The Eye of God (18 page)

Currently she was bent backward, straining her spine, pulling on her hip and shoulder joints. She’d been in that position for the past three hours.

To make her more pliant,
Hwan Pak had said,
willing to bend.

The scientist had laughed much too loudly at his feeble joke, snorting through his bandaged broken nose. He plainly wanted revenge, to soothe his wounded pride. To that end, he intended to hurt her as he had been hurt.

The position must certainly be agonizing. The room was frigid, but sweat glowed across her bare skin, a shining testament to the pain. Delgado imagined her grimacing, teeth grinding, but her head was covered in a tight hood, with sound-dampening earphones in place, limiting her senses, making her focus only on the pain.

The North Koreans knew what they were doing.

And from the gaunt half-starved souls he’d seen moving listlessly about the packed camp, they were no kinder to their own people. Prisoners were crammed forty to a room, each space no larger than a double-car garage. He had watched a pair of men fighting over a dead body, to see who would win the right to bury it, all in order to earn an extra supplement of food.

It was a North Korean version of Auschwitz.

Ju-long’s phone chimed in his pocket. He removed it, guessing it was an update from the Ryugyong Hotel. Tomaz had traveled there with the strike team.

Instead, a softer voice answered, “Ju-long . . .”

He smiled, some of the tension ebbing. “Natalia, my love, why are you calling? Is everything all right?”

He pictured her full belly, holding his son.

“I just wanted to hear your voice before I fell asleep,” she said, her voice muffled at the edge of slumber. “I miss your warm body next to me.”

“This will be the last night your bed will be empty. I promise I’ll be home by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

“Mmm,” she mumbled sleepily. “Don’t break your promise.”

“I won’t.”

They said their good nights and good-byes.

As he pocketed his phone, he stared at the tortured woman in the neighboring room, feeling a twinge of guilt. But he had been paid well to soothe such pangs. With the deal done, he would return to Macau tomorrow morning.

He would have left that very night, but he had gotten word earlier of Guan-yin’s escape from the fiery destruction of her Triad’s stronghold. He had also learned that the Americans had survived, hearing of their high-flying trapeze work to escape the flames. Then just half an hour ago, further intelligence filtered in from various sources suggesting that not only was Guan-yin in North Korea, but she intended to attack this base.

After he informed Hwan Pak, they were able to scramble a strike team to ambush the others at the Ryugyong Hotel, to quash their attempted rescue of this woman before it even began.

He stared into the room, bothered by a question.

Why are you so valuable?

Ju-long believed now that he had settled on too low of a price for her, but Pak was not to be dissuaded. With his honor as wounded as his nose, the highly placed North Korean nuclear scientist had left Ju-long with little choice but to accept his offer. Pak wanted revenge and would not be denied it.

As if eavesdropping on his thoughts, Pak appeared, smiling broadly as he entered the room. “They arrived as you described, Delgado-
ssi
. We have them in hand.”

He pictured Guan-yin joining the young woman here. Perhaps that was enough of a bonus for Ju-long’s troubles. With her gone, it would strengthen his position in Macau.

“But now we have business we must finish here,” Pak said, eyeing the room with raw lust. “You say she is an assassin with many criminal connections. We must know who they are, how they might benefit us, and, more important, what her connection is with the two Americans.”

“Were those two with Guan-yin?”

So far, Ju-long had not heard a definitive answer one way or the other from his contacts. Some said yes, others no.

“I do not know yet, but I’ll have answers within the hour.”

The door opened behind Pak. Another man entered, tall, skeletal, his head shaved bald, wearing a long white lab coat and carrying a stainless-steel tray of wicked-looking surgical tools and pliers. His face was impassive as he gave a small bow.

“Nam Kwon,” Pak introduced. “There are no answers he cannot extract with his tools.”

The interrogator headed into the next room, drawing Pak with him.

Pak paused in the doorway. “Do you care to join us? You are welcome. This is your merchandise.”

“No longer
mine,
” he corrected. “You have paid in full. What you do with the merchandise from here is no longer my concern.”

