Lethal Force (24 page)

“And those you paid to attack me outside?” she asked the Lobbyist.

He shrugged. “It's nice to know how proficient you are. Did you kill them?”

She shook her head and drank more of her coffee. “What do you need me to do?”

The Lobbyist closed the distance across the table, leaning in to Jee, and he gave her the plan for the next two days.

Jake startled up in his bed, his hand instinctively grasping the gun under his pillow and aiming toward the door and muffled voices.

“Jake, it's me.” Lori went to her knees and put her hands over her face.

Lowering his gun and setting it on the bed, Jake shook his head and swung his legs to the floor. The room was now dark.

Lori got up and sat on the bed next to him. “Are you all right?”

He checked his watch and saw that it was six p.m. “Wow. I haven't slept like that in a while. Why didn't you wake me?”

“I looked in a couple times to make sure you were still breathing,” she said, “but I was afraid you might shoot me. I guess I was right.”

“I'm sorry. I just had two guys coming for me less than twenty-four hours ago.” He wished it was just that. But maybe Toni's death had put him a bit on edge.

She put her hand on Jake's leg. “The station chief showed up. Pam Suh. A nice woman. She has great taste in clothes. Brought me some really nice stuff.”

“Have you heard anything about your abandoned room in Gyeongju?”

“I took care of that,” said Pam Suh at the bedroom door. The stylish station chief stepped into the room in high heels, wearing black from top to bottom. “The security team was quite concerned.”

Jake shook his head. “I was trying to teach those idiots a lesson. I'm not sure how they could have let those two men past their security folks. Even worse. They didn't even recognize one of only two women in the congressional delegation. That's unconscionable.”

“I agree,” Pam said. “I've made sure the man in charge was recalled to DC. His replacement, along with six more agents, lands this evening.”

A good reaction, Jake thought. Perhaps he should turn Lori over to this new team. After all, the men were coming for him and Lori would just be collateral to any attack. He got up and put on his leather jacket. Then he collected both guns, sliding one into a sleeve at the base of his back and the other into his right jacket pocket.

“Where's Kim?” Jake asked.

Pam put her hands on her hips. “Where are you going?”

“This place might have been compromised.”

“No way.”

“There's always a way. Where's Kim,” he repeated.

The station chief looked confused. “I brought him his car when I came here, and he went back to the office for a while. Why?”

“Does he have his phone on?”

“Yes. Why? What's going on?”

“Do you have your phone?”

Pam took out her phone and showed it to Jake.

“Is it on?” Jake asked.

“Of course.”

Jake shook his head. “You have a security problem in your office.”

“There is no way,” Pam protested.

He explained how someone must have gotten into their system and found Kim's phone encryption. “If they got his, they could have gotten yours.” Jake paced back and forth, his mind going over the possibilities. He could use this against someone tracking them. Have the NSA track down any breech into the Agency system. See who might have taken a peek. But right now he needed to find out the location of the two Slavs.

Jake got onto his own phone, bypassed Kurt Jenkins at the Agency, and went right to his contact at the NSA. He waited while the NSA checked on their location. “Are you sure?” Yes, he was sure. He thanked them and hung up.

Pam and Lori had been anxiously awaiting Jake's word. Now they looked at him for answers.

“Looks like they're on the move,” he said. “And just a mile from here.”

“We have no car,” Pam said.

“Where are the rest of your people?”

“A couple with Kim, and the rest are up at the DMZ today working with the advance team for the six-party talks.”

“What about local law enforcement?” Lori asked.

“Go,” Jake demanded to Pam. “Take Lori on foot to the closest subway.”

Lori looked concerned. “What about you?”

“We need to split up.” He reached out his hand to Pam and said, “Give me your phone. If they're tracking it, they'll think we're still here.”

“You're not staying here,” Pam said.

“No. You two go to the subway and I'll hike off in the other direction.”

“All right. There's a back exit.”

The three of them hurried out the door and locked the place tight. After a couple of blocks, they all stopped when they heard a large crash. Jake guessed they had crashed through the front gate, which would set off alarms at the station headquarters.

“Go on,” Jake said. “I'll call Kim and tell him we're out of the place so he doesn't try to mount a rescue.”

“Good idea,” Pam said. She took Lori by the hand and started off.

But Lori pulled up and said, “When will we meet up again, Jake?”

He had no good answer for her. So he lied. “I'll find you at the DMZ meeting.”

Lori hugged Jake and then reluctantly pulled away. The two women then ran toward the subway.

Jake hesitated, making sure they escaped, and then he simply wandered casually in the opposite direction, picking up the subway on another line within a mile.

On the train Jake got onto his phone, punched in his encryption code and checked his e-mail. He had only a couple messages. One was a forwarded message from his business e-mail, the one used by potential clients to hire his services. But this wasn't a client. It was from Toni's sister Francesca. Over the years he had only met the woman a couple of times. She was Toni's older sister. Divorced with no children. For obvious reasons most Agency officers kept their family uninformed and obscure to the point of near non-existence while the officers were active operatives. Francesca's message was short: “We need to talk.” He guessed she was right, but he wanted to do that in person.

He skipped to a message for penis enhancement, the sick sense of humor from the CIA Director Kurt Jenkins. The Agency had traced the money flowing through a holding company in the Caymans to the Slavs. The holding company was owned principally by a K-Street Lobbying firm with many clients—chief among them were companies from Communist countries like China, Russia, Vietnam, and. . .North Korea. But they also worked with legitimate companies from Japan and South Korea. The attached file had a brief bio of the principal lobbyists from the firm, including head and shoulder images. Jake placed all of their backgrounds to memory, dismissing a number of them as unlikely.

