Ballistic Force Read online

  “Come, now,” Jin said. There was now a harsh edge to his voice. “If you’re going to make accusations, you can at least be specific.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone,” Oh maintained. “I was just speaking in general terms.”

  Jin wasn’t buying it. “Was it the workers in the tunnels? Your nephew? Who’s accusing me?”

  “I just told you,” Oh countered defensively. “None of this was directed at you. If anything, I was pointing the finger at myself. I was just saying that once the country is back on its feet, I want to make an effort to steer clear of gray areas. I want to set a better example for those who serve under me.”

  The color faded from Jin’s neck and he relaxed slightly. He sipped his tea again, then said, “I suppose there is room for improvement with all of us. We are, after all, only human.”

  “Exactly,” Oh said. “And I apologize if my remarks were misconstrued.”

  “No offense taken,” Jin said.

  The officers were interrupted when the uniformed private returned to their table.

  “You have a visitor, General,” he told Oh. “A Sergeant Dahn from Kaesong.”

  “That was fast,” Jin interjected.

  “He came by motorcycle,” the private explained. “He’s waiting at the main entrance.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Oh said.

  As the officers rose from their table, Oh told Jin, “There are a few things at the launch facility that I want to discuss with him. I’ll bring him in afterwards, and you can put him to work surveying the walls around the vault.”

  “Very well,” Jin said. “I’ll most likely be in my office.”

  Jin watched Oh head off toward the main entrance, then strode back to his office. Once inside, he closed the door behind him and locked it. Six weeks ago, when Jin had first joined ranks with Lieutenant Corporal Yulim in the plot to overthrow the government, he’d been concerned that overly curious subordinates might stumble upon the conspiracy and sound the alarm to the Ministry of Internal Intelligence and had consequently rigged his office with a pair of well-concealed Web Cams. His paranoia had proved unfounded, however, and after a few weeks of uneventful surveillance, he’d stopped monitoring what went on inside his office while he was away. He hadn’t bothered removing the cameras, however, and now he was glad for the oversight. Using the chair from behind his desk as a foot ladder, he quickly inspected the minicams, which had been concealed in the overhead light fixture as well as the smoke alarm posted over the doorjamb.

  Convinced that neither camera had been disturbed or tampered with, Jin then went to his desk and hauled out his laptop. Once he’d uploaded the software necessary to activate the minicams’ microwave transmitters, he found himself staring at two separate views of his office, each of which clearly showed him poised in front of his desk.

  “Perfect,” Jin whispered under his breath as he shut down the computer. It seemed that all the time and expense he’d put into rigging the cameras might finally pay off. Or, as he’d heard it said on more than one occasion among his fellow officers in the KPA, sometimes to catch a spy you had to be a spy yourself.

  ONCE HE STEPPED outside of the storage facility, General Oh spotted Sergeant Dahn Yun-Bok standing fifty yards away along the Suzuki Intruder 1500 he’d ridden from Kaesong to Changchon. The motorcycle was equipped with a sidecar from which Dahn was removing an instrument kit. Oh suspected that, along with the expected array of engineering tools, the kit also contained bugging devices and other spy paraphernalia.

  The general was heading toward the undercover agent when he was intercepted by the driver that had driven him to Changchon the day before. Apparently he’d discovered a problem with the jeep’s water pump when he was refueling the vehicle. It would take at least an hour for the jeep to be repaired.

  “We’ll wait, then,” Oh told the driver, waving him off. “Excuse me, but I have an important matter to attend to.”

  The general moved on toward the MII sergeant, who was a lean, wiry man in his early thirties with pronounced cheekbones and a slight list to his right eye. Oh had never met Dahn personally, but he knew of the man’s reputation as a no-nonsense official with an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a common trait among those in MII who’d had an opportunity to ferret out the indiscretions and character flaws of those who ranked above them.

  “It was good that you called,” Dahn told Oh after they’d exchanged introductions, “but it turns out that I would have been coming here to Changchon regardless.”

