business to attend to.”

Na-Li stood, her knees trembling. She feared that Yulim was toying with her and that as soon as she came within his reach he would grab her. But he stood back and waved to her impatiently.

“Don’t try my patience!” he snapped.

The young woman nodded and walked past Yulim into the main room of the bungalow. Ahn had already left. In his place, a guard was waiting for her. Yulim instructed the man to take Na-Li to the poppy fields, then turned back to the woman and told her, “I’ll want to see you again later. I have a special surprise in store for you.”

Na-Li looked at the commandant but said nothing. She turned and followed the guard out of the bungalow. There was another man standing at the bottom of the steps, clearly waiting for an audience with Yulim. The man leered at the woman and pursed his lips.

“You’re the one I would have chosen,” Sergeant Dahn Yun-Bok told her.

Na-Li lowered her eyes, avoiding the undercover agent’s gaze as she walked past him. She didn’t know what business the man had with Yulim, but she was grateful that it didn’t concern her. Of course, there was still the chance that, as Yulim had suggested, she might be brought back, in which case she knew she might still find herself placed at the mercy of the man who was now taunting her.

Fresh tears welled in Na-Li’s eyes, but she forced them back. As the guard escorted her down the walkway leading back to the prison yard, she tried to clear her mind of everything but the idea that soon she and her family would be free. It was a futile exercise, however, because as soon as she reached the prison yard, she was distracted by the sight of Ji Rha-Tyr. Her boyfriend had stopped his hammering at the rock pile and was watching her. Rha-Tyr was expressionless at first, but when the man working beside him pointed out Na-Li and said something, several prisoners began snickering among themselves and suddenly the teenager snapped. He flung aside his sledgehammer and charged the man who’d prompted the sniggering, fists flying. One of the blows connected and sent the other man reeling to the ground. Rha-Tyr dived on top of him and continued to pummel away.

“Take it back!” he shouted.

Na-Li cringed as she watched the other prisoners rush over to pull her boyfriend off the other man. She knew that some obscene remark about her visit to the bungalow had likely caused the outburst, and when several guards strode toward the rock pile with their rifles raised, Na-Li froze with horror, afraid that Rha-Tyr’s attempts to defend her honor was going to cost him his life.

Thankfully, however, the guards were intent only on restoring order. They told the other prisoners to get back to work, then led Rha-Tyr toward another area of the yard, where he was handled a shovel and ordered to start unloading ore from a cart that had just been hauled down from the mountains. The teenager angrily scooped his first shovelful and pitched it to the ground, then stole a quick glance at Na-Li, offering her a quick wink and grin.

Na-Li smiled back, tears streaming down her cheeks. The guard beside her prodded her gently and told her to move on. Wearily, she turned away from her boyfriend and strode past the barracks to the work area where mechanics were just finishing the repairs on the jeep that would take General Oh back to Kaesong. The general was standing next to the vehicle, staring across the prison yard at Yulim’s bungalow, where Dahn was still awaiting his audience with the commandant.

“I need to take this woman to the fields,” the guard told Oh’s driver. “Can you give us a ride?”

The driver glanced at Oh, who nodded absently. Once the mechanic closed the hood and stepped back from the jeep, the others climbed aboard. Oh sat up front next to the driver while Na-Li and the guard crammed their way into the back. As the driver was starting the engine, Oh took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to Na-Li. The young woman was startled by the gesture, but before she could respond, Oh had turned from her and was fumbling with his cell phone.

The jeep began to pull away from the camp. Na-Li dabbed the tears from her eyes, taking consolation that soon at least she would be working alongside her mother. She would tell her that she hadn’t been molested, but there seemed no point in worrying her with Yulim’s remark about having a surprise in store for her. Hopefully, whatever business that had diverted the commandant’s attention would continue to take up his time and she would be left alone for the duration of their captivity.

One more day, she kept telling herself. One more day and this will be over….

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Zane Island, Pacific Ocean

The aircraft carrying Shinn Kam-Song and Li-Roo Kohb had been retrofitted with a ten-seat passenger cabin located between the cockpit and the plane’s massive cargo hold. The two scientists were seated in the rear of the cabin along with Shinn’s wife. The woman was sound asleep, her head resting on her husband’s shoulder. Shinn himself had managed to doze off briefly, only to be awakened by a suddenly jostling within the cabin. He stirred slightly, then closed his eyes again, but when the plane suddenly began to lose altitude, he snapped to with a start.

“Don’t worry,” Li-Roo Kohb whispered to him. Gesturing toward the guards seated two rows ahead of them, he continued, “I heard them say we’re getting ready to land. We probably just ran into some turbulence.”

One of the guards whirled in his seat.

“No talking!” he warned.

“Leave us alone!” Li-Roo retorted angrily, taking the guard by surprise. “You have us where you want us, so quit your bullying!”

The guard rose from his seat, brandishing his carbine.

Li-Roo taunted him. “Go ahead, shoot us! Then try to explain to your superiors why you failed to bring us back alive!”

Shinn, who was every bit as fed up as Li-Roo, joined in the taunting, mimicking the guard’s nasally voice. “‘They were talking, sir! So I shot them!’”

The guard’s face reddened and he cursed the defectors, but before he could do anything rash, Hong Sung-nam bolted from his seat at the front of the cabin and grabbed the man’s rifle.

“Enough!”

The guard sullenly dropped back into his seat as Hong eyed his prisoners.

Shinn’s wife, who’d been awakened by the altercation, turned to her husband and asked, “What’s happened now?”

“I was just telling our hosts that if they want our cooperation they’re going to have to start treating us with a little more respect,” Li-Roo explained, his eyes on Hong.

“We haven’t gagged you,” Hong countered. “We untied you and let you sit together. What more do you want?”

“Perhaps a little more privacy,” Li-Roo replied calmly. “Perhaps being allowed to have a little conversation without being beaten or having guns rammed in our faces.”

“Yes, is that asking too much?” Shinn added bitterly. “Or are you really afraid two old men and a woman are going to be able to hatch a plot to get the upper hand on you?”

Hong stared silently at the defectors for a moment. Much as he liked the idea of rewarding the prisoners’ insolence by having them tossed out of the plane without parachutes, he knew as well as they did that it was in his best interests to bring them back to North Korea alive.

“Fine,” he finally conceded. “Talk all you want. Any more taunting, however, and we’ll just tranquilize the three of you for the rest of the trip.”

“Fair enough,” Li-Roo said.

Hong turned his back on the prisoners and cautioned the guards to exercise more restraint, then returned to the front row of the cabin, just as Bryn Ban-Ho was emerging from the cockpit, where he’d been conferring with crew personnel on the ground at Zane Island.

“They’ve finally cleared us for landing,” he told Hong. “We’ll refuel, then continue on to Kaesong.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Hong said. “The sooner we turn these prisoners over, the better.”

Once he’d told Bryn about the latest confrontation with Shinn and Li-Roo, Bryn smirked cynically.

“The one thing I don’t understand,” he said, “is why KPA is so eager to have these people returned alive in the first place. Do they really think there’s a way they’ll be able to get them to cooperate? And if they’ve betrayed us once, who’s to say they won’t turn around and do it again?”

Hong shrugged. “That’s not our concern. If we bring them back alive, there will be promotions and commendations. That’s all I’m interested in. If it turns out afterward that they were returned in vain, the fault will lie with the poor idiots who take them off our hands. Let them worry about it.”

Bryn nodded and peered out one of the windows. Staring, he saw the vast, gleaming waters of the Pacific Ocean as well as the palm-shrouded terrain of Zane Island. They were close enough now that he could also make out the airfield where they would be landing. Just a quick stop, he figured, and they’d be in the home stretch.

THE HOPE FOR THOSE who’d overtaken the FETC facility had been that the REDI agents would deplane with their prisoners while the cargo plane was being refueled, but as the aircraft was coming in for a landing, the pilot reported that all passengers would remain aboard.

“We’re in a hurry to move out,” he added, “so have that cargo were supposed to pick up ready to load.”

Once he fielded the message, the Army officer who’d replaced the FETC dispatcher at the radio controls turned to Major Cook. “Do you want me to try to lure them out?”

Cook, in turn, glanced over at Bolan, who was standing nearby with Jayne Bahn.

“It might make them suspicious,” Bolan said. “I wouldn’t chance it.”

“He’s right,” Bahn said.

“That makes it unanimous,” Cook said. “We’re going to have to go in after them.”

The trio left the radio room and entered the main hangar. The bodies of those slain in the brief skirmish had been dragged into one corner and covered with blankets. The surrounding grounds had been hosed down to remove the blood that had been spilled. Part of the Army crew had been dispatched to the control tower and other hangars to insure that it would appear that it was business as usual at the airfield. The remaining soldiers were assembled in the FETC hangar, ready to carry out whichever of three possible battle plans Cook might decide to employ.

“All right, everyone! Hop to it!” the major announced once he was sure he had their attention. “They’re staying inside the bird, so were gonna have to go with Plan B.”

WITHIN A MINUTE after the plane had landed, a refueling truck was out on the tarmac along with a mechanics van, followed by a cargo tram hauling two enclosed carts. The refueling and mechanical crews were made up of the U.S. Army officers who’d best been able to fit into available FETC uniforms. The remaining officers remained poised just inside the nearby hangar, ready to provide backup. Cook had taken the wheel of the cargo tram, and both Mack Bolan and Jayne Bahn were concealed inside the first of the tram’s freight cars, crouched behind the same crates that had provided cover for the snipers who’d slain FBI Agent Ed Scanlon. Bolan’s Desert Eagle was tucked inside his web holster. For this mission, like Bahn, he’d opted for a sound suppressed 9 mm Colt pistol.

“No need to rush,” Bolan whispered as the tram rolled to a stop near the rear of the cargo plane. “The longer we hold off, the better our chances of getting in without tipping off the others.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bahn returned. “I know the drill.”

Several seconds passed, then the Young-333’s rear tailgate slowly groaned open. The gate doubled as a loading ramp and was more than sturdy enough to support the tram. When one of the plane’s crewmen appeared at the top of the incline, Cook called up to him, saying he was going to bring the cargo directly into the hold. It was standard unloading procedure and the man responded with a nod before moving to one side. Cook powered the tram slowly up the incline. Once he had a view of the cavernous hold, he looked around and was relieved to see no other crew members. This was going to be easier than he thought.

Once the tram cleared the ramp, Cook turned slightly and put on the brakes. He was stepping out of the tram, figuring he could easily overpower the crewman on his own, when the door leading from the cargo hold to the passenger cabin suddenly swung open. One of the REDI goons that had been guarding the defectors strode into view. He had his carbine with him but was preoccupied with fishing through his shirt pocket for his cigarettes.

Shit, Cook thought to himself. So much for a cakewalk. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder. From behind the crates inside the tram, Bolan nodded and pointed to himself, then gestured for Cook to go ahead and take care of the other crewman, who was in the process of untethering a freight dolly strapped to the wall of the cargo hold.

Cook nodded a greeting to the REDI goon, then moved to the wall and leaned over to unfasten the binds securing a second dolly. He used only one hand, leaving the other free to slip a combat knife from inside his right boot. Out of the corner of his eye, he kept an eye on both the crewman and the REDI agent.

Two seconds later the REDI agent was about to light his cigarette when Bolan fired a silenced round into the man’s chest. The guard groaned and dropped his cigarette as his legs gave out beneath him. He was reeling forward when Cook suddenly whirled away from the dollies and lunged into the crewman next to him. He reached out, clamping one hand over the man’s mouth, stifling the cry he was about to make. With his other hand he thrust the blade of his combat knife deep into the man’s chest, killing him.

By the time Cook had lowered his victim to the floor of the cargo hold, Bolan and Bahn had slipped out of the tram. Together, the three of them sidestepped the slain REDI guard and approached the doorway leading to the passenger cabin. Leading the way, Bolan said firmly, “Lets finish this.”

HONG SUNG-NAM SMOKED a cigarette and stared through the window portal of the passenger cabin at the refueling crew and maintenance workers milling around the plane. There seemed to be more men than necessary for the task, but he didn’t dwell on the matter. His mind was elsewhere. He was already planning how best to capitalize on the success of his mission. He knew that in the wake of the purges following the Operation Guillotine affair there were ample opportunities for upward mobility within the ranks. In particular, there were openings within a coveted upper echelon of REDI, which was comprised of solo agents, and given Hong’s distaste with what seemed to be an ever-deteriorating caliber of subordinates, he felt it would be worth lobbying for the right to work alone. And though he’d never been keen on the idea of an office position, if the right offer presented itself, he might even consider leaving the field. After all, he wasn’t getting any younger. One couldn’t do this kind of work forever.

Hong was brought out of his reverie when the pilot emerged from the cockpit and asked Bryn Ban-Ho to move away from the cabin door so that he could open it.

“Why?” Hong’s colleague asked the pilot. “I thought we were staying put.”

“We are,” the pilot said, “but they’re bringing our meal provisions. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

As the pilot opened the door, Hong put out his cigarette and joined Bryn in staring out at the mobile staircase that was being wheeled into position in front of the open doorway. Two men wearing bright-colored safety vests were standing on the staircase landing, flanking either side of a metal tray stacked with foam containers. Something about the whole arrangement struck Hong as odd, and coming on the heels of seeing the overstaffed ground crew, he felt a sudden apprehension.

“Why does it take two men to push a food cart?” he wondered out loud. Before Bryn or the pilot could respond, a slight wind picked up out on the runway and Hong saw one of the caterers’ vests flap open in the breeze, revealing a shoulder holster.

“It’s a trap!” Hong shouted, reaching for his gun.

Bryn was instantly on his guard, as well, and just as one of the Army officers masquerading as a caterer prepared to fling a stun grenade, the REDI operative grabbed hold of the startled pilot and shoved him out through the opening. The mobile staircase was within a few feet of the plane, and the pilot, arms flailing, deflected the grenade before crashing headlong into the second caterer and inadvertently knocking over the serving cart. Both men toppled down the stairs in a tangled heap. The grenade, meanwhile, detonated on the tarmac, disorienting a handful of the ground troops. The soldier remaining on the staircase grabbed for his gun, but before he could pull it from his holster, Hong put a slug through his heart, then hastily swung the cabin door closed.

Amid all the commotion, Li-Roo Kohb ducked low in his passenger seat and shouted for Shinn Kam-Song and his wife to do the same. The three captives cowered as their guard rushed past them, hoping to escape through the rear door leading to the cargo hold. Before he could open the door, however, it suddenly burst inward and he found himself being tackled to the floor by Mack Bolan.

Once Bolan had brought the man down, he finished him off with a point-blank burst from his Colt, then rolled off the body and took cover behind the second row of passenger seats. Bahn had charged into the fray right behind him, and when she saw Hong and Bryn both aiming at her from the front of the cabin, she fired a quick shot and dived to her left, grimacing as one of Hong’s rounds pounded into her shoulder. “Just my luck,” she groaned.

Major Cross fell back and remained in the cargo hold for a moment, using the door frame for cover. He waited out a volley of gunshots from the two REDI agents, then crouched low and came through the doorway returning fire. He caught Bryn with a head shot but missed Hong.

Hong, suddenly the lone survivor, dived to the floor. He knew his position was hopeless, but he had no intention of surrendering. All that was left for him was the vague consolation that before dying he might at least thwart the enemy’s rescue of the hostages. Face to the floorboards, he peered beneath the seats, hoping to empty his magazine into the three captives hiding in the rear of the plane.

