The Elizabethan Secret (Lang Reilly Series Book 9) (14 page)

31.

Government Complex #2
Kim Il-Sung’s Square

Pyongyang, Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea

An Hour Later

              And the streets would be busy, far more busy than the occasional automobile, almost all of which carried government officials, or the battered blue-and-white trolleys. There were few pedestrians. In a city of three and a quarter million inhabitants, no more than the half a dozen people could be seen on the near-empty sidewalks.

              But then, well over half of those residents lived across the Taedon River, now a pewter gray in the approaching evening. On that side of the river, there were no towering contemporary apartments, no massive marble government monuments. Only multi-story full color banners of the brave Peoples’ Army, Patriotic slogans and, of course The Glorious Leader above the old and crowded housing of the city’s workers.

              He took one last look at the almost uniform turquoise roofs of lower buildings and the Triumphal Arch bearing the dates 1925-1945 marking the Revolution’s triumph over Japanese occupation. Scowling, he turned away from the window to re-read the decoded message he had received just minutes ago from Dubrovnik. He had sent two men there to capture the American and force him to reveal the function of the object that so far had eluded Dr. Sang Ja-reeb and his cohorts.

              Quite foolish, of course. Why bother with a collection of academics when this Lang Reilly person could be made to explain the device in a matter of hours? If the imperialist aggressor Americans had discovered its purpose, there was no reason the patriotic socialist scientists of the Democratic Republic could not also.

              And they would.

              But there was no time.

              No time to risk Reilly falling into the hands of the Russians or whoever else might want the answer to the secret of the device. He did not want to answer to the Glorious Leader should some other power learn the device’s mysterious power before the Democratic Republic.

              And there was only one way to insure that did not happen: Be the first to capture Reilly.

32.

Just South of Neum,

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Northbound on A1

Half an Hour Later

              The Croatian Adriatic Highway wound its way along the lower level of jagged limestone cliffs, the spine of a gigantic dragon. On his left, the Adriatic’s blue was constantly interrupted by numberless islands, few of which displayed any sign of habitation. He noted that none had sandy beaches but rather pebbles of varying sizes. Occasionally, the road dipped into verdant valleys where small towns sat astride tidal rivers. People cast nets from small boats.

              The first few minutes of the drive had seen a contentious conversation.

              “Where the hell did you guys come from?” Lang had demanded.

              Rogers, the driver, didn’t look away from the twisting road. “You might show a little gratitude, Reilly. Things didn’t look so good for the home team.”

              “Please accept my most sincere thanks. Now, how about an answer?”

              Semitz turned in the passenger seat. “I’m touched by the sincerity of your gratitude. For your information, The Office kept a loose surveillance on you ever since we learned the North Koreans were interested in you and whatever the hell that thing you bought in London is.”

              “Loose” was an apt description. Despite Agency training and an acute sense of his surroundings, Lang had been totally surprised. His guess was that his movements had been monitored by telescope, or, possibly, electronically. Drones, maybe? Even more astonishing was the identity of his Asian followers as North Korean.  

              “North Koreans?”

              “Ever heard of the Reconnaissance General Bureau?”

              Lang searched his memory, reaching back to the years such things had been important. “I think so. North Korean spy organization, right?”

              “Be the first to ring in, phrase that as a question and your score goes up by a hundred dollars,” Semitz said, referring to
Jeopardy,
the popular TV game show. “Now that you’re picking the right clues, try Kwak Pum Ji.”

              “Sounds like the sound track from an old Donald Duck cartoon.”

              “Not even close,” Semitz said solemnly. “Deduct that hundred dollars.”

              “Should I know the name?”

              “Far as we can tell, he’s the head honcho at the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Our intel is that he’s personally involved in trying to get his hands on that gizmo of yours. In fact, he was in Atlanta a few days back.

              “Well,” Lang said, “that might answer the question of who stole it.”

              “Stole it?” Semitz and Rogers asked in unison, the latter turning his head to look away from the winding road.

              “You guys ever audition that chorus thing? And watch where the hell you’re going, man. It’s long way down.”

              “You’re telling us someone swiped that device, that you no longer have it?” Semitz was incredulous, his tone as skeptical as if Lang had been reporting the emergence of little green men from a UFO.

              “That’s what I’m saying: I had left it with a professor at Georgia Tech to determine just what it did. Someone got it out of his safe. You don’t believe me, check with the Atlanta Police. They should have a report.”

              “Guess that means you don’t know what the thing was supposed to do,” Semitz said.

              “This time it’s your score that goes up a hundred dollars.”

              “Looks like everybody, us, the North Koreans, whoever else is chasing their tails for an object whose function is a mystery,” Rogers observed.

              “OK,” Lang agreed. “Next question: Where are you guys taking me?”

              “Split.”

              Lang called up a mental map of the Balkans. Split was Croatia’s northernmost Adriatic port. “Why there?”

              “Because there’s ferry service to Ancona, Italy. No flight plan. You will simply disappear.”

              “It’s international travel. There will be a passenger manifest,” Lang protested.

              “And your name won’t be on it,” Semitz  chuckled.

              “How the hell . . . ?”

              Semitz held out a hand, thumb rubbing index finger, the international symbol of bribery. “
Bustarella.
After all, it is an operation run by Italians even if owned by a Croatian company.”

