Targets of Opportunity (21 page)

“We’re working on it,” Walsh said.

“Perfect,” Forelli said, then took a deep breath. “And what’s the hubbub in Pyongyang?”

“You saw the satellite feed?”

“Yes, yes, yes, of course we did. Is that one of your black ops?”

Walsh turned to Byrnes. He responded with a short nod. “It was likely one of our operations,” the Deputy Director told them.

“Likely, huh? Do I want to know what’s going on in North Korea?” the advisor asked.

“No sir,” Byrnes replied without hesitation, “you do not.”

“Uh huh. Well, based on what we’ve learned from the satellite surveillance, it appears there was one helluva gunfight outside that ridiculous stadium over there.”

“We have the same information,” Byrnes said.

“Anything more than that?”

“Not yet.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Mark,” Forelli warned.

“We have nothing else from there yet.”

“Great. I suppose our wacko friend Kim will be issuing a statement soon, some clever ditty about Western imperialism.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Byrnes said.

The National Security Advisor hesitated, then decided to let it go. Sometimes, in dealing with the Agency, plausible deniability was more important than information. “All right, you have any other good news for me today?” When neither Walsh nor Byrnes replied, he said, “Keep us posted. And I mean up to the minute.” Then he reached for the panel in front of him and Forelli’s image on the screen went black.

The Director turned to Byrnes. “Do we need to talk?”

“Yes sir, we do.”

Walsh cleared the room, leaving the two of them facing each other across the Director’s conference table. “I’m listening.”

“We assume the firefight in Pyongyang was Sandor’s team,” Byrnes reported. “So far we have no intel on the result.”

“In other words, we don’t know if he made it out or not.”

“Exactly.”

“Anything more from Ahmad Jaber?”

“We received word his wife was taken, apparently on her way out of Iran.”

“Jaber knows this?”

“Not yet.” He paused. “But she apparently knows that he’s here.” Walsh pressed his lips together, thinking that one over. “Any sense of what sort of relationship they have?”

“As in, does Jaber give a damn about his wife?”

“For example.”

“I’ll find out.”

“You do that. And you find out what else he’s holding back. If he doesn’t give us everything he has, and I mean right now, then all deals are off.”

“Understood.”

“You tell him from me, if he screws with us I’ll feed him to Jordan Sandor, one piece at a time.”

“Yes, sir,” Byrnes said, resisting the impulse to smile for the first time in days.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

IN THE COUNTRYSIDE, NORTH OF PYONGYANG

H
EA DROVE THROUGH
the night along poorly paved back roads. The absence of traffic was a problem, especially at this hour, and she was not going to make it easier for them to be spotted by driving on the main highway north. They stayed close to the Taedong River, she and Sandor agreeing that the inland route, although longer, was safest. As Hea had explained, their pursuers would expect them to make a run for one of the coastlines, either the Sea of Japan to the east or Korea Bay and the Yellow Sea to the west. Instead they would circle around the mountainous area near Hyesan and continue north to their destination, just across the Russian border.

There was little moonlight, but the sky was clear and the girl continued to find her way forward without the benefit of headlights. Sandor admired the way she navigated these byways in virtual darkness, keeping a steady speed as they motored ahead. He studied her finely chiseled features, realizing for the first time that she was an exceedingly attractive young woman. He wondered how she had been recruited, who had contacted her, even how old she might be.

And then his mind wandered back to the news of the airliner that had exploded after taking off from St. Maarten. At first he tried to imagine how that incident could be tied to the information he had uncovered thus far from Jaber, Kyung, and Hwang. It made no sense, and he struggled to piece together some connection between the random terrorist destruction of a commercial airliner and an alliance among North Korea, Iran, and Venezuela.

But soon his thoughts turned to the jetliner explosion itself. He had no idea what altitude they had reached before the blast, but he imagined the stunned passengers as the aircraft was torn apart and began its accelerating dive into the Caribbean. How long had people remained conscious? How many were thrown from their seats? Was any part of the main cabin ripped away, causing some to be drawn into the vortex of depressurization and flung helplessly into the sky?