It wasn’t to be, however.

Lying on the floor between Hong and his intended target was Mack Bolan, and the Executioner had already beaten his enemy counterpart to the draw.

“Checkmate,” Bolan whispered as he pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

Before he met with the undercover agent from the Ministry of Intelligence, there was one matter Yulim wanted to attend to. He still had the phone number Lim Seung-Whan had used to make the initial ransom call following their meeting the night before. Using a scrambler-equipped cell phone, the commandant sat behind the desk in his bungalow and dialed the number. As he waited for an answer, he stared at the guards, who were in the process of dismantling the television he’d ruined earlier. He told them, “Once you’re finished, I need a word with you.”

When Lim’s executive secretary finally picked up the phone at the captive businessman’s Seoul headquarters, Yulim brusquely told the woman there had been a change in plans to have Lim released the following morning. He claimed Lim was now suspected of spying and would be detained further while he underwent more thorough interrogation. Yulim refused to answer the questions prompted by his announcement and hung up without offering a revised timetable for Lim’s release. In truth, he still wasn’t sure how he was going to play out the hand. It would have to wait.

The commandant called the guards over and told them how they were to deal with Sergeant Dahn. Once he felt sure they understood the instructions, he told them to go ahead and bring the man in. As he waited, Yulim lit a cigarette and forced himself to calm down. It’s under control, he assured himself. Everything is under control.

As Dahn was led into the bungalow, Yulim circled his desk and greeted the MII agent cordially. He apologized for having kept the man waiting, then said, “Major Jin tells me you’re looking for a little recreation.”

Dahn nodded, then gestured over his shoulder. “Yes, and I think I just had a look at the woman I’d like to ‘recreate’ with.”

Yulim chuckled, “She’s a nice one, all right. I think we can arrange something.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

“First, however,” Yulim said, “we need to clarify a few things.”

Yulim stubbed out his cigarette in the same ashtray he’d earlier hurled at the television screen. It was the signal the guards were waiting for. One of them suddenly stepped forward and aimed his carbine at Dahn’s face. The sergeant was clearly caught off guard, and he was equally unprepared to prevent the other guard from stripping him of his instrument kit.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he protested, staring past the carbine at Yulim.

“Put your hands in the air,” Yulim ordered.

When Dahn was hesitant to comply, the guard with the instrument kit pulled his service revolver and pressed the barrel to the base of the sergeant’s skull.

“I’ll say it one last time,” Yulim said. “Put your hands in the air.”

Dahn warily complied. When the second guard turned the instrument kit over to Yulim, the MII agent protested, “Those are just engineering tools.”

Yulim laughed contemptuously. “Of course they are. And you’re just an engineer, is that it?”

“I’m with the Corps of Engineers,” Dahn said. “I was sent here to inspect—”

“Save your breath!” Yulim interjected as he began to inspect the instrument kit. “We know who you are and we know the real reason for your visit.”

Yulim was checking the kit’s side compartments when the front door to the bungalow opened. Major Jin entered and nodded at Yulim, then grinned at Dahn as he held out the bugging devices the MII agent had planted in his office.

“I believe these are yours, Sergeant.”

“And look here,” Yulim added, removing another pair of similar devices from the instrument kit. “He had a couple of them for me, too.”

Dahn paled. He wasn’t sure how his cover had been blown, but he knew that he’d just been turned from hunter into prey. He knew, too, that there was no longer any point in trying to lie his way out of the situation. He’d been caught red-handed, and now his only option was to try to cut some kind of deal to save himself from the fate he assumed the other two men had in store for him.

“All right,” he confessed. “I also work for the Ministry of Intelligence.”

“Tell us something we don’t already know,” Yulim said.

“In exchange for what?” Dahn said, trying his best to sound calm.

Major Jin pulled a chair over and then grabbed Dahn from behind, yanking him hard. The sergeant reeled backward and landed hard in the chair. Jin grabbed his right arm and twisted it behind the chair until Dahn let out a pained cry.

“What makes you think you’re in any position to negotiate?” he demanded.

“I can tell you what we know,” Dahn offered. “I could turn double-agent for you.”

Jin released Dahn’s arm and exchanged a glance with Yulim. The commandant, in turn, took the carbine from the guard and told him to leave the bungalow along with his colleague. He waited until both men were gone, then, keeping the rifle trained on Dahn, he said, “One step at a time. First give us a reason to think you’re valuable enough to keep alive. Then we can take it from there.”

Dahn inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly, then began to divulge what he knew of the Ministry of Internal Intelligence’s efforts to deal with a suspected revival of Operation Guillotine. He touched on the same information he’d discussed with General Oh earlier but provided more details. He named names, including that of the general who’d absconded with Lim Seung-Whan’s yacht after the kidnapping in the Yellow Sea. Yulim and Jin listened intently as Dahn laid it all out, and though they tried to conceal their emotions, the sergeant could tell they were unnerved by the extent of the information MII had managed to gather on their supposedly clandestine plot.

“And we’ve put together an estimate on your strategy should you pull off the coup,” Dahn concluded.

“Go on,” Yulim prompted.

“First I want to know if we’re going to make some kind of a deal,” Dahn said.

“We still hold all the cards here,” Yulim reminded the sergeant. Then he repeated, “Go on.”

“You’re going to follow the Khadafi model,” Dahn speculated. “Once you take over, you’ll wave the olive branch and say that North Korea’s days as a rogue nation are over. You’ll tell the West that you want us to end our isolation and join the world community. You’ll say you’ll wash your hands of any nuclear or biochemical activity in exchange for certain concessions. You’ll say you’ll turn over all your missiles, too, but my guess is the count won’t be accurate.”

“Meaning what?” Jin asked.

Dahn responded, “I think the existence of the missiles and warheads kept here will be kept secret because of the price they can earn on the black market. We know that you and a few others in the conspiracy have been regularly dealing with parties in the Middle East. I’d say that will go on regardless of how peace-loving you try to sell yourselves to the West. And even if the U.S. and its allies are suspicious, you probably figure they’ll be willing to look the other way as long as it looks like you’re making good on your overtures.”

The room fell silent for a moment as Jin and Yulim weighed the implications of Dahn’s disclosure. It was clear to both men that Operation Guillotine was every bit as doomed to failure as its first incarnation earlier the year. And, like it or not, killing Dahn wasn’t going to change matters. The only matter to be determined was how tightly the noose had been drawn around their own necks.

“How firmly have we been implicated with the plot?” Yulim finally asked.

Dahn hesitated. MII had already made up its mind that Yulim and Jin were involved in the conspiracy, and his bugging assignment had been merely a formality, a way of providing irrefutable proof for the court-martial that would precede their execution. But Dahn figured his best chance of survival was to put a different spin on matters.

“You’re both under suspicion,” Dahn said. “But if, say, I were to return to Kaesong saying that you’d checked out clean, it might wash with them.”

Yulim seized on Dahn’s proposal and ran with it. “The strongest evidence linking me to the conspiracy is the fact that the kidnapping victims were brought here for detainment,” he said. “The appearance must be that I was in collusion with General Chine and helped with the kidnapping to raise money for the coup. I need a way to throw off suspicion.”

Dahn thought it over and responded, “It’s simple. Just forego the ransom.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Yulim found himself grinning. Unwittingly, he’d already set into motion the best means of saving himself.

“I already postponed exchanging the prisoners for the ransom,” he told Dahn. “I said it was because we suspected Lim might be a spy. But what if it were to come out that the real reason was that I suspected General Chine’s motives for the kidnapping? I could make it look as if I wound up helping you make your case against him.”

“One problem with that,” Major Jin interjected. “You’ve already told me that you yourself negotiated the ransom terms with Lim. He’ll refute your story.”

“Not if he’s dead,” Yulim countered. “Give me a few moments and I’ll figure out a pretext for killing him and his family so they can’t talk.”

“Lim is not the only one who needs to be silenced,” Dahn said. “I spoke with General Oh when I first arrived, and unfortunately I briefed him too much on what I was up to. Now he’s in a position to shoot holes through whatever story I might try to tell my superiors.”

Yulim glanced at Major Jin. “Is Oh still here?”

Jin shook his head. “He was just leaving as I was on the way over. He’s already on his way back to Kaesong.”

“I could probably overtake him on my motorcycle,” Dahn offered.

Jin eyed Dahn skeptically. “Nice try, but I don’t think we can trust you that much yet.” The major extended his hand, palm up. “Why don’t you just give me the keys?”

The sergeant surrendered the keys and was about to further plead his case when Jin suddenly grabbed a whiskey bottle resting atop the commandant’s wet bar and turned on Dahn, swinging it like a club. The undercover agent tried to duck, but his reflexes were too slow and the bottle caught him squarely across the bridge of the nose. He reeled backward, falling over the corner of Yulim’s desk. Unconscious, he landed on the floor with a loud thump.

Yulim looked down at Dahn’s limp form, then glanced up at Major Jin. “Was that really necessary?”

“I owed a little something for trying to bug my office,” Jin countered. “Besides, with a black eye and a broken nose, he’ll have more credibility when we put him to use helping to clear up this mess we’ve gotten caught up in.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Camp Bonifas, South Korea

Since his return from the Joint Security Area, Akira Tokaido had resumed his original assignment of helping the Army’s CRCC radio crew try to descramble the military frequency used by the KPA. He welcomed the challenge, not only because it called upon his expertise, but also because it demanded his full attention and kept him from watching the clock and chafing his nerves counting down the time left before his kidnapped cousin’s family would be released.

And now, after several painstaking hours the intensified efforts had finally paid off.

Thanks largely to Tokaido’s incessant tweaking of the directional controls operating the bases satellite dish receptors, a communiqué being sent out from the North Korean capital of Pyongyang had just been intercepted, and Tokaido was as stunned as everyone else by the contents of the message.

“A coup?” he said. “All this time we thought they had their hands full playing shell games with their nuke arsenal and it turns out they’re in the middle of trying to put down a coup?”

“Sure looks that way,” responded the officer working next to him. “From the sound of it, though, I think the whole coup thing more preemptive than prescriptive. They’re trying to nip it in the bud.”

“Yeah, I got that,” Tokaido said, scanning the translation of the intercept. “And you had to figure there’s been some amount of rumbling in the ranks. But still, the idea that somebody on the inside is gunning for Kim Jong-il puts a whole new light on things.”

“Amen,” the other man replied. “And if they start fighting over who gets to put their finger on the button for those nukes, look out.”

The remark gave Tokaido an idea. “Maybe we ought to run with that.”

“What do you mean?” the other man asked.

“We could try ghosting a response on this same frequency,” Tokaido explained. “Word it the right way and maybe we can get them to confirm whether they’ve got their nukes stashed in Changchon. It’d beat waiting for NSA to redirect their sat-cams back over the mountains.”

“Not a bad idea,” the other man said. “Let’s give it a shot.”

Tokaido rose from his chair and stretched, then started across the room. Before he could collar the radio team’s North Korean translator, however, he was distracted by a loud curse coming from Colonel Thomas Michaels, who’d been on the phone much of the time since returning with Tokaido from Panmunjom.

“Those freaking bastards!” Michaels yanked off his headset phone and pounded his fist on the table he was working at.

“What happened?” Tokaido asked, veering over to Michaels’ station.

“You don’t want to know.”

Tokaido instantly felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. “My cousin?”

Michaels nodded gravely. “They just called off the exchange.”

“What?” Tokaido said.

“They’re saying now they think he might be a spy.”

“What a crock! What makes them say that?”

“Beats me,” the colonel said. “And they cut off without setting up another time for doing the switch.”

“Were we able to trace the call?” Tokaido asked.

“It was scrambled, but we know it was a cell phone,” Michaels responded. “Same relay tower as the first call, but that’s all we’ve got to go on, and they’ve got at least a dozen different military installations within range of it.”

“Wait a minute,” Tokaido said. “That tower’s atop Changchon Peak, right?”

“Yeah. So what?”

“Then it should be able to act as a server connect for callers on both sides of the mountain range,” Tokaido theorized. “The ones we were looking at before were all on the south flank, facing the DMZ. At the time we didn’t know about this mining camp my people stumbled on.”

As he sorted through the haphazard heap of papers on his desk, Michaels said, “What, you think they’re holding your cousin in the same place where they’re hiding their nukes?”

“It’d make sense, don’t you think?” Tokaido said. “I mean, it’s secure, it’s out of the way—”

“And it’s within range of that relay tower,” Michaels interjected, glancing at the topo map he’d managed to track down amid his papers. “Maybe you’re on to something here, after all. The question is, what do we do about it?”

“Simple,” Tokaido said. “You’re already planning to deploy an ops squad across the DMZ, right? Instead of dropping them on the coast, just do a deeper insertion.”

“Well, going deep’s a little bit trickier.”

“I know that,” Tokaido said. “But it can be done, right? I say we quick playing guessing games and try to get to bottom of things. Let’s hit this base and find out what the hell’s going on.”

Michaels stared silently at the topo map for a moment, making the calculations in his head. Then he looked up at Tokaido and said, “Okay, buddy, we’ll go with your gut on this one. I’ll have that ops force ready to ship out at nightfall. I know it’ll mean waiting, but the darker it is when we come in, the better our chances.”

“Great,” Tokaido said. “One more thing, though.”

“What’s that?”

Tokaido caught the colonel’s gaze and held it firm. “I’m going along.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Changchon Mountain Range, North Korea

General Oh Chol was filled with misgivings as he headed back to Kaesong. His inspection tour of the Changchon facility had started out well enough, but any sense of optimism and well-being had been eroded during the last hour of his stay, and it was a toss-up as to which encounter had unnerved him most: his clash with Major Jin, the revelations of Sergeant Dahn, or the abject sniveling of the teenaged girl who had ridden with him in the jeep as far as the poppy fields. Whatever the case, his mood had darkened, and as the jeep he was riding in made its way along the same dirt road that had brought him to Changchon the day before, his back once again began to act up on him. I’m getting too old for this, he thought to himself, wincing as the jeep’s suspension was challenged by yet another deep rut left by the multiaxled missile transporters that had taken the same roadway en route to the mountain storage facility. Yet another transporter was scheduled for delivery later that night, but Oh wondered if plans had changed in light of the stepped-up investigation into Jin’s and Yulim’s possible link to Operation Guillotine.

“What a mess,” Oh murmured.

“What’s that, sir?” the driver asked.

“Nothing,” Oh said. “Keep driving. And try to steer clear of those ruts.”

“Yes, sir.”

Oh withdrew his cell phone. He’d tried calling his nephew before leaving the rehabilitation site, but Park Yo-Wi had been busy. The general wanted to apologize for the way he’d dismissed Park’s suspicions about Jin then lectured him on the need to allow for minor discretions on the part of senior officers. As if Jin’s apparent part in a conspiracy against the government was anything minor!

The general was dialing Park’s number when, above the drone of the jeep’s engine, he heard the droning of another motor. Puzzled, he glanced over his shoulder. They’d just rounded a bend in the road, so at first he couldn’t see anything, but as the jeep reached a straightaway, Oh finally spotted a man on a motorcycle headed their way. The driver saw the biker, as well, in the rearview mirror.

“I think it’s the engineer who just rode up from Kaesong,” the driver said.