Or my fault,
he added silently.

Dr. Pak shrugged and left.

Ju-long looked one last time into the neighboring room.

All this time, bent on a modern rack, the woman hadn’t cried out once—but she would soon.

7:39
P
.
M
.

“Throw the bus in reverse!” Gray hollered to the front. “Don’t slow down!”

He was instantly on his feet as the military police surrounded the first bus and swarmed from the hotel lobby toward their vehicle. They had moments to react before being permanently trapped in this vise.

Zhuang was enough of a tactician with the Triad to recognize the same. He repeated the instruction to the driver in Cantonese, and the bus lurched heavily backward.

As its speed picked up, Gray dropped to his knees beside the hidden trapdoor in the floorboards and yanked it open.

Gunshots peppered the side of the retreating bus, shattering windows. The front took the brunt of the assault. The driver suddenly fell to the side with a cry of pain. The bus listed crookedly. Zhuang rolled the driver aside, tossing his body roughly into the stairwell and taking the seat himself.

The bus immediately straightened and sped faster.

Gray grabbed the assault rifle strapped to the underside of the trapdoor. It had been readied there in case there was any trouble at the border. He had noted it earlier when he and Kowalski had hidden down there.

“Pass the weapons out,” he ordered Kowalski, pointing to the remainder of the cache below.

If they were to survive this, he needed this bus to become an urban assault vehicle—one with a smiling yellow cat on its side.

But first they had to break free of this closing trap.

He leaped atop the backseat, switching places with Kowalski, and popped open the emergency exit in the roof of the bus. Jumping, he pulled himself halfway through the hatch and braced himself there. He hauled up the assault rifle and aimed it at the pair of jeeps swinging up the circular driveway to cut off their retreat.

He strafed the windshield of the first, sending the vehicle careening off the driveway and into the manicured lawn. The second veered but kept on the road—until the bus, barreling in reverse, struck it a glancing blow.

The jeep crashed to the side, going up on two wheels.

The impact came close to throwing Gray out of the hatch, but at least they had broken free of the closing snare.

The bus reached the end of the driveway and did a 180-degree skid into the six-lane highway, turning the face of the bus away from the hotel. Gears cranked, the engine roared, then they were rolling forward again, gaining speed on the empty road.

Back at the hotel, the remaining military jeeps gave chase.

More vehicles with sirens flashing appeared ahead, racing toward them along the wide street. In the distance, the spearing lights of a helicopter rose into the sky over the darkened city.

So far, the North Korean ambush, though a surprise, had a rushed feel to it. Whoever had planned this attack must have had little time to fully mobilize the Pyongyang police force. But now the city was waking up, preparing to bring all force to bear.

Throughout the bus, weapons were handed out, windows pulled down. Assault rifles poked out on all sides. Still, how long could they hope to hold off the might of the North Korean armed forces?

The answer:
not long at all.

Gray ducked back down and called over to Guan-yin. “Can you reach the man scheduled to bring the military transport truck? Get him to abandon it elsewhere for us.”

She nodded, slung her rifle over her shoulder, and took out her phone.

Their only hope of surviving, of reaching Seichan, was to stick to the old adage:
If you can’t fight them
,
join them.

They had to create enough confusion and obfuscation to create a small window to offload the bus and get everyone into that transport truck. With all the military vehicles about to flood the streets of Pyongyang, they might be able to blend in with them during the chaos.

“There’s an underpass near the highway that heads south out of town,” Gray said. “Tell him to leave it there . . . and do it now!”

Leaving the details to her, he shoved up through the hatch again.

The military jeeps from the hotel were closing in on them, firing over the top of their windshields toward the fleeing bus. But the shots mostly went wide, a few pelting into the rear. One lucky round sparked near his elbow.

Gray ducked lower, aimed his assault rifle, and shot back. A windshield shattered on one jeep, and it swerved into its neighbor, bumping and rebounding away. The collision slowed the jeeps enough for the bus to stretch its lead substantially.

