Targets of Opportunity (25 page)

Sandor lifted Hwang over his shoulder and, moving as fast as he could, entered the clearing. As he raced for the tracks he expected something, sniper fire or a shout from a sentry, but nothing came. They were far enough from the main yard with no sign of anyone in sight.

Sandor laid the insensate man across the northbound rails at the end of a long straightaway and turned back for the woods. There was no reaction from anywhere, all was quiet, and Sandor made his way back to safety.

When he reached Hea, she smiled slightly, then held out the phone.

Sandor nodded as he took it. “All we can do now,” he said, “is wait.” Then, as he caught his breath, he grinned. “One way or the other, at least I won’t have to carry that sonuvabitch around anymore.”

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

D
EPUTY
D
IRECTOR
M
ARK
Byrnes was again seated in the office of CIA chief Michael Walsh, and again they were facing the large screen, which this time displayed the image of the President himself, as well as National Security Advisor Peter Forelli, members of the National Security Council, and other administration officials. The group assembled at the White House was in a somber mood. All of them, that is, except for President Forest. He was downright angry.

“How in hell is this possible?” he demanded. “Where was the breakdown?”

At the moment, he was addressing the problem of the downed airliner. They had not even reached the next agenda item, the destruction of the communications center in Fort Oscar.

“So far,” DCI Walsh replied, “we believe it occurred in the pass-through of luggage from one of the smaller islands. A lot of these commuter flights check baggage through when they come into St. Maarten. We’re checking into all of them. We’re also trying to determine the means of detonation.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, sir, preliminary tests indicate that the explosive device was placed somewhere within the cargo hold. We have not determined if it was ignited remotely, on a timing device, or by an altitude-activated triggering mechanism.”

“No,” the President said, “that’s not what I’m asking, Mike. What’s this about the luggage passing through?”

Walsh turned to Byrnes, the classic Potomac handoff.

“There are local airlines that operate between the smaller islands and St. Maarten,” the Deputy Director explained. “To save time, sir, some of them have arrangements with the international carriers that allow passengers to check their bags through. Without reclaiming them in the Princess Juliana Airport,” he added.

The President turned to Forelli, fixing him with a look that could have bored a hole through a lead shield. “Are you guys telling me that they allow luggage to be checked through from these puddle-jumper flights onto a jumbo jet heading for the States?”

“Yes, sir,” the NSA replied unhappily, “it appears some of them do. The bags are scanned by the security personnel in St. Maarten.”

President Forest shook his head. “That’s comforting. What do they do, have a glance at the screen in between sips of their piña coladas?” He turned his wrath on the head of the NTSB. “Is this procedure sanctioned by your department?”

Saul Adler nodded glumly. “The airlines are permitted certain latitude on how they handle connecting flights. In the Caribbean…”

“Don’t give me any bullshit about the Caribbean,” the President barked. “I got over two hundred people dead in the Caribbean, not to mention this disaster in Fort Oscar. What I don’t need, Saul, is a damned travelogue. What I need is for someone to tell me what the hell is going on here.” He turned back to the screen and said, “Byrnes, you have anything for me so far that means something?”

“Given the attack on Fort Oscar, I think we should focus on flights that came into St. Maarten from St. Barths.”

“Don’t overwhelm me with the obvious. What else have you got?”

“You’ve been briefed on the Jaber defection, sir?”

Forest nodded impatiently.

“It appears he knew nothing about the jetliner, Mr. President. His information and the leads we’ve been developing indicate that all of this may have something to do with energy resources.”

“Energy resources? Like what, a play against one of our nuclear power plants?”

“No sir, but this is all highly classified…”

“Everyone in this room is cleared,” the President announced impatiently. “Just lay it out for us. Why would they blow up an airplane and then Fort Oscar if this is a play against a reactor or something?”

“No, sir, we believe it’s some sort of oil-for-arms play.”

