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  They made the turn, if only just, their tires and brakes squealing as if in pain. Ahead of him, Shim saw a dead-end street, a factory off to his left, silent and dark, then silent warehouses on both sides of the road, screened off from one another by their rusting chain-link fences. Up ahead, the NIS Sonata they pursued was speeding toward the far end of the street, with no escape.

  “She’s done it now,” Heo crowed. “We have them trapped now!”

  Do we? Shim wondered, and suddenly the fleeing Hyundai whipped through a kind of skidding U-turn, with the driver nearly losing it, to wind up facing their way.

  “What is she doing?” Heo asked of no one in particular.

  “Slow down!” Shim warned. “Don’t get too close.”

  The words had barely left his lips when the Sonata’s passenger, a large, white man, bailed and ran around behind the car. Shim saw the trunk pop open and the big man lean inside. When he emerged, he had some kind of automatic weapon in his hands, already angling toward Shim’s car. The female driver, meanwhile, crouched behind her open door, its window down, aiming a black handgun across the sill.

  Shim just had time to shout, “Get down!” before a storm of bullets broke over the Samsung, blowing out its windshield, gouging sudden, shiny divots in its hood. Shim flung himself out of the car, landed on hands and knees, and started scrambling around behind it, putting the SUV’s main bulk between him and his assailants.

  Ju and Son were out and firing back, the crackle of Ju’s K-1 carbine punctuated by the rapid boom-boom-boom of Son’s USAS shotgun. Both men fell back toward Shim’s position, ducking bullets as they came, and keeping up their own defensive fire.

  It was a trap, all right, Shim realized—but he and his men were the ones who’d blundered into it. Drawing his compact Glock 19, Shim sought an angle for returning fire but found his soldiers blocking him on either side.

  No matter. In a few more seconds, when he got his wits about him, he would formulate a battle plan. Before he got that far, however, Heo left the driver’s seat, clutching a wounded shoulder, heading back to join his comrades in the SUV’s shadow. When he was halfway there, a short burst from the tall man’s submachine gun caught him, punched him forward with his arms outflung, sliding across the pavement in a slick of his own blood.

  One down. If they could not use the Samsung to escape, what other options did they have? Shim pictured running from the scene with bullets flying after him, and did not like the odds that he’d survive. He instantly discarded his original orders, focusing solely on self-preservation now.

  “Kill them!” he told his two surviving soldiers. “Never mind live capture!”

  Shim’s superiors could punish him if they saw fit. At least, that way, with any luck, he’d be alive to feel their wrath.

  * * *

  THE DAEWOO XK-9 fired 980 rounds per minute in full-auto mode, eating the contents of a 30-round box magazine in 1.9 seconds, hurling 9 mm Parabellum rounds downrange at 1,235 feet per second.

  And, yes, Bolan could handle it, milking the piece for 3-round bursts instead of emptying it all at once. His first rounds cracked the Samsung QM5’s windshield and may have tagged the driver, though that wasn’t definite. His next burst punched holes in the vehicle’s car’s radiator, spilling water and green coolant to the pavement, where they steamed in the cool air.

  Whatever happened next, the Samsung wasn’t going far.

  But, at the same time, Chan’s Sonata had been taking hits, as well. It was a sitting duck for automatic rifle rounds and shotgun pellets fired by their pursuers, while Mack Bolan and the lady tried to keep their enemies’ heads down.

  He caught a break when the QM5’s driver broke from cover, circling back to join his friends. The guy was definitely wounded, Bolan saw, and on his feet now, he made a target that was too enticing to resist. The Executioner triggered off a burst that stitched along the runner’s spin from waist to neck and sent him sailing, arms akimbo, to greet the blacktop in a limp embrace of death.

  And that left three.

  While Bolan wished he had a couple of his Molotovs from San Francisco, time was wasting. Even on a lifeless, dead-end street they couldn’t fight forever without someone catching on and calling the police. Before that happened and the cavalry arrived, or Chan’s car suffered too much damage for a getaway, Bolan needed a turnaround to deal with his opponents and clear out.