He began to do the math on how quickly the horrific end would come for these unsuspecting vacationers, travelers with spouses and with friends, parents with sons and daughters, clutching their children for those final seconds of life as they confronted the inevitability of their violent ends. Would they pray to God? Would they cry out? Would some try desperately to comfort their doomed children?

Sandor felt his stomach tighten as he considered the deranged bastards who would wreak this devastation on innocent people, on people who had done nothing wrong except to have unknowingly boarded a condemned flight.

Those poor souls, he thought. He was not able to shake the image of their last chaotic moments. He drew a deep breath and blew it out hard, as if exorcising the sense of abject evil that gripped him. Then he swore to himself that if he ever made it back from this mission, whatever it took, he would track down the sonuvabitch responsible and kill the man himself.

————

The army of the DPRK is a well-trained and rigorously disciplined group. Their elite units were assigned to posts along the border with South Korea and throughout Kaesong and Panmunjom, maintaining an uneasy peace and keeping their two countries separated. The troops assigned to the Rungrado Stadium were more policemen than combat soldiers, assigned to preserve order, not prepared for the invasion Sandor and his men had engineered.

Now, as the squadron assigned to the Arirang Festival mobilized half of its remaining men to chase down the intruders, the word went out for assistance to the various battalions in the neighboring provinces. Before they were in place, however, the advance unit had managed to track Mr. Sang’s van to the clearing twenty miles north of the stadium.

The officer in charge ordered his vehicle to halt more than a hundred yards short of their target as two armor-plated personnel carriers behind his did the same. He deployed his men in a semicircle around the small bus, careful that no soldier was in the line of friendly fire. They moved quickly in the darkness, each man taking cover behind a tree or bush, no one moving any closer until given the order.

When the assault team was in place, the night became deadly quiet. No one spoke, no one moved. It was apparent, even from this distance, that the bus had been abandoned. The officer in charge ordered four of his men forward. They kept low, crawling slowly ahead as he watched and waited. His orders were to recover Hwang alive. If there was any chance he was still aboard he could not simply riddle the bus with gunfire or launch a shoulder-mounted grenade attack. He worked cautiously, instructing his men to take special care that this esteemed member of their government not be harmed.

Once the four advancing soldiers fanned out and were just yards from their destination they stopped. There was no sign of life inside the van. He sent another six soldiers ahead, waiting anxiously until they were in place. Then, in a firm but quiet voice, he issued the one-word order. “Attack!”

The ten soldiers reacted as one, lunging ahead in a crouch as they rushed the van, front door and back, the lead four separating, two men bursting through each of the doors. Then, for an instant, it seemed as if everything came to a halt as a flash of fire was followed by a massive explosion as the C-4 Sandor had wired to the gas tank ignited. The entire vehicle became a huge, burning pyre as it leapt off the ground, seeming to hang in the air until it came crashing back to earth, engulfing everyone inside and all those around it in a sea of flames.

————

Hea saw a small flash of light in her rearview mirror. She told Sandor, who spun around to catch a glimpse of the explosive greeting they had left behind. It had been less than ten minutes since they had separated from Bergenn and Raabe, and Sandor had anticipated a longer head start. He could only hope that the destructive blast would create a delay as the military regrouped for its search. Then he thought of Kurt Zimmermann and felt his stomach go cold and empty, but he shook it off. If they were lucky there would be time for mourning later. If not, they would have all died for nothing.

Hwang was in the backseat, bound hand and foot and gagged tight for the ride. They had treated his injured left shoulder with a primitive bandage that did little more than stanch the bleeding.

“Hope you’re comfortable,” Sandor said. “Anytime you have something important to say, you let us know.” When the man responded with a defiant stare, Sandor turned to Hea. “If you need a break, I’ll drive,” he offered.

“I am fine,” the girl told him. “I know these roads.”

They were determined to make as much time as possible under the cover of night as they sped in the direction of their ultimate destination, the Russian border. They intended to make their way across at Khasan, a city just south of Vladivostok.

And then Sandor heard it, that faraway noise of the fast-paced
thwup-thwup-thwup
. “Helicopters,” he warned as the sound grew louder, intruding into the quiet night.