“I think you’re right,” Oh said. “Pull over and let him catch up.”

The driver eased off on the accelerator and waited until he came on a spot where there was enough of a shoulder for him to pull over. Oh, meanwhile, was about to hang up his cell phone when his nephew got on the line. It was hard for the general to hear him, however, over the loudening whine of the approaching motorcycle.

“Yo-Wi, it’s your uncle,” Oh said, raising his voice and pressing the cell phone closer to his ear. “I want a word with you but I’ll have to call you right back. I’m in the middle of…”

Oh’s voice trailed off as the motorcycle came to a stop alongside the jeep and he suddenly found himself staring down the bore of a Ruger .22 pistol. The biker’s helmet visor was tinted, so Oh had no way of knowing it was one of Jin’s subordinates, a low-ranking private named Euikon Gryg-Il, who was about to pull the trigger on him.

As soon as Oh’s driver realized what was happening, he tried to shift the jeep back into gear. Before he could do so, however, the biker turned the Ruger on him and pulled the trigger. Oh tossed his cell phone aside and began to scramble out of the jeep, but Euikon casually shifted his aim back and fired twice more, putting one slug through the general’s shoulder and the other through his skull. Oh slumped limply halfway out of the vehicle.

The killer dropped the kickstand on the motorcycle, then left the engine idling as he strode over to the jeep to make sure both Oh and his driver were dead. As he was doing so, he heard the faint voice of Park Yo-Wi on the fallen cell phone. The private reached into the jeep and grabbed the cell phone, disconnecting the call. Before returning to the motorcycle, he slipped the cell phone into his pocket. Once back at Changchon, he would turn the phone in to Major Jin so that he could check the number Oh had called and have it cross-referenced to determine who the general had been talking to when he’d been shot. Euikon suspected that once the caller was identified, he would have to be tracked down and taken care of, as well.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Zane Island, Pacific Ocean

“I’ll see you in a few hours, then,” Mack Bolan said, wrapping up his long-distance call to Akira Tokaido.

“We’ll be ready and chomping at the bit,” Tokaido responded over the secure line Bolan had commandeered after his return to the Army’s air base on Zane Island.

Bolan ended up the call. When he emerged from Major Cook’s office, the officer was waiting for him in the adjacent squad room.

“We’re all set,” Bolan told him.

As the men left the squad room and headed for the airfield, Bolan quickly briefed Cook on the gist of his three-way conference call with Tokaido and his contact in the States. He explained that once he’d learned of plans to fly a special ops force into North Korea to seek out Lim Seung-Whan and the other waylaid kidnap victims, he’d suggested that the Bonifas crew needn’t take on the risks of attempting a deep insertion in a U.S. plane that could be picked up by KPA radar. Instead, they could stay put and wait to be picked up by the ops crew Bolan and Cook were assembling here on the island. After all, the Zane crew planned to stick with the original itinerary plotted for the FETC Young-333, using the North Koreans’ own cargo plane to infiltrate their air space. The only challenge would be deviating from their assigned flight path as they began their descent for Kaesong so that the commandos could be air-dropped closer to the Changchon enclave. Of course, once the drop was made, the plane would promptly double back to Incheon, hopefully before the KPA began to realize that their long-sought defectors weren’t being brought back home, after all.

“Speaking of the defectors…” Cook said once Bolan had finished briefing him. They’d reached the airfield and both men saw Li-Roo Kohb, Shinn Kam-Song and Shinn’s wife, Mi-Kas, waiting to board a Cessna Citation X that would soon take them to Hawaii. There, Bolan suspected the trio would have to endure yet another debriefing as well as a tongue-lashing for having violated the terms of their defection, but eventually they would be back on the mainland and in a position to get their lives back in order. No matter how rough it might be for them to yet again readjust to new identities, Bolan hoped they would realize how much better off they were than if the REDI agents had managed to haul them back to their homeland.

When Shinn Kam-Song spotted Bolan and Cook, he motioned to his wife and Li-Roo Kohb, and soon the three of them were shuttling across the tarmac toward their liberators. Once they reached the Americans, Shinn said, “We were hoping to see you. We owe you our lives.”

“Just doing our jobs,” Bolan told them.

“How can we thank you?” Shinn wanted to know.

“Play it safer this time,” Cook responded. “Remember, this isn’t North Korea. Here, the people checking up on you are doing it for your own good. Understood?”

Bolan and Cook exchanged a few more words with the defectors as they led them back to the Cessna, then the Executioner excused himself and veered over toward another plane that had landed on the runway earlier. It was a C-130 Hercules on a supply run from Oahu. The unloading process had already begun, and along with the usual shipment of equipment and food rations, the plane’s cargo included nearly two dozen wooden caskets intended for the victims of the firefight that had taken place earlier on the other side of the island. Jayne Bahn stood near the rear of the plane, her right arm in a sling, watching the caskets being placed on a tram for the short trip to the nearby hangar where the bodies had been transferred. She didn’t notice Bolan until he’d reached her side. When she turned to him, Bolan could see that she was in a somber mood.

“If that bullet had hit me another inch to the right, one of those caskets would be for me,” she reflected.

“Perspective,” Bolan said. “An hour ago you were complaining because you couldn’t finish out the mission.”

“That still sucks but, yeah, at least when I fly back I’ll be riding first-class instead of lying horizontal.”

“Not a bad consolation prize,” Bolan said. “And if that gang-banger back in L.A. fingers Hong as the guy who killed Starr, you’ll have done what you set out to do.”

“Yeah, maybe so,” Bahn said. “Hell, I might even get some of that bonus I was talking about.”

“Don’t spend it all in one place.”

Bahn forced a smile. “So, when do you head out?”

“Soon,” Bolan said.

“Good luck to you.”

“Thanks. I have a feeling I’ll be needing it.”

“You’ll be fine.” Patting her sling, Bahn added, “I’ll be up and running in no time myself. How long do you figure it’ll be before we crash into each other again?”

“I’ll let the Fates take care of that.”

Bahn stared into Bolan’s eyes, then leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. When she pulled away, she told him, “You never talk about your love life, but I assume there’s someone out there burning the home fires.”

“Something like that.”

She smiled again, then glanced to her right. The defectors were signaling to her from alongside the Cessna.

“Well, there’s my ride.” She punched Bolan lightly on the shoulder. “Go knock ’em dead, soldier.”

“Will do,” Bolan said.

He turned and watched Bahn stride across the tarmac. He knew the odds were he’d never see her again. But then, he’d thought the same thing twice before, only to find their paths cross again.

“Who knows,” he murmured to himself. “Time will tell….”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

As the guards dragged him through the twilight from Yulim’s bungalow to the prison yard, Sergeant Dahn had little trouble playing the part of a disgruntled malcontent. His skull still throbbed from where Major Jin had struck him with the whiskey bottle, and he had to breathe through his mouth because his sinuses were clogged from the swelling of his broken nose. And instead of one black eye, Dahn had two. Except for his uniform—bloodied from his nose—he looked like a boxer who’d wound up on the wrong side of one too many prize fights.

Dahn’s mood matched his sorry appearance. Once he’d come to the floor of Yulim’s den, Jin and the commandant had dragged him to the phone and presented him with a scripted preliminary report informing MII that suspicion of complicity in Operation Guillotine had shifted to several of Jin’s subordinates, including the private who’d been dispatched to kill General Oh. Dahn had had a gun to his head when he’d called in the report, with Jin vowing to pull the trigger if Dahn strayed from the script and tried to slip in anything that sounded like a possible code phrase that would inform MII that he was making the report under duress. He’d been told to blame a head cold instead of a broken nose for the obvious change in his voice.

Having no other real option, Dahn had played along, but the fear he’d initially felt after having his cover blown had now been replaced by a simmering rage. It was bad enough that he’d been forced to play double agent to save himself. The smug condescension with which Jin and Yulim had treated him had fueled his contempt for his tormentors. Yes, he would do their bidding as long as necessary, but if it was the last thing he ever did, Dahn was determined to see the day when he could turn the tables on the two conspirators.

It was in this glowering frame of mind that Dahn soon found himself hauled into the men’s barracks at the concentration camp. When the guards shoved him to the floor for extra effect, it was all he could do not to bolt to his feet and attack them. As it was, he cursed them with a flurry of epithets that went a long way toward convincing most of the other prisoners that his anger was genuine. The guards shrugged off the verbal onslaught and strode out of the barracks.

Dahn was struggling to his feet when one of the men reached out and lent him a hand.

“You seem to have fallen out of favor,” Prync Gil-Su told the undercover agent as he helped him to his feet.

Dahn immediately recognized the deposed captain from the description Yulim had given him. He gave no indication that he knew the man, however. Instead he glared past him at the bungalow doorway, shouting a few more choice curses at the guards, who had already left the building.

Prync introduced himself, and once Dahn had done the same, the organizer of the would-be prison revolt looked the sergeant over and asked, “What did you do to prompt such a beating?”

“You tell me,” Dahn responded bitterly. Concealed beneath one of the buttons of his uniform shirt was one of the bugging devices he’d intended to use on Jin and Yulim. Now it was Yulim who was eavesdropping on him from the sanctuary of his bungalow, so Dahn stuck to the cover story he’d been told to give in the hope of earning Prync’s confidence.

“I came here today on a routine field tour for the Ministry of Agriculture,” he lied. “I was supposed to make an evaluation of how to better improve the poppy cultivation, but after checking the soil I said the land could be put to better use growing potatoes or some other produce. I was just making a statement, but apparently they thought I was questioning the regime’s priorities, because the next thing I knew, I was being used as a human punching bag. And now, who knows, a misunderstanding on their part and I’m not only disgraced, but my life as I know it is over. Where’s the justice in that?”

Prync had nodded understandingly throughout Dahn’s explanation, and once the sergeant had finished, he assured the MII agent, “Trust me, I have walked in similar shoes myself, and I’m here for a reason much like yours.”

Prync was playing directly into Dahn’s hands, but the sergeant was wary of winning him over too easily. He knew from experience that it was better to play devil’s advocate a little, to prevent suspicion from raising its head further into an undercover operation. So instead of seizing the offer of camaraderie, Dahn pretended to resist it.

“I find that hard to believe,” he said skeptically.

“It’s true,” Prync insisted. He went on to explain his own falling out with the KPA based on the chance remark he’d made alluding to one of the nation’s famine spells. “And, as with you,” he concluded, “once these thugs had made up their mind I was being treasonous, there was no convincing them otherwise. I’ve been here ever since.”

Dahn pretended that Prync’s story had given him something to reflect on.

“One has to wonder,” he said, “if someone is in the right, they’re normally not so quick to read false meanings into everything said about them.”

“It’s paranoia,” Prync explained. “And usually it’s a sign that someone secretly knows they’re in the wrong but can’t face up to it.”

“Perhaps, but a lot of good it does us to know we’ve been wronged,” Dahn muttered cynically. He glanced past Prync at the other prisoners, including Lim Seung-Whan and his family. Noting their abject, emaciated state, he added, “Give me a choice, and I think I would prefer to be a little less righteous and a little more free…”

“Patience,” Prync advised. “As it turns out, your plight might not be as dire as you think.”

Dahn shook his head. “I know how these camps work,” he said. “You come here on a one-way ticket. There’s no way out.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Prync said cryptically. “We’ll see.”

In that instant, Dahn figured he was in. With any luck, he could continue to play Prync like a fish on a hook, feeding out line and then reeling him in until he had all the information Yulim was looking for regarding the intended prison revolt. And if the ringleader were to become reticent, Dahn had another two bugging devices with him. All he would have to do is plant them near where Prync and his co-conspirators would gather to make their last-minute arrangements. Either way, he would have done what Yulim had asked, and hopefully Dahn would have bought the time necessary to untangle himself from the web he’d found himself caught in. Echoing Prync’s sentiments, he told himself, We’ll see….

“I HOPE I DID the right thing bringing it back,” Private Euikon Gryg-Il said as he stood in front of Major Jin’s desk inside the mountain facilities next to the concentration camp.

“You really didn’t have much choice,” the major responded. “But yes, you were right to bring it back.”

Jin had returned from Lieutenant Corporal Yulim’s bungalow only a few moments before Euikon had shown up to confirm that Oh Chol had been intercepted and killed, along with his driver, well before they could reach Kaesong. Jin was concerned by the news that the general’s cell phone had been on at the time of the execution, as his first thought was that Oh had been talking with MII officials back in Kaesong. But when he thumbed through the phone’s controls and accessed the call log, he breathed a sigh of relief. Oh had made only the one call after leaving Changchon, and Jin recognized the number as that of the general’s nephew, Park Yo-Wi. In terms of damage control, this was by far the easier fix.

“Is there anything else?” Euikon queried.

Jin glanced up from the cell phone. He hadn’t yet gotten around to planting evidence in the private’s locker that would link him to Operation Guillotine, thereby substantiating the preliminary findings he and Yulim had forced Sergeant Dahn to report to MII earlier. If Euikon’s gun could be later linked to the deaths of Park as well as his uncle, his supposed complicity in the coup attempt would seem all the more irrefutable. Of course, at some point the private would have to be killed, too, so that he wouldn’t be able to defend himself against the frame-up. But that could be attended to later, once he’d disposed of Oh’s nephew.

“Yes, there is one more matter,” Jin told the junior officer. “And I’m entrusting this to you only because you’ve proved yourself reliable. Not to mention worthy of promotion if you succeed.”

“Thank you, sir,” Euikon said, standing even more firmly at attention. “I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.”

“Good,” Jin said. “And you were right about our needing to take care of the person General Oh was talking to. You’re the man to see to it. All you have to do is get back on that motorcycle and take a quick ride to Kijongdong.”

Kijongdong, North Korea

THE SUN WAS SETTING on Propaganda Village. The tall, empty buildings cast long shadows on dusty streets that were every bit as empty, except for the construction vehicles surrounding the large mall where Park Yo-Wi was overseeing the installation of North Korea’s top-secret missile launch facility. Park stood outside the monolithic facade, visibly shivering, not so much from the dropping temperatures or the breeze that faintly stirred the large flag adorning the pole located a hundred yards to the south, but rather out of fear and apprehension. Nearly two hours had passed since his phone conversation with General Oh had been abruptly interrupted, and with each minute that passed without his hearing back from his uncle, the more Park was certain that it had been gunshots that he’d heard on the line. The implications were almost too horrifying to contemplate, but now, as darkness began to drift across the wide valley surrounding Kijongdong, Park couldn’t help but assume the worst.

He’s dead, Park thought to himself grimly.

And if his uncle had been murdered, Park couldn’t help feeling that he was responsible. What other explanation could there be but that Oh had acted on his nephew’s suspicions about Major Jin and paid the price?

Park had brought his cell phone outside with him, and for perhaps the twentieth time in the past hour, he pressed the redial button, hoping against hope that his uncle would answer. Instead, once again he was haunted by Oh’s voice message, a straightforward, no-nonsense recording in which the caller was instructed to leave his name and number and the time he called. Park’s throat tightened as he listened to the message, but he hung up before the tone.

Park was interrupted by one of his workers, who’d just strode over from the supply area.

“We’re running low on rivets,” the man said. “Are we expecting another shipment soon?”

“The day after tomorrow,” Park replied absently, his voice hoarse.

“Is there any way we can get them sooner?” the man asked.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Park said. “For now, go ahead and finish up for the night.”

