The Expediter (19 page)

“The guy was from South Dakota, where’s the connection between him and the others?” McGarvey asked.

“I couldn’t find anything,” Rencke admitted. “So I went to the fifth assassination to see if there was maybe a second pattern.”

“And?”

“A little more than two years ago, a German deputy minister of nuclear affairs was in New York giving testimony to the U.N. on his country’s sales of nuclear power stations to Iran. The night before he was scheduled to speak, he left his hotel late, and the next morning his body showed up in Chinatown. He’d been shot to death.”

“Koestler, or something like that,” McGarvey said. He vaguely remembered the incident, because for a couple of months the German press had a field day taking America’s “lawless gun club culture” to task.

“Willi Koestler,” Rencke said. “And he also threw me for a loop at first, until I finally got it. Moore was positioning himself to be the new architect of a Middle East peace between Israel, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, and Koestler wanted to trade nuclear energy across the region for stability to guarantee the steady flow of oil.”

McGarvey turned away from the window. He was still missing something, this just wasn’t adding up. “I’m not sure that I follow you, Otto.”

“I didn’t see it at first either. You gotta step back so you can see the whole thing. With China and North Korea at odds, who has more to gain than us?”

“No one,” McGarvey said.

“Correcto mundo, ergo no connection among all five assassinations,” Rencke said. “But flip it over, and ask who has the most to lose if China tries to take out North Korea and Kim Jong Il actually launches his six nukes?”

Now McGarvey saw what Rencke was driving at, but it made even less sense. “I don’t know if we would have the most to lose, but we’d probably be sucked into the mess, especially if Beijing took the opportunity to hit Thailand.”

“Not only that, but if one of the missiles got through and a nuclear weapon was detonated somewhere over downtown Beijing, you could kiss off our trade deals with China until the country stabilized. We’d be back to paying the actual value for everything from T-shirts and ironing boards to cell phones and dog food. Our market economy would get slammed big time.”

“With Moore assassinated, we took a step backward from any sort of peace accord in the Middle East.”

“Means we keep funding the arms race,” Rencke said.

“Plus it continues to be a breeding ground for Islamic fundamentalists,” McGarvey said. “And if Koestler would have succeeded, or at least made a dent in the problem, and solved some of the energy needs over there, it would help reduce the poverty levels and take away at least one of the reasons for al-Quaeda to continue the fight. Or at least it would put a crimp on their funding.”

“Bingo,” Rencke said. “It’s not us who have the most to gain, it’s us who have the most to lose.”

So far as McGarvey could see, they were still at the starting gate. “The Huks worked for Turov. Who does the Russian work for?”

“Whoever it is,” Rencke said. “They don’t like us very much.”

“Keep digging,” McGarvey said.

“Will do.”

Kim paced up and down in her room as the hour approached eight when Alexandar had told her to go upstairs, knock on McGarvey’s door, and invite herself in for a drink. “He’ll arrest me on the spot,” she’d responded. “How will that help Soon?”

“But you’ve got it wrong, my dear. He’s not here to arrest you, though he’ll probably turn you over to the NIS when he’s finished. He came here for information.”

“On what?”

“On me, of course,” Alexandar had said. “But the thing is, if you show up in the same provocative dress you wore for the hit in Paris, he’ll have to let you in. From what I’ve read he’s always been something of a ladies’ man. Even left his wife some years ago, and took up with a Swiss cop in Lausanne.”

“So he lets me in, then what?” Kim had asked, even though she’d known what would happen next.

“Why, you kill him, of course.”

“Not much place to hide a pistol in that outfit.”

“Tape it to your thigh,” Alexandar had told her. “When the time is right, pull it out and shoot him. He’ll check your purse, but I think that he’s too much of a gentleman to pat you down.”

“What about afterwards?”

“You and I will arrange for Soon’s release.”

“Where will I meet you?” Kim had asked.

Alexandar had laughed. “Oh, I won’t be far. And when you’ve finished this little job, I’ll make contact.”

His call had come nearly two hours ago during which time she had given serious thought to what she would have to do in order to
have a chance at saving her husband’s life, and she had come to the conclusion that assassinating the former director of the CIA wouldn’t help. In fact his death would make things worse. The NIS knew about her and Soon, it’s why they had shown up at the apartment. With Mc-Garvey shot to death in his hotel room, South Korea’s normally tight security would intensify tenfold. Cops with her photograph would be posted on practically every street corner. If she moved she would be taken in, and Soon would never get out of Pyongyang alive.

But Alexandar was still the key. If she could talk to him face-to-face she would make him understand that once she had Soon back the two of them would take Kirk McGarvey as their next assignment for free.

Instead of the sexy cocktail dress she’d worn for the hit in Paris, she put on a pair of jeans, a nice white blouse, and Nikes. She debated going out armed, but in the end she stuffed the Walther in her shoulder bag. No matter what happened tonight she was not going to be taken without a fight.

And, she thought at the door, Soon had never trusted Alexandar. The Russian was nothing more than a means to their retirement. But he was a man with his own agenda, Soon had argued, and that was staying alive.

She would force a meeting with Alexandar, by going to a highly public place, and he would come to her where she could talk to him in relative safety.

