Darke Mission (28 page)

“Right, let's get to the crossing pronto, Lily,” said the Iceman. “The moaner here is alive and breathing, he should be out for the count till about 6am tomorrow, maybe a little longer since you drugged him up earlier. He'll be able to breathe OK now you've drilled some holes. In any case, he looks young and fit. If he wakes up early I've left him half a bottle of water with a message wrapped around it.”

“What does the message say?” asked Lily as he and the Iceman were picking up the pace.

“I'll tell you later,” said the Iceman, concentrating on brisk walking, but not so brisk as to alert any nosey security types.

“What about Kwon, isn't he coming to get the car tonight?” asked Lily, hoping that his friend had a better answer to that one than his previous question.

“I don't think he's coming for the car tonight Lily, we're cutting it fine to get out of the industrial estate with the other workers and across the border. There's no sign of Kwon. In a few minutes time it would seem highly unusual for a car to be driving out of the region and headed north. It's late and all the workers will have left in a few minutes. He probably had the intention of letting it stay here for the night. We'll take that chance. I left an encoded message for him under the front seat, with the keys, just in case. When we get back to PAU we'll send him another secure message.” Lily was satisfied with that answer.

JJ and Ethel were in their hired Mercedes, far enough away from the border crossing to attract no military attention, but close enough so that Kim Chun-So and Kim Min-Jun could spot them once they were through. It would need to be that way round. The caucaesan pair had a hard enough time telling one Korean from another in multi fashion Gangnam without having to contend with the same dark green fabric workers boiler suits pouring across the border. Fortunately, Lily and the Iceman headed straight for the Merc.

“Hi guys,” said JJ. “Good to see you. We were getting worried. That's the last crossing for tonight, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Lily. “We cut it a bit fine, but we needed to make a small detour.”

“Not a shooting or car chase detour I hope?” said Ethel in a moderately concerned tone.

“No,” replied the Iceman. “More of an acquisition detour.”

As they drove off on the forty minutes or so journey to Seoul, the Iceman and Lily brought JJ and Ethel up to speed. JJ nearly drove off the road when the Iceman announced that they had kidnapped one of the central bank's security guards. A few Glaswegian expletive deletives filled the night air to boot. As the kidnap story unfolded though, JJ warmed to the acquisition detour. Provided the guy was still alive in the morning, he could be persuaded to divulge some very useful information. The Iceman was right, they didn't know enough about the bank's vaults, their whereabouts or mechanisms, the security guards attached, the timing of the watch. It could be a winner, thought JJ.

“What did you knock the moaner out with?” asked JJ, never one not to use a decent newfound nickname.

“First, ketamine, to subdue him,” said Lily.

“Then propofol to keep him KO'd but with a functioning brain and understandable speech pattern when he woke up,” added the Iceman.

“Wasn't it propofol that killed Michael Jackson?”

Before the two Kims could get worried, Ethel chipped in. “Yes, but he was given it for sixty nights in a row by that odd doctor, I've forgotten his name.”

“That's OK then,” said JJ, not really certain that it was.

The remainder of the journey back to Seoul was accomplished in good spirits. Lily and the Iceman were in one piece and they had done a great job, notably and crucially assisted by the invisible Kwon Min-Ho. The two Kims had decided to nickname Kwon, The Doctor, for the sheer ingenuity and usefulness of his medical supplies. JJ thought that this was good. There had never been an Asian
Dr. Who
, though there had been three Scottish ones. Deep cover Kwon had earned his nickname.

It was 10.30pm. Although it was late, the four teammates drove straight to PAU Travel. Jim Bradbury and Victor would be waiting, anxious for a de-brief and hopeful that the Kims had gathered some useful intel. As they entered the covert CIA office, Lily turned to his friend and asked, “So what was the message you left for the moaner Ji-hun?”

“I told him that I'd wired the trunk lid to explode if he tried to open it from the inside. It would also explode if anyone, other than me, tried to open it from the outside. I told him to drink the water to get hydrated and that we'd bring him breakfast in the morning.”

“That was considerate of you, Iceman,” said Lily, very content at this juncture.

“I thought so too,” replied the Iceman, yet another contented Kim that evening in Seoul. With his left arm over the shoulders of his shorter compatriot, the Iceman led Lily into PAU Travel. It had been quite some day.

