Rogue Operator (31 page)

After
the expected stretch, he heard two smacks on the door, and he knew it was
almost time for him to leave the truck. He felt it turn, then stop, then two
more smacks. He reached in front of him, feeling his way in the near perfect
darkness, and found the knob. He turned it clockwise ninety degrees, and the
surface he was lying on suddenly dropped to the ground, dumping him and his
equipment onto the ground, under the truck.

He spun
around, climbed back into his hiding place, and made sure all of the equipment
had cleared, then pushed himself out again, shoving the floor back up into its
upward position with a click. Tossing his equipment to the right side of the
vehicle, he rolled out from under then reached up, pounding the side of the
vehicle twice.

Immediately
his partner in crime roared away, leaving him on the side of the road with over
a hundred pounds of equipment, and a rapidly brightening day. He checked his
shoulder and was relieved to see it was just a splinter. Removing it, he quickly
attached everything to the backpack frame and set out for the coast which he
could see in the distance as the sun rose behind him. To his left was Yongampo,
where the GPS coordinates embedded in the satphone call indicated it had originated,
and where their intel told them was an idyllic example of twisted North Korean
thinking.

The
International Cooperation Center.

It had
been known for decades the North Koreans were kidnapping foreign nationals,
they had even admitted to such, as if it were their right. Japanese were the
most popular, but the North Koreans certainly didn’t limit themselves to their
enemies, former or current. They kidnapped Chinese, Russians, Indians, whoever
they thought might improve their country. It wasn’t until the recent defection
of a high level party official and his family after the death of Kim Jong-il,
across the very bridge he had just left, that the truth had come out during
debriefings at a CIA station in Japan.

The
International Cooperation Center was real, was outside of Yongampo, near the
Chinese border so it could easily be supplied, and was as far away from the
southern border as possible. Dozens of kidnapped individuals, some recent,
others from decades past, worked in “harmony” toward the “betterment of
mankind”.

His
briefing from Chan indicated a military base within three miles of the city,
but that they were there only in the event a raid was attempted to retrieve a
“guest”. Security was internal, and minimized to make the residents as
comfortable as possible. The residents lived in homes, with their families in
some cases, some with families they had conceived here with North Korean women
provided for their comfort.

Reports
were that most of the people were actually happy there. The longer term
residents more so than the recent arrivals.

And then
there were the volunteers. Those who hadn’t been kidnapped, but had wanted to
go to North Korean for political and ideological reasons. There were dozens of
those as well, not apparently catching the hypocrisy of leaving the West so
they could live a communist life, and instead of doing so, were happily serving
the cause by living in a Western style compound.

A voice
called out to his left and he dropped to the ground, the heavy backpack
momentarily crushing the air out of his lungs. He gasped to recover, then
rolled to his side to make a lower profile amongst the meager crops he had been
crossing. Raising his head slightly, he saw a farmer about a hundred yards
away, waving. He appeared to be looking directly at him. Another voice called
out, behind him, and Kane rolled to the other side, taking a look. A second
farmer was returning the wave, and walking toward his neighbor.

And
Kane.

Kane
couldn’t afford to be discovered. Most North Korean citizens were fiercely
loyal to their leadership through fear. It wasn’t that they necessarily wanted
to report you, it was they were afraid of what might happen if they didn’t.
What if he were a plant to test their loyalty? If they didn’t report what they
had seen, they would fail the test, and be imprisoned, any privileges they may
have earned, stripped away.

Kane
began to crawl, infantry style, as quickly as he could, shoulders low to the
ground, ass down, keeping his body as low as possible. Unfortunately he had a
large backpack sticking up above him, but there was no time to remove it. He
only hoped that the farmer hadn’t seen him, or thought he was a trick of the
shadows played by the rising sun and the trees that occasionally dotted the
landscape.

Words
were exchanged, but he couldn’t listen, his own grunting and the noise of his
body dragging across the field preventing it. All he could tell was that the
second voice was getting closer. The crops he climbed through, wheat he
assumed, were barely two feet high, and not very densely packed. He was
crawling between two rows, meaning if someone were to just look down the row,
he would be seen.

His
heart pounded with the exertion as he continued to push himself toward the edge
of the field. He could see the crops ending only ten feet from him now and,
firing adrenaline through his veins, a drop off. The ground crunched behind him
with each step of the visiting farmer, getting closer and closer to his feeble
hiding place.

He
pushed harder, digging his elbows, knees and toes deeper into the soil, racing
as fast as he could toward the cover so close at hand. He wasn’t concerned
about noise now, he was concerned with not being seen. If the farmer came upon
an empty row of crops, having heard something he couldn’t explain, he would
probably ignore it. But if he caught even a glimpse of Kane, he would be
running for the nearest phone.

Or
pitchfork.

And then
Kane might have to kill an innocent man.

The lip
to a drainage ditch was now only inches away. The crunch of boots, then a
friendly shout were heard as Kane poured himself over the lip and rolled into
the small ditch. As he rolled, he spotted the farmer entering his row, looking
toward the other farmer, just as Kane dropped out of sight. He sucked in a deep
breath through the nose, then slowly let it out through his mouth, repeating
this several times as he steadied his racing heart, quieting the pounding in
his ears, as he tried to listen to the voices.

The
slowly receding voices.

Kane
breathed a sigh of relief, righted himself, then dared a quick glance. The
farmer was clearly moving away from his position, apparently unaware of Kane’s
presence. Kane spotted a perpendicular drainage ditch ten yards further away
from the now chatting farmers, and quickly made his way there, then took the
new ditch, this time on hands and knees, making the going a little easier.
Another five minutes and the land sloped enough that he was able to stand
again, out of sight of the farmers, and with a pleasant view of the coast, the
“freedom” of China only a few miles to the north.