O’Kim’s, the hotel’s cocktail lounge, was busy mostly with Western businessmen who either didn’t care about the impending trouble between North Korea and China or like many others before them were intrigued by hanging out in a possible war zone. It was tempting fate, and it got the adrenaline pumping in a certain type.

McGarvey managed to find a pair of seats near the end of the bar and had just ordered a Rémy neat in a snifter, when Ok-Lee showed up, in a short skirt, tank top, and sandals. She carried a small purse and a manila envelope, and spotting McGarvey at the bar she worked her way across to him.

“A punctual man, I like that,” she said, swinging up onto the bar stool.

“A pretty woman, I like that,” McGarvey said.

She smiled. “That’s quite a sexist remark for a married man with a grown daughter who helps run the Farm, but thanks anyway.”

McGarvey laughed. “Happily married,” he said. “If you’re going to do your homework you might as well do it right.” He smiled. “I thought we’d have a drink first before dinner.”

“Sounds good,” she said.

The bartender came over and she ordered a glass of champagne, then handed McGarvey the envelope. “This is an English translation of our file on the Huks including their ID photographs. A little thin. They weren’t in the service long, and when they got out they all but disappeared. And there’s nothing on them in any of the databases I searched. Not switching apartments was their only real mistake.”

McGarvey glanced at the photos and quickly scanned the Huks’
service record as the bartender came with their drinks. “Nothing much here except for the reprimands.”

“Take a look at their training evals.”

McGarvey flipped to the personnel records that listed the results of their training. Both had gotten the highest grades for not only their marksmanship, but for their stealth skills. They were good snipers, the best according to their supervisor. Their only problem was a tendency to ignore orders.

He looked up. “They know what they’re doing,” he said. “Have you ever had anyone else in the service go freelance?”

Ok-Lee shook her head. “Not that I know of, but that doesn’t mean it’s never happened. We just don’t make a big deal out of it, leastways not in public.”

McGarvey took a drink. “Now we wait,” he said.

“For what?” Ok-Lee asked. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”

“For Turov to come here and for the woman to make a mistake.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She knows that we’re looking for her, and almost certainly why, otherwise she wouldn’t have grabbed her emergency kit and taken off. I think she’s probably contacted Turov about the situation with Soon, and the fact that somebody’s on her trail, and he’s going to come here to kill her.”

“That would have to mean he’s told her where to go to ground,” Ok-Lee said. “Which leaves us nothing.”

“Not quite,” McGarvey said. “He has to know that I’m here.”

Ok-Lee was startled. “How? Unless there’s a leak in my section.”

“He knows because he’s been told that someone wants to hire him to arrange a hit on President Haynes, and they want me as the shooter.”

Ok-Lee was amazed. “He’ll never believe something like that in a million years.”

“You’re right, but I’m betting that he’ll be intrigued enough to find out what’s really going on, and he’ll come to me,” McGarvey said.

“Ego.”

McGarvey smiled. “Yup. And who knows, maybe he’ll try to kill two birds with one stone.”

Ok-Lee was troubled. She sipped her wine and stared pensively at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. “I think it’s too big an assumption to think he’d risk everything to come here,” she said.

“What’s the NIS doing?” McGarvey prompted after a moment.

She turned to him. “Waiting for your government to bail us out,” she said bitterly. “In the meantime we know Huk Kim was involved and if I gave the word she would be in custody before morning.”

“She’s very good at what she does” McGarvey reminded her. “You could wind up with some dead cops, and a dead assassin who wouldn’t be of any help.”

“Goddamnit, you’re playing it too loose and easy,” Ok-Lee shot back. “This is my country’s life we’re discussing.”

“Believe me, if I didn’t think I could help I wouldn’t have come all this way to put my head on the chopping block with yours and Tokyo’s and Taipei’s.” McGarvey leaned closer. “Huk Kim and her husband were the shooters, but Turov was the expediter. He’s the only one who can lead us back to the source. Who ordered the assassination and why. Without that we’ll never be able to convince Beijing it wasn’t Kim Jong Il.”

“And without that China
will
go to war.”

McGarvey nodded. “I think whomever Turov is working for wants just that very thing to happen.”

Ok-Lee sat forward. “But why, for God’s sake? What maniac would want something like that? Think of the millions of innocent people who would be incinerated in even a limited nuclear exchange. Think of the millions who would die from their burns and infections in the next few weeks, and more in the coming months and years of leukemia and every other radiation-caused cancer.” She looked away, momentarily overcome by what she was saying. “Why?”

“I don’t know. But it’s one of the reasons I’m going to have a chat with Turov.”

“Asap,” Ok-Lee said when she suddenly turned around. “My God, it’s her!”

McGarvey turned in time to see a slightly built Korean woman darting past the barroom door and disappearing into the lobby.

“Police! Stop that woman,” Ok-Lee shouted, jumping off the bar stool. She pulled a pistol out of her purse and took off in a dead run.

Everyone looked up at the commotion but no one made a move to help, or even get out of the way. The situation was happening too fast.

McGarvey was right behind her. “Be careful,” he cautioned her. “He’s probably here.”

Ok-Lee pulled up at the doorway. She held the pistol in both hands, the muzzle pointed up. “A setup?” she demanded.

“I think so,” McGarvey said. “Go right, I’ll go left.”