As the worker headed back to the supply area, Park stared down at his cell phone and began to tremble anew. Although he was in charge of construction, all nonbudgeted financial transactions, including those related to unscheduled supply shipments, need to be routed through Major Jin. And the last thing Park wanted to do was to call the man he felt was behind whatever had happened to his uncle. What would he say? We need to move up the rivet shipment, and, by the way, I want to know why you had my uncle killed. No, he couldn’t make that call.

When yet another worker came over with a innocent question about anchor bolts for the new roof, Park exploded.

“Just read the plans!” he said irritably. “It’s all written down!”

The other man apologized and quickly backed away. Park turned his back to the man and strode the other way, lengthening his stride until he was almost running to put as much distance as possible between himself and another interruption. He’d circled halfway around the looming edifice before he slowed his pace. By then the sun was down and a thick cloud cover had blacked out the moon, leaving the empty city looking even more desolate.

A few yards later he came upon the rear entrance. A guard stood nearby, leaning against the side of a parked jeep, more preoccupied with cleaning his fingernails than standing watch. At the sight of Park, the man pushed away from the vehicle and grabbed for his carbine.

“Sorry, sir,” he said. “I just—”

Park waved the man off and passed through the doorway into the facility. He strode past the unfinished launch tower and made his way quickly to the mobile home serving has his office and living quarters. His pulse raced as he snapped on the lights and went to the large drafting table that took up most of the dining nook. He fumbled with his keys and unlocked a drawer directly beneath the table, then took out a small, dogeared address book. His hands were shaking so much that he nearly dropped the book as he flipped through the pages, finally tracking down the number of Myn Bong-Chul, a colleague he hadn’t spoken to since his work on one of Kim Jong-il’s country retreats more than fourteen months ago. Park wasn’t even sure if the man still worked for the Ministry of Internal Intelligence, but he didn’t know where else to turn.

Myn was surprised to hear from Park, and, once he’d confirmed that he was still with MII, he was equally taken aback when Park told him why he’d called.

“Slow down, Yo-Wi,” the agent told Park. “Did I hear you correctly? Oh Chol is your uncle?”

“Yes!” Park exclaimed. “And I think he’s been murdered by some of the people I work for.”

There was a moment of silence on the other line, then Myn told Park, “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Park trusted Myn and told him everything, not just about the aborted phone call, but also about his earlier conversation with Oh in which they’d discussed Major Jin. Once he’d spelled it all out, Myn was briefly silent again. When he finally replied, the tone in his voice was every bit as urgent as Park’s.

“Listen to me, very carefully,” Myn said. Without mentioning Operation Guillotine or divulging any more details than necessary, the agent told Park that MII was already investigating Major Jin as well as other officials at the Changchon facilities. He said that just today an undercover agent had been sent to Changchon to gather more information.

“We’ve received a preliminary report from him that has raised more questions than it answers,” he concluded. “There’s something very wrong going on there and, from the sounds of it, your uncle got caught up in the middle of it.”

“I knew it!” Park said, pounding his fist on the desk. “I should have—”

“Wait!” Myn interrupted. “I haven’t finished. Yo-Wi, you need to understand something. From what you’ve told me, I have reason to believe that you could be in danger. I’ll do what I can to help get to the bottom of all this, but it will take time, I’m afraid. Until then, you need to watch your back. Is that clear?”

Park sagged into his drafting chair. “What am I supposed to do?” he said.

“Are you in a safe place?”

“I’m in my office inside the launch facility,” Park replied. “I don’t know where else I could go.”

“Do you have a gun with you?”

Park felt ill. “No.”

Park could hear the other man sigh before he went on. “Just stay put, then. Turn your lights off and pretend you’re asleep. I’ll do what I can.”

Myn gave Park other instructions—to lock his door, leave his cell phone on, to find something to arm himself with—but the contractor barely heard what the other man was saying. By the time he finished the call and hung up, his head was spinning and he felt a wave of nausea pass over him. He doubled over and waited for the sensation to pass, then slowly sat back up. There on the drafting table in front of him were preliminary sketches he’d been working on for a home he’d hoped to build for himself one day. It was a modest structure, with studio space as well as extra bedrooms. A family home, one he’d envisioned settling into a few years from now, after he’d found the right woman and gotten married. When he’d worked on the sketches late the previous night, he’d been humming to himself, filled with optimism about his future. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, he found himself plunged into a nightmare.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

“Well, it’s a good news-bad news thing,” Aaron Kurtzman told Hal Brognola and Barbara Price once he started pulling in feeds from the NSA sam-cams that had been redeployed over the Changchon Mountain Range. “These clouds that have rolled in will help with the insertions, but they’re putting a crimp on the eyes in the sky.”

“I can see that,” Price said, glancing over Kurtzman’s shoulder at the image on his computer screen. All she could see through the clouds were a few snippets of mountainside.

“I should have some infrared readings in a while at least,” Kurtzman explained. “Hopefully that’ll give us some idea of how the place checks out in terms of nukes.”

“Are you sure?” Brognola interjected. “If they’re just storing the missiles there, their payloads will be sealed up enough to avoid detection, right?”

“Good point,” Kurtzman conceded. “If we’re lucky, though, they might have some sort of testing facility that would give off a reading.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Price said. “Outside of Mack finally neutralizing that REDI crew, our luck on this front has been running a bit on the cold side.”

“Still, keep working on it,” Brognola said. “Maybe our luck will start turning.”

Brognola and Price left Kurtzman and moved on to Akira Tokaido’s station, where Kissinger was still hard at work helping the cyber crew monitor the North Korean crisis. The redeployment of satellites was only part of the strategy the U.S. had resorted to over the past few hours. Along with the plan to insert special ops teams across the DMZ, the U.S. Navy had rerouted two aircraft carriers toward the Korean Peninsula, and, Kissinger reported that the Air Force was readying a minisquadron of F-111F fighter jets for use if matters escalated to the point where it might be deemed necessary to attack the suspected mountain base with GBU-28 bunker busters.

“Of course, if it comes to that, we’re talking all-out war,” Kissinger said, “so you gotta figure that’s a last resort.”

Brognola nodded. “I’ve already talked with the President. If need be, he’s ready to call an emergency session of Congress so he can get a green light to take action.”

“That could take a while, don’t you think?” Kissinger said. “What if the KPA sees what we’re up to and kicks things into high gear before we can cut through the red tape?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” Brognola said. “We’ll do what we have to and worry about protocol afterward.”

Carmen Delahunt was working within earshot of the conversation and interjected, “On the bright side, we might not have to go it alone.”

Brognola turned to the redhead. “You managed to get through to Hilldecker?”

“Indirectly,” Delahunt replied. “I’ve been online with this Corporal Michaels guy Akira was working with. He’s keeping tabs with Hilldecker, and she says she’s working the allies for some assistance. Japan and South Korea are already on board, and word is that China’s been more receptive ever since hearing about this possible coup. They might throw in if we sweeten the pot enough.”

Brognola shook his head. “That’s not likely to happen. We’re just looking to diffuse things, not take the place over and start divvying out slices.”

“I don’t know if they’ll thinking in terms of a land grab,” Delahunt said. “I think they’re just tired of refugees spilling over the border. If things calm down enough that people quit fleeing the country, that might be good enough for them.”

“That and some kind of softening on our trade stance with them,” Price guessed.

“Hey, whatever works,” Kissinger said. “Hell, if it’ll mean yanking nukes out of their backyard, even Russia’ll probably kick in before this is all over.”

A wan smile creased Brognola’s face. “Who’d’ve thought we’d ever be having a conversation where both Russia and China come off sounding like allies?”

“War’s the same as politics,” Kissinger said. “Makes for strange bedfellows sometimes.”

Brognola’s gaze strayed from the computer area to the far wall monitors. One of the screens was filled with a map focused solely on the Korean Peninsula around the 38th Parallel. Barring any flight disruptions, the cargo plane carrying Mack Bolan and the Army Ranger crew from Zane Island would soon be landing at Camp Bonifas to pick up Akira Tokaido and the ops force Colonel Michaels had put together. The fate of their hastily plotted mission across the DMZ would likely determine whether the world would be able to step back from the brink of a showdown with nuclear consequences not seen since the Cuban missile crisis nearly a half century ago.

“The ball’s in your court, Mack,” Brognola whispered ominously. “We’re counting on you.”

Camp Bonifas, Joint Security Area, South Korea

MACK BOLAN STOOD in the open doorway as Corporal Thomas Michaels’ hand-picked crew of Army Rangers scrambled up the mobile staircase into the passenger cabin of the Young-333 cargo plane that had landed just moments before on the runway at Camp Bonifas.

“Keep moving and don’t be picky about where you sit,” he told the soldiers, waving them in. “We’re on a tight schedule.”

Bolan wasn’t exaggerating. The Army had earlier dispatched a decoy plane from Osan Air Base to assume the Young’s flight path while it diverted to Bonifas, and for the sleight of hand to succeed, the 333 needed to take off as quickly as possible so that it could reclaim its air space before crossing into range of the KPA’s military radar. After that, of course, there remained the even more difficult challenge of straying off course a second time to allow for the insertion of the special ops teams miles inland from their charted destination of Kaesong. Bolan had checked in with the Farm while in the air, and it sounded as if they might be able to use the cloud cover as an excuse for the second diversion. It would be a moot point, however, if the KPA was given reason to believe that something was amiss with the flight supposedly carrying the captured members of the Kanggye nuclear team.

The Rangers boarded the plane and settled in alongside their counterparts from Zane Island. Colonel Michaels had already begged off the mission, feeling he’d be more useful working the intel angles and keeping Undersecretary of State Hilldecker supplied with any necessary updates. The female diplomat, along with the rest of the U.S. negotiating team, had been withdrawn from Panmunjom a few hours earlier and were cloistered in bunker quarters located beneath base’s the CRCC compound. In light of the heightening crisis, it had been decided that it would be wiser for them to carry on their negotiations from a safe distance rather than within firing range of North Korea’s DMZ security detail.

Akira Tokaido had made a point to be the last man aboard, giving him a moment, however brief, to exchange a personal greeting with Bolan.

“Welcome aboard, ‘Ranger,’” Bolan joked, nudging Tokaido’s shoulder as he closed the cabin door.

“Hey, no flak, Jack,” Tokaido teased back. “It’s not like this is the first time I’ve stepped out of the office.”

“I hear you,” Bolan said, “and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

Tokaido pointed out a hastily patched section of cabin wall where bullet holes had been plugged and sealed to insure proper in-flight pressurization. “Souvenir from the rescue effort?”

Bolan nodded. “Better the plane’s hide than mine.”

They were interrupted as the pilot called through the open doorway leading to the cockpit.

“All aboard?”

“All aboard,” Bolan confirmed. “Let’s get the show on the road.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

Kijongdong, North Korea

Park Yo-Wi was a nervous wreck.

It’d been less than forty minutes since the contractor had spoken with Myn Bong-Chul, but to him it seemed like hours. He was exhausted but at the same time so wired with fear that he refused to lay down, much less try to sleep. For the first time in his life he wanted to get his hands on a gun, but he was too afraid to leave his office quarters in the mobile home, so instead he paced back and forth in the cramped confines, clutching a metal drafting ruler so tightly that his fingers ached even more than his knotted stomach.

In his other hand, Park held his cell phone, and rarely had a minute passed without him glancing down at it, yet again making certain it was turned on. He’d given up any hope of hearing from his uncle, but surely Myn would be calling any second, if not to inform him that he wasn’t a marked man, after all, then at least to offer some kind of advice for what he should do other than to walk in circles like a lamb trapped in a feeding cage.

When he saw the phone’s battery indicator drop a notch, Park’s heart sank accordingly. Then, just as abruptly, his pulse jack-rabbited.

Someone was knocking at the door to mobile home.

Park stopped his pacing and stared at the door. He opened his mouth to ask who it was but his throat was so constricted he was unable to speak. Quietly he retreated to the doorway leading to his bedroom. Maybe if he pretended he was asleep…

“Park Yo-Wi?”

Hearing his name, Park unwittingly regained his voice, letting out an involuntary gasp that, at least to him, seemed as loud as a scream.

There was another knock on the door.

“I need to speak to you. It concerns General Oh. He is your uncle, correct?”

Park didn’t recognize the other man’s voice, and every fiber of his being told him not to respond, but, like a moth drawn to a flame, at the mention of his uncle’s name, the contractor found himself moving toward the door, knees trembling. He was about to unlatch the lock when he finally came to his senses and backed away as if he’d just received an electric shock.

“It’s urgent,” the man on the other side of the door insisted. “There’s been an accident, and the general is in surgery. He needs blood, and if you’re a relative there’s a good chance you’re a match.”

Park was stunned. His mind raced. An accident? His uncle was alive? It couldn’t be! But what if it was? What if his uncle really needed blood?

Park slowly reached for the dead bolt again. “What happened?” he asked through the closed door.

“He was riding back to Kaesong when something punctured the front tires on his jeep. He went off the road and there was a crash. Look, there’s not much time.”

Park wrestled with the news, trying to recall the phone conversation with his uncle. Maybe he hadn’t heard gunshots, after all. Maybe it had been the sound of the tires blowing out. And if the jeep had veered off the road, that would explain why his uncle had stopped talking. But wait! If there was a crash, Park found himself wondering, wouldn’t he have heard it? Maybe he’d confused the crash for more gunfire. He thought back but couldn’t remember for sure. Think harder, damn it! he told himself.

But it was no use. Private Euikon had concocted the perfect cover story, and Park finally ignored his better judgment and unlatched the dead bolt.

Park was turning the doorknob when the door itself suddenly opened inward with so much force that he was knocked backward into his drafting table.

Euikon Gryg-Il charged into the mobile home, pulling the same .22 Ruger he’d used to kill General Oh. He tried to kick the door shut behind him, but the latch failed to catch and it sprang back open.

When the private turned to close the door, Park saw his opportunity. A surge of adrenaline suppressed his fear and the next thing he knew he’d leaped forward, lashing out with the drafting ruler still clutched in his right hand. The thin metal edge struck his adversary’s forearm with enough force to hit bone, and the private screamed, dropping his gun. Park saw the weapon fall to the floor but made no effort to grab for it. His total focus was on getting away, and he barreled past his would-be assassin toward the doorway.

Cursing, Euikon grabbed the gun and bolted after Park, who had scrambled down the front steps and broken into a mad run from the mobile home.

“Stop him!” Park shouted to a handful of workers lingering near the launch tower. “He’s trying to kill me!”

None of the workers was armed, however, and at the sight of the Ruger in Euikon’s hand, they froze in place. The gunner glared at them as he rushed their way.

“Get in my way and you’re dead!” he snarled.

The men heeded the warning and shrank back, giving the assassin a wide berth. Euikon raced past them, then stopped long enough to draw bead on Park, who was headed for the same doorway through which he’d reentered the structure an hour before. Park had the presence of mind to zigzag as he ran, however, making himself a difficult target. The first shot missed by inches and a second slug barely grazed Park’s thigh, drawing blood but failing to slow him.

Once outside, Park saw Euikon’s motorcycle next to the parked jeep, where the guard was still standing, now smoking a cigarette. Park waved the guard away and slid into the front seat of the 4-wheeler. The keys were in the ignition and as he turned on the engine he told the guard, “The man who just came here is a traitor! Kill him when he comes out!”

