The Expediter (20 page)

Kim raced across the lobby, turning several heads, but she didn’t have time for stealth. The woman at the bar, who had shouted at her, was the same woman from the apartment earlier today, and the man seated with her was the Amercian.

It was just rotten luck that she had run into them like this, but at least she was sure that they had no idea she was staying here. If they had, they wouldn’t have sat down at the bar for a drink. They would have found her room and arrested her.

Halfway to the outside doors, it suddenly came to her that she had been set up. Alexandar had known that one way or another they would come face-to-face, even if she didn’t go through with the assassination, at which time he would kill them both.

He’d never meant to help get Soon out of Pyongyang. In fact it was likely that he had planned on killing both of them if they’d made it back.

She looked over her shoulder just before she reached the doors, in time to see McGarvey and the woman emerging from the barroom and splitting up.

A bellman pushing a cart loaded with baggage was just coming from the driveway and she had to sidestep to the left to miss him, and she ran headlong into a tall, stocky man with thick white hair and a flowing mustache wearing old-fashioned steel-framed glasses.

She had only a split second to look up into his eyes, which were startlingly blue but lifeless.

He grabbed her arm.

“Hold that woman!” Ok-Lee shouted. “Police!”

The old man looked up, startled, and he stepped back, releasing his hold on Kim’s arm.

It was the opening she needed. No way in hell was she going to be taken here. Not now, not like this, not until she had a chance to figure out how to rescue Soon. She darted outside, the night warm and humid and noisy with car horns and a distant siren, and hurried down the driveway, dodging cars and a couple of taxis.

Traffic on the main avenue was extremely heavy and she didn’t have time to wait for the light, so she turned left and almost immediately lost herself in the crowds of pedestrians clogging the broad sidewalk. No one seemed to be in a hurry, and she slowed down with the flow so she wouldn’t stand out. She resisted the urge to turn and look over her shoulder.

Alexandar had told her on the phone that he was close, and she thought that it was a real possibility that he’d seen her leave the hotel with McGarvey and the NIS officer on her tail. It meant that not only was she being chased by the American and the woman, but Alexandar could be right behind her, sighting his pistol on the back of her head.

She’d never felt so alone and vulnerable in her life. If Soon were here he would know what to do, how to get away. He’d certainly tell her not to look back, or try to run, either move would make her stand out in the crowd. Blend in, he would say.

She came to the intersection and as luck would have it the walk light was on and she crossed to the other side of the street with the surging crowd.

Soon would also tell her not to rely on anyone else. They’d both worked out the tradecraft that they would need to go to ground if something ever happened. Her only mistake this afternoon and evening was relying on Alexandar to help. Now he too was coming after her.

She headed back in the direction of the hotel, ducking into the broad entry of a busy electronics store that sold everything from cell phones and iPods to televisions and computers.

She positioned herself so that she could see the hotel entrance up the block.

Know your opposition, Soon would say. Find out who they are and how they operate.

Then make your plan.

At the end of the hotel driveway Ok-Lee pulled up short, McGarvey right beside her. A number of people had come out of the lobby to see what the commotion was all about, but no one made a move to get close to a woman brandishing a pistol.

“We’ll never find her by ourselves in this crowd,” Ok-Lee said bitterly. “I’m calling for backup before this gets out of hand.”

McGarvey was scanning the pedestrians on this side of the street as well as the other. But it was like looking for a needle in a stack of needles. And he forced himself not to look back.

“She knows that we’re after her,” he said. “And now she’ll go to ground. The more cops you put on the street the deeper she’ll hide.”

“Goddamnit,” Ok-Lee said in frustration. She put the pistol back in her purse. “What the hell was she doing here at this hotel? Stalking us? Because it certainly wasn’t a coincidence.”

“Turov knows I’m here, and I think he probably sent her to try to kill me,” McGarvey said. “Or at least force me out into the open.”

Ok-Lee was startled and it showed on her face. “Like right now?”

McGarvey nodded. “We’re still looking for the woman. Head left, and I’ll get across the street.”

“We’ll never find her—”

“If Turov is watching I want him to think that we’re still trying,” McGarvey said. “Now move it, but watch yourself.”

Ok-Lee offered him a faint smile. “This is
my
city, McGarvey, you’d better watch your own back.”

She turned and headed left, almost immediately lost in the crowd. As soon as she was gone, McGarvey started across the busy street, dodging traffic like a bullfighter dancing just out of harm’s reach. An S-class Mercedes was suddenly there, the driver laying on the brakes and the horn. McGarvey jumped up on the hood, slid across to the other side, just missed a small three-wheeled van, and slipped behind a bus to the sidewalk. Almost immediately traffic got back to normal.

The bus temporarily blocked anyone standing in front of the hotel from seeing him, and before it moved off he ducked into the corner of a bank’s entryway, and flattened against the wall in relative darkness.

