Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation (17 page)

O
ne soldier paced along the electrified fence; the other remained several hundred yards away with the jeep. A light snow had begun to fall. From behind the tree stump in the overgrown grass, Janson considered his Beretta but then thought better of it. He didn't want to risk exposing his position to the second gunman.

The soldier clenched his AK-47, alert and ready, as he trudged along the fence in Janson's direction.

Perched on his haunches like a tightly coiled spring, Janson took a deep breath and steeled himself. He intended to take the soldier down with a choke hold before they could be spotted by the gunman with the jeep. But just as Janson was about to launch himself, the soldier sensed his presence and spun toward him, aiming the assault rifle directly at Janson's head.

Janson didn't hesitate. Like a cornered king cobra, he sprang at the soldier anyway, clutching the barrel of the rifle and jerking it away from his face. The gun went off, three successive shots straight up into the blank sky, and Janson realized he had to act swiftly before the other soldier made his approach.

There wasn't time to execute a choke hold. Instead, driving his shoulder into the gunman's chest and grabbing the backs of his knees, Janson lifted the soldier up and flung his body backward, dumping him against the fence.

Instantly upon impact the soldier's upper body began to convulse.

Over the hiss and sputter of thousands of electric volts, the soldier shrieked—but there was nothing Janson could do to ease his suffering.

Covering his face against the sparks and the stench of charring flesh, Janson dropped to his knees and snatched the fallen AK-47.

As the current cut off and the soldier's corpse thumped against the hard ground, Janson swung the rifle in the direction of the jeep tearing toward him.

Janson restrained himself from firing.

He didn't want to blow his blessing in disguise to kingdom come.

Instead of running, he dropped into a crouch. A thinning fog still hung conveniently in the air like a threadbare bedsheet drying in the breeze. And stationary targets, though easier to hit, were more difficult to see. Particularly in the mist.

The jeep roared toward him, though not at full speed. The driver was exercising caution; he clearly didn't want to plow the military's jeep into the electrified fence.

Janson didn't want that either.

The jeep was traveling at roughly forty miles per hour. Not fast, but fast enough to make braking on the frozen earth a problem. A problem Janson meant to use to his advantage.

He popped up from his crouch so that the driver would see him through the fog and falling snow. Then Janson confused him.

From roughly a thousand yards away, Janson ran straight toward the oncoming jeep, the dead Korean's AK-47 swinging from his right arm.

The driver instinctively slowed, then caught his mistake and accelerated.

Janson knew he was playing a dangerous game of chicken but saw no other choice. He waited until the jeep was almost on him, then feinted left but broke hard to his right.

The driver bit and there was no time to correct course. The jeep fell into a skid and continued sliding sideways for several seconds before finally coming to a dead stop a few hundred yards from the fence.

Janson, who'd been racing after the vehicle from the moment it passed him, halted just as the jeep did. In one fluid motion he planted his left foot and raised the AK-47. With the selector locked in the lower semiautomatic position, he aimed through the sight into the driver's-side window and pulled the trigger.

Following one crisp and concise burst, the driver's body slumped forward against the steering column.

Janson released his breath in a puff of smoke, then lowered the rifle and hustled toward the vehicle—all the while mouthing a silent entreaty that he hadn't damaged the windshield too badly.

A
LITTLE OVER AN HOUR
later the body of the soldier was clear of the vehicle and the blood and bits of skull and brain were cleaned up as well as Janson was ever going to get them using the few tools he had at his disposal.

After a few minutes of rest, he changed into spare fatigues he'd found in the rear of the jeep and collected his weapons and go-bag. As far as Janson could tell, the soldiers hadn't been able to alert reinforcements. Of course, given the potential punishment for allowing an infiltrator to escape, it was possible they'd simply chosen not to sound the alarm. At least not until they had Janson dead or in custody.

The windshield of the jeep had suffered a minor crack, which had begun to spiderweb. No doubt it would get worse in the hours to come, forcing Janson to change vehicles.