The guard fumbled with his carbine as Park threw the jeep into gear and sped forward, veering to his right and clipping the motorcycle, knocking it onto its side.

Euikon appeared in the doorway seconds later. The guard was taking aim at him but the private fired first, putting a .22 slug through other man’s chest. Mortally wounded, the guard slumped to his knees, discharging an errant shot from his carbine.

“Not smart,” Euikon told the man, pistol-whipping him in the face before yanking the motorcycle upright and jumping aboard. One of the foot pegs had been bent but the bike still ran, and soon, forsaking his helmet, the private was back in pursuit of the fleeing contractor.

The frenzied roar of the two vehicles’ engines echoed loudly off the surrounding facades as they raced through the empty city. The motorcycle was the faster machine and within a few blocks Euikon had begun to close in on Park. Park’s only advantage was his familiarity with the layout of the ghost town, and several times he was able to outmaneuver his pursuer by making last-second turns into narrow side alleys. In each case, however, Euikon was able to backtrack and quickly make up the lost ground.

Park finally realized that Kijongdong wasn’t enough of a maze for him to lose his pursuer once and for all. After cornering one of the periphery buildings, he turned away from the city and detoured onto a dirt road that led into the surrounding countryside. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and bound recklessly down the road. He could still see the lone headlight of the motorcycle in the rearview mirror, however, and it was clear that Euikon was once again gaining on him. He knew he had to think of something, quick, or else it would soon be over for him.

Fortunately the contractor knew area surrounding Kijongdong as well he knew the city itself, and as he approached a bend in the road, Park switched off his headlights and eased off the gas. Once he’d rounded the bend, he veered off the road and slammed on his brakes. He was still skidding across the gravel shoulder when he threw the jeep into reverse. As soon as he came to a stop, he promptly accelerated, backing out onto the road so that he was facing the way he’d just come. He could see the beam of the motorcycle’s headlight as it approached the curve. Park waited until the last possible second, then, just as Euikon rounded the bend, he switched on his brights.

The jeep’s headlights blinded Euikon momentarily, and it was all he could do to keep control of the bike as he turned sharply to his right to avoid crashing into the other vehicle. Overshooting the shoulder, he crashed through a thicket of wild bramble. Thorn-laden branches slapped at him as he applied the brakes and fought to maintain control of the bike. He managed to stop just short of a thick-trunked acacia rising up through the bushes. Cursing, blood trickling down his face where the thorns had torn at his flesh, Euikon slowly turned the bike around.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he fumed as he opened up the throttle and used his left forearm to shield himself from the thorns as he headed back toward the road.

By now Park had opened up a quarter-mile lead on his pursuer. He’d turned his lights off again, trying to see his way as best he could in the dim light of the moon, which drifted in and out of the cloud cover. Up ahead he could see the shadowy outline of Kijongdong, but he had no intention of returning to the phantom city. Instead, once he reached the nearest crossroad, he turned right, heading down into a deep, wooded valley. He could only hope that the surrounding trees would conceal him from view of his pursuer. He couldn’t see the bike, but he could hear its engine and assumed that the rider had managed to extricate himself from the bramble.

“Damn!” Park cursed as he sped on. The nearest military installation was less than two miles away, on the other side of the valley. It seemed unlikely that there would be other conspirators lying in wait for him there. If he could just make it to the site, Park figured he’d be safe.

Much as the trees helped to provide concealment, they worked against Park, as well, screening the moonlight enough that soon he had no choice but to turn his lights back on. His pursuer was apparently having the same problem, because moments later Park spotted the motorcycle’s telltale headlight. Euikon was back on his track and once again closing in. Worse yet, Park was now in the heart of the forest, and the trees flanking both sides of the road were spaced too closely together to offer an alternative escape route. Park raced on, fearful now that he would be overtaken before he reached the installation.

Then, after the road had led him through a series of winding terms, Park was suddenly forced to put on the brakes.

“No!” he exclaimed in despair.

Up ahead, rail tracks bisected the road and the contractor’s way was blocked by a slow-moving southbound train. One after another, a procession of boxcars inched past, offering only fleeting glimpses of the roadway beyond and the way to safety.

“Faster!” Park screamed frantically, knuckles whitening as he clutched the steering wheel. But the train showed no signs of picking up speed. If anything, it seemed to be slowing even more.

“No, no, no, no,” Park murmured, heart racing.

For the first time since fleeing the launch compound, he felt a burning sensation in his thigh and became aware of the blood soaking through his pants where he’d been shot. There was no time to dwell on the wound, however. Glancing over his shoulder, Park saw the light of the approaching motorcycle. Any second his assassin would be in view and he’d find himself trapped, boxed in by the train, as easy a target as a fish in a barrel.

Park shifted into neutral and frantically searched the jeep for a gun or some other weapon. Nothing. Soon he could hear the motorcycle’s whine over the clattering of the boxcars. Panicked, the contractor abandoned the jeep and stood trembling on the road. His first instinct was to flee into the forest, but he realized the biker would have little trouble weaving through the trees and hunting him down. That left only one other option.

Once the motorcycle negotiated the final turn and came into view, Park bolted away from the jeep and made his way toward the tracks. He eyed the crawling boxcars and when he saw one with an available handhold, he broke into a trot, running parallel to the tracks. At the last possible second, he lunged forward and grabbed hold of the rung, pulling himself up and swinging his right foot forward, seeking out the boxcar’s rear platform. Once he had a footing, he shifted his weight and reached around, gripping a vertical bracket mounted to the backside of the boxcar.

Park had just managed to place his other foot on the platform when Euikon fired, drilling a bullet into his side. It felt as if he’d been struck with a sledgehammer, and it was all he could do to keep from toppling into the gap between the two boxcars and being crushed beneath the steel wheels. A second shot clanged off the metal siding above his head before the train carried him beyond range of the Ruger. The damage had already been done, however. It had been Park’s plan to reach the far side of the train, then drop back to the ground and run the rest of the way to the military installation. But the bullet in his side had burrowed deep, piercing his right lung and nicking an artery. Park felt his strength drain out of him. Seconds later, he crumpled to the landing, unconscious.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Changchon Mountain Range, North Korea

The Young-333 cargo plane carrying the two Army Ranger teams had just crossed the DMZ into North Korean airspace when the pilot received an urgent communiqué from Camp Bonifas. He promptly switched on his intercom and informed his passengers that Colonel Michaels had just taken a look at the first infrared feeds coming from the NSA satellites monitoring the area they were headed for.

“Apparently there’s a small convoy heading through the mountains toward your drop zone,” he reported. “Looks like two military jeeps and a missile transporter.”

Back in the passenger cabin, the head of the Bonifas Ranger team, Major Walt Stevens glanced at Bolan. “That could be a problem,” he said. “Especially if they show up just as we’re ready to make our move.”

Bolan nodded. “Maybe we should hit the convoy first.”

“How about if we do both?” Major Cook of the Zane Island Rangers suggested. “It shouldn’t take all of us to handle the convoy. We can drop one team on them and let the others stick to the game plan.”

“He has a point,” Akira Tokaido interjected. “That’d give us a chance to scout the concentration camp and set up a perimeter.”

The idea made sense to Bolan. “And if we take over the convoy,” he added, “we might be able to drive into the camp right under their noses.”

“Let’s go for it,” Cook said. “My guys have been cooped up the longest, so how about if we go first?”

“Works for me,” Stevens replied.

Bolan keyed the intercom and told the pilot, “See if Michaels can guide you to the convoy so we can stay above the cloud line. If they can’t see the plane, it’ll cut down on the chance of them spotting our parachutes.”

“Got it,” the pilot replied. “I’ll do what I can.”

On Cook’s orders, the members of the Zane Island team rose from their seats and began strapping on their parachute gear.

“I’ll stick with my guys and take the camp,” Tokaido told Bolan. “If my cousin’s there, I want first crack at getting to him. And besides, I don’t want you feeling like you have to watch my back.”

“All right, but just so you know,” Bolan said, “if I didn’t think you were up to the task I wouldn’t have let you on the plane.”

Tokaido grinned. “That’s what I like to hear.”

Less than five minutes later, the pilot came over the intercom, reporting that he’d pinpointed the convoy and was adjusting the cabin pressure so the crew wouldn’t be sucked out of the plane once the door was opened.

“Let me get down another few hundred feet,” he concluded, “then be ready to roll.”

As the paratroopers lined up near the door, Bolan glanced at Tokaido and told him, “I know you’re eager, but make sure you wait for us.”

“I’ll try,” Tokaido said. “Good luck.”

ONCE HE DROPPED through the cloud cover, Bolan opened his parachute. He’d been the last one out of the plane, and the other commandos had already deployed their chutes. Directly below them lay a patch of meadow surrounded by trees. As dark as it was, Bolan could also make out a dirt road winding its way through the wooded area just north of the meadow. He couldn’t see the convoy but he figured it was somewhere on the road, heading their way.

When the soldier landed, the tall, thick grass of the meadow helped cushion his landing. He buckled his knees and pitched forward the moment his feet touched grounded, and once he’d tumbled to a stop, he quickly shed the parachute harness and scrambled to his feet. Like most of the others, he was armed with an M-16 assault rifle. The Desert Eagle was secured in his web harness for backup. Clipped to his belt were two grenades, one packing a flash bang stun charge, the other loaded with SC tear gas. One of the other commandos was additionally equipped with a shoulder-mount rocket launcher and Major Cook had brought along an explosives strip rigged to a remote detonator. Add it up, and Bolan felt they were ready for any contingency.

The drop had gone off without a hitch, and once Cook had accounted for all his men, he and Bolan led the way through the meadow to the roadway.

“I think I caught a glimpse of the convoy,” Cook told Bolan as they neared the road. “We’re about a half mile ahead of them, and with that transporter in the parade, my guess is they aren’t breaking any speeding limits. Still, were going to have to set ourselves up quickly.”

“Understood,” Bolan said.

Soon the meadow gave way to a narrow beltway of trees situated on each side of the wide dirt road. Most of the trees were old oaks with thick, gnarly limbs that extended out over the road, creating the canopy that had helped to conceal the KPA’s clandestine shipments to the Changchon from aerial view.

“Spread out and take both sides of the road,” Cook told the commandos as they gathered around, “and if any of you can make it up into the trees, go for it.”

“Just watch your crossfire,” Bolan cautioned.

Cook held out his explosives strip and concluded, “Once this puppy barks, that’ll be your cue. Target the jeeps first, then take out whoever’s riding up front in the transporter. Try to keep it as clean as possible, because were gonna want the vehicles intact. Questions?”

None of the commandos spoke up.

“Let’s get cracking, then,” Cook said.

The men quickly dispersed, half of them scrambling across the road, the others staking out positions along the south shoulder. Bolan grabbed a baseball-bat-size branch that had fallen from one of the oaks and followed Cook to the middle of the road. There, using the branch as a makeshift shovel, he stabbed at the soft earth, carving out a shallow trough. Once he’d dug down a few inches, he stepped back. Cook crouched and carefully set the explosives strip into the gash, then, just as cautiously, he covered the strip with some of the loose dirt. By the time they’d finished the task, several soldiers had already climbed up into the trees and were nestling into makeshift sniper posts. Elsewhere, the other commandos had already so effectively camouflaged themselves that Bolan could only spot two of them, and soon they, too, had blended into the ground cover and disappeared from view.

“Okay, we’re set,” Cook whispered. “See you when the dust settles.”

Bolan nodded, then moved on to the far side of the road. Cook, meanwhile, backtracked and dropped to his stomach behind the trunk of a fallen tree set five yards from the roadway.

Crouched behind one of the standing oaks, Bolan waited and listened. At first he was aware of only an eerie, deathly silence, but as the seconds ticked by he detected a number of sounds: scattered chirping up in the higher branches of the trees, the faint rustling of leaves in the predawn breeze, the far-off pecking of a woodpecker. Now and then he could also hear a shuffling on the ground, presumably the sound of commandos shifting position.

Less than two minutes later, Bolan finally heard the mechanical drone of the convoy. The sound gradually increased and soon he could see headlights probing the roadway. Finally the lead jeep appeared, traveling a good twenty yards ahead of the missile transporter. A second jeep brought up the rear, following closely behind the transporter. The tops were off both jeeps and as the vehicles moved closer, Bolan did a quick head count. There were three men in the front vehicle, four in the other. He couldn’t be certain, but from where he was crouched it looked as if the second jeep was tricked-up with a rear-mounted .50-caliber machine gun. He figured all the men were armed, as well, but they showed no sign of being aware that they were heading into an ambush.

It had been a while since Bolan had seen a missile transporter, and as the vehicle rolled into full view, he couldn’t help but marvel at its size. It was more massive than a semi-truck, and its thirty-two wheels—four attached to each of eight separate axles—were almost cartoonishly large. The road was barely wide enough for the vehicle and Bolan wondered how it was able to negotiate some of the turns it undoubtedly had had to make while lumbering its way through the forest.

As the convoy closed in, Bolan shifted slightly and raised his carbine to his shoulder. He drew bead on driver of the lead jeep and tracked him as he approached the spot where Cook had planted the explosives.

“Three,” he murmured to himself, index finger curled around the trigger of his M16. “Two…one…”

There was a sudden explosion and the ground trembled slightly beneath Bolan as Cook detonated the charge set ten yards ahead of the lead jeep. The driver was applying the brakes when Bolan pulled the trigger. The front windshield shattered as the Executioner’s round sought out its target.

It turned out that one of the commandos in the trees had been gunning for the driver, as well, and the man jerked in place behind the wheel as both bullets struck him simultaneously. He slumped over the steering wheel, his limp feet slipping off the clutch and accelerator. The jeep lurched forward a few feet before the engine stalled. By then the man riding shotgun had taken a shot to the head and the soldier in back had been felled, as well.

The sound of more gunfire and more shattering glass continued and quickly drowned out the echoing the din of the explosion. With deadly precision, the drivers of the other two vehicles were brought down by sniper fire, and although a soldier in the rear jeep managed to swivel the machine gun into play, he, too, fell victim to a fusillade before he could return fire. In a matter of seconds, it was all over. The rattle of carbines ceased, and though both the transporter and the second jeep continued to idle, with their drivers slain, the vehicles weren’t going anywhere.

Bolan stared hard through the darkness, but he saw no survivors. Still, he kept his M-16 at the ready as he rose from a crouch and stepped onto the roadway. One by one, Cook and the other Rangers emerged from cover, as well, and approached the ill-fated convoy.

“Good work, men,” Cook called. “Now we just—”

Cook fell silent when he was interrupted by a sudden burst of gunfire. One of the Rangers to his immediate left let out a pained yell as he slumped to the ground and another commando several yards away similarly toppled over.

“What the hell?” Bolan scrambled away from the road. More gunfire sounded and bark flew as rounds from the unseen enemy chewed at the tree he’d sought cover behind.

Baffled by the turn of events, the Executioner moved to other side of the tree and peered back at the convoy, trying to trace the trajectory of the shots still being fired at him and the Rangers. He heard the cry of another wounded commando, then, turning quickly, he spotted the telltale discharge from a rifle being fired from beneath the missile transporter. And from the sound of it, the concealed rifleman wasn’t alone. It seemed as if there were at least two other gunmen using the oversize tires for cover as they continued to snipe at their ambushers.