“What in hell does that have to do with downing a commercial airliner?”

Byrnes drew a deep breath. “We believe the attack on the airliner might have been a diversion, sir.”

“A diversion?” the President roared. “These bastards killed two hundred people as a diversion?”

“Yes, sir, that’s how we see it. They may want us to link the airline explosion with the attack on Fort Oscar, send us spinning in the wrong direction, but we believe their real plans have something to do with our oil supplies. This appears to be an offensive coordinated between Pyongyang and someplace in the West. Most likely Caracas. We are still unsure if Iran is actually involved.”

Now the President was listening. “Go on.”

“We have one of our best men leading a covert operation in North Korea. We’re waiting to exfiltrate him as we speak.”

“What sort of operation?”

“Fact finding sir. We believe, if we can get him out, he may have information that will help us connect the dots on this.”

President Forest turned to Forelli again. “This have to do with the mess you told me about at that ridiculous festival they hold with all the cheerleaders in Pyongyang?”

The NSA confirmed it was.

The President turned back to the screen. “When you say ‘one of your best men,’ who do you have leading the ops over there?”

“Jordan Sandor, sir.”

“Sandor, eh?” For the first time, the President allowed himself one of his well-known smirks. “Way I hear it from Peter, satellite photos show they had quite a firefight at that stadium yesterday. That was Sandor?”

“We believe so, sir.”

“You really think he got anything out of that?”

“I hope so, Mr. President.”

“Me too,” he agreed with a quick nod of his head. “All right then, you fellas do whatever it takes to pull him the hell out of North Korea, then let’s start to get us some answers.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

SOUTH OF THE BORDER BETWEEN NORTH KOREA AND RUSSIA

W
HAT
S
ANDOR’S PLAN
lacked in finesse it made up for with surprise. Hwang lay across the northbound tracks, bound at the wrists and ankles with his mouth taped shut. Sandor had also done his best to strap Hwang in place with his belt, so escape would be nearly impossible.

Hea was hiding in the bushes directly across from where the Korean lay. Sandor was a hundred yards south, so he would have the first look at whether the train was Russian or DPRK. They remained that way for nearly an hour, watching as Hwang tried unsuccessfully to wriggle out of danger. Then they heard the sound coming from the south.

As soon as Sandor spotted the Russian logo he signaled Hea, who ran from cover and knelt beside Hwang. Sandor was racing north through the trees as the freighter barreled ahead to where the girl now stood waving her arms, the incongruent scene causing the engineer to reflexively blow his horn and order his assistant to hit the brakes.

What could possibly be going on, they must have wondered.

But before they could make sense of a man tied to the tracks and a woman calling for help, they slowed their long line of cars just enough for Sandor to charge on the full run from beyond the siding and leap onto the running board of the locomotive with the Tokarev in hand and the AK-47 strapped across his chest.

The engineer was a burly man in his mid-fifties, his brakeman younger and thinner. “Stop this thing!” Sandor hollered at them in their native language, and the operators were too stunned to do anything but comply. As they did, Sandor relieved them of their sidearms.

There was not enough time to bring this huge linkage of rolling steel to a halt before hitting Hwang, but Hea had already managed to free him from the tracks and drag him to safety as the train continued slowly past them.

With the train still creeping ahead, Sandor instructed the brakeman to get down and help bring the girl and Hwang into the cab. “And no heroics, right? No one here is going to get hurt if you cooperate,” he said, still speaking in Russian. “We just need a quick lift into Khasan.” Then he tossed one of the Russian pistols down to Hea, keeping the engineer covered with the AK-47.

The brakeman got down and helped Hea lift Hwang, all three of them clambering aboard. Sandor said, “If you touch the radio, if you try and trip an alarm, I’ll kill you both. You understand?”

“Perfectly,” the engineer replied. “Your Russian is quite good.”

“I’ve had plenty of practice. Now, get this crate going again and tell me the procedure you have to follow when you enter the rail yard up ahead.”