Otto’s message to Turov had evidently worked, otherwise he would not have sent Huk Kim to the hotel. It would be one man, alone, someone hanging back to watch what was going on. Someone who wouldn’t seem overly curious. A Westerner, nevertheless, who would stand out among the much shorter, smaller Koreans. He would be at the hotel, or nearby so that he could monitor the woman’s movements as she tried to flush McGarvey out into the open where he could be easily taken. Turov wasn’t a martyr. He might want McGarvey dead, but he wouldn’t be willing to give up his own life or freedom for it.

Now that the excitement was over most of the people who’d gathered in front of the hotel entrance went back inside. One man, however, headed down the driveway, and McGarvey recognized him as the one who’d been at the doorway, the one who had grabbed the woman’s arm for just a moment, before he’d stepped back and let her go.

He appeared to be solidly built, with longish white hair, a large mustache, and when his face was momentarily illuminated by the headlights of a limo coming up the driveway, McGarvey could see that he wore glasses.

Turov?

McGarvey stepped out of the shadows so that he was in plain sight. At the bottom of the driveway the man glanced across the street directly at McGarvey, hesitated for only a split second, then headed to the left, in the direction Ok-Lee had gone.

In seconds he was lost in the crowd on the busy sidewalk.

McGarvey speed dialed Rencke’s number, and his friend answered on the first ring.

“Did you get the message to Turov?”

“It took about ten tries until I found a remailer that accepted my query,” Rencke said. “And if he’s our man he’s damned good. Or whoever set up his system is. Are you telling me that he’s there?”

“I think so,” McGarvey said. He made his way past the fountain in front of the bank and headed in the same direction as Lin had gone, trying to pick out the taller man in the midst of the much shorter Koreans. “Has he replied yet?”

“No, and I don’t think he will. That address was closed down within a few minutes after I got through.”

“That’s okay, because if we’re right I think it flushed him out into the open.”

“He’s there to kill you.”

“That’s what I figured,” McGarvey said, and he caught a brief glimpse of the man. “Got to go, Otto,” he said, and he broke the connection, pocketed the phone, and looked for a break in traffic.

From just inside the doorway of the electronics store Kim watched McGarvey pocket his cell phone and head down the block in a big hurry in the direction the NIS woman had gone. But he’d waited until the man she’d bumped into in the lobby had come out of the hotel and disappeared in the crowd.

For a moment when McGarvey had crossed the street, Kim had been horrified that he’d somehow spotted her, and she had reached in her purse for her gun. But he’d disappeared behind a fountain two buildings away.

When the bus had moved out of the way she’d spotted the man with the white hair look across the street and then start after Ok-Lee, and because of McGarvey’s reaction it had dawned on her that the old man was Alexandar.

McGarvey was looking for a break in the heavy traffic so that he could cross the street, but everything was moving at breakneck speed, practically bumper-to-bumper as was the norm in downtown Seoul, especially at this hour. Just about everyone in this city went full tilt all the time, as if they were trying to catch up with something or someone.

“The Americans,” Soon would have suggested. She could hear his voice, and clearly see his face. They were torturing him up there, giving him mind-altering drugs that could fry his brain. If they didn’t stand him in front of a firing squad, he would probably come out of the ordeal as little more than a vegetable.

What surprised her was the lack of sirens. According to Alexandar the woman’s name was Ok-Lee Lin and she worked as a field officer for the NIS. She should have called for backup. By now sirens should have been converging from all over the city. An ex-military shooter
was on the loose, possibly the shooter at Pyongyang. She would be top priority. Important enough to bring the former director of the CIA all the way from the States to find her.

Unless McGarvey knew about Alexandar and the real reason he’d come to Seoul was to find the Russian, possibly using Kim as bait. It would explain what had just happened. McGarvey and Ok-Lee had separated, and as soon as Alexandar had headed after the woman, Mc-Garvey had moved out. Suddenly the NIS officer had become the bait.

Kim hesitated a little longer in the electronics store until McGarvey made it across the street and she was certain that he wouldn’t be able to spot her if he looked back.

Her first plan had been to lure Turov to some place public, like the hotel lobby where she could have her face-to-face talk in relative safety. But the presence of McGarvey and Ok-Lee had made that impossible. Then standing here, watching McGarvey, she’d thought about going to Tokyo and somehow finding out where he lived. But something like that would take too much precious time, and if she did make it that far it would be a dead end. Even if she had Alexandar at gunpoint, there was no guarantee that he would cooperate in getting Soon out of North Korea.

She’d also thought that if she could find Alexandar and put her pistol to his head she could make him tell her who had ordered the hit. She could use the information not only to stop the insanity between China and North Korea, but to gain Soon’s release.