Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation (16 page)

Northern Side of the Demilitarized Zone
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)

J
anson emerged from the hole just before dawn, his arms and legs caked with mud, his face as black as the tunnel walls. Though he could barely see through the heavy fog, he was grateful just for the clean breaths he could take as he belly-crawled on his elbows through the dampened, overgrown grass. Rising slowly from his hands and knees, he discovered that every inch of his body ached. His head was as heavy as a truck; he needed sleep. But this was no place to rest. If he were seen, he'd be shot on sight or, worse, delivered to a labor camp from which he'd never be released. And here, deep in the DMZ, he couldn't rule out the risk of setting his head down on a landmine.

Rest would have to wait.

Though moving forward wouldn't be much safer. He could stumble over a trip wire rigged with explosives. Enveloped in the opaque mist, Janson could walk directly into an electrified fence and not know it until his flesh started to sizzle. A copse of trees stood roughly a hundred yards away to his left; a bullet fired from a sniper's nest could rip through his throat at any moment.

Undoubtedly, he was in far more danger now than he had been immediately following the shots that killed Silent Lynx at the construction site in Shanghai.

Because now, without question, Janson was behind enemy lines.

He crept low. Moved as quickly as possible while keeping his eyes peeled for booby traps. The fog made that challenge exceedingly difficult, but he took some comfort in the fact that if he couldn't see a few feet in front of his face, North Korean soldiers couldn't spot him either. Especially from any significant distance. To snipers he'd be all but invisible. A ghost.

Surely not the only ghost plodding through the high grass of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, he thought.

Unfortunately, the fog also prevented Janson from seeing where he was going. And with frigid winds blowing in from Siberia, he had to navigate through threadlike slits instead of wide-open eyes. He only needed to walk a straight line, but even that was a test in this weather.

He gritted his teeth. His blackened face was already frozen; he'd have to take precautions against frostbite. Frostbite led to amputations, not only of fingers and toes but also of ears and noses. He tugged on his ski cap, tucked his face into his black North Face coat, and moved forward.

His destination was the Reunification Highway, otherwise known as the Pyongyang-Kaesong Motorway. The distance from the DMZ to the capital city was roughly 215 klicks, or 133 miles. Much too far to walk, of course; Janson needed a vehicle. Once he obtained one, then he'd begin worrying about the numerous checkpoints and tank traps along the multiple-lane highway.
Then
, he promised himself, not a moment before.

A sound in the distance caused Janson to drop flat on his stomach. He listened. The noise resembled the hum of an engine. Janson knew he wasn't yet close enough to the highway to hear its traffic. Which meant that the engine he heard undoubtedly belonged to a military vehicle on patrol.

He inched forward and continued to listen. The vehicle was moving east to west at no more than ten or fifteen miles per hour. Janson mused that its presence was as close as he'd ever come to describing something as a blessing in disguise.

He lifted his field glasses and spotted the vehicle just as it rolled to a stop. From Janson's vantage point, it appeared to be a jeep, military green and as old as the DMZ itself. He couldn't be sure but he thought he could make out at least two soldiers inside.

At least I'm not too close to a cluster of landmines, Janson thought. Unless even North Korean soldiers were occasionally caught by surprise. Certainly a possibility given what little he—or anyone else for that matter—knew about the country.

“
Pyongyang is an intelligence black hole
,” Jina Jeon had told him.

Through his field glasses, Janson watched the soldiers exit the jeep on either side. Each of the men carried what appeared to be a Chinese-manufactured AK-47. The fact that he could make out the weapons meant the fog was beginning to lift. For better or worse, it meant that Janson would have to work even faster than he'd anticipated.

He reached for his go-bag. Silently, he assembled his M110.

He set himself then peered through the scope. Instantly he spotted one of the soldiers standing casually behind the jeep.

He quickly scanned the area for the second.

The second man was no longer visible.

Where did you go? Why the hell would you wander off?

Before he finished the thought Janson's instincts kicked in; he r
ealize
d he'd been spotted. Maintaining a tight grip on his rifle, he rolled fast to his left just as thick patches of dirt and grass began kicking up all around him. The crackling of the AK-47 resonated in his chest.

Ignoring the universal pain in his body, Janson pushed himself to his feet and started running, stealing a look back to try to determine from which direction—
directions
, plural now—he was being fired upon.

In a serpentine pattern he crossed the stretch of open land heading south and slightly east toward the copse of trees. Following a few agonized seconds of internal debate, he'd decided that heading back toward the tunnel was suicide—
even if
his being spotted was just a stroke of poor luck and his point of ingress into the North hadn't been compromised.

That tunnel, Janson intuited, was far less likely to serve as his means of escape than as his grave.

As he ran, Janson had no hope of consciously avoiding booby traps. Each time his combat boots hit the ground he risked detonating a landmine. Every time he lifted a boot to move forward he gambled his life on there not being a trip wire set directly in his path.

The soldiers' shots were wild. A half dozen or so buzzed by within a few feet of him, but most of the bullets came nowhere close. Janson felt fortunate that the fog hadn't lifted altogether. The mist made him an elusive target.