  Oh was stunned. In an instant, it became clear to him that his plan to steer Dahn away from any investigatory work had just been foiled. Now, instead, he found himself wondering what development aside from his phone call might have prompted MII to place the Changchon facility under suspicion. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.

  “I’ll still be taking a look at Major Jin,” Dahn confided, “but we’re also interested in Lieutenant Corporal Yulim.”

  “Yulim?”

  Oh stared past Dahn and the parked motorcycle at the nearby rehabilitation center. His first thought was that MII was reacting to one too many reports of prisoners being gunned down in the opium fields, but it turned out to be another matter entirely that had targeted the camp commandant for investigation.

  “It has to do with Operation Guillotine,” Dahn said gravely.

  The sergeant’s response was so unexpected that Oh let out a gasp and paled with shock.

  “The coup attempt?” he said. “I don’t understand. I thought that plan had been thwarted last month in the purge.”

  “Not completely thwarted, it turns out,” Dahn told the general. “Yes, there was a purge, but it seems that the cancer had already spread beyond the ranks of those we dealt with.”

  Oh still couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Less than five weeks ago, after months of investigation, MII had moved swiftly to disrupt Operation Guillotine, a plan within the upper echelons of the KPA to assassinate Kim Jong-il and overthrow the government. Eight high-ranking generals had been rounded up and hauled in front of a military court and subsequently executed along with nearly sixty other officials thought to be part of the conspiracy.

  Oh had known some of the conspirators personally, and he himself had been briefly under suspicion, a case of guilt by association that might have proved his undoing had Kim not personally vouched for his loyalty. Once the executions had taken place, the matter had been quickly swept under the rug, and to Oh’s amazement, no one outside the country’s borders had so much as heard of the executions, much less the failed plot. It had remained as well kept a secret as the location of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, and Oh had assumed the matter was closed. This was the first he’d heard of any ongoing investigation, much less the possibility that plans for a coup might still be afoot. And the thought that his colleague might be implicated staggered him.

  “You suspect both Jin and Yulim?” Oh asked once he managed to regain his composure.

  “I’ve already told you more than I should have,” Dahn replied. “But I think you can draw your own conclusions.”

  Oh still couldn’t believe it, and though he knew that defending Jin under such circumstances might yet again place himself under suspicion, he felt compelled to speak out on the major’s behalf.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if Major Jin was involved in some minor infractions,” he stated, “but part of a conspiracy of this magnitude? I just can’t see it.”

  “In light of what we know and the fact that he has been privy to so much of our nuclear strategy, there is no way that we can not place him under surveillance,” Dahn said. “Especially considering this whole kidnapping business.”

  “What kidnapping?”

  Dahn looked hard at Oh. “Come now, General. Surely you know about it. A businessman from the south was seized along with his family two days ago in the Yellow Sea. They were brought here to Changchon.”

  Oh was about to insist that Dahn was mistaken when he thought ba
ck to the day before and recalled the new prisoners he’d seen being dropped off near the opium fields. Now he understood why a handful of them seemed to have come from better circumstances than the others. In that same instant, he also felt a sudden surge of anger toward Yulim.

  “That idiot!” he snapped. “Didn’t he stop to think that bringing them here might jeopardize the secrecy of this location?”

  “It wasn’t entirely his decision,” Dahn said. “The southerners were sent here on orders from the same general who ordered their abduction. A general who, it so happens, is atop the list of those we feel are attempting to resurrect Operation Guillotine.”

  “What general are we talking about?” Oh wanted to know. “What’s his name?”

  “I can’t give you that information,” Dahn said. “But the fact that he arranged to send the abductees here to Changchon naturally makes us wonder about his relationship with Yulim.”

  “But if they’re plotting a coup, why would they bother drawing attention to themselves with a kidnapping?” Oh wanted to know.

