Omega Cult Read online

  “Off the radar?”

  “It means untraceable, for all intents and purposes.”

  “I understand the phrase,” Park said.

  “Then understand me now. I have not built an empire for myself to sit and watch it pissed away for any cause, no matter how exalted. I shall fight for what is mine, and for my place within the new regime when it is born.”

  “I will report your sentiments to Pyongyang,” Park said.

  “In fact,” Shin told him, “you shall remain with me for the duration of this crisis, to its ultimate denouement.”

  “But—”

  “How can I do without your wisdom and advice?” Shin asked, cutting him off. “That’s settled, then. My staff will show you to your rooms.”

  7

  Guro District, Seoul

  First thing, Bolan examined, cleaned and then reloaded his appropriated weapons. They were adequate, although he would’ve liked to have a long-range sniper’s rifle standing by, but that wasn’t the kind of gear an urban hit team normally included in its rolling arsenal.

  What he wound up with, free of charge except the purchase price in blood, was one Daewoo K-1 carbine, one USAS-12 shotgun and one Glock 17 complete with holster lifted from a shooter who would never need the piece again. The carbine was a smaller version of the battle rifle South Korean soldiers had been carrying since 1981, weighing 6.3 pounds unloaded, measuring 25.7 inches with its stock folded, with a ten-inch barrel. It fed from NATO STANAG magazines, with an effective range of some 270 yards, firing 800 rounds per minute in full-auto mode.

  The shotgun was gas-operated and selective fire, capable of semi-auto or full-auto performance for suppressive fire in combat situations. Resembling an overweight assault rifle, it weighed close to fourteen pounds with a loaded 10-round magazine, though all the mags Bolan had retrieved held twenty rounds a piece. Its registered effective range was forty yards, spewing whatever manner of projectiles it was fed at some 450 rounds per minute in full-automatic mode. The recoil would be stunning for a rank beginner, but Bolan had handled worse before.

  The Glock, by contrast, was as welcome as an old friend.

  While Bolan worked over the guns, and Chan was busy with her own, she gave him all she had from NIS archives on Shin Bon-jae. Bolan already knew the bit about how Shin had come up from the streets to build a multibillion-dollar empire for himself and to lead his own religious movement, viewed by many critics as a money-grubbing cult absorbed by adoration of the man in charge. Whether that view was accurate, Shin stood as Asia’s only billionaire industrialist with one hand in journalism and the other on the tiller of a growing global church.

  “From what I understand,” he said, “Shin’s farther to the right, politically, than any leader South Korea has elected since the war. How does that put him playing footsies with Pyongyang and the SSD?”

  “To follow that,” she said, “you have to know my country’s history. Since the division was achieved in 1946 and formalized in 1948, various presidents of the Republic have been strident in their calls for a reunion of the whole peninsula. In 1950, Syngman Rhee hoped to achieve it, but his efforts—bungling, most would grant today—provoked the communist invasion and the war that followed, nearly ending with a victory for Kim Il-sung and North Korea. After 1953 the presidential rhetoric continued, slowly winding down to mutters and complaints, without effective action in the field. The DMZ is now established fact.”

  “And yet...”

  “Today, only the North Korean government speaks much about reunion of our ancient homeland as a single nation. The Supreme Leader remains devoted to the concept, but his regime has reduced the country to a virtual pariah among nations of the world. Its only close relations are with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and with the Palestinian Authority in Gaza. Even China, which saved North Korea from conquest in the early 1950s, now faces Pyongyang from across a border deeply fortified.

  “After your State Department listed North Korea as a sponsor of state terrorism in 2013, its leader responded with nuclear tests and wild threats of a Third World War. Some analysts believe he is insane; others describe him as a victim of the spoiled-child syndrome. Either way, he is extremely dangerous, at least to neighbors he can reach with his reputed missiles.”

  “But Shin Bon-jae’s supposed to be a far-right icon. North Korea’s leader is about as far as you can go to the left without a tumble off the planet.”

  “Still, their goals are not so different. North Korea’s communism is expressed as ultra-nationalism, a reunion of the homeland by any means necessary, regardless of cost. A possible détente with Shin Bon-jae is no less likely than the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939.”

  “And look how that turned out,” Bolan remarked.

  “Of course,” Chan said. “War was inevitable, catastrophic. But both partners—then and now, in my opinion—thought they could manipulate the other, use him to their own ends, then dispose of him with little difficulty. Such is the disease of egomania.”

  “And Shin hoped he could jump-start the reunion how? By spreading sarin in Los Angeles?”

  “Perhaps he hoped to claim the individuals responsible had infiltrated the Omega Congregation and were serving North Korea? Theoretically, could that produce a US counterstrike on Pyongyang?”

  It was extreme, but Bolan couldn’t rule it out given the mood of Congress during recent years. Whether the White House would play ball was something else entirely—a political decision to be made behind closed doors, weighing prospective benefits against the risks.

  “Before it gets that far,” he said, “here’s what I have in mind.”