* * *

“How's your dad?” Dannielle Eagles asked of Carolyn Reynolds.

The two friends and NGA officers were taking a morning break from the secure communications room at PAU Travel. They had decided to go in search of a good coffee shop that would also have quality pastries. Carolyn, in particular, had something of a sweet tooth. Jim Bradbury, the previous day, had pointed them in the direction of the Sinseong Building in the Yeoksom-Dong part of Gangnam. Jim said there were at least half a dozen coffee shops between Gangnam Station and the Sinseong so they should find something to their taste. He should know, thought Dannielle, because he ran part of that route every morning on his way to PAU. Jim's directions and advice were good. The two NGA women had counted eight cafés before they could see the Sinseong building close up. They backtracked about a block because café no. 7 called Septem, looked to be the one with the best pastries.

“It was really good seeing him. I had kind of blocked out his absence when I was a kid, and convinced myself that Mum knew best. JJ seems relatively cool for a dad, we've got a lot in common personality wise, so it was fun,” she said, sipping on her double shot, extra dry cappuccino.

“Did he tell you why he was here, in Seoul?”

“It was a bit odd, actually, Danni. I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but my dad used to be an MI5 officer. When he left the service he joined the financial community in London and ended up running some big portfolio for a hedge fund in Mayfair,” explained Carolyn now munching into a giant slab of carrot cake. Dannielle contemplated this response for a few seconds, taking the opportunity to have a wee bite of her freshly baked ham and cheese croissant, and a sip of her latte.

“So is he on some sales trip or capital raising exercise?” asked Dannielle, fully aware that JJ Darke had been ensconced in several meetings within PAU and was accompanied by a fierce looking woman and a modern hippy.

Carolyn had known Dannielle for a few years and trusted her totally, but even with that, she was not quite certain that her dad would want her blabbing to her friend.

“Since we had only just hooked up after quite a few years, Danni, I didn't feel like quizzing him too much, especially since that may have opened the door for him to start quizzing me back.” Carolyn hoped that was a good enough response to satisfy her friend's curiosity and lead to a change of subject, preferably shopping. She was wrong.

Dannielle persisted. “Well he's turned up at PAU with a woman and a hippy kid in tow and clearly knows Jim Bradbury. He must be up to something more than trying to sell his hedge fund or raise assets from investors.”

Carolyn could not remember Dannielle ever annoying her very often but her tone was beginning, just beginning, to wrankle a little with this line of conversation.

“I don't really know, Danni,” said Carolyn with a hint of sharpness in her voice. “I'll ask him when I next see him,” she continued unsure of whether that would be the case or not.

Dannielle Eagles was very proficient at disconnecting her internal feelings from her external expression. Carolyn was a trained CIA and NGA officer, however, and she spotted the slight widening of her friend's eyes and tightening of her lips. Danni wanted to know more and wasn't over the moon at not getting what she wanted. There was a brief silence between the two which stopped short of being awkward.

“Have you heard anything from Henry?” asked Dannielle, more intent on keeping the conversation flowing than caring about the answer.

“Not really,” replied Carolyn, pleased that the subject matter had moved away from her dad. “I sent him an encrypted email last night, asking whether he had any updates on Operation Philidor Defence but the big Maasai said that he had heard nothing.”

“Do you think O'Neill's got the Borei yet?” asked Dannielle.

“Well, we sent them the information about the Borei's weaponisation and the cheat sheet of Korean and Russian key submarine words two days ago. Given where they ought to be in the Bay of Korea or the Yellow Sea, I would estimate that they would try for it tonight or tomorrow night.”

“We know it wasn't last night anyway,” said Dannielle. “The latest satellite image we got still showed the faint outline of the Borei nestled at Haeju dock.”

Carolyn nodded and had some more coffee and cake. She couldn't explain it properly but the instinct inside her made her feel a little uncomfortable with Danni this morning, at least as far as discussing the mission or her dad's presence in Seoul was concerned. It was probably because she was tired or still a bit jet lagged. The strong coffee should perk her up. She liked Danni so it was time for her to get that relationship back on track.