At the same time, flashing lights drew down upon the bus from up ahead. A barrage of gunfire erupted from both sides of the bus. Police vehicles scattered to either side. A few tried to barricade the way, but the six-lane thoroughfare proved too wide. The bus careened through them, delivering a merciless salvo of gunfire as punishment as they passed.

Then they were momentarily free of ground pursuit.

Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for the
air
.

A helicopter swept into view along the road ahead. It banked in a turn and dove toward them. A chain-gun under the nose blazed with fire, chugged heavy rounds, drilling across the asphalt straight toward their vehicle.

The heavier bus could never outmaneuver that deadly bird.

Gray twisted around and fired at the helicopter, but it was too thickly armored to have any effect. He might as well have been firing spitballs.

Then the side door opened at the front of the bus. A large form leaned out—Kowalski—shouldering a Russian RPG-29 grenade launcher. It was meant as a weapon against tanks, but anything with armor was fair game.

Kowalski whooped loudly as he fired at nearly point-blank range. The rocket-propelled grenade shot skyward in a trail of smoke and struck the bird just below its rotors.

Gray dropped back through the hatch and flattened to the floor. Through the exit door in the roof, he saw the helicopter explode above the bus as the vehicle shot under it, trying to escape both the blast and the rain of carnage.

It failed.

The explosion rocked the bus. A piece of rotor speared through the rear, slicing the air a foot above Gray’s sprawled body, close enough to feel the heat of its blasted steel on his face.

But they were still moving, limping now on a blown tire.

Using the rotor as a step-up, Gray climbed back through the hatch. The fiery wreckage of the helicopter smoked and receded behind them. But more birds lit up the skies across the city, converging toward them.

As if sensing the need for cover, Zhuang swung the bus off the wide thoroughfare and into a mazelike canyon of apartment buildings. He kept the headlamps off to keep their passage as hidden as possible.

Gray hoped the burning helicopter on the ground would draw the others toward it, like moths to a flame, allowing their bus to gain some further distance. They continued in a circuitous path southward through the city, avoiding main thoroughfares where they could.

Sirens rang throughout Pyongyang.

Still, the streets remained empty, the windows dark. The residents knew better than to show their faces.

After several tense minutes, the highway underpass appeared ahead down a narrow alley of closed shops and garages. Zhuang slowed as they crept toward that well of deeper darkness. The underpass was so low that Gray had to duck down through the hatch or risk getting decapitated.

He hurried to the front of the bus, where Kowalski still held the tube of the grenade launcher. They slid under the highway. The space appeared empty, but it was too dark to say for sure.

If the transport isn’t here . . .

With his heart in his throat, Gray whispered to Zhuang, “Try the lights.”

The swordsman flicked on the headlamps. Light exploded throughout the underpass, exposing every hidden corner.

Nothing.

Gray glanced back to Guan-yin, who had followed him forward.

She shook her head. “He said he’d be here.”

Kowalski slammed his palm against the door. “Motherfu—”

A set of headlamps suddenly blazed a few streets up. A large truck shot into view, skidded around a corner at a fast clip, and sped toward them.

Gray pulled the door release of the bus and hopped out.

He raised his weapon toward the racing vehicle.

Guan-yin joined him, urging him to lower his weapon. “It’s our truck.”

She was proven correct as the dark green vehicle braked hard next to theirs. It was a Chinese model with a tall driver’s compartment and an enclosed rear bed. It wasn’t armored, but Gray was not complaining.

The driver hopped out, collected a satchel of money from Guan-yin, then sprinted away.

“Guess he’s not big on small talk,” Kowalski said.

They quickly offloaded all their gear from the bus, both uniforms and weapons. Likewise, three military motorcycles were rolled out of the truck bed and onto the asphalt. The bikes would act as an entourage for the personnel carrier.

Five men—those who looked the most Korean and spoke the language fluently—dressed immediately. Three of them mounted the motorcycles, and two climbed into the truck’s cab. The rest of the crew ducked immediately into the rear bed.