Not quite a ghost anymore, he imagined as he ran, but still more difficult to trace than an ordinary man.

Once Janson had moved far enough away, the shots became fewer and farther between. He slowed as he considered dropping into the tall grass and spinning around, setting his rifle and waiting for one of the soldiers to step into his sights. But then he heard the engine of the jeep roar to life.

He took off again.

When he reached the tree line, Janson experienced a small measure of relief. Although he wasn't by any means safe, the trees would at least help slow the soldiers down, and hopefully help level the playing field.

As he checked his magazine Janson surveyed the area beyond the southern tree line. He was surprised to find just how close he was to the border. In the distance he could make out a tall metal fence topped with rings of barbed wire.

Shit.
A shot from the soldier's assault rifle struck the bark of a tree just a few yards away. Janson immediately slipped out of his go-bag, dropped the M110, and collected his Beretta. He fired once through the fog in the general direction of the soldiers—then bolted for the electrified fence on the border.

The grass surrounding the fence was waist-high on both sides.

Janson fired several shots from staggered positions then dove for cover behind a thick tree stump roughly halfway between the fence and the forest.

Over the next several minutes the air above his head grew still and silent as the soldiers searched for their quarry.

Turn the hunter into the hunted, he thought, breathing heavily, the predator into the prey.

Strangely, the silence remained absolute. Janson stifled a cough in his throat. The dead air of the tunnel still lay at the bottom of his lungs like a fungus.

Come on.
Give me a sound, any sound
, so I know where you are.

Still nothing but silence save for his steadying breaths.

Patience, Janson thought. Patience.

In the cold, wet grass he waited.

Outside 322 Sowol-ro
Yongsan-gu, Seoul

F
rom the street Sin Bae watched the American woman escort the girl into the opulent lobby of the Grand Hyatt Seoul. From his pocket he extracted his phone. He would need to contact Ping for information on the hotel. In the meantime, however, Sin Bae couldn't remain outside, exposed. So he headed for the pretentious apartment building looming across the roadway.

The girl's name, he'd been told, was Kang Jung. She was thirteen years old, as fresh-faced and beautiful as his sister Su-ra had been at that age. Su-ra, all those years ago. Sin Bae profoundly regretted what would have to be done to the girl.

And he couldn't help but accept the fact that her blood would be on his hands—in more ways than one.

Had he succeeded in eliminating Gregory Wyckoff when he did the interpreter at the Sophia Guesthouse, this child would never have become involved.

She should not be here, Sin Bae thought with a touch of sadness. This girl should be at her school.

Thinking of her, he flashed on the labor camp in which he'd been imprisoned as a child. At Yodok, Sin Bae and Su-ra had attended a school nothing like the one in which they'd studied in Pyongyang. At Yodok the teachers behaved viciously; fellow students fell out of their chairs from hunger. Some children went mad right before his eyes.

He often looked around the cramped classroom in terror. Dirt clung to every child's hair, and fleas covered their bodies. There was no soap and little water at Yodok. Everyone was weak. All but a few were missing teeth.

After a half day in school, under the constant threat of violence from armed guards, Sin Bae chopped wood, hauled logs, grew corn, and pulled weeds, while his sister Su-ra worked from afternoon till evening in a dilapidated sweatshop on the opposite end of the camp. Everyone at Yodok was forced to work, even the too old and the too young. For many, labor quietly became a death sentence.

But Sin Bae was strong. He could handle the work, he could handle the constant berating from teachers, even the occasional beating. He could handle the appalling conditions. What he could not handle was being separated all but one hour a day from his sister, Su-ra.

Sin Bae waited outside the apartment building for only a few minutes before a young man, exiting, held the door open for Sin Bae to come in from the cold. Inside, Sin Bae immediately took the stairwell up. When he reached the top floor, the eleventh, he peered through the narrow vertical window set in the dark-red steel door. It was just after 7
AM
and many of the young professionals who inhabited the building were leaving for work. From the stairwell Sin Bae watched the hallway to see which flat on the south side of the building—the side facing the Grand Hyatt—would be vacated first.

Ten minutes later a young couple stepped out of their apartment and locked the door. Sin Bae waited until the elevator doors met then entered the hall. As he neared the couple's door the bark of a small dog caused him to hesitate. He did not wish to kill the dog. But he also knew he would not be able to concentrate if he had to listen to the canine scratching and yapping from behind a closed bedroom door.

He listened carefully. After several seconds he determined that the barking was emanating from the apartment on the opposite side of the hall. He continued on, removing the lock pick from his pocket.

Sin Bae stepped into apartment 11-E and locked the door, then headed straight for the picture window facing the hotel. He pushed aside the lavish curtain. Removed a small pair of binoculars from inside his jacket and focused on the sidewalk in front of the lobby.

As he watched the sidewalk, he made his call to Ping in Shanghai.