              They rode in silence for the next few minutes, each absorbed in his own thoughts.

              As the Audi rounded a curve, Lang saw a pair of booths flanking the road. “I didn’t know this was a toll road.”

              “It’s not,” Semitz said. “It’s the Bosnia Herzegovina ‘neck’. Those are customs and immigration people ahead. Hope you didn’t leave your passport in your hotel.”

              When out of the United States, Lang’s passport rarely was out of his possession.

              “ ‘Neck?’”

              “Part of the political deal when Croatia became independent. Bosnia insisted on access to the Adriatic. So, they have about a ten kilometer strip that divides Croatia.”

              Those booths might be for Bosnian customs service but they bore an ominous resemblance to the toll stations where Sonny, of
Godfather
fame, was machinegunned. As the Audi slowed, Lang tried to figure why his mind had called up one of cinema’s more dramatic (and gruesome) scenes. As here, the enclosures in the film had been located on a relatively deserted road. Similarly, they had been sited where a deadly cross fire could engulf a victim.

              Too vivid an imagination. Ridiculous.

              Now that the Audi was close enough, Lang made two observations: first, there were no vehicles close by. The customs officer in each booth either walked to work or someone had to deliver and fetch them. Second, although he could see only the silhouettes of the occupants, the closet one, the man who would check northbound traffic, wore a cap at least two sizes too large. Instead of sitting atop his head, it covered his ears. A little closer scrutiny revealed a uniform jacket with rolled-up cuffs.

              And what was he holding? Lang could only see a part of it but it wasn’t the bureaucrat’s clipboard.

              As the Audi glided to a stop, Semitz reached across from the passenger seat to tender his passport.

              At that instant, Rogers and Lang recognized what the man was holding.

              “Shit!”

              This time it was a chorus of Lang and Rogers as they were suddenly looking down the muzzle of an automatic rifle, probably one of the knock-off AK 47’s that had flooded the international arms market.

              Its provenance was the last of Lang’s worries as he dove for the floor.

              Above his head he heard a sharp stutter of gunfire as he was showered with glass.

              Almost instantly, there was a boom that came from no rifle.

              After about two seconds of silence that seemed to stretch into eternity, there was another “Shit!”

              Cautiously, Lang raised his head. The first thing he saw was a jagged hole in the Plexiglas of the customs booth through which he could see a Rorschach pattern of blood and gray matter splattered against what remained of the rear of the enclosure.

              In front and to his right, Semitz’s right hand held the pistol grip of a readily recognizable Benelli M1014 short barreled shotgun from which a trail of acrid-smelling smoke wafted. With his left, he was reaching into the driver’s seat. The seat back prevented Lang from seeing what he was reaching for.

              “A shotgun?” Lang asked quizzically. “How the hell did you . . .?”

              Semitz gave him a brief glance. “Get it into the country? The diplomatic pouch is a wonderful thing. But that’s not our problem.”

              Using the seat back to leverage himself up, Lang peered over it. Rogers was curled into the fetal position in a rapidly spreading pool of crimson.

              “Is he . . .?” Lang asked.

              “He’s alive but he won’t be for long if we don’t get him to a hospital.”

              “Easier said than done. There’s the matter of a government customs official’s brains all over his duty station, not to mention possession of a weapon and a few other charges the Bosnians might come up with.”

              Semitz was trying to stuff something, perhaps his ripped-off shirt tail into a wound Lang could not see from his angle. “Fuck ‘em! That guy in the booth was no more Bosnian than I am. He’s Asian, probably North Korean. The real customs guy is off somewhere, counting what he got paid to take a walk.”

              “And the other one, the guy in the booth across the road?”

              “Didn’t get a good look at him. He took off running just when the shooting started.”  

              Lang got out of the car and opened the hatch-like rear door. “We’ll take the problems as they come. Help me move him into the back, try and stop the bleeding while I drive.”

              Semitz and Lang somehow wrestled a moaning Rogers into the compartment behind the Audi’s rear seats. Lang heard the sucking, wheezing sound of a man with a chest wound. Without medical attention, it was a tossup whether Rogers would bleed out or drown in his own blood.

Lang put the car in gear and drove off.

Semitz had been thinking. “You know there’s another set of customs just down the road.”

A sentence, not a question.

“Any chance the US Navy can come to the rescue, send a chopper to get us out of this mess, not to mention saving Rogers’ life?” Lang was hoping more than asking.

Semitz shook his head. “ ’Fraid not. Nearest friendly military of any kind is Caserma Del Din, Italy. In the Veneto, 173
rd
Airborne. Take a chopper over two hours to get here, never mind invading a sovereign country’s air space. We’re pretty much on our own.”

Lang had anticipated the unlikelihood of an extraction. He said nothing.

  By now, the Audi’s rear compartment looked as though it had been used to butcher cattle or pigs, something that hardly would go unnoticed by the customs officials at the far side of the ‘neck,’ not to mention a badly-wounded man, obviously shot, and the remnants of the Audi’s shattered driver’s window. Lang hadn’t checked for bullet holes in the coachwork.

Anyway he sliced it, he was less than optimistic about the next stop. They were on their own, alright.