The subway made it to Seoul Station, the main terminal in the city, so Jake got off and wandered into the great hall, where he could catch a train to anywhere in the country. He would stop occasionally and change direction to make sure he didn't have a tail. But he didn't.

He sat with a view of the entire main station hall and took his phone out again. The lobbying firm had one primary client in South Korea, Gang-Ho Industries, a major worldwide high tech firm. But they also owned everything from a chain of hotels and grocery stores in Korea, along with a Korean professional baseball team from Seoul. Now it was starting to come together for Jake. He wondered if the Korean company knew this lobbying firm also did business with the North Korean government. Why the American government allowed such associations was beyond Jake's comprehension. How in the hell could anyone dress up a pig like that, slap on the make-up, and pretend that the American congress should forget all about torture rooms, starving its own citizens, and threatening to nuke America?

He opened his backpack and found a blue-tooth ear piece that would fit inside his ear and allow him to communicate with his next call. Jake punched in a number from memory and waited.

His contact at the NSA, an Air Force colonel who had started off as an enlisted airman and once worked for Jake years ago. Jake had helped get the man into the officer corps.

“Hey, Jake,” the colonel said. “What the hell are you doing in Singapore?”

Jake smiled. Glad to see he could still hide from the most technologically advanced organization on Earth. “You know me. I like some Singapore street food.”

“Right. I'm right there with ya. Let me guess, you need a current location on our friends in Seoul?”

“You are correct.”

“Hang on.”

Jake could hear some typing in the background.

“Okay,” the colonel said. “When they left the safe house, they went back to their old location. I just texted that to you. But it's a long ways from Singapore.”

“Right. I guess I'll have to hurry. Hey, thanks a lot for your help.”

“No problem. Although I'm not doing it just for you, as you can probably guess.”

“I'm guessing a certain Agency director told you to keep him informed.”

“If that's a problem, Jake, I can give up all hope of that first star and become a ROAD warrior.”

“You would never be retired on active duty, my friend,” Jake declared. “All right. I'm gonna go over for a look see. Could you text me if the men are on the move?”

“Sure thing,” the colonel said. “Be careful.”

“Will do.” Jake cut off the call and then looked at his phone, finding the text with the address. He mapped it out and then glanced up at the main subway map to find the best line to get there. He considered asking Kim for help, but dismissed that. This was personal. They wanted him and he would make damn sure they got just him.

Less than an hour later and Jake was back up on street level casually observing the target building as he walked the Dongdaemun district of Seoul, a sprawling area of row houses, businesses and the Dongdaemun Market, a lesser-known shopping area for non-Koreans.

Jake knew he had no way of blending in here. He stood out like a Swede in Botswana. His only camo was the darkness of a cloudy winter night. In fact, based on the damp chill in the air, Jake guessed snow would fall soon. He felt the gun down his butt crack as he walked and his right hand grasped the Glock in his right front jacket pocket.

Toni, he thought. These men had killed his good friend. They would pay for that.

The target building was a three story structure with an alley on one side and a tiny KIA dealership on the other. There was probably an alley entrance as well, which would make it almost impossible to breech on his own. What he really needed was about an eight-man tactical team. But, as he wandered around the block to check for surveillance cameras or sentries, he realized the place had neither. No, this was a no-frills safe house the North Koreans probably set up as a residence for its intel officers. Which means that everyone he saw would be potentially armed and dangerous, if not much better fed then those left behind to the north of the DMZ.

Jake considered taking out one of the guns, but decided on a different approach.

First checking the alley entrance, he realized his only option was the front door. Great.

Instead, he waited across the street among some trees as he considered his other options. His past flashed through his mind as he thought about his time with Toni Contardo. What would he give to have her here with him now? He couldn't quantify that prospect. Or what about his old friends Kurt Lamar, or Franz Martini, or Anna? They had all died because of him. And what of those he had killed, the number he could not give to Lori? For the first time in his life he truly felt alone in this world. Fuck it! You can't live forever, Jake, he thought.

He crossed the street and entered the first door at ground level. He had no idea if his targets were on the first, second or third floor apartments. Tactically speaking, it wouldn't be the first floor. Too vulnerable to easy attack.

Jake slowly crept up the marble stairs to the second level. Pretty arrogant not having a guard posted. Assuming he was at the right place.

As the stairway rounded to the next level, Jake could see the landing in front of the tall wooden door. He quietly stepped up and could hear someone talking Korean. Then he heard laughter, followed by two men speaking. Not Korean, but English with accents. The Slavs.

He was about to pull out both guns and go in shooting, when the door on the third floor slammed. Now he was stuck. He couldn't go down or up.

Slamming his body against the wall, he waited as someone came down the stairs quickly. As the man rounded the corner, Jake slashed his right arm out in a clothesline, catching the Korean man in the throat and knocking him back onto the stairs trying to catch his breath. Then Jake kicked the man in the face, smacking the back of his head against the solid stairs and knocking the guy out.

Jake hoped nobody had heard it. Even more so, he hoped like hell this guy wasn't just some South Korean going out for a drink. Checking over the man's body, Jake found a 9mm Sig tucked under his left arm in a leather holster. Good. He took the man's gun and the extra magazines. Then he checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber. Yep. This guy would have killed him. Jake put the man's gun and magazines into his backpack and considered his options again.

He had no real choice. Pulling out both guns, he took a deep breath and lined himself up in front of the door.

With one smooth motion, he aimed his guns and shoved his right foot into the door just outside the handle. The door gave but didn't fly inward. He kicked it again and this time it gave way and flew in. But the time lapse had given the men inside time to react.

The first to shoot was someone inside the room.

Jake crouched against the door frame and returned fire with his 9mm Glock, firing a number of shots. He lost track of how many.

More shots cracked the edge of the door frame.