Kill Chain (25 page)

Crawford
Residence
Forest
Hills, Washington, DC

“I think
I found the upload IP.”

Jeff’s fingers froze over
his keyboard and he turned toward Clarence. “Spoofed?”

“Oh yeah, but it was too
big a transmission to bury on the network they were using.”

Jeff’s eyes narrowed.
“What do you mean?”

“Look.” An image fed to
his display. “It was mostly a satellite upload. That narrows the available
bandwidth by quite a bit.”

Jeff paused. “Wait, did
you say
mostly
?”

Clarence smiled. “I was
wondering if you’d pick up on that. A couple of packets of data actually went
through a cellular network.”

Jeff smiled, his head
slowly bobbing. “So wherever they are has a satellite uplink and cellular
capability.” His smile disappeared. “But why would they risk that? Cellular’s
way too easy to trace.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t
think they were connected. Maybe they’re configured to go cellular first then
satellite when there’s no connectivity.”

Vic piped in. “Makes
sense. So wherever they are, they thought there was no way they could connect
to a cell network, but they did for a few seconds, so the data transmission
switched over to it then back to the satellite network.” Vic smacked his hands
together, leaning back from the camera. “That’s awesome, dude, you figured it
out!”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

Jeff stared at the IP
address. “Where is it?”

“South Korea.”

Jeff resisted the urge to
check the Internet Protocol address, instead deciding on allowing Clarence the
glory. “Ping it, see if they’re still online!”

Embassy
of the United States Seoul
32
Sejongno Street, Seoul, Republic of Korea

“Mr.
President, your time is up.”

Starling tensed at the
tone of finality coming from his phone, the call received precisely sixty
minutes after the last one ended.

Exactly at the deadline.

A deadline they had
fallen woefully short of making, though to Leroux’s credit, he had transferred
over three-hundred-million, some reaching every single charity.

He had to hope it was
enough.

“If you check your
accounts, you’ll see we’ve already begun to transfer the funds as you
stipulated. Over three-hundred-million has already been sent.”

“Are you playing games
with me, Mr. President? I want
all
the money deposited, not some token
amount.”

Starling’s knuckles
turned white as he gripped the arms of his chair, his heart slamming as he
realized their gambling with a slip of the man’s tongue was probably about to
fail.

But they had no choice. It
was time to go all in.

“And it will be, but it
will take time. You said we had to
begin
transferring the money within
an hour. You said nothing about
everything
being transferred.”

There was a pause.

A bead of sweat rolled
down Starling’s back.

“So you want to play word
games? You want to play games with the life of your daughter? You want to—wait
a minute. What the hell?” There was a pause, concern in the voice on the other
end, Starling exchanging a confused glance with Red. “Mr. President, I see
you’ve simply been playing for time. You think detecting my network will save
your daughter? Well, it won’t. Your time is up, Mr. President. See you in
hell!”

The call ended and
Starling jumped from his chair, leaning over his cellphone lying on the desk.
“Hello? Hello?” He looked up at Red. “What the hell is he talking about?”

Red shook his head,
leaning toward the comms set up on the desk so Langley could listen in.
“Control, did you hear that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you find him?”

“Negative. We’re still
trying to trace the upload.”

Red looked at Starling,
puzzled. “Well, he certainly thinks we’ve found him.”

“We haven’t, sir, but…”

“But what?”

“Maybe someone else has.”

“Who?” asked Starling,
dropping back into his chair.

“Perhaps one of the other
governments involved.”

Red leaned onto the desk,
knuckles white as his face was only inches from the microphone. “Whoever it is,
we need to find out right away!”

“Yes, sir.”

Starling tilted forward
in his chair, his eyes burning. “Hurry, Mr. Leroux, it might be the only way to save
my daughter.”

Joint
Security Area
Panmunjom,
Korean Demilitarized Zone

Ki-yong
pressed the nicotine patch under his uniform, trying to coax out some more
medicine, his fingers shaking from withdrawal. His new girlfriend had insisted
he quit smoking before he met her parents, and she was worth the pain—she was
sleeping with him, after all. Yet he was seriously jonesing for a butt and a
session of Minecraft, his usually boring job far too tense today, his adrenal
glands pegged from the constant activity on the other side of the Demilitarized
Zone.

He knew what was going
on, of course, he wasn’t an idiot. It was all over the news, even the music
station he normally listened to covering the story of the G20 kidnapping. They
had all seen the video from the North claiming responsibility, though he still
didn’t know what it was all
about
.