  “I asked the same question when I heard the news,” Dahn confided. “But you have to consider that the reason we were able to break up the first group of conspirators was that, while shrewd, they weren’t particularly smart, especially in terms of covering their tracks. It might be the same case here. My guess is they saw the kidnapping as an unexpected opportunity and went ahead with it without considering the consequences.”

  “An opportunity for what?” Oh wondered.

  “The ransom is several million U.S. dollars,” Dahn said. “Revolutions need to be financed, like everything else. We know that Yulim had been short-shipping opium hauls to the north, so we expect he’s probably dealing some heroin on the side, but here is a chance for an even quicker cash infusion.”

  Oh nodded absently. He was still reeling from Dahn’s earlier revelations. So many things were happening, and he’d been oblivious to them all. He felt foolish, and although he could see no evidence linking Major Jin to Yulim’s involvement in a conspiracy against Kim Jong-il, he’d now reached the point where it seemed that nothing would surprise him.

  “What can I do to help?” he asked Dahn.

  “I can take it from here,” the sergeant told him. “Besides, you’re due back in Kaesong, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Oh said, “but there is a problem with my jeep. I won’t be leaving for another hour at least.”

  “I prefer to work alone,” Dahn said, “but if you’ve had any dealings with Yulim, I could use a pretext for visiting his quarters. Any suggestions?”

  Oh thought a moment. At first nothing occurred to him, but then he recalled the unsavory interest the commandant had taken in the teenage girl that had been brought by truck to the opium fields the day before.

  “I know that on occasion Yulim likes to indulge himself with some of the female prisoners,” he told Dahn. “I think he arranges for some of the officers here to do the same. That might be a way to go.”

  “I might have guessed as much,” Dahn said, grinning ruefully. “You have no idea how often an officer’s weakness for women has proved his undoing.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Zane Island, Pacific Ocean

  It took Mack Bolan, Ed Scanlon and Jayne Bahn slightly more than forty-five minutes to reach Phoenix’s Luke Air Force Base and secure passage aboard a Learjet C-21A originally chartered for a flight to Guam. The jet was nearly fifty percent faster than the converted Young-333 cargo plane carrying the two defectors and their REDI captors, however, allowing the pursuers to quickly make up for lost time: so much so, in fact, that the C-21A touched down on the runway at the USAF base on Zane Island nearly a full hour ahead of the Young-333’s estimated arrival time.

  Zane Island was a five-mile swath of palm-infested flatland located eighty miles due west of Oahu. After failed incarnations as a pineapple plantation and a haven for off-shore bankers, Zane had been appropriated by the Air Force, which in 1993 had converted the west end of the island into an alternate refueling stop for military craft diverted from their usual cross-Pacific itineraries by inclement weather. When an upgraded air base had been built farther inland two years earlier, the Air Force had leased the original facility to a Japanese consortium that, in turn, sublet hangar space and airstrip access to a handful of international cargo outfits, including the Far East Trading Company.

  “On the bright side, it’s unlikely that anyone from Far East works the control tower,” Major William Cook explained once Bolan and his colleagues had disembarked from the Learjet, “so it’s not like somebody’s going to be able to sound the alarm once we move in.”

  Cook had been apprised of the situation well in advance of Bolan’s arrival, and he’d already assembled a small force to storm the cargo facility. A team of twelve special-op Rangers were huddled in the rear of a canvas-shelled supply truck parked just off the tarmac, and there were two Apache war choppers idling on the nearby runway, prepared to lend aerial assistance.

  “We use one of the other carriers to help out on cargo shipments when we’re short-handed on planes,” Cook went on, laying strategy for the siege. “So we’ll be able to Trojan Horse our way to within a few hundred feet of the Far East hangar before we have to show our hand. After that, it’s just a matter of how much fight they have in them when our boys pile out like clowns in a circus car.”

  Bolan glanced into the rear of the supply truck, then told Cook, “It looks a little cramped in there. We were hoping to be able to get in on the action.”

  “Not a problem,” Cook told him. “I think we can throw one of our Hummers into the mix without raising any eyebrows. You guys can ride inside with me and we’ll convoy behind the truck.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jayne Bahn said.