  Apgujeong-dong, Seoul

  PARK HAE-SUNG WAS under house arrest. His suite of rooms was posh enough to satisfy a five-star traveler, but he had found the telephone line disconnected, while Shin’s houseman had relieved him of his cell phone prior to leaving him alone. His door was locked from the outside, and burglar bars installed outside his windows kept Park from descending to the street three floors below.

  Headquarters in Pyongyang had to be wondering what had become of Park. With each hour in which he failed to contact them, the paranoia common to his masters would be deepening, imagining scenarios in which he had betrayed them—to the NIS, the CIA, the FBI, whatever. Soon, they might decide he was a threat and put a contract on him to secure their peace of mind.

  Park sat inside his suite and seethed in silence. Was it his fault the Americans had no reaction to the attack on Los Angeles as Shin had hoped? It had been Shin’s job, via Lee Jay-hyun, to plant the evidence connecting LA’s killers to the SSD, but still it had not surfaced. If and when it did, there still would be no guarantee of military action against North Korea, unifying nationalists on both sides of the established DMZ to call for a reunion of the separated states.

  What sort of mind had hatched that scheme to start with?

  Why had Park Hae-sung agreed to go along with it?

  The answer to the second question was, alas, painfully obvious. He was a member of the team who did what he was told, following orders even if they made no sense in the real world or might, if logically considered, boomerang disastrously against the DPRK over time.

  With the current leader, the country’s politics had much in common with a fantasy computer game. All players were required to serve the Supreme Leader under pain of death as traitors, to rush blindly to obey whatever crackpot orders issued from the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun. No one questioned instructions from the top if they desired to hold lofty status in the government or to survive at all.

  Thus had been spawned parades and demonstrations falsely deemed “spontaneous.” Displays of weapons, threats of global war with “preemptive nuclear attacks,” maintenance of martial law nationwide since January 2013, naval clashes around Baengnyeong Island and clumsy spying jaunts that nearly always failed.
/>   Madness, Park thought. And yet he had subscribed to it.

  Descending briefly into a blue funk, Park wondered whether he should take the final step and simply kill himself, but Shin had thought ahead of him, removing all potential weapons from the suite. The only razor was electric, cordless, and no other tools or cutting implements were found in any of the drawers. Park could conceivably tie sheets into a rope of sorts—but then what? Neither rod available, the shower’s or the closet’s, would support his weight if he were hanging by his neck. Nor were there any small appliances—no bedside radio, for instance—he could drop into a full bathtub to fry himself.

  Frustration roiled within him, but he kept his face deadpan, his posture perfectly reserved, as if he felt himself to be an honored guest and not a hapless prisoner. All it required was sitting still and breathing slowly, sipping beer from the minibar installed in his bedroom as if it were a hotel suite.

  Park wondered if, when he checked out, Shin would present him with a bill or just a bullet to the head.

  Defenseless, save for martial arts he had been taught during his basic training for the SSD—Park sat wishing for a gun, a knife, whatever might enhance his odds of getting out and managing to stay alive. His wits would have to do and, while they’d never failed him yet, neither had he been forced to square off with a canny, streetwise billionaire who had a private army at his back.

  As dusk lowered outside his barred windows, Park thought advancing night mirrored his chances of escape and living to behold another dawn.

  Guro District, Seoul

  “A BOLD ATTACK on the Omega Congregation and on Shin Bon-jae?” Chan smiled, as if in disbelief. “Is that the plan?”

  “That’s it,” Bolan replied. “Keep Shin off balance, rock his house and bring it down. If I can get a face-to-face with him, so much the better. Squeeze him till he squeals. If not, at least he’s taken off the board.”

  “This kind of thing has worked for you before?” she asked.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  It started with Cosa Nostra, the exalted Mafia, and rolled on from there through terrorists, crime syndicates and even hostile governments around the world. Bolan kept that under his hat and let her simmer while she took it in, the freshly loaded Daewoo XK-9 lying across her thighs.

  “One man, against all that,” she said.

  “Well, two of us, if you’re still in.”

  “It’s suicide.”

  “No,” Bolan said, correcting her. “I don’t intend to die. Of course, it’s possible, same thing as walking down the street or driving in a car, although I grant the odds are worse. With preparation, proper timing and the right equipment, it’s all doable.”

  “Against one of the richest men in South Korea, all of his security against you, plus the zealots of a large religious cult?”

  “I never said it would be easy,” Bolan told her, not quite smiling. But the cult won’t be expecting it, and even if Shin was behind the chase this afternoon, he’ll still be wondering who took his people out.”

  “They know who I am,” Chan reminded him. “How else could they have found us at the airport?”

  “That’s a problem,” he admitted. “But you claim to trust your captain...”

  “Not a claim. I do trust him.”

  “Then he’ll be covering for you, unless the heat builds up too much and he decides to save himself instead.”

  “He won’t do that.”

  “Career, a home and family, whatever...”

  “No. He’s loyal. I would trust him with my life.”

  “Newsflash,” Bolan replied. “You’ve already have.”

  She blinked at that, just once. “How would you begin?” she asked.

  “I’d start off with the Omega Congregation’s headquarters.”

  “That is in Dongjack-gu, south of the Han. Shin lives in the adjacent Apgujeong-dong District.”

