Ballistic Force Read online

  For another two hours Lim, Ji and the other prisoners continued to mine the cave. Then, once they’d filled all six carts lined up on the tracks, one of the guards climbed into a small electric locomotive hooked up to the carts and started the engine. The prisoners were ordered to climb aboard, and Lim’s grim fate was to ride out of the tunnel lying next to the body of the man killed earlier. Lim was too exhausted to care, however. Within moments after the carts began to roll, he passed out.

  The ore train had emerged from the mountain and come to a stop in the work yard. Lim had been doused with a bucket of water, and as he came to, he was half blinded by the bright halogen lamps that illuminated the grounds. He straggled down from his cart, joining Ji Pho-Hwa and the other prisoners, who were assembling into a line. One of the guards told them that they would be given rations, then sent to a reeducation meeting for two hours before being allowed to sleep.

  “You’ll start work again at dawn,” the guard concluded.

  Lim shuffled slowly along with the others as they made their way toward the ration tent. He could only hope that he would be allowed to see his family now that he’d endured the day’s ordeal. Ten yards shy of the tent, however, Lim was suddenly singled out and led away from the others. He was about to ask the guards where he was being taken but checked himself, not wishing to provoke another beating.

  From the prison yard, Lim was led uphill to the bungalow headquarters of Lieutenant Corporal Yulim Zhi-Weon. When they reached the foot of the steps leading up to the front door, one of Lim’s guards motioned for him to stop, then produced two sets of cuffs, a shorter pair for his hands and a wider set for his ankles. Lim didn’t feel the restraints were necessary. As it was, he barely had the strength to walk. Again, though, he refrained from speaking his mind. He allowed himself to be shackled, then, with considerable difficulty, made his way up the steps and into the bungalow.

  Lim was taken aback by the unexpected splendor Yulim had surrounded himself with. He had little time to dwell on the lavish appointments, however, because the commandant had just emerged from his bedroom, buttoning a familiar-looking silk shirt.

  “It turns out we’re the same size,” the lieutenant corporal said to Lim, glancing down to admire his new wardrobe. In addition to the shirt, he was wearing a pair of Lim’s tailored cotton slacks as well as the South Korean’s favorite leather sandals. Lim felt a stirring of outrage but refused to act on it. Better he lose his possessions than his life.

  “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” the officer told Lim as he made his way to a wet bar near the television area and calmly poured himself a drink. “How was your day in the mines?”

  Lim glared at Yulim but said nothing.

  “I know. A foolish question,” Yulim said, taking his drink to an antique mahogany desk in the den. He gestured to the guards, who dragged Lim over to a straight-backed wooden chair that faced the desk. They forced him to sit, then stepped back, flanking him on either side.

  Yulim went on, “A man as wealthy as Lim Seung-Whan has probably forgotten what’s like to roll up his sleeves and do some actual physical labor.”

  Lim was startled to hear Yulim call him by name. Then he saw the commandant glancing over a computer readout as well as a few smaller items laid out on his desk. Lim figured they were most likely his identification papers.

  “Let’s see what we have here,” Yulim said. “Lim Seung-Whan. Founder of Lim Systems International, co-owner of the Seoul Sky-Eagles, and chairman of the board for two other corporations. Very impressive. And according to this,” he went on, referring to a newsclipping retrieved for him by the same intelligence agents who’d spent the afternoon checking on Lim’s background, “you’re one of the fifty richest men in all of South Korea. Where would you rank yourself? First? Fifth? Twentieth?”

  Up until this moment, Lim had felt certain that he as well as his family and abducted friends were doomed, that they would be degraded and then killed, in essence, for sport by their captors. But now, however bleak his situation seemed, Lim felt the faintest glimmer of hope, because it was clear that his tormentor wanted something from him. And that gave Lim something he’d felt he’d been stripped of from the moment the North Koreans had stormed aboard his yacht.

  A sense of control.

  A reassuring feeling of calm came over Lim as he stared at Yulim, sizing up the situation.

  “So that’s why we’ve been taken captive,” Lim told Yulim. “You’re after ransom money.”