A few minutes later, when he spotted the back of the man's head, he thought he was imagining things. He looked again, focusing on the round bald spot at the top (what the Americans called “a silver dollar”), and watched as the man twisted his plump neck to inspect his surroundings. As implausible as it seemed, now there was no doubt. The middle-aged man was the same paunchy Korean whom Jessica Kincaid had danced with at the club the night before last. The man who had distracted Sin Bae from his mission, the man who'd allowed Kincaid to escape Sin Bae's grasp in the coatroom of the T-Lound nightclub.

This was the man truly responsible for the involvement of the teenage girl who reminded Sin Bae so much of his sister, Su-ra. The girl Sin Bae was now under orders to kill.

He closed his eyes. Something akin to anger rose in Sin Bae's chest as he set down the binoculars to contemplate his next steps.

T
HE RAP AT THE
hotel room door startled Kincaid as she stepped out of the bathroom.

She promptly shook it off, realizing that it must be Park Kwan on the other side of the door. After peeking through the peephole, she undid the chain, unlocked the dead bolt, and opened the door. Park Kwan stepped past her with a smile on his face.

“I may have a lead on the boy,” he said.

“What kind of lead?” she said. “How strong? How reliable?”

He grinned confidently. “As reliable as facial recognition software.”

Kincaid's eyes widened in horror. “You didn't speak to anyone at your department, did you? I told you
specifically
—”

“No, no.” Park Kwan lifted his palm in a defensive gesture that left Kincaid feeling guilty for pouncing on him. “This has nothing to do with the South Korean government at all.
This
is a private enterprise.”

Kang Jung, who'd been sitting at the room's lone desk, leafing through the hotel's in-room dining menu, swiveled around to face them. “The International Finance Center
Mall
?” she exclaimed.

Park Kwan nodded in the girl's direction. “Precisely.”

“But,” Kang Jung said, abruptly rising from her chair, “the kiosks at the mall only estimate an individual's age and gender. The mall sees nearly two million shoppers every month, and most of them are probably around Gregory Wyckoff's age. How could that possibly help us?”

Park Kwan's grin broadened. “The software is somewhat more sophisticated than the mall's owners and the system's creators would have you believe.” He turned to Kincaid. “See, South Korea's privacy laws prohibit companies from collecting personal information from customers without their consent. Legally, they cannot admit to recording and storing customers' images. But as a practical matter…”

“Big Brother is watching,” Kang Jung said with a sour expression. “Those bastards. When I get to a computer I am immediately going to hack into their system and—”

“Wait, young lady,” Park Kwan said, raising his palm again. “Let's not lose sight of what is important at this moment. We need to find the boy. More than privacy may be at stake here. Given what we already know, this entire city may be at risk.”

Kincaid said, “Tell us what you've discovered.”

Park Kwan cleared his throat and adopted a more serious, more professional tone. “Jung is right. The idea behind the mall's facial recognition software is to estimate a customer's age and gender in order to permit advertisers to tailor their interactive ads. But, as I mentioned, the software actually goes much further than that. It is a secret very few people know.”

“How did you get so lucky?”

He blushed ever so slightly. “I have a lady friend who works at the conglomerate that makes the software. She knew I was looking to retire from the police department, so she offered to recommend me for a job in their security division.” He sighed. “I passed the interview process, as well as the background check and drug tests. But—and looking back, I suppose this shouldn't have surprised me—the company has prospective employees followed by in-house investigators to determine what their private lives are like before the final hire. Like any organization that hires employees who will handle sensitive material, this company wants to make certain that their candidates are not potential targets for blackmail. That they are not in the kind of debt that would motivate them to sell confidential information to competitors or the media.

“In my case,” he continued solemnly, “they discovered that I drank, and they feared that my intoxication would lead me to divulge trade secrets.” He cocked his head to one side then the other. “Which I suppose I am doing now as we speak.” He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Well, the joke is on them because at the moment I am as sober as a stone.”

“But if you were not hired…” Kang Jung began.

Park Kwan turned to her with a sheepish expression. “My lady friend—she, too, partakes in the spirits, if you will.”

“All right,” Kincaid said, anxious now for Park Kwan to get to the crux, “when did the software pick up Gregory Wyckoff at the mall?”

“The morning he went missing.”

“
Jeez Louise
,” Kincaid burst out. “That doesn't help us. He could be
anywhere
by now.”

“
Please
, Louise,” Park Kwan shot back, “wait until I am finished.” He exhaled audibly then sucked in his gut and puffed out his chest. “It is not the fact that his face was captured that is important. It is what he was captured doing that is vital.”

Kang Jung stepped forward, her voice quiet and contemplative. “He stole something, didn't he?”

“Correct, young lady,” Park Kwan said. “He swiped a smartphone from the purse of a cashier at one of the mall's accessory kiosks. She thought she simply misplaced the phone and has not yet contacted the carrier. So I am having the signal triangulated. We should have news of his whereabouts—or at least the direction in which he is traveling—shortly.”

“
And
a record of who he called,” Kang Jung said, almost to herself. “Maybe even which websites he visited.”