  Learning how they had found him in the first place, or if they were simply tracking Chan Taesun, would have to wait. The top priority was to get out alive.

  Bolan switched magazines, his second from among the six Chan carried with the submachine gun in her trunk. He saw only two ways to finish it. The first would be to drive his quarry out from hiding by the SUV and drop them as they ran. The second would require an end run on his part, to come around behind them and annihilate them that way if they didn’t scatter under fire.

  The second option put Bolan at greater risk, running around the cul-de-sac exposed to shotgun blasts and automatic-rifle fire. The first required some thought and calculation, all of which took time he didn’t like to spare. Between the two, however, number one looked best.

  The trick was to convince his foes that staying with their vehicle amounted to a greater risk than running for their lives. Not easy, but if one or more of them was dumb enough to fall for it, it just might work.

  Pocketing two more Parabellum magazines, he worked his way around to find his best shot at the Samsung QM5 from the Sonata’s shadow. Lining up his sights to go for grazing fire beneath the chase car’s undercarriage, he hoped to open up the gas tank for a full-on spill.

  And, after that, to see who took the bait.

  * * *

  CHAN TAESUN EMPTIED her magazine and dropped it where she crouched, behind the open driver’s door of her Sonata, while she fed another to the Daewoo’s pistol grip and snapped its open slide shut, chambering a round. She waited for a moment, hoping one of the hostile gunners would reveal himself, granting her a quick, clean shot, but Matthew Cooper ruined that plan. He fired off a long burst from his submachine gun on the far side of their bullet-punctured vehicle.

  At first she thought he’d missed the Samsung QM5 completely, then she realized that he was aiming underneath the SUV for some reason, bullets deflecting from beneath the vehicle and hammering its underside. A heartbeat later she could see and hear fuel gushing from its ruptured tank, spreading beneath the Samsung in an aromatic pool.

  And, in a flash, she saw what Cooper had in mind, knew just how risky it would be and the prospects for an abject failure.

  Simply stated, unless a person was firing tracers or some similar incendiary rounds, bullets could not, in ordinary circumstances, set a car on fire. Gasoline spilled out of a ventilated tank and spread, but without open flame—at least a decent spark—it simply flowed away and would not detonate.

  But Cooper’s gamble, Chan now realized, was that the goons trying to kill them would not know such a simple scientific fact. He had to be hoping their minds would be so steeped in flamboyant adventure films that they’d expect real-life gasoline to act the same way on the street as on a movie screen.

  And if they fell for it...

  “Gasollin!” one of the concealed assassins roared to his comrades.

  His shout spooked the rest of them and sent them running from the SUV, heedless of being suddenly exposed.

  Chan knew Cooper was waiting with his borrowed SMG as two broke to the Samsung’s right, across his line of fire. He stitched them on the run and sent both tumbling to the blacktop, weapons sliding from their slack hands as they fell.

  The fourth and last one broke toward Chan’s side of the SUV and she was ready for him, tracking with her DPK-5 pistol, leading him enough that he would run into her slugs instead of having them zip past behind him, wasted. She squeezed off a standard dou
ble-tap, prepared to fire again if need be, but the first two did the trick. Her moving target stumbled through a stagger-step and dropped facedown, twitching as he fell prone then lying still.

  “Pick up their guns and magazines,” Bolan said, suiting words to action as he moved out from her Hyundai, across the killing ground.

  She saw him snatch a fallen automatic rifle and the larger USAS shotgun, patting down their former users for spare magazines, then ran to join him, closing on the man she’d killed and scooping up a Glock 19. His pockets yielded two more magazines, both full.

  Back at the Hyundai, they dumped the captured arms into the Sonata’s backseat then climbed in. Despite its hits, she started the vehicle and pulled out, around the SUV and scattered corpses blocking part of the cul-de-sac.

  “So, this is what it’s like with you,” she said.