But for now he could see the field in front of him well enough. He started the engine and backed away from the fence before swinging the jeep around so that it was facing north.

There were just 110 miles between him and the capital. And only a million-man standing army with a $6 billion annual budget to try to stop him.

With his right foot, Janson pressed down hard on the accelerator and moved forward through the thinning mist.

Reunification Highway
Kaesong, DPRK

T
he vehicle in which Janson was now traveling held at a steady fifty miles per hour. Although the speed was slower than he would have liked, he had to admit he felt bizarrely comfortable. The temperature inside his compartment was well below zero, but at least he was protected against the ruthless Siberian winds. His unrelenting claustrophobia, on the other hand, kept him on edge, made his entire body feel as though it were being stuck repeatedly by countless pins and needles. The stench was unpleasant but tolerable. Especially considering the fact that he was packed head to toe among thousands of cheap frozen seafood lunches and dinners destined for the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

Knowing he'd never make it past the first checkpoint, Janson had abandoned the jeep as soon as the Reunification Highway came into view. With his go-bag strapped to his back, he moved parallel to the road through the dense forest to the east, hoping to spot a vehicle in which he could hide. Problem was, traffic heading north along the six-lane Reunification Highway was light;
beyond
light—the road was very nearly deserted. So when he spotted the small white truck with the fresh-fish logo, he didn't hesitate to step onto the roadway to flag it down.

Seeing the KPA uniform, the driver, whose truck bore South Korean tags, pulled to the side of the road. By the time the driver noticed that the soldier wasn't Korean, his engine was turned off and his door was standing open. Janson helped the driver down from the cab and tried to reassure him that he was safe. In fact, he was about to receive the deal of a lifetime.

Even now, as the truck rumbled on toward the Kaesong Industrial Complex, Janson's greatest concern remained the driver. Simply standing outside his truck in the frigid winds, the man had been sweating. Janson noted too that the man's voice grew shakier with every sentence he uttered. It had been difficult enough to understand the driver's slaughtered English at the start of the conversation; by the end Janson was just nodding and flashing more Korean currency.

He's going to fold the moment he pulls up to the checkpoint, Janson thought.

But no. Since Janson and Kincaid had arrived in Seoul just two days ago, Janson had encountered innumerable surprises, from the brilliant thirteen-year-old girl who fought off a well-trained Cons Ops agent at least twice her age to being betrayed by one of his oldest and dearest friends.

The traitor's name hung in Janson's head like a bloated body at the end of a noose.

Nam Sei-hoon.

When the truck finally slowed, Janson tried to envision the KPA checkpoint they were no doubt approaching. From the freezer in the rear of the vehicle he willed the driver to remain calm and cool. After all, the driver had nearly as much at stake as Janson himself. He'd accepted a bribe to smuggle an American into the Kaesong Industrial Complex. Even if the man lied and said he had been threatened, there was no guarantee that the North Koreans would believe him. They wouldn't
want
to believe. Why arrest one when they could arrest two—an American
and
a South Korean? Surely the driver knew he'd be thrown into the same labor camp as Janson, at least until one or both could be executed.

The man had a wife and three school-aged children waiting for him back in South Korea. His family was the reason he'd risked his life and accepted the bribe in the first place. The poor guy had to commute more than a hundred miles every day into the bowels of North Korea, and for what? To earn 160 bucks a month, a fifth of the minimum wage in his home country of South Korea.

No, Janson felt confident that the driver would remain strong. He'd tell his lies and collect his money and return to the South, never to set foot in the North again.

Given the man's motivation, Janson felt certain of it.

Still, as the truck rolled to a sudden standstill, Janson gripped the Beretta tightly in his right hand, his finger hovering over the trigger.

Just in case.

S
IN
B
AE
STEPPED
into the Grand Hyatt Seoul wearing a thick overcoat and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes. Both items borrowed from the apartment he'd just vacated. He suffered no illusion that the coat and hat would provide a disguise, but he didn't want his face and form to be captured by the ubiquitous surveillance cameras monitored by the hotel. And of course, he didn't want to enable staff and other hotel guests to provide an accurate description of him to police once the job was done.