The engineer described the protocol. When they came south into the country, filled with Russian products, they would be stopped and examined. On the way back they were basically empty, since North Korea did not have much to export. There was little to look for except possible defectors. Normally they would be asked to slow the northbound train, but nothing more. Occasionally they would be subjected to an inspection. This morning, however, the engineer said that he had noticed an increased military presence along his route.

“Now I understand why,” the man said.

“Well I appreciate the warning,” Sandor replied with a nod. “Now you and your friend have a choice. You can die here for no good reason that I can think of, or you can get us safely into Khasan, where I promise you, the financial reward will justify the risk. You understand?”

“You are American,” the man replied, now speaking in English. “I am happy to help you. The North Koreans,” he said with a disgusted look, then spat on the deck of his engine house to make the point.

Sandor frowned. “Even if you’re telling me the truth, I have no time for political agendas, simple greed works fine for me. I just need to get across the border.”

“Don’t worry,” the burly engineer assured him. Then he turned and spoke to the brakeman in Russian, telling him they would not slow as much as they normally did. They would not want to raise unnecessary suspicion, but they wanted to maintain enough speed to be sure they would be able to get through to Khasan if there were trouble. “The North Koreans are crazy,” he said to Sandor, “but not crazy enough to do anything once we cross into Russia.”

“That’s how I figure it,” Sandor agreed. “I just hope this old crate has some sort of turbo drive if we need it.”

————

The switching house in the rail yard north of Najin was antiquated but it did have certain modern equipment, including a tracking device covering all of the rails near this border with their neighbor to the north. One of the switchmen on duty noticed that the next northbound train, due just after noon on its way to Khasan and then on to Vladivostok, had slowed to a near stop just a few miles south of the yard. Under normal circumstances this could mean one of several things, including the pickup of defectors, the off-loading of contraband, or a mechanical issue. Most days he would not even mention the incident, since the train had not actually come to a halt and reporting this sort of occurrence would inevitably cause him additional work and the need to complete various forms he would rather avoid. Today, however, there was a nationwide alert from the military, and there might be more risk ignoring the situation than not.

So, when the young switchman saw that the freight train had slowed and then resumed its prior speed, he brought it to the attention of his superior.

“Very interesting,” the older man replied. “Is this something you have observed before on this run?”

“From time to time there is a changing of speed, sir.”

“But you found this unusual enough to report it today?”

“Yes, sir.”

The older man responded with a knowing look, then went to his phone and called the
sangjwa
, or colonel, in charge of the local military unit.

The DPRK army already had a squadron positioned in the area, although no one in the hierarchy believed that Sandor could have eluded the dragnet they had set for him in Pyongyang and safely made it all the way to Najin. They assumed he was still in the southwest, hiding somewhere, and that his capture was imminent, particularly once his two comrades, now in custody, were forced to divulge whatever they knew of his whereabouts.

Nevertheless, the order was given for the dispatch of additional men to the site with instructions to conduct a thorough inspection of every car. As the Russian freight train entered the southern entrance to the yard, the engineer received a radio communication telling him to stop along the siding just across from the main terminal building.

————

The stocky Russian engineer was leaning out the window of the locomotive, his assistant beside him. Sandor was seated behind them, keeping just below window level. Hea was crouched on the metal floor, armed with one of the Makarov pistols they had just taken from the Russians. She was keeping an eye on Hwang.

“Don’t reply,” Sandor said to the engineer when he heard the order come over the radio.

“Won’t that make things worse?”

Sandor shook his head. “Keep moving slowly. In another minute ask them to repeat what they said. Go back and forth on the radio with them. Say you don’t understand them. We’ve got to get past the main building without stopping.”

This time the engineer exchanged a nervous look with his second in command. “You don’t know these Koreans, they are crazy,” he said to Sandor. “They’ll open fire without warning.”