  “For starters,” Bolan answered. “Generally it gets worse.”

  They drove in silence for a while, both conscious of the government sedan’s obvious bullet scars, before Bolan spoke again. “We need to find a car-rental agency,” he said, “before a cop spots us.”

  “I know of one nearby,” she said. “I’ll drop you there and call my supervisor while you pick one up.”

  “You think that’s wise?” he asked.

  “In an emergency,” Chan said. “I think this qualifies.”

  The rental office occupied one corner of a nearby strip mall. The clerk spoke English well enough to deal with Matthew Cooper, make a photocopy of his US driver’s license and charge a Kia Visto five-door hatchback plus insurance on his credit card. It drove the same as any matching model in the States, front engine, front-wheel drive.

  Leaving, he spotted Chan’s Sonata parked beside a restaurant festooned with signs suggesting it was up for rent or sale. Bolan pulled in beside her, moved the captured guns from her backseat to his, then waited until Chan was settled in the shotgun seat before he asked, “You manage to get through?”

  “I did. It’s all arranged,” she said. “Drive straight for half a mile, until we reach a tavern called the Lucky Dragon.”

  “Would that be good luck or bad?” he asked.

  “I do not understand.”

  “I mean it wouldn’t be a trap your people set for us? For me?”

  “Only a car. I have my captain’s word. He will send someone to retrieve mine from the restaurant.”

  “Sounds fair,” Bolan replied, “but I don’t know the man. You wouldn’t be insulted if I watch you from a distance?”

  Chan managed to smile at that and answered, “Not at all. I understand your paranoia.”

  “Where I come from,” Bolan said, “we call that ‘common sense.’”

  “It must be hard to live there,” she suggested.

  “Some find it impossible.”

  “America.”

  “Not just the States. I find that everywhere I go.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” she said. “I trust my captain, but there is no reason why you should.”

  “I hope he hasn’t set you up for a surprise.”

  They passed the Lucky Dragon once and Bolan drove around the block, checking for watchers on all sides. When he saw no suspicious vehicles, government plates or hinky idlers on the street, he parked a block south of the bar and watched Chan walk down to retrieve the car alone. In parting, she told him, “If nothing goes amiss, follow me when I cross the Hangang Bridge to Seoul. I’ll lead you to a safe house there.”

  “Nobody knows we’re coming?” he inquired.

  “No one, I promise you,” she said, and left on foot.

  He tracked her visually to the tavern, saw her climb into a compact Hyundai Elantra, start it up and pull out into traffic. When no lookouts rushed to cover her, and no tail cars appeared, Bolan pulled out behind the smaller car and started following in the direction of the eight-lane Hangang Bridge across the Han River.

  Guro District, Southwest Seoul

  BOLAN’S GUIDEBOOK, READ in transit over the Pacific, told him Guro was a vital hub for railroads and highways for Seoul and for the rest of South Korea generally. Named for nine legendary residents who had attained great age while living there, the neighborhood did not exist until 1980 when city planners carved it from the preexisting Yeongdeungpo District. Initially supported by dressmaking and other labor-intensive industries, Guro yielded to internet technology in the modern age, becoming the Republic’s techno-heart, hailed as the “Miracle on the Han River” as it commanded 10 percent of South Korea’s national exports

  All that was Guro’s public face. In private, it had secrets just like any other district in a major urban center. One of them, Bolan learned, was the NIS safe house to which Chan Taesun led him after their firefight and hand-off of cars.

  How safe was “safe” in this case? Bolan didn’t know, but realized he would soon find out.

  By which time, it might be too late.

  He no longer worried about Chan betraying him, per se. She had proved herself in the action and could easily have ratted Bolan out while talking to her captain or whomever, if that had been her intent. The problem now, in Bolan’s mind, involved who else had knowledge of the safe house or the fact that Chan was using it with an American drop-in planning a wave of mayhem in the capital.