“Hey Danni,” said Carolyn catching her friend in mid croissant mouthful. “When we're finished here, will we go shopping? There's a billion super cool stores here in Gangnam, some labels we know, some we don't. I could do with a new suit, a pair of shoes and a better watch,” she added, looking at her cheap digital no name plastic timepiece and recalling the frivolous abuse that her dad launched on it at dinner. He was a horological snob, thought Carolyn, but basically correct.

“Sure,” said Danni, trying her professional best to seem interested. “I could do with a better, cooler handbag, shoes too, and we're not expected back at PAU till lunchtime. Let's go!”

With that the two friends got up, paid the bill and headed into the mid-morning sunshine that swathed cosmopolitan Gangnam.

* * *

A couple of hours earlier, as he was trying to wake, the moaner Ji-hun did not find himself swathed in sunshine. He was still disorientated, had a headache, but was composed enough to realise he was bound, had tape of a sticky variety over his mouth and was in some kind of container. He struggled a bit, actually as much as the trunk of a small saloon car would allow and tried a muffled yell for help. As he was wriggling and muffling, he knocked over a small plastic bottle of water with a piece of paper wrapped around it and held on by an elastic band.

Ji-hun was twenty-four years old, very slim, probably weighing no more than 70kg, about 5ft 8 in tall. His middleweight division frame had more to do with his genes and the unappetising food he was faced with nearly every day of his life rather than visits to the gym. He was flexible enough though to turn fully around in the car's trunk. He was now facing the back seat of the car, hands tied behind his back and unravelling the piece of paper from the bottle. Ji-hun then rolled over again. The message on the bottle was a bit coiled now as the piece of paper had been in situ for some time. Desperate to read what was written on the paper he managed skilfully to hold one end down with the bottle and the other with his right knee. It was dark inside the trunk but there were several shafts of skinny light peeping through and just enough for Ji-hun to read it, a few words at a time.

Ji-hun had no real expectation as to what he was going to read, but he had worked out that he was in the trunk of a car and that some fucking asshole as he described it to himself, had rigged the trunk's lid with explosives! He couldn't see any wires or attachments, but then again, he did not have a clear 360˚ view of his surroundings. After a few more minutes of wriggling and shifting the bottle and his knee, he had assimilated the rest of the Iceman's message. Not only was his kidnapper a fucking asshole, he was also a fucking imbecile.
Drink the water to stay hydrated
the message read.
Yeah right
, the moaner thought,
how am I meant to hold the stupid bottle with my hands cuffed behind my back and how am I supposed to drink it with duct tape all over my mouth.
This was definitely one of those occasions where it wasn't the thought that counted.

Ji-hun was, if anything, less happy than he was yesterday. Here he was stuck in a ready to explode car trunk, sore head, tied up, gagged, thirsty and hungry.
Bring you breakfast in the morning
said the asshole imbecile's message. Sure. It was morning now, he could tell by the lightshafts from Lily's drilled air holes. So where's my fucking breakfast he wondered. Probably just another of the kidnapper messenger's thoughts that didn't count. Just as Ji-hun was ruminating further on his sorry plight, the trunk lid began to lift.

“Good morning Ji-hun,” said the Iceman.

* * *

The border crossing that morning had worked like a dream. The border guards checked the two Kims' papers thoroughly. There was very little chance that the guards would recognise either Lily or the Iceman. For starters, at least four of the six guards on duty this morning were from a different detail than yesterday. Then, when the two Kims had crossed yesterday, they were wearing the same green fabric overalls and caps of many of the workers going to the Kaesŏng Industrial Region. Today, they were in the predominantly rust-red garb of PetroChina tanker drivers, wearing no caps. The border guards tensed up a little when they set eyes on the four white faces of the Kims' companions. However, as anticipated by JJ, the avalanche of paperwork that they gave the authorities, combined with the early hour of the day, rendered the border guards more complicit than normal. With Jim Bradbury babbling on in Korean about the importance attached to these new tankers by Pyeonghwa Motors, and the essential matter of maintaining good business links with China, Victor mumbling away in geek as he fumbled with his research papers and Ethel smiling all girly at them, they just wanted rid of this mini convoy. JJ hadn't needed to do anything but just sit quietly in the cab of one of the trucks. This was as smooth as a baby's bum, he thought, a little self-satisfied.