“Back away!” Cook shouted to his men as he fled to the side of the road. The commandos on the ground followed suit. Their colleagues up in the trees stayed put, but from their lofty positions they were unable to see the enemy, much less fire at him. That was left to Bolan.

The Executioner aimed his carbine and fired at the underside of the transporter, then sprang forward, bolting onto the road and taking cover behind the lead jeep. Enemy fire plinked off the vehicle’s metal hide and tore up the earth around it. Bolan cautiously dropped lower behind the jeep, finally settling onto his stomach and peering past the underside of the chassis. At first he could barely make out the transporter, but once his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw not only the massive hauler but also the silhouettes of at least three men positioned directly beneath it. Bolan wasn’t sure how they’d gotten there. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember seeing anyone riding outside the transporter before the ambush. And even if they had been, how could they have avoided the Rangers’ sniper fire?

Then, moments later, he saw a pair of legs drop into view beneath the transporter, and soon yet another enemy gunman had joined the others, who continued to fire at the Army Rangers on either side of the road.

Bolan was mystified by what he was watching. It was as if the missile aboard the transporter had sprung a leak, only instead of fluid it was armed men that were dripping to the ground. It made no sense, and yet as Bolan watched, still another Korean soldier lowered himself to the ground. Bolan knew that he was the only one who could see what was happening, and, given his vantage point, for the moment he was the only one that could do anything about it.

Rising to his knees, Bolan reached for his munitions belt and unfastened the stun grenade. He waited out another round of gunfire aimed his way, then twigged the pin and stood long enough to heave the grenade at the missile transporter. The projectile landed just short of the rolling behemoth, then rolled beneath the elevated chassis.

Even before the grenade discharged, Bolan was circling the jeep and clawing at his belt for the tear-gas canister. He activated the second grenade, then bowled it beneath the transporter before stepping back and yanking the slain driver out from behind the jeep’s steering wheel. He took the man’s place and quickly turned over the engine.

“Hold your fire!” he shouted to the Rangers as he put the jeep into gear. He had to pull ahead a good twenty yards before he could turn the vehicle and aim its headlights back at the missile transporter. Once he’d managed it, Bolan saw, to his amazement, at least a dozen uniformed Korean soldiers evacuating the underside of the larger vehicle, hacking and wheezing. Some were armed and quickly fell to Ranger gunfire, but the others were quick to put their hands atop their heads in surrender. Some of the gas wafted up from beneath the transporter, and soon the Rangers in the trees were practically falling to the ground in their haste to escape the stinging cloud. When the breeze shifted, carrying the tear gas Bolan’s way, he was forced to shift into neutral and abandon the jeep. Coughing, eyes stinging, he staggered toward the side of the road. Cook stepped forward and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him to cover. The fight had gone out of the Koreans, however, and neither Cook nor Bolan had to concern themselves about being shot at any further.

“Quick thinking,” Cook said once he was sure the coast was clear. “You saved our bacon.”

Bolan ignored the tribute. “This is surreal,” he wheezed, blinking the tears from his eyes.

“No shit,” Cook said. “I still can’t figure it out.”

As the tear gas began to dissipate in the breeze, the Rangers cautiously emerged from cover and approached the surviving Koreans, ordering them to drop to their knees and to keep their hands on their heads. As the prisoners were being surrounded and quickly stripped of their weapons, Cook and Bolan helped a few other commandos check on casualties. In all, nine Koreans had been slain along with three Americans. Two Rangers were wounded, neither severely.

One of the Koreans was already willing to barter for preferential treatment. Coughing, he babbled at the Rangers, asking if any of them understood Korean. One of Cook’s men grabbed the soldier by the collar and dragged him away from the others. After a quick interrogation, the commando tracked Cook down and divulged the reason why the Koreans had nearly managed to wrangle out of the ambush.

“The missile’s a dummy,” he reported. “Apparently it’s one of the ones they put on parade in Pyongyang during military rallies. It’s hollow inside, which is where everybody was hiding when we first hit them.”

“Okay, that makes sense,” Cook said. “But the question is why? What the hell were they up to?”

“Something about a coup attempt,” the other commando responded. “He says they were on their way to Changchon to put down some kind of insurrection.”

Bolan eyed the missile transporter. “They were going to use it like a Trojan Horse,” he guessed.

The other commando nodded. “Yeah. That was the plan.”

“A nice plan at that,” Cook said. “And it still might just work. For us.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Camp Bonifas, North Korea

Undersecretary Brooke Hilldecker slammed down the phone in the subterranean conference room that had become her base of operations since evacuating her quarters at the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom.

“Doesn’t sound like that went too well,” said Joe Leeton, another member of the negotiating team Hilldecker had spent the past few months sitting on. The tall, gaunt Montana native, a top-ranking member of the previous administration’s Defense Department, was seated directly across from Hilldecker. Like the undersecretary, he hadn’t slept since coming to Camp Bonifas, and there was a trace of stubble on his squarish jaw.

“That’s an understatement,” Hilldecker complained, refilling her coffee cup from a nearby thermos. “The Russians and Chinese are feigning concern, but when we try to lock them to any kind of commitment they both start trotting out all these other issues and try using them for leverage.”

“No surprise there,” Leeton said. “You had to figure they’d sniff through this whole mess looking for bargaining chips.”

“Yes, I’d counted on that,” Hilldecker conceded. “But you’d think that once we told them that North Korea might be itching to put its finger on the nuclear trigger, they’d cut out the bullshit and get down to business.”

Leeton shrugged. “Well, I’m sure they’ve got their own intelligence coming in,” he said, “and until there’s some kind of irrefutable proof that the KPA has their nukes up and ready to fire, they probably figure they’ve got time to stall and play hardball with us.”

“We just forwarded them the sat-cam footage of that transporter headed for Changchon,” Hilldecker groused. “What more proof do they want?”

“Well, come on, Hilly,” Leeton said. “It’s just a transporter, after all. If it was a mobile launcher, it might be another matter, but they’re probably saying that nuke the KPA’s hauling around can’t do much harm strapped to the back of a truck. How are they going to launch it? By driving it off a cliff?”

“Maybe they have launchers in Changchon,” Hilldecker countered.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Leeton said. “If those ops teams can get close enough to find out for sure, then maybe we’ll finally have the proof were looking for.”

Hilldecker took a sip of her coffee and grimaced. “What crank case did they drain this stuff from?”

The undersecretary shoved her coffee cup aside and picked up the phone on her desk. “At least we’ve got Japan aboard,” she said. “Let’s see what kind of muscle they’re prepared to throw behind us.”

Hilldecker was dialing the Japanese minister of defense when there was a knock on the door. Colonel Thomas Michaels let himself in. He had a smile on his face and was rubbing his hands together vigorously.

“Good news,” he told Hilldecker and Leeton. “You’re never going to believe what just fell into our laps.”

“Sorry, Colonel,” Hilldecker responded, “but I’m a little tapped out in the patience department, so can we skip the guessing games?”

“A freight train from the north just rolled through Panmunjom about an hour ago,” Michaels reported, “and when it pulled into the yard, they found a KPA official stowed away between two of the boxcars.”

“Defector?” Joe Leeton said.

“Well, he is now,” Michaels said. “Apparently he was racing to get out of Dodge when he heard about this coup business, only somebody gave chase and put a bullet into him while he was hopping the train. Guy’s in critical condition and about to go under the knife.”

Hilldecker didn’t seem impressed by the news. “I know it’s always nice to reel in somebody from the other side,” she said, “but I’m missing the part where this is worth turning somersaults over.”

“Well, here it is,” Michaels said. “This guy came to long enough to spill a few things to an interrogator. Turns out he’s a contractor and has been spearheading that new construction that’s been going on over in Kijongdong. That big new mall they’re putting up? Guess what. It’s not just an empty shell. They’re building a launch pad there.”

“What?” Hilldecker and Leeton exclaimed simultaneously.

“You heard me,” Michaels said. “It’s less than a week away from being operational. And how are they getting the missiles to the launch pad? Get this—the bastards have drilled themselves a tunnel all the way from Kijongdong back to that mining camp in Changchon our ops are heading for.”

Hilldecker and Leeton took a moment to absorb the news, then the UN representative glanced at the undersecretary and pointed to her phone. “You might want to get Russia and China back on the horn,” he suggested. “Tell them we’ve got that proof they were looking for.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

Once he’d stripped himself of his parachute rig, Akira Tokaido parted his way through the poppies until he’d joined up with Major Stevens and several of the other Ranger ops from Camp Bonifas.

“So far, so good,” Stevens said once he’d scanned the fields and confirmed that the rest of his men had landed safely, as well.

“Any word from the others?” Tokaido asked.

Stevens nodded, tapping the radio headset affixed to his helmet. “They took a few hits but the convoy’s theirs.”

The major quickly explained how the KPA had intended to use a dummy missile to smuggle troops to the Changchon site, then said, “If they felt they had reason to be wary coming in, we’re gonna have to be extra cautious.”

“Maybe so,” Tokaido said, “but I think we can still stick with our game plan.”

“Agreed,” Stevens said.

On the flight from Camp Bonifas, Stevens and Cook had scanned a topo map of their target area, using NSA sat-cam data to sketch in a layout of the old mining camp and what seemed to be the primary access tunnels into the mountainside. It had been decided to use three-man teams to encircle the camp and set up an effective offensive perimeter. Now that half of the intended force had been diverted to the convoy, Stevens figured they would have to trim the teams to two and narrow down their perimeter coverage. Still, as Tokaido had suggested, the basic strategy remained intact.

“We’ll just scrap the teams we’d planned on situating along the roadway,” he said. “The guys in the convoy should be able to handle that.”

Stevens paired his men off and gave each team a designated target area, then gave the signal for them to move out. He’d opted for Tokaido as his partner, and once they cleared the poppy fields, the two men stole their way through the darkened forest area that lay between them and the concentration camp.

“Any chance we’re gonna run into land mines?” Tokaido murmured.

“I don’t think so,” Stevens said. “At least not until we get closer to the perimeter fences.”

The men had advanced fifty yards through the forest when they both froze in unison. Up ahead they could hear a faint scuffling sound, and when the breeze shifted, it carried the charnel scent of rotting flesh. Tokaido recoiled from the stench, grimacing.

“What gives?” he whispered.

Before Stevens could answer, the men heard an insistent growling. It didn’t sound human. Holding their breath, the men carefully stole forward. Soon they were within view of the shallow, mass grave where the victims of the executions in the poppy fields two days ago had been buried. A pack of wild dogs had dug away at the gravesite and begun to drag corpses up out of the dirt. The growling came from two dogs fighting over the same corpse. One had its jaws clamped around the body’s right leg while the other had bitten into an arm. They continued to growl at one another as they engaged in a grisly tug-of-war. Meanwhile, other dogs continued to rut through the soft earth for more bodies.

“Let’s just hope the guards can’t hear this,” Stevens murmured. “The last thing we need is to have them looking our way when we show up at their doorstep.”

“Not much we can do about it,” Tokaido said. “On the bright side, with their snouts in the grave the dogs aren’t gonna smell us. I say we make a slight detour and move around them.”

Stevens nodded. The men traipsed to their left, heading deeper into the forest. They made it the rest of the way without incident and soon found themselves at the edge of the forest. Directly in front of them lay the outermost fences of the concentration camp; thirty yards to their left, a four-story watchtower loomed up between the second and third fences. The structure was made of wood and designed primarily to allow a clear view of the camp and anyone who might try to escape. The idea of the camp being raided hadn’t been in the equation, and both Tokaido and Stevens could see that when the time came to attack it would take only a few well-placed shots from their carbines to take out the sentries. The men could see five other towers in the moonlight, all similarly constructed and equally vulnerable.

“Big break in our favor,” Tokaido said. “If we can erase all the sentries, we might not have to bother clipping through the fence. We can just storm the main entrance or circle around and join the guys coming down from the mountains.”

“You’re probably right,” Stevens said, “but first things first. We’ve got to wait for the convoy before we make a move or we throw away our advantage.”

Tokaido nodded. “I’ll jockey a little closer to the tower.”

He moved away from Stevens, crouching low as he crept through the vegetation. Once he reached a point that gave him a clear shot at the two guards posted in the tower, he stopped. As he began to wait, he allowed his gaze to stray to the barracks situated in the middle of the old mining camp. Provided the intel was correct, there was a good chance Lim Seung-Whan and the other kidnap victims were being held in one of the enclosures.

“Hang tight, cuz,” Tokaido whispered. “Help’s on the way.”

WHEN LIM Seung-Whan awoke on the barracks floor, his first thought was one of wonderment. He couldn’t believe he’d actually fallen asleep. Given his anxiety over the pending prison uprising and the impact it would have on his family’s chance for freedom, the businessman had been certain that he would be up the entire night, but apparently his second straight day of slaving away in the mines had given his body other ideas. His body still ached and there was a crick in his neck from the way he’d slept, but he quickly dismissed these discomforts as he opened his eyes and waited for them to accustom themselves to the darkness. He could feel his wife’s breath on his shoulder and he turned slightly, putting his arm around both her and his daughter, Na-Li. Both women stirred slightly but remained asleep. Lim kissed each of them gently; once he was better able to make out his daughter’s features, he was moved to tears. Curled in a fetal position, clutching her mother’s hand to her chest, Na-Li so looked innocent and angelic that Lim was engulfed by a renewed sense of shame for the way he’d placed them in harm’s way. If they managed to escape from this nightmare alive, he vowed he would spend the rest of his life making it up to them as well as to his good friend Ji Pho-Hwa and his family.

It was only after Lim sat up and looked around the barracks that he became aware of the other prisoners, a surprising thing given the near rumbling of their labored snores and the vaguely fetid smell of their comingling breath. When he saw Prync GilSu and several other men crouched together near the middle of the barracks, his thoughts promptly turned back to the matter of the planned insurrection. Slowly rising to his feet, he carefully negotiated his way around the men sleeping closest to him and joined the conspirators. Besides Prync, there was Vae Jae-Bong, Reir Jin-Tack and the deposed military officer who’d been cast in with the other prisoners the night before. Sergeant Dahn was helping Prync pry loose one of the floorboards leading to the crawl space beneath the barracks.

“What time is it?” Lim asked the men, whispering low.

“A little before sunrise,” Prync whispered back. “Time to start making our move.”

“How will we know when the guards have been sedated?” Lim wondered nervously.

“We can see two of the watchtowers through slats in the outer walls,” Vae Jae-Bong explained. “They change guards at sunup, and the new sentries will have just eaten before they take their stations. We’ll be able to tell when the drugs start to take effect, and that’s when we’ll go on the offensive.”

“How?” Lim wondered. “Even if they’re drugged, I don’t think we can just walk right up and overpower them with our bare hands.”

“Who said anything about bare hands?”

Once he’d set aside two of the floor planks, Prync reached into the cavity and pulled out a few small weapons: three of the cutting tools used in the poppy fields, several scavenged lengths of pipe and some wooden posts whose ends had been honed into sharp points.

“We’ve been storing up,” Reir Jin-Tack told Lim. “I know it’s not much of an arsenal, but it should be enough to help us overpower a few guards and get our hands on some carbines and automatics. If all goes well…”

Reir’s voice trailed off, and he glanced over his shoulder with a look of sudden apprehension. It was then that Lim first heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps heading toward the barracks. And whoever was approaching, it didn’t sound as if they were dragging their feet. If anything, it sounded to Lim as if they were running at full speed.