  The place was situated four blocks from a thriving entertainment area, all glass and neon, but a world apart. They’d driven both cars into a garage beneath a kind of town house, stairs rising on the inside, and moved their captured hardware to the living room above, its windows draped to ward off prying eyes.

  “Your captain doesn’t know we’re here right now?” he queried.

  “No,” she said. “I kept it from him. He could find us through a search of various locations if he wanted to, but why would he?”

  “Maybe he’s counting the bodies we left behind and wishing he hadn’t got involved,” Bolan replied.

  “He’s not involved, officially,” she said. “On paper, I’m detached this week to ‘other duties,’ undefined.”

  It was the most that she would say about the home team at the NIS, and Bolan had to take her at her word or strike off on his own in Seoul, without her services as guide, interpreter and able helping hand.

  “All right,” he said, letting it go for now. “At least we came out of the fight well armed. We’ll need more ammunition for the hardware soon, but I’m guessing you’ll have away around that hurdle.”

  “As it happens, there is a supply of standard calibers upstairs, reserved for possible emergencies. There should be some 9 mm, 5.56 mm NATO for the carbine, 12-gauge for the shotgun.”

  “God bless emergencies,” Bolan replied and nearly got a laugh for it.

  “If I intend to help you,” Chan said, “I need details of your mission.”

  “Details come as we go along,” Bolan replied. “Broad strokes? I need to get hold of Shin Bon-jae and ask him what he’s doing with the SSD up North.”

  “That’s all?” She did laugh then. “You know he is a billionaire, with around-the-clock security.”

  “And paying through the nose for it, I’ll bet,” the Executioner allowed. “I plan to crack it. Whether Shin knows it right now or not, we have a date.”

  Apgujeong-dong, Seoul

  SEOUL’S WEALTHIEST RESIDENTIAL, fashion, shopping and educational disrict began life as a pavilion named for Han Myung-hoi, a high-ranking government official during the long-running Joseon dynasty, founded in the fourteenth century, officially renamed as the Korean Empire in 1897. In modern times, luxury homes aside, Apgujeong-dong was known for its boutiques, cafés and restaurants, as well as various privileged private schools that lured parents to live above their means to pay for the education for their children.

  Shin Bon-jae, one of the district’s billionaires, lived in a square, fou
r-story building with a parking lot below street level and a swimming pool atop its roof. The address also served as the headquarters for his expanding empire and for the Omega Congregation, though the cult maintained its own HQ in nearby Dongjack-gu.

  Staring across the city’s skyline as the sun began its slow dip to the west, Shin dropped his telephone receiver back into its cradle, scowling at the news he had received. Turning to Park Hae-sung—looking too comfortable in his easy chair, holding a bottle of beer—Shin said, “That was an officer I own. A captain with the NPA in Seoul.”

  “Such allies are convenient, as befits your standing, sir,” Park said.

  Ignoring the man’s attempt at flattery, Shin said, “The four men I dispatched are dead, their weapons missing from the murder scene.”

  Park sipped his beer and raised one eyebrow while the other lay at rest. “They sound like careless soldiers,” he remarked.

  “I would have said they were among my best,” Shin answered, “but my judgment may be cloudy. I also believed it would be wise to help you with your scheme for a reunion of the Motherland.”

  “And now you doubt it?” Both eyebrows had risen now.

  “Consider the progression of events,” Shin said. “After Los Angeles, persons unknown destroy my headquarters in San Francisco and assassinate the man who was a strong right arm to me, almost my son.”

  Park nodded, wise enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “Next,” Shin pressed on, “I hear from spies within the National Intelligence Service that a lieutenant, Chan Taesun, has been assigned to greet a visiting American on ‘special business’ no one can explain to me. My people follow them and die, without reporting in before their sacrifice. Now, what am I to do?”

  The question was rhetorical but Park still tried to answer it.

  “Apply more pressure to your sources, sir. Find out where this Lieutenant Chan would go to hide with her American after a shootout in the streets of Seoul.”

  “I have tried. She is off the radar, as the Americans would say.”