What do they hope to
accomplish?

If they wanted war, they
were certainly going about it properly. From the briefing, he knew more
hardware and personnel were being sent here from around the world, it the
biggest buildup since the war.

It was a recipe for
disaster.

And he was on the
frontlines.

He thought of his
girlfriend and wondered if this morning’s romp might have been the last one of
his pathetically short and uninteresting life.

If it is, I’m killing
everyone I can.

He grunted.

You’ll be the first to
die.

He had the worst luck of
anyone he knew, having been in Yeonpyeong when the North had dropped almost 170
shells and rockets on the island, killing four people, one of whom his parents
had known. The retaliation had been swift and effective, the tense balance
between the two nations maintained.

His family had
immediately moved, his mother refusing to live there anymore, it simply too
close to the madmen ruling the land her son now stared at through binoculars.
They had moved as far south as they could, his father fortunately able to
transfer within the same company, though he had taken a pay cut.

It had hurt the family.

And that was why he had
skipped his plans for university and instead joined the military, much of his
paycheck sent home to help the family until his father could regain his
position and his mother could find work. He had promised once things had
settled he’d continue his education, though not before.

He was a man, after all,
and as the eldest son, it was his responsibility to help when needed.

No matter the cost to his
future.

He stared at his
counterpart—his mirror—on the other side of the line, giving a slight acknowledgment
with the lifting of three fingers. It was returned, at great risk to his
counterpart, the North probably more likely to shoot him if he were caught
“fraternizing” with the enemy. He had no idea what the man’s name was, or
anything about him, only that he was young like him, and probably had dreams
like everyone else here, manning the line.

As long as everyone
stays calm, we might make it out of this.

A buzzing sound behind
him had him flipping over from his perch, his jaw dropping as something sped
toward him. The others were hearing it now, everyone turning to see the cause
of the sound.

“What the hell is that?”

A drone sped past them,
followed by at least another half-dozen, streaming toward the other side, over
the fences and the barbed wire and toward the gate manned by their opponents.

Gunfire erupted and he
flipped back over onto his stomach, peering through his binoculars, his chest
tightening in horror as the drones somehow opened fire on the guards, several
already down.

An alarm sounded across
the border, quickly followed by their own. Soldiers streamed from bunkers on both
sides, those on the North finding several of their comrades dead.

They opened fire.

Though not on the drones,
drones that appeared to have vanished, but on him and his friends. He ducked
behind his sandbag-surrounded foxhole and grabbed the emergency phone
connecting him to HQ.

“What’s going on out
there!”

“It wasn’t us! We didn’t
fire first!”

“Then who the hell
fired?”

“It was drones!” he cried
as the gunfire intensified from both sides. “Tell them to cease fire! It wasn’t
us!”

A wave of nausea swept
over him as he heard the most fearsome sound he could imagine, thunder in the
distance, memories of the childhood horror of Yeonpyeong flooding back.

North Korean artillery.

Outside
Qingdau, China

Kane
slipped over the wall, dropping silently to the grass below. Chan had already
left, under strict orders to make himself scarce until retrieval was required.
He edged forward, keeping a wary eye out for cameras and guards, but finding
none.

Hang Jian apparently felt
quite secure in his own home, behind his high walls.

And it made sense.

He was, after all, a
member of the Party.

Untouchable.

Unless they turned on
him.

Then no amount of
security would save him.

Kane’s stomach abruptly
betrayed him and he bent over, heaving everything he had eaten for the past
twenty-four hours into a birdbath thankfully free of feathered guests.

He stared at his
handiwork, a twinge of guilt tormenting him as he thought of the poor domestic
who was going to have to clean that up once discovered.

Sorry.

But he
did
feel
much better.

Sometimes you just
have to let it go.

The song from Frozen
popped in his head.

He quickly punched his
inner voice in the throat, ending the torment.

He moved forward
silently, the sound of music and giggling catching his ear. He rounded the
north side of the house and smiled, Hang in a hot tub, two women paying nipple
service to him, the rotund man’s head tossed back in ecstasy.

Sensitive nipples?

A third woman slowly
emerged from under the water.

Oh.

He glanced at the man’s
left hand, a wedding ring visible.

I doubt one of them is
his wife.

He reached into his
pocket and screwed a suppressor into the end of his Norinco QSZ-92, then boldly
walked toward the party, rounding the hot tub so he was facing the adulterer.