“Quick!” Prync whispered, grabbing back the wooden stake Reir was holding. “We need to put everything back!”

The conspirators hastily stuffed the weapons back into the crawl space and were just setting the floor planks back into place when the barracks doors flew open and a handful of armed soldiers stormed into the confines with AK-47 assault rifles. Several of the guards were carrying flashlights, as well, and they raked the floor with the beam, rousing the few prisoners who hadn’t already been awakened. Lim shrank back in horror, realizing that something had gone terribly wrong.

The guards shouted for everyone to stand and place their hands in the air. When some of the awakened prisoners cried out and were slow to respond, the guards lashed out with the butts of their rifles. Lim tried to move back to his family, but his way was barred by several of the guards and he could only watch as Na-Li and U-Pol struggled to their feet, eyes filled with horror.

Once the prisoners had all complied with the guards’ commands, Lieutenant Corporal Yulim strode into the barracks clutching a leather-strapped nightstick. He patted the cudgel against the opened palm of his other hand as he sized up the situation.

“As you can see,” he said to the prisoners, “there’s been a slight change in plans. The insurrection has been, shall we say, called off.”

Above the murmuring among the few prisoners who were unaware of the planned uprising, Sergeant Dahn called out to the commandant.

“Over here!” he said, pointing out Prync Gil-Su and his coconspirators. “These are the instigators!”

Prync whirled and had to be restrained when he tried to charge Dahn.

“You?” Prync screamed. “You set us up?”

Dahn smirked faintly, unfastening one of the listening devices affixed to his clothing.

“You’re a shrewd man,” he told Prync, “but not shrewd enough.”

“Take them out and line them up against the rock pile!” Yulim ordered, gesturing at the masterminds behind the uprising. As Prync was led past him, he added, “If it’s any consolation to you, your betrayer will be shot alongside you.”

“What?” Sergeant Dahn cried, suddenly finding a pair of carbines aimed at his chest.

“You’ve done your part,” Yulim told the undercover MII agent. “We really have no other use for you.”

“You won’t get away with this!” Dahn protested.

“We’ll see,” Yulim countered.

Once Dahn and the conspirators had been led out of the barracks, Yulim turned to the guards flanking Lim Seung-Whan.

“Let him be with his family,” he told them. The guards lowered their weapons and Lim hurried to his wife and daughter. Yulim watch the three of them huddle close together, then added, “You realize, of course, that I also know you had a hand in their plans.”

Lim stared at Yulim, realizing the consequences of the commandant’s words.

“You’re going to kill us, too?” he said.

“We agreed on an arrangement, then you turned around and tried to double-cross me,” Yulim said coldly. “You signed your own death warrant.”

RETURNING FROM HIS mission in Kijongdong, Euikon Gryg-Il rode his appropriated motorcycle out of the tunnel linking Propaganda Village with the Changchon storage facility. He was in high spirits. True, he couldn’t point to Park Yo-Wi’s corpse as proof that he’d carried out his mission, but he was certain that Major Jin would take his word that the contractor was lying dead on the tracks somewhere between Propaganda Village and the DMZ. All that remained was for the major to follow through on his promise of a promotion, and Euikon wasn’t about to be choosy. As a low-ranking private, there was nowhere for him to go but up.

After pulling the bike off the service road leading into the tunnel, he headed for Jin’s office. The door was closed so he knocked and waited patiently.

“He’s not there,” came a voice from behind him.

Euikon turned and found himself staring at two fellow soldiers. Both had their carbines leveled his way.

“He’s outside,” the second soldier said. “He’s been waiting for you.”

“What’s going on here? Get those rifles out of my face!”

“You’re in no position to order anyone around, traitor!” the first guard said.

Euikon’s jaw dropped. “Traitor!” he exclaimed. “There’s been some kind of mistake!”

“Tell it to the major,” the second guard responded, gesturing with his carbine. “Outside! Now!”

The private was about to protest further but checked himself. Clearly there was no point in pleading his case to these imbeciles, he decided. The major would clear things up.

Outside, the first gray light of dawn was just beginning to fall across the encampment. The sky was choked with clouds, however, lending an aura of foreboding gloom to the prison grounds. Adding to the grim atmosphere was the sight of more than a dozen internees being lined up in front of one of the rock piles in the middle of the prison yard. The rest of the prisoners stood around, forced at gunpoint to witness the executions that were about to take place. As he watched the ominous tableau, Euikon felt a sudden pang of despair, and once he was led into the prison yard and stood face-to-face with Major Jin, it finally dawned on him how he’d come to be referred to as a traitor.

“You’re just in time,” Jin told him. “We’re cleaning house, and you’re the last bit of trash we need to get rid of.”

“You used me,” Euikon said. “Why?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the major responded. He turned to the guards who’d apprehended the private. “Line him up with the others so we can get on with this.”

As the guards moved toward Euikon, he took a step back from them, shaking his head. “No,” he protested, glancing around at the other soldiers stationed around the compound. “I’ve been set up! I was only acting on orders!”

He was about to explain in detail how Major Jin had ordered him to kill General Oh and Park Yo-Wi, but before he could get the first words out, Jin calmly withdrew his service revolver and fired. Euikon twitched as the shot ripped through his chest. He stared at Jin, eyes filled with rage, but as the life began to fade from his gaze, the major raised his gun higher and put a second slug through the private’s forehead.

Jin watched the private collapse to the ground, then turned to the row of soldiers lined up in front of the prisoners who’d been marked for execution.

“That’s how it’s done,” he told them. “Let’s get on with it!”

As the soldiers slowly raised their rifles in unison, Lim Seung-Whan pulled his family close beside him. Na-Li was sobbing disconsolately and her mother was in tears, as well, as was the family of Ji Lhe-Kan. Prync Gil-Su and the organizers of the failed revolt, however, refused to display any emotion. They solemnly stared down the barrels of the rifles aimed their way, resigned to their fate. Sergeant Dahn did likewise, although he allowed his gaze to stray past the prison yard to the nearby bungalow, where Lieutenant Corporal Yulim had just emerged and was heading down the walkway so that he could witness the executions.

“Ready…” Major Jin shouted.

The executioners steadied their rifles against their shoulders and peered through the sights, lining up their targets.

“Aim…”

The riflemen placed their fingers on the carbines’ triggers and were about to unleash their lethal volley when they were distracted momentarily by the sound of a racing engine.

Major Jin heard the sound, as well, and glanced over his shoulder, puzzled. Seconds later, a jeep roared into view, with a man in the back crouched behind the barrel of a swivel-mounted .50-caliber Browning machine gun.

BEFORE THE COMMANDEERED convoy had resumed its trek to Changchon, Mack Bolan had suggested the ops crew have the Browning-mounted jeep lead the way instead of bringing up the rear. Since both jeeps as well as the missile transporter had sustained broken windows in the firefight, his feeling had been that anyone taking a close look at the vehicles as they approached the old mining facility would be suspicious and, as such, it might be a good idea to be able, if need be, to come in firing.

Within seconds after the jeep came within view of the converted camp, Bolan was glad the Rangers had gone with his instincts. He didn’t know if Akira Tokaido and the other ops team had managed to position themselves around the site, but there was no time to bother with signals or waiting for the transporter and second jeep to catch up with him.

“Hit the brakes!” he shouted to the soldier driving the jeep. He was already swiveling the Browning into firing position, and once the jeep had come to a stop, he opened up on full-automatic. Another Ranger crouched in the rear of the vehicle helped to feed the ammo belt through the machine gun.

The merciless stream of .50-caliber slugs had little problem finding its way through the perimeter fences, and before Major Jin’s firing squad could carry out its executions, the strafing rounds chewed into them with pulverizing force. In mere seconds, half of the men had been killed outright and another three more were down and bleeding from mortal wounds. The remaining four Koreans had suddenly become less interested in carrying out Jin’s orders than making sure that they wouldn’t be the next to fall to the Browning’s brutal onslaught. They turned heel and scrambled desperately for the nearest cover, a trio of empty ore carts. Jin was right behind them, cursing as he yanked out his service revolver. The would-be victims of the firing squad, meanwhile, took advantage of their reprieve and dived to the ground, then followed Lim Seung-Whan’s lead and crawled their way behind the rock pile.

“What’s happening?” Na-Li cried as she joined her father.

“I’m not sure,” Lim confessed, “but let’s pray it means we still have a chance to get through this.”

Soon the entire encampment was alive with gunfire. Sentries who’d just taken over posts in the lookout towers suddenly found themselves being picked off by unseen snipers. Those not killed by the first round of fire ducked behind the thin walls encircling their platforms, only to find themselves targeted by follow-up shots that had little trouble penetrating the wooden planks.

While Bolan and his colleague stayed put and continued to blast away at the enemy, the others in the lead jeep bounded out of the vehicle and sprinted toward the main gate, pausing long enough to drop the guards stationed there. Behind them, the missile transporter lumbered into view, followed by the second jeep. The latter vehicle swerved around the transporter and sought out the side entrance to the prison yard.

Major Cook was behind the wheel of the transporter, and he crouched low in his seat as he directed his rolling behemoth toward the largest of the gaping maws in the side of the mountain, figuring it had to be the entrance to the bunker facility where the missiles were being held. When guards appeared in front of the opening, the Ranger riding alongside Cook took aim through the shattered windshield and fired his M-16, dropping the guards before they could so much as get off a shot.

“Hang on,” Cook told his colleague as he bore down on the entrance. “Looks like a tight fit.”

Cook was right. There was barely enough clearance for the transporter. But, then, the cramped space played perfectly into the major’s strategy, and once the transporter was halfway through the opening, he put on the brakes and killed the engine, effectively closing off the opening to anyone who hoping to rush out of the storage facility. By the time he’d thrown open his door and jumped down from the cab, the trapdoor beneath the transporter’s chassis had been opened and the troops hidden within the belly of the hollow missile were dropping to the ground and charging their way into the cavernous enclosure.

There were a couple dozen Koreans inside the installation, but three-quarters of them were unarmed technicians, and once the Rangers had traded gunfire with those few Koreans in a position to put up a fight, the facility was effectively secured.

“I don’t know where that tunnel leads to,” Cook said once the brief skirmish had ended, “but let’s seal it off! I don’t want any reinforcements showing up to throw us off our game plan.”

As several of the Rangers checked out the other transporters for one they could use to barricade the tunnel, Cook led a few other soldiers in a quick room-by-room search. They encountered brief resistance when one of the cooks came out firing from the rear kitchen area, but otherwise they managed to flush out another five Koreans without incident. The search ended when Cook and the others found themselves standing in front of the locked vault containing the concealed warheads. “I might be wrong,” Cook said, “but I think we just stumbled on the motherlode.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

For the first time since the cybernetic team had put on its blinders and devoted its full attention on the North Korean crisis, it was quiet in the Farm’s Computer Room. It wasn’t that the room was deserted. In fact, Hal Brognola and Barbara Price were present in the Annex along with Aaron Kurtzman, Carmen Delahunt, Huntington Wethers and John Kissinger. But no one was speaking and there was none of the usual staccato clatter of fingers across keyboards. All five members of the Stony Man home crew stood silently in a small huddle directly in front of the computer stations, their eyes focused on the large central monitor mounted on the far wall. There on the screen was a live satellite feed being transmitted by an NSA sat-cam positioned high in orbit above the 38th Parallel. The dense cloud cover prevented a second satellite from being able to provide a view of the deadly skirmish taking place on the northern flank of the Changchon Mountain Range, but on the south side of the mountains the sky was relatively clear and though the satellite image was grainy and void of color, those in the chamber had little trouble making out the sprawl of empty buildings that comprised Kijongdong. All eyes were on the largest of the structures, which, according to the testimony of unwitting defector Park Yo-Wi, served as a facade behind which the Korean People’s Army had built a concealed launch pad intended for the deployment of the rogue nation’s clandestine arsenal of nuclear warheads.

Undersecretary of State Brooke Hilldecker had already spoken to her liaison contacts in Russia, China, Japan and Taiwan, informing them of Park’s disclosure. The hope had been that all four countries would seize on the latest news and present a unified front demanding that North Korea immediately pull the plug on its nuclear agenda and allow unchecked access to investigative teams looking to verify the shutdown. Taiwan and Japan had been quick to throw in with the U.S., but China and Russia had balked, saying they needed more proof than the word of a lone defector. By then the President had convened a special meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and once they’d been apprised of China and Russia’s recalcitrance, the President and his advisers had decided on a dangerous and unprecedented course of action.

And now the men and women of Stony Man Farm were waiting to see the executive order carried out.

Even as they were staring intently at the screen, half a world away a USAF F-117A Nighthawk was bearing down on the DMZ, its laser-tracking instrumentation locking in on the rooftop of the building in Propaganda Village reportedly housing the launch pad facilities. Although either of the Nighthawk’s two GBU-27s was capable of leveling the structure, that wasn’t the objective. Instead, the Nighthawk crew’s mission was to, in effect, peel the roof off the building so that the NSA sat-cam could have a look inside and transmit its findings back to Earth. Sat-link arrangements had already been allowing both Russia and China to witness the success or failure of the Nighthawk’s mission, and in both Beijing and Moscow the leaders of the two Communist nations were now watching the same image as that coming in over the monitor at Stony Man Farm. In a matter of seconds, it would become clear whether Russia and China would stand by the U.S. or back off and leave America lacking the global support deemed necessary to stop North Korea in its tracks.

Hal Brognola had already mangled two cigars while awaiting the outcome, and he was reaching into his coat pocket for another when, for a flashing instant, the monitor screen whited out. Seconds later, the view of Kijongdong came back into focus, and once a wisp of smoke breezed clear of the target building, Brognola joined the others in the room in letting out a triumphant cheer.

“Bull’s-eye!” he shouted, shaking a fist in the air, then spreading his fingers and giving John Kissinger a high-five. All the while, his eyes remained on the monitor. Where there had once been a newly installed roof, the upper reaches of the would-be Propaganda Village Mall had been laid bare, and within the walls of the otherwise still-standing building, the transmitted sat-cam image clearly showed a previously concealed missile launch facility.

“You think that’ll be proof enough for them?” Kissinger asked above the cheering of his colleagues.

“It sure as hell better be,” Brognola said, tempering his euphoria for the moment, “because we’ve just put our necks on the line and committed an act of war.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Changchon Rehabilitation Center, North Korea

Once the shooting had begun, the Rangers had taken out the sentries posted in the watchtowers closest to Akira Tokaido, as he circled the perimeter fence, making his way toward the foothills that led to the mines. He could see several other Rangers up in the hills, firing down at the remaining camp security forces from behind rocks and a few tall trees. At one point he caught a glimpse of his cousin and the other kidnap victims, but as the fence led him up farther into the mountains, his view of the encampment became obstructed. Major Walt Stevens was following close at his heels, and the two men were close to reaching one of the rail lines leading into the mines when a hail of gunfire suddenly slanted down at them from another of the watchtowers. Both men instinctively dived to the ground and crawled for cover. Tokaido made it to an untended ore cart, but Stevens was struck twice in the thigh before he could reach a cluster of boulders rising up from the loose ground. He let out a scream of pain and straggled the last few yards, leaving a trail of blood in his wake.