A quick
scan of the area and he knew exactly where he was from the satellite shots he
had studied in Chan’s back room. Three trees stood to his right, seemingly
guarding a large stone outcropping. He made his way there, and quickly unhooked
his backpack, shrugging it off his shoulders. Unpacking, he began to stuff the
equipment he would need for later under the outcropping and out of sight, then
downed some water and a protein bar. He packed a smaller backpack, slung it
over his shoulders, and headed in the direction of the International
Cooperation Center.

And with
each step, his mind kept returning to that day, that fateful mission, where
everything had gone wrong, the memories of it haunting him every night since, and
whenever he was left alone with his thoughts.

He
pushed the memory aside, instead focusing on his plan. It could work. It had to
work. For if it didn’t, it meant three dead American scientists.

By his
hand.

International Cooperation Center, North Korea

Today, Eight Days after the Kidnappings

Jason Peterson sat on his stool, reviewing the computer setup, but
finding it difficult to focus, his face still swollen and throbbing from the
beating he had taken. Phil and Carl had been unable to look at him, Carl
probably out of fear he’d flip out, and Phil he hoped out of guilt.

This
is all your fucking fault!

Right
now Jason would like nothing better than to wrap his hands around Phil’s throat
and squeeze the very life out of him. But what would that accomplish? A painful
death for him and his family. Probably his family first, in front of him.

He
needed a way out.

And
escape was impossible. He knew that. There was just too much security, cameras,
microphones. One thing he was nearly certain of was that there was no video
surveillance in the house. They hadn’t known where the phone was, they just
knew it was there. That should mean they at least couldn’t see anything in the
house, because if they didn’t have the bathroom of all places wired, he doubted
they would bother with anything else. He couldn’t see them excluding the
bathroom out of politeness or modesty. But their every word was monitored,
every sound listened to.

It was
intolerable.

He had
to get out.

But even
if they were to leave the house, which was permitted, they would have to get
out of the compound, which may or may not be difficult, he didn’t know, but
they were still inside North Korea. Where would he, his wife, and two young
kids, go? How could they possibly escape?

Just
kill yourself, then it’s over.

He froze
at the thought. The ultimate sin, something he had never contemplated in his
entire life, never even casually had the thought cross his mind. But now there
it was. Suicide. An obvious solution, a horrible solution, a final solution.

But
what about Maggie and the kids?

He
nearly gagged at the thought that popped in his mind. If he killed himself,
they would have no more need for his family, and they would most certainly kill
them, or worse. He had visions of Maggie and Ayla being raped repeatedly as
punishment for his crime, then killed, while Darius cried as he witnessed the
abuse.

Tears
welled in his eyes as the image consumed him.

“Are you
okay,” whispered Carl, leaning down beside him, pretending to be reading the
monitor.

Jason
nodded slightly. “I will be.”

Carl
gave him a pat on the back, and returned to his own station. Jason gently wiped
the tears from his eyes, the swollen area still tender to the touch.

And a
decision was made. A horrible decision. One he didn’t know if he could follow
through on, or if he even should.

He was
going to kill his family, then himself.

Tonight.

Outside the International Cooperation Center, North Korea

Kane was well concealed amongst several wild bushes, his special anti-glare,
anti-reflection binoculars pressed to his eyes as he surveyed the compound
below. It was eerie. Almost like looking at some small middle-America town in
the late fifties, early sixties. In fact, it looked much like the married
quarters of a military base. All perfectly appointed small homes, a patchwork
of colors, all fitting the one story rancher style that so typified that era.

Quaint.

That was
the word he would use to describe the scene if asked. It was quaint. Green
lawns, well-manicured by men in blue jumpsuits, gardens in the back yards, some
tended by women in Western clothes, women he assumed were the wives of some of
the “guests”. And some were Korean, as reported in his briefing.

There
was a school, with an old fashioned school bell that had just rung. Minutes
before women from many of the houses had left their homes and walked toward the
building in the center of the community, a community laid out in a hub and
spoke pattern. The school, along with what looked like a general store and
community center, sat at the hub, with streets extending out in all directions,
most with about a dozen homes lining them, then one main street that ran down
the middle, joining with another hub about two miles distant, it clearly the
International Cooperation Center. The streets extending from there appeared to
be support buildings, and barracks for the North Korean staff.

And all
around it a fence, about ten feet tall with razor wire trimming it, but guards
only at the gates at either end of the compound. Again, it appeared security
was considered a non-issue. After all, where were you going to go?

North
Korea might as well be the Arctic or some remote desert. No, the terrain
probably wouldn’t kill you, but the locals would turn you in in a heartbeat, and
the chances of you getting to the border, if you even knew where it was, were
next to nil. And that was if you chose the right border. Western instinct would
be to go south toward the free half of this divided country. But that would be
wrong. There was no way to cross the most heavily defended border in the world.
And north, toward China, a traditional enemy, would seem illogical.

Kane
watched a jeep make the rounds of the outer fence again. There was a cracked,
paved road that surrounded the outside of the camp, and since he’d been lying
in the bushes, the jeep had come around like clockwork, every eight minutes. He
could clear the distance between the nearest house, and his bushes in that
time, at a sprint with almost no equipment. There was no way an eight year-old
could, or a man carrying an eight year-old.

He
needed cover in between. His eyes scanned the area and he spotted a depression
about half way between the fence and his current position. He decided he would
check it out at dusk. Right now there were too many eyes going about their
business that might spot a man outside the compound.