Moving quickly through the luxuriant, modern lobby, he surveyed the scene. The first trick would be finding out in which room the man, woman, and child were hiding. There were 601 rooms and suites in total according to his handler Ping, who had accessed the Hyatt's computer system from Shanghai. Unfortunately, Kincaid's name was not in the Hyatt's database. Evidently, the resourceful American woman had checked in using a false identity, undoubtedly one of many she kept at the ready.

Sin Bae now needed to access the closed-circuit television system. He might not learn exactly which room the trio had taken, but at a minimum he hoped to discover the floor on which they were placed. Since he had no intention of attempting to force his way inside Kincaid's room, that was the only information he truly needed. She and the man she was with were no doubt armed. Therefore, his strategy involved luring all three out of the room in order to strike.

Sin Bae took the stairwell to the second floor. According to the building's layout, which Ping had forwarded to him, that was where he would find the security office. Ping had also been able to purchase (or perhaps trade for) some intelligence. Specifically, he learned that no more than two officers occupied the security room at any time. Several other guards, sometimes dressed in plainclothes, patrolled the hallways and staffed the main lobby.

Sin Bae didn't need a photograph to recognize one such guard. The individual was obvious. A young Korean male, dressed in a dark-blue suit with a muted red tie, walked right past him in the second-floor hallway. Sin Bae turned and watched him punch the button to summon the down elevator.

Sin Bae returned to the stairwell and descended one flight to the lobby. Just as he entered, so did the guard he'd seen upstairs. Sin Bae looked on as the man stepped over to the front desk, stopping briefly to flirt with a young staffer. The guard leaned in as he spoke to the comely desk clerk, and even touched her arm in a familiar manner before heading outside and liberating a package of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his jacket.

When he exited, the guard acknowledged a pair of doormen then turned left. Surely hotel rules prohibited him from smoking directly outside the main entrance.

Sin Bae followed the man around the corner, keeping his eyes peeled for outdoor surveillance cameras. The man turned again at the rear of the mammoth hotel and moved toward a line of dumpsters, where he fished a silver lighter out of his right front pant pocket and thumbed the flint wheel. Slowly, he turned his back against the wind until he was facing the hotel.

Sin Bae scanned the area for bystanders. When he saw no one, he reached for his left cuff link and quickly advanced on his target.

W
HEN THE DOOR
to the freezer finally opened it was the driver's face Janson saw—and mercifully, he was alone. As Janson stepped down from the tailgate he noticed how calm the man now was, how unrushed and unafraid. A broad smile materialized on the man's face; clearly he was proud of his accomplishment and already thinking of the many ways in which his family's life was about to change for the better.

After the driver took his money and drove off, Janson gazed up at the tall buildings of the sprawling industrial park. The 800-acre complex housed more than 120 South Korean companies, which employed North Koreans at a rate of roughly $45 a month. Appalling, yet still a better opportunity than most for men and women in the North.

Not surprisingly, the light industrial park was forced to close its many doors when tensions inevitably rose between the hostile neighbors.

For Janson, Kaesong represented a real shot at making it to Pyong­yang to locate Yun Jin-ho. When Jina Jeon's house was blown to pieces, so was his original plan to have Kang Jung help him pinpoint Yun Jin-ho's location via computer in the morning. When Kang Jung was subsequently attacked in her home, any pieces of the plan that might have remained intact were obliterated. Janson had thus entered North Korea blind. Although his path was still in no way clear, the first leg of the Reunification Highway had proven successful—and bolstered Janson's confidence.

Yet he was under no illusion. Even if he made it to the capital city and located Nam Sei-hoon's spy, he'd still face the uphill challenge of convincing Yun Jin-ho to trust him—not only a complete stranger but an
American
—and to cooperate. Surely it would be no easy task.

But first things first.

Clear like water, cool like ice.

One precious step at a time.