Tokaido glanced back to make sure Stevens had reached cover, then rose to a crouch and peered over the rim of the cart. He had a clear shot at the tower where the shots had come from. Once he spotted the section of wall the shooter was hiding behind, he fired through the wooden slats, striking his target. The sentry cried out and sprang to his feet, taking aim at Tokaido with his rifle. Tokaido was ready for him, though, and squeezed off another round, nailing the sniper in the chest. The man fired wildly, then lurched forward. His momentum carried him over the railing and he lost his grip on the rifle as he flailed his arms like a small bird failing its first flight. He struck he ground headfirst, snapping his neck, then lay in a dead sprawl near one of the tower’s wooden uprights.

Tokaido waited until he was sure there were no other sentries in the tower, then scrambled to Stevens’ side. The officer had already ripped open his pant leg to inspect his wounds. They were deep and only a few inches apart, and Stevens grimaced as he pressed against the holes with a scrap of cloth from his pants.

“I’ll be fine once I can stop the bleeding,” he told Tokaido. “Go ahead and finish this up.”

“In a second,” Tokaido said. He quickly tore at Stevens’ pant leg until he’d come up with a few more strips for the officer to use on his wounds. “Keep pressure on them as best you can.”

“Sure thing, nurse,” Stevens replied, grinning despite his pain. “Now scram! That’s an order.”

Tokaido grinned back, then continued up into the foothills. Once he reached the point where the perimeter fence ended, he circled the last fence post, then paused to survey the prison grounds below.

The Rangers had gotten the upper hand on the Koreans, and Mack Bolan had abandoned the lead jeep and was following a handful of other commandos into the prison yard, which was littered with bodies, most of them camp guards. A few survivors were making a last stand near the ore train, but they were outnumbered and as Tokaido watched, they were quickly surrounded. Most of the Koreans realized they were finished and threw down their arms in surrender, but one of them—the man Tokaido had watched gun down one of his own men before signaling for the firing squad to start executing Lim Seung-Whan and the other prisoners gathered in front of the rock pile—continued to fire back at the commandos. Tokaido dropped to one knee and raised his carbine. He lined up the man in his sights and was about to fire when the Korean’s head suddenly snapped back and he slumped from view. Tokaido lowered his carbine and saw that it was Bolan who’d dispatched the major. The Executioner continued to charge the ore train, not stopping until he’d reached his victim and confirmed that the man was dead.

As the gunfire began to trail off, Tokaido shifted his gaze to the prisoners who’d taken cover behind the rock pile shortly after the onset of the firefight. They all seemed unharmed, but Tokaido felt a twinge of alarm when he realized that his cousin was nowhere to be seen. Even from a distance he was able to recognize Lim’s wife from a family photo, however, and when he saw her looking past the nearby barracks, he tracked her gaze and spotted Lim Seung-Whan. The kidnapped businessman had taken a carbine from one of the fallen guards and was making his way toward the walkway leading up to a bungalow resting on a knoll some forty yards downhill from Tokaido. When someone fired at Lim from inside the bungalow, he dropped to a crouch and returned fire, then continued his advance.

Tokaido wanted to cry out to his cousin, but he was wary of giving away his position. Instead, he stole his way downhill, darting through a patchwork cover of shrubs and small trees until he’d reached the rear of the bungalow. He quietly circled the structure, then was forced back when a spray of gunshots thumped against the bungalow’s outer walls just a few feet from his head.

Tokaido knew where the shots were coming from. He called, “Don’t shoot, Seung! Hold your fire!”

There was a moment’s silence, then Lim rasped, “Who is that?”

“Your cousin!” Tokaido shouted. He took in a breath, then lunged away from the building, letting Lim have a good look at him. While the men had never met face-to-face, they’d exchanged photos during the course of their correspondence and Tokaido hoped his cousin would be able to recognize him.

Lim was crouched behind a thick metal trash can situated halfway down the walkway leading from the bungalow to the prison yard. He stared, dumbfounded, as Tokaido zigzagged toward him, drawing fire from the bungalow. Tokaido finally dived forward and rolled the rest of the way to the trash receptacle. Lim reached out and helped drag him to cover. He was clearly dumbfounded by the sight of his cousin.

“Akira? How on earth did you—?”

“There’s no time to explain right now,” Tokaido interrupted, slapping Lim across the back, “but you have no idea how glad I am to see you.”

“This is a miracle!” Lim exclaimed.

“Something like that.” Tokaido cringed as another round of gunfire glanced off the trash can. “Let’s wait for some backup, then we can take care of these holdouts.”

“I don’t want to wait!” Lim countered. Gesturing at the bungalow, he told Tokaido, “The commandant is in there. He raped my daughter! I want to be the one who takes him down!”

Tokaido thought it over quickly, then said, “All right.”

Clawing at his ammo belt, Tokaido unclipped a stun grenade, then peered past the trash can at the bungalow. He was forced to duck when a gunman fired at him through one of the shattered front windows, but at least he’d pinpointed his target.

“Cover me, then be ready to move,” he told Lim.

Lim nodded. He raised the carbine to his shoulder. On Tokaido’s signal, he leaned to one side and began firing at the bungalow. Tokaido, meanwhile, pulled the pin on the stun grenade, then rose to a crouch and let the bomb fly. Even before the grenade had reached the bungalow, he was bolting out from behind the trash can and racing up the walkway.

The grenade missed crashing through the window, but when it detonated against the sill, its blinding flash and loud roar was still disorienting enough to allow Tokaido and Lim to make it as far as the front steps of the bungalow before one of Yulim’s goons flung open the door and confronted them with an AK-47. He was blinking incessantly, however, clearly half-blinded by the grenade. Tokaido dived forward, tackling the man before he could get off a shot. As they felt to the threshold, Lim rushed past them into the bungalow.

Yulim had retreated behind his desk and been spared the brunt of the stun grenade, and as Lim charged into the living room, he rose into view, gun raised.

“At least I get to take you to hell with me,” he taunted, pulling the trigger.

The commandant’s gun misfired, however. Lim didn’t bother gloating. He stitched Yulim’s midsection with an autoburst from his carbine. Yulim dropped his gun and doubled over, clutching his ravaged torso. Blood spurted through his fingers and when he glared up at Lim, a pool of crimson bubbled up through his lips and spilled down his chin.

“Go ahead,” he gasped hoarsely. “Finish me off!”

Lim stared at Yulim, trembling with rage. He took aim with his carbine, pointing the barrel at the commandant’s face. At the last second, however, he took his finger off the trigger and instead leaned forward, shoving Yulim to the floor and towering over him.

“I’d rather see you die slowly,” he said.

Yulim groaned as he writhed on the floor, still eyeing Lim with contempt. He opened his mouth to speak but instead coughed up more blood. A second later, he went limp.

Lim was still staring down at the body when Tokaido came up from behind and put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s over,” he told his cousin. “Let’s go.”

ONCE MEDICAL SUPPLIES had been tracked inside the storage facility, several Rangers began to treat those wounded in the skirmish while Mack Bolan and Major Cook took a stretcher and first-aid kit up the hill to where Akira Tokaido and Lim Seung-Whan had finally managed to staunch the flow of blood from Major Stevens’ thigh wounds.

“We’ll take over,” Bolan told the two cousins. “Go ahead and check on your family.”

As Lim and Tokaido headed back to the prison yard, Cook applied fresh cotton pads to Stevens’ thigh while Bolan readied the antiseptic.

“We’ve got the place secured?” Stevens asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Bolan told him. “Once we get you stabilized, we’ll round up as many vehicles as we can get our hands on and see if we can make it to the border.”

Stevens nodded, then winced as Bolan poured astringent on his wounds. “How’d we fare?” he asked.

“So far we’ve got four dead and six wounded,” Cook reported. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”

Stevens stared past Bolan and Cook at the prison grounds. The captured North Koreans had been corralled against the side of one of the barracks and were being guarded by four Rangers, two of which were positioned behind the .50-caliber Browning machine gun Bolan had used at the onset of the firefight. The wounded were being treated just inside the other bungalow while another five commandos went about the grim task of gathering together the bodies of those beyond medical help.

“What’d you find in the cave?” Stevens asked Cook.

The major began to explain the layout of the storage facility, then suddenly stopped talking and glanced up into the leaden sky overhead. Bolan and Stevens looked up, as well, their attention, like Cook’s, drawn by a faint rumbling in the clouds.

“Thunder?” Cook murmured.

Bolan listened intently, then shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think so.”

The rumbling slowly grew louder. A few seconds later a helicopter materialized out of the clouds. It was a converted civilian Boeing MD-500, one of countless similar choppers acquired by the KPA during the 1980s and retrofitted with a 30 mm Hughes chain gun.

And it wasn’t alone.

As Bolan, Cook and Stevens watched, a second gunship emerged from the cloud cover, followed by a third and then yet another.

“Holy Christ,” Stevens moaned, eyes on the growing force in the sky.

Soon a total of fourteen MD-500s had swarmed above the encampment. Most were armed with submounted chain guns, but at least five of the gunships were additionally outfitted with rocket pods containing TOW missiles. Down in the prison yard, the Rangers stopped what they were doing and took up defensive positions. They held their fire, however, unsure how best to deal with the sudden turn of events.

“There’s no way we can take them all on,” Stevens said, staring at the aerial force. “They’ll cut us to ribbons!”

“If that’s what they had in mind, they would’ve come in firing,” Bolan said.

“Maybe they just want to see us sweat before they let us have it,” Cook countered. “Hell, they know they’ve got the upper hand.”

Bolan knew the officers had a point, and by the time he’d finished wrapping Stevens’ leg, one of the choppers was hovering less than forty yards above him and the others. Rising to his feet, Bolan stared past the bore of the aircraft’s chain gun, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever was at the controls. All he could see in the windshield, however, was a reflection of the dark clouds. Unnerved, he slowly eased his right hand toward his shoulder holster. Before he could close his hands around the butt of his Desert Eagle, however, the chain gun suddenly erupted, pummeling the ground at Bolan’s feet. He took the hint and moved his hand away from his gun.

Down in the prison yard, one of the Rangers took the shots as his cue to take the offensive. He fired his carbine, glancing a shot off the underside of the gunship closest to him.

“Hold your fire, damn it!” Cook shouted. “All of you!”

The encampment fell silent except for the steady drone of the hovering MD-500s. For several minutes the standoff continued, with the Rangers and the copter gunners each drawing bead on the other but refusing to trigger a shootout that the Americans knew they had no chance of winning.

Then, after announcing their approach with another thunderous rumbling, two more helicopters drifted into view. Both were Russian-made Mi-17-1V transport choppers, each more than four times the size of the MD-500s. Both made their way past the gunships and then slowly set down near the prison yard rock piles, raising clouds of dust with their rotowash.

“What now?” Bolan wondered out loud.

As he watched, the side doors of both choppers slid open. Nearly two dozen armed KPA commandos spilled out, taking up positions around the compound. They were clearly mindful of the Rangers but made no effort to disarm them, much less gun them down. If anything, their primary focus seemed to be on the camp internees and the cave installation. Half the troops made their way to the mountain entrance and filed their way beneath the raised chassis of the missile transporter still blocking the way.

“Okay,” Cook surmised, “they’re taking the place back. I get it. But where the hell does that leave us?”

“I think we’re about to find out,” Stevens said, pointing downhill.

A uniformed officer had followed his troops out of the second transport chopper and was calling out to the nearest group of Rangers. Apparently none of the Rangers spoke Korean, because one of them turned to Lim Seung-Whan and Akira Tokaido, who had joined Lim’s family as well as that of Ji Pho-Hwa just before the arrival of the first gunships. Lim stepped forward and began speaking at length with the officer.

“Let’s get down there,” Stevens suggested.

Bolan and Cook helped the major onto the stretcher, then carefully hauled him downhill. By the time they reached the prison yard, Lim had finished speaking with the officer and passed along the North Korean’s message to his cousin. Tokaido, in turn, broke away from the others and jogged past several of the newly arrived KPA troops. He caught up with Bolan and the others just as they’d reached the barracks where the surviving camp guards had been held prisoner. Now that the tables had turned, those men had quickly moved away from the barracks and picked up the nearest available weapons, intent on retaliating against the Americans who’d briefly overtaken the camp. The Rangers were still armed and ready to defend themselves. Before things could escalate all over again, however, the officer in charge of the reinforcements shouted for order and commanded the guards to hold their fire.

In the midst of this second standoff, Tokaido told Bolan and the two Ranger officers, “They want us to board the transport choppers.”

“Why, so they can put us on display in Pyongyang!” Stevens exclaimed. “I should’ve known!” Ignoring the pain in his leg, the major climbed off the stretcher and gestured angrily as he shouted across the yard at the KPA officer Lim had been speaking with. “Screw that, buddy!”

“No, wait!” Tokaido interjected. “You’ve got it all wrong!”

Stevens was having trouble staying on his feet and Bolan had to reach over to steady him. “What’s the lowdown then?” he asked Tokaido.

“They’re taking us across the DMZ,” Tokaido explained. “We’re going to be dropped off in Panmunjom.”

“Come off it!” Stevens scoffed. “Why the hell would they do that?”

“He wouldn’t give any explanation,” Tokaido said, “but my guess is somebody convinced them it’d be in their best interests to let us go.”

“Just like that?” Stevens said.

“C’mon,” Tokaido told the officer. “You know the negotiators were working nonstop the moment we brought them back to Bonifas. They must’ve reached a breakthrough. I say why look the gift horse in the mouth. We’re outta here.”

Bolan glanced past Tokaido at the two transport choppers. Lim Seung-Whan was already leading his family into one of the aircraft, and a handful of Rangers were heading over to do the same.

“He’s right,” Bolan told Stevens. “If a deal’s been cut in our favor, I say we go with it. If it turns out they’re trying to pull something, well, we’ll deal with it as it comes.”

Stevens glanced at Major Cook questioningly.

“Works for me,” Cook responded. “Sure as hell beats sticking around here.”

Stevens mulled over the situation for a few moments, then threw his hands up in resignation. “All right, you win,” he said. “But you gotta understand. You guys haven’t been holed up in this place as long as I have. The idea of diplomacy working…well, it’d be a first, let me put it that way.”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Cook countered. He pointed at the stretcher and told Stevens, “Now get your ass back in the taxi so we don’t miss our flight.”

Tokaido walked up front alongside Bolan as the Executioner helped Cook carry Stevens the rest of the way to the waiting helicopters. All four men fell silent for the moment, lost in their own thoughts about the way things had turned out. As for Bolan, he knew Stevens had good reason to be skeptical about the idea that they would soon be bound for the free side of the DMZ, but something deep in his gut told him that somehow, for once, the diplomatic channels had paid off. And he was just as sure that his colleagues back at Stony Man Farm had had a hand in the process. He looked forward to hearing all the details, but for the moment, his foremost concern was getting across the DMZ and planting his feet back on free soil. The mere thought of it was enough to raise his spirits, and once he’d helped Stevens up into the idling helicopter, Bolan decided to pass along the sentiment.

Turning to Akira Tokaido, he finally broke the men’s silence.

“If I remember rightly,” he said, offering his young friend a disarming grin, “you and your cousin were supposed to take in a ball game this weekend in Seoul. Looks like you just might make it after all.”

ISBN: 978-1-4603-7458-0

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Ron Renauld for his contribution to this work.

BALLISTIC FORCE

Copyright © 2005 by Worldwide Library.

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