  Yulim shrugged. “I had no say in your capture,” he assured Lim, “but my understanding was that you’d ventured into our waters and our men just—”

  “That’s a lie,” Lim countered. “We hadn’t even crossed the disputed maritime line. We were seized from South Korean waters.”

  “That’s beside the point now, don’t you think?” Yulim said.

  “Of course,” Lim replied. “The point is, as you say, I’m a wealthy man. Wealthy enough to buy my freedom.”

  “Just yours?” Yulim inquired. “What about your friends? Your wife? Your daughter?”

  “Let’s not play any more games,” Lim said. “Just name your price and we can start making the arrangements.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Bullhead City, Arizona

  When the FBI’s charter jet landed at Bullhead City Airport, the plan was to drop off Kissinger, then promptly take back to the air for the short flight north to Las Vegas. But while Bolan and Kissinger exchanged a few parting words, Bryce Thompson, who’d driven across the river from Laughlin to rendezvous with the jet, boarded and quickly briefed Ed Scanlon on the latest news regarding Li-Roo Kohb, and suddenly things had changed.

  “Sorry, guys, but we need to go back to Plan A,” Scanlon told the others after he’d spoken with Thompson.

  “Why?” Bahn asked. “What happened?”

  “I don’t have all the specifics yet,” Scanlon said, “but it looks like REDI just got their hands on Li-Roo Kohb. The trail’s still fresh, so we figure the more bloodhounds we can throw at them, the better.”

  “Fair enough,” Bolan said.

  Jayne Bahn winked at Kissinger as she grabbed her overnight bag. “Just when you thought we were going to have to make do with love letters.”

  “How about that?” Kissinger grabbed his crutches and played along. “And here I was really looking forward to missing you.”

  Thompson had already arranged for a taxi, and by the time everyone had disembarked, the cab had pulled up alongside the tarmac. Scanlon got into the taxi along with the two other Bureau agents who’d accompanied him on the jet. Bolan and Kissinger took the back seat of Thompson’s sedan while Jayne Bahn rode up front.

  As both vehicles pulled away from the airport, Bahn asked Thompson, “Okay, I heard the part about there not being a lot of specifics, but how about giving us at least a little to go on?”

  Thompson started to fill the others in on his aborted stakeout and the news that REDI agents had apparently beaten them to a search of Li-Roo Kohb’s home, using the same cable company ruse they’d employed in Los Angeles prior to killing Dr. Yong-Im. Two blocks north of the airport, he took a left turn and crossed the bridge leading back to Laughlin. As Bolan listened to Thompson, he looked past the gleaming waters of the Colorado River and saw more than a dozen casinos lined up like gilded dominoes along the banks. The resorts were every bit as large and gaudy as their Vegas counterparts and, judging from the traffic, it looked as though business was booming.

  “Anyway,” Thompson went on as he turned onto Casino Drive, “once Howland found the matchbooks, he called the Laughlin Shores and it turns out Li-Roo spends most of his waking hours in the poker room there chasing bad beat jackpots. We tried to page him to tell him to wait for us at security, but the poker room manager said he’d stepped out for a cigarette and never come back. They had to pull his chips off the table because he was gone for so long.”

  Bolan pieced it all together. “So we’re figuring REDI grabbed him while he was away
from the tables.”

  Thompson nodded. They were coming up on the Laughlin Shores, the newest of the casinos, located at the end of the strip between the Palms and Harrah’s. As he pulled into the parking lot, the agent concluded, “Our guys are with security, going over the surveillance tapes. Hopefully they picked up something we can use.”

  “Even if they do,” Kissinger said, “If REDI already made the nab, they’ll be long gone by now.”

  “We’ll see,” Thompson said.

  The group got out of the car and waited for Scanlon and the other G-men, then headed for the casino, which was surrounded by a thirty-foot-wide moat stocked with koi and a few algae-covered underwater statues of sleek mermaids. A quarter-size pirate’s galleon rested in the murky waters near the main entrance. Unlike a similar ship in Las Vegas that engaged in nightly combat with a British frigate, the boat here was merely a decoration, manned only by flocks of pigeons and seagulls.