  Ed Scanlon, who was glancing over a schematic map showing the layout of the cargo facility, put in his two cents’ worth.

  “I know you said the control tower isn’t run by Far East,” he told Cook, “but it’s located right behind their hangar, so we gotta make sure we get in there and commandeer it before they can gain access.”

  Bolan interjected, “Once we’re close enough, we can peel away from the supply truck and pull up to the control tower in the Hummer.”

  “That should do the trick,” Scanlon said.

  “I’m wondering, though,” Bahn said. “Maybe the North Koreans aren’t in the loop as far as the control tower goes, but if the island’s as crucial to their smuggling operations as we think it is, you gotta figure they’ve got their own radio facilities somewhere. Probably in the freight hangar.”

  “Good point,” Cook said. “And the thing is, nobody flagged these bastards for what they are until today, so we don’t have much intel on the inner workings over there.”

  “If you can get me a secure line out of here,” Bolan suggested, “I know some people who might be able to help out on that end…”

  Stony Man Farm, Virginia

  ONCE THE ELECTRIC tram car delivered John Kissinger to the Annex at Stony Man Farm, he put his crutches to use and hobbled his way to the Computer Room. Aaron Kurtzman was the first to spot him.

  “Hey, Cowboy!” the cyber commander called, glancing up from his station. “Got yourself a war wound, I see.”

  “Something like that,” Kissinger replied, “but I take war over flying coach any day.”

  Kissinger had caught the first available plane out of Laughlin shortly after helping Harmon Wallace track down the address of Shinn Kam-Song, and the flight had been an overbooked gambler’s special. The cabin had been cramped and he’d quickly lost track of the number of times his bad leg had been banged into. Sleep had been out of the question, so he’d had to endure more than five hours of sad luck stories from passengers who’d been cleaned out at the casinos. The incessant complaining had given him a headache that was just now beginning to let up.

  “Striker sends his regards,” Kurtzman said. He quickly filled Kissinger in on Bolan’s failed attem
pts to intercept the REDI agents before they’d left the States, concluding, “Looks like he’ll have a chance to have the last laugh, though, once that cargo plane lands.”

  “And we’re sure the plane’s gonna land where it’s supposed to?” Kissinger asked.

  Kurtzman nodded. “We’ve had it on radar nearly from the get-go, and we’ve managed some radio intercepts that confirm they’re planning to refuel on schedule at Zane. I was just telling Striker they’ve got a separate radio link with Far East at their hangar facility there, and unless they’re speaking in code, neither the pilot nor the ground crew know that we’re sending a welcoming committee.”

  “Sounds promising,” Kissinger said. “Is Jayne Bahn still tagging along?”

  “Yep. And it sounds like she’s earned her keep.”

  “Only if you don’t take off points for being obnoxious,” Kissinger said with a grin. “I tell you, if you thought we were bad when it came to slinging the trash talk, let me put you in a room alone with her sometime.”

  “I think I’ll pass,” Kissinger said. He eased back in his wheelchair and gestured over his shoulder at Carmen Delahunt and Huntington Wethers, who were preoccupied at their work stations. “If you want, you’re more than welcome to roll up your sleeves and pitch in.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Kissinger said, stifling a yawn. “Is it all right if I use Akira’s station?”

  “Help yourself,” Kurtzman said. “Looks like you could use a cup of my special coffee, too.”

  “Go ahead, lay it on me.”

  Kissinger exchanged quick greetings with Wethers and Delahunt, then settled in at Tokaido’s work console.

  “What’s up with Akira?” he asked Delahunt. “Any update on that kidnapping situation with his cousin?”

  “Not really,” Delahunt reported. “The money’s ready and the time’s been set for the exchange, so we’re down to watching the clock. Akira spent the morning checking out the drop site in Panmunjom, but by now he should be back at Camp Bonifas.”

  “Sounds like things are falling into place.”