Hea turned off the road and stopped amid the inky shadows of a wooded glade.

“Just a few hours till daylight,” Sandor said after a quick check of his watch. “We’re not going to get far if we have to play hide-and-seek with an air reconnaissance mission.”

She nodded, not sure what an air reconnaissance mission was, but getting the idea nonetheless.

“And they’ll be sending a road unit this way soon enough, moving at top speed, headlights on, what we call hot pursuit.”

“They will,” she agreed quietly.

“So we’re not going to do ourselves any good just sitting here.” He had a look out the open window. “They seem to be veering off, probably checking those routes to the coasts.”

“Yes,” Hea agreed again.

“But other choppers will be coming back this way too. I think we need to take our chances and move out.”

Without another word she put the car into gear and made her way back onto the road.

Sandor turned back to their hostage and undid his gag. “So, our friends Kim and Chavez have put themselves in play together. Isn’t that a pretty picture?”

The Korean stared back at him without speaking.

“Nice doubles pair, those two lunatics. And Ahmadinejad too? But why the hell would they blow up a flight in the Caribbean? What does that get them if their deal is an oil-for-arms exchange? If they want to hit our oil reserves, why blow up a commercial airliner?”

Hwang allowed himself a thin smile, one of those looks that said, “We’re so much smarter than you stupid Americans.” It made Sandor want to reach out and pummel his face with a brick, but he offered up a grin instead.

“Come on, Hwang, I’m never making it out of your country alive, you keep telling me that. Indulge me with your brilliance.”

Hwang looked at the back of Hea’s head, then turned to Sandor. “You and this treasonous bitch will pay for this.”

“Okay, we’ll pay, but let’s just say we’ll pay later. Meanwhile, what gives? Why an airplane? What the hell does that have to do with an attack on our oil reserves?”

“It is not for me to understand these things,” Hwang replied in his dull affect.

“I know, I know, you’re just a faithful follower of the Great Leader. All the same, you’ve got to wonder why he’d want to piss off the United States with a move like that, killing all those innocent people just when he’s about to cash in on some badly needed oil at a bargain price from Venezuela and Iran. If you’re planning to go after our oil why not hit a tanker instead?” Hwang looked away, and so Sandor asked, “Is that it, you’re going after tankers in the Caribbean?”

When Hwang did not respond, the girl motioned to Sandor. He leaned toward her, their cheeks brushing together as she kept her eyes on the road ahead. The wind whipping through the open windows created enough noise to render her inaudible to Hwang in the back. “There’s a safe house,” she whispered, “about two hours from here. If we can make it there we should be fine.”

“Good.”

“You need to blindfold him.”

Sandor nodded, then reached back, tore off a piece of Hwang’s shirt, and tied it roughly around his head. When he was done, he moved next to Hea again. “Do they have access to an overseas telephone?”

“They should.”

Sandor smiled as he moved away from her and sat back in his seat. “I guess I’m still on a need-to-know basis, eh?”

Hea reacted with a puzzled look. Then, as if suddenly comprehending, she nodded solemnly. “This is all very dangerous,” she said.

“So I’ve noticed.”

“I mean to others as well.”

“I see. So these are friends of yours we’re going to see?”

She turned to him, removing her gaze from the highway for a nervous moment. “Family,” she whispered.

Sandor frowned. “Two hours, will we make it before sunrise?”

“I hope so,” the girl said. “If we don’t have to stop, I hope so.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

AN ESTATE OUTSIDE LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

I
T WAS BEFORE
dawn and Deputy Director Mark Byrnes had been up all night. He spent the previous evening with Director Walsh, speaking with the President’s National Security Advisor and various officials at the National Transportation Safety Board and interspersing those political duties with reviews of the preliminary intelligence reports that came pouring in. He then worked furiously through the dark hours to organize current data being collected about the catastrophic crash of the airliner in the Caribbean. In the midst of this squall of technical information, false leads and general confusion, just before sunrise he received a communiqué from an imbedded source in Tehran. He read it through, then hurried from the office at Langley into his chauffeured Town Car and made his way back to the safe house for another interview with Ahmad Jaber.