  The Shores’ security headquarters were located on the third floor of the casino. Scanlon flashed his badge to the desk officer, who told the group, “It’s kinda crowded here. Do you all need to come in?”

  Scanlon asked Kissinger and the other Bureau agents to wait in the hall, then led Bolan and Bahn past the lost-and-found lockers to a back room where FBI agents Randall Howland and Sandra Pearle were going over the surveillance tapes with Chief Security Officer Harmon Wallace, a tall, dark-haired man with an ample midsection.

  Scanlon handled introductions, then asked Wallace, “Did you come up with anything?”

  “Even as we speak,” Wallace responded.

  The security officer called everyone’s attention to the main console he was using to review back footage from the dozens of ceiling-mounted security cameras positioned throughout the casino. On the screen in front of him was a black-and-white image of a slot carousel situated just off the food court.

  “This is about a hundred yards from the poker room,” Wallace explained. He pointed to a figure hunched over one of the slot machines. “Here’s our guy, just a couple minutes after he left the tables.”

  “Cigarette break?” Jayne Bahn guessed after seeing Li-Roo Kohb blow smoke at the machine he was playing.

  “Yeah,” Wallace said. “I talked to the poker room manager and he says the man usually gets up once an hour for a smoke. He’s never gone more than five minutes. Until today, of course.”

  Bolan looked closer at the footage and saw three men near a railing separating the food court from the gambling floor. The footage wasn’t clear enough to get a good look at them, but he could tell their features were Asian.

  “Are those the guys we’re looking for?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Wallace said. “We’ve got them on tape a few minutes earlier near the poker room. They hung back near the railing, same as here. Li-Roo had his back to them, so I don’t think he knew he was being watched.”

  “What time are we talking here?” Scanlon asked.

  “Just a sec.” Wallace cued up the time print and a digital readout flashed on the upper-right hand of the screen. “It’s 10:24. About forty minutes ago.”

  “We just missed them,” Scanlon scowled. “Damn it!”

  “Hold on,” Wallace interrupted, slowing the footage. “Here’s where it goes down.”

  The others fell silent and watched the screen. Li-Roo Kohb was finishing his cigarette when the couple playing the machines next to him got up and left the carousel. At the same time they were walking off-camera, the three men by the railing strode forward, boxing Li-Roo in. They were all wearing coats, but it was easy for Bolan to see that they were armed, and even though he couldn’t see a gun, it was clear that the man who’d sat next to Kohb had flashed his weapon for the defector to see. The man directly behind Li-Roo leaned forward a moment and whispered something in the defector’s ear. The gambler dropped his cigarette, but one of the other men quickly stepped over to crush it out on the carpet. Moments later Li-Roo was on his feet, sandwiched between two of the men. The third followed close behind as they moved away from the carousel.

  “This was as far as I got, so hang on,” Wallace told the others. Switching from camera to camera, the security officer tracked footage showing Li-Roo Kohb being led around the periphery of the playing floor and past the registration desk, where a clot of people were lined up waiting to check into their rooms. At one point Li-Roo made a feeble attempt to break away from his abductors, but he was quickly hemmed in and brusquely shoved toward the doors leading outside.

  “Why the hell didn’t he just shout for help?” Bahn wondered out loud.

  “Beats me,” Wallace said, pointing to the edge of the screen. “There’s one of our guys standing right over there. If Li-Roo had gotten his attention, we might’ve been able to do something.”

  “Like what?” Scanlon said. “Start a shootout in the casino?”

  “He was probably scared out of his wits,” Bolan said. “It’s hard to think straight when somebody’s got a gun planted in your ribs.”

  Once he saw the footage of Li-Roo Kohb being escorted out of the casino, Wallace switched to footage from the outside cameras. It took three tries before he could get an angle on Li-Roo and the REDI agents. They were standing curbside in the dropoff zone. Moments later, a dust-covered Ford Explorer pulled up to the curb. One of the abductors opened the rear door and held it open as the others guided the man into the vehicle. The man stayed on the curb afterward, exchanging a few words with his colleagues, then closing the door and stepping back. Seconds later, the SUV disappeared offscreen.