  “I have both addresses,” Bolan said. “Floor plans for the Congregation, too.”

  “What do they tell you about personnel?”

  “I play that part by ear, if there’s no opportunity for scouting in advance.”

  “For what it’s worth,” she said, “cult headquarters—called haibeu, or ‘the hive’—normally has about two hundred members of the sect in residence at any given time. How many of them may be armed is something the police have not seen fit to contemplate, with Shin’s influence on the NPA.”

  “Corruption? That’s a shocker,” Bolan said.

  “We learned from the United States,” she said, “as with our former CIA.”

  “Touché,” he offered. “So, around two hundred people on the premises, an unknown number of them armed with who knows what. Women and children in the mix?”

  “Shin does encourage families. As far as numbers, I can’t say.”

  An all-out raid had the potential for catastrophe, but it could still be done.

  “Shin’s manager in Dongjack-gu is Choi Kyung-wha, an early convert to the Congregation,” Chan continued. “He’s another je yeonghon, or ‘second soul,’ serving the primary soul. Do not expect him to cooperate.”

  “I don’t. He’s meant to be a lesson for the boss.”

  “A human sacrifice?”

  “I’m not expecting any intervention from above,” Bolan replied.

  “And if you can destroy the hive, what then?”

  “Move on to Shin. He’ll have a choice—to fight at home or head for someplace more defensible.”

  “He has a walled estate across the Han River. It’s on the northern edge of Seoul, Dobong-gu.”

  “That’s one I didn’t have,” Bolan confessed. “And you can point me to it?”

  “If required.”

  “We’re all set then, except for your decision.”

  “Mine?” Chan frowned.

  “Whether you’ll go all-in or sit it out.”

  “Today, I killed my first man,” she told Bolan.

  “And?”

  “I always thought I would be sickened, traumatized. So far, my only feeling is relief. He tried to murder me and failed.”

  “Sometimes it kicks in later,” Bolan warned, “but frontline soldiers know they’re in a war and people die. It doesn’t have to be declared by governments or logged into the statute books. Might be a cop out on routine patrol or a watchman on your DMZ up North. Confronted with a mortal threat, they do what must be done and get on with their lives.”

  Some of them, anyway. Bolan had seen enough PTSD to understand that it was real, a crippling weight for warriors unprepared to carry it. No weakness on their part, no defect in their characters implied. Some fighters—thankfully, only a few—enjoyed the mayhem, others suffered from it to their dying day. The bulk did what their oath and duty had commanded of them and moved on—or died in the attempt.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said. “Tell me exactly when and where we start.”

  Apgujeong-dong, Seoul

  CALLING PYONGYANG WAS a risk, despite the cutouts, scramblers and diversions Shin Bon-jae employed. If even one call to the North was intercepted by the NIS, he could be jailed for treason, and there was no guarantee that all his wealth, his vast political connections, could combine to save him. Politicians who fawned over Shin in public would scatter like roaches from a sudden glare of light if his connection to the SSD was documented and exposed. His rich investors might desert him, sue for a return of money placed in trust with Shin when they believed he was a rabid right-wing super-patriot.

  His empire might collapse and fall within a tiny fraction of the time it took for ancient Rome.

  And what, then, would become of him?

  South Korea’s Criminal Code prescribed execution for rebellion, conspiracy with foreign countries, homicide and a dozen other felon
ies. In fact, no executions had been carried out in twenty years, but at least sixty inmates remained on death row at Yeongdeungpo Prison.

  For Shin Bon-jae, being condemned to spend his life caged up would be worse than death, a kind of living hell until old age and Nature ultimately ran their course and claimed him in the end.

  Still, mortal risks aside, this call was absolutely necessary and it could not be delayed.

  The man who answered in Pyongyang was an aide-de-camp to Major Roh Tae-il, a ranking officer of North Korea’s State Security Department, ultimately master of the agent Shin had locked away upstairs. Roh was the man entrusted with approving and remotely supervising the conspiracy, originating in the DPRK, which had led to wholesale murder in Los Angeles. Shin was obligated to keep him privately advised of problems as they reared their heads, most recently in Seoul with four of his top soldiers dead, their weapons missing from the scene.

  When Major Roh came on the line, Shin told his story quickly, shunning double-talk and euphemisms that were de rigueur for most covert discussions carried out across the DMZ. There was too much at stake for any fumbling or misunderstanding now, with all their lives at risk.

  Roh listened, then was silent for so long that Shin thought he had cut the link, before he said, “This is disturbing.”

  “I agree.”

  “And Agent Park?”

  “Remains with me to sort it out, if possible.”

  “All right. I won’t expect him soon. Do you believe he’s compromised?”

  “Nothing suggests it yet,” Shin said, “but I cannot help wondering.”

  “And when in doubt...” He left the grim suggestion hanging there.

  “It has not reached that stage, as yet. If that should come...”

  “Don’t feel obliged to tell me in advance. Use your best judgment, Comrade Shin.”

  The titled galled him but he let it pass. “Yes. I understand.”

  And thus was a death sentence handed down, albeit in absentia.

  “As for yourself...” Roh said.