  “Doggone.” Wallace toggled switches to get footage from the other outside SUR-CAM. “We don’t have any cameras trained on the exit, so I can’t tell which way they went.”

  “Never mind that right now,” Bolan said. “Stay on that guy they left behind.”

  “Good point,” Wallace said.

  “I don’t get it,” Bahn said. “They’ve got their man. Why would they have somebody stick around here?”

  “You got me,” Wallace said, “but it looks like you guys have cut yourself a break.”

  Reversing the sequence he’d just called up, Wallace tracked the Korean who’d remained behind. The man returned to the casino and made his way across the playing floor to a corner bar overlooking the river. There, he slid on a bar stool next to a tall, slender brunette wearing a tailored pantsuit that accentuated her voluptuous figure. The man signaled the bartender and gestured that he wanted to buy the woman a drink, then turned to the woman.

  “Philly,” Wallace muttered. “I should’ve guessed.”

  “What’s that?” Jayne asked.

  “The woman,” Wallace explained, pointing to the monitor. “She calls herself Philly. Works this end of the strip.”

  “Prostitute?” Bolan said.

  Harmon grinned darkly. “She likes to call herself a ‘goodwill ambassador.’”

  The security officer sped up the footage, skipping past the banter between the REDI agent and the prostitute. Finally the Korean paid for the drinks, then helped Philly off her bar stool. Wallace had to switch camera views a few times more before catching a final glimpse of the couple as they boarded the South Tower elevator.

  “I take it she has a room here,” Bolan said.

  “Officially, no,” Wallace said. “Off the record, though, I think I know where you’ll find your guy.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cho Il-Tok had been a field agent for North Korea’s Research Department for External Intelligence for nearly twenty years, and during those twenty years he’d been shot at more times than he could remember. He could count the number of bullets he’d caught in the line of duty just by counting his scars: six in the chest area, two on his right thigh and one on his neck, where doctors had left the slug because it was lodged less than a quarter inch from his spinal cord. All things considered, Cho’s feeling was that if he decided to take time out from a mission to get laid, he figured he’d damn well earned and deserved it. And as far as
he was concerned, he’d done his share on this assignment already.

  After all, he’d been the one who’d raided Li-Roo Kohb’s home and figured out the defector was a regular at the Shores poker room, and he’d been the one who’d kept Li-Roo in line when he’d tried to make a run for it when they’d apprehended him in the casino. Bryn Ban-Ho, the team leader, was the one who handled interrogations; getting Li-Roo to talk before they hauled him back to the homeland was his problem, not Cho’s.

  Cho continued to justify his daytime tryst with Philly Lambrosia as he stood in front of the window of her hotel room on the third story of the Laughlin Shores South Tower. He’d stripped down to his boxer shorts and was nursing bourbon from a thumb-size bottle he’d taken from the minifridge. He had a view of the river, and he watched with interest the parade of Jet Skiers and speedboat enthusiasts out on the gleaming waters.

  When he heard the bathroom door creak open, Cho turned from the window. Philly Lambrosia stepped out of the bathroom wearing a scarlet-red teddy that left precious little to the imagination. She pursed her lips and blew the Korean a kiss as she sashayed to the nightstand, helping herself to the four crisp hundred-dollar bills Cho had set out for her. Cho hadn’t bothered haggling over Philly’s going rate. After all, the money was counterfeit and he had a suitcase half filled with more of the bills back at the safehouse where Li-Roo Kohb had been taken.

  “Whoa, you have just a few scars there, don’t you?” Philly observed. “Are you some kind of war hero or something?”

  “Something like that,” Cho said.

  “But so much for small talk,” Lambrosia cooed. She knelt on the bed and then leaned forward to give Cho a better glimpse of her surgery-enhanced breasts. “Shall we have our little party now?”

  Cho didn’t need a second invitation. He quickly downed the last of the bourbon, then tossed the bottle aside and swaggered toward the bed. He was fingering the waistband of his boxers when the woman’s expression suddenly changed. She’d glanced over at the Korean’s clothes, which he’d dumped on the chair next to the bed, and her eyes were fixed on an unmistakable bulge in the pocket of his jacket.