“Yes, sir!” said the three North Korean soldiers.
Nikola and Adem nodded their heads.
“You men go get cleaned up and put on fresh clothes. We may have to leave soon,” Shin said.
He turned to the two Albanians. “How many disrupters do you have with you?”
“We have two.” Nikola replied.
“How about the teams in Anchorage and Valdez?”
“They should have three each. Two of ours were at Mr. Kim’s house, and we can presume the police have them now.”
“Call your other teams and tell them to be ready to go as scheduled. If Captain Park is not here soon, I will take some of the vials with me and Sergeant Sun and head to Anchorage. Sergeants Kil and Cho will stay here and prepare for the deployment in Fairbanks. You two will continue with your original plan.”
“What about Valdez?” asked Sergeant Cho.
“Valdez will have to wait. If there is enough left after Anchorage, I will to get over to Valdez, but we will have to see how that goes. In the meantime, let’s hope Captain Park arrives safely and we can continue as originally planned. Either way, within twenty-four hours we will be done, and hopefully on our way back home.”
Lieutenant Shin glanced at his watch. It was just after 21:00 hours.
Chapter 24
Special Agent Anthony Tomer, FBI, arrived at the hospital just after eleven o’clock. He was tall, over six feet, and about twenty pounds overweight. Tomer’s belly pushed at the buttons on his black suit jacket. Crow’s feet wrinkles stretched from the buttonholes. He wore a blue silk tie loosened several inches from the neck. A tuft of thick brown chest hair jutted into view above the open top button of his white dress shirt.
A charcoal-gray wool overcoat hung over his body. It flapped around his knees with every step he took. A highly polished gold ring, topped by a diamond-inlaid black onyx stone, flashed on his right pinky. One hairy wrist was wrapped by a Rolex watch. The other sported a thick gold chain, its links dangled beneath his cuff, held tight by matching gold cuff links.
Unknown to him, his sense of fashion had earned him the nickname “Mafia-Disco-Pimp” among the other agents.
Tomer flashed his badge at Faloa, who buzzed him into the secure wing. He strode directly to the nurses’ station and flashed a flirtatious smile at an attractive nurse reading the contents of a clipboard toward the back of the open area behind the counter.
A younger woman sat below the lip of the counter, leaning over a page and writing on it. She glanced up briefly as Tomer peered over the counter, then back down at her paperwork. The nurse looked up from her clipboard. “I’ll take care of him. You get that report done.” She looked at Tomer with a stewardess-like lifeless smile. “Can I help you?”
“Hello there, darling.”
Tomer’s smile widened. An eyebrow curved upward in an impish James Bond-like smirk. He looked at her nametag. His gaze drifted from the nametag and focused on her breasts then he slid his eyes up to her face as he read the tag. “Tanana Billings, RN. Wow, what an exotic name.”
Tanana stepped toward the counter. As she drew near, she coughed and nearly gagged as she caught a whiff of Tomer’s cologne. She curled her nose at the bittersweet isopropyl stench and waved her hand through the air between them. Her eyes watered. “Whoa! What is that smell?”
“Sexual Addiction,” he said in a wolfish tone. “It often has that effect on women.”
He flashed his badge at her, letting it dangle in the air. “Tony Tomer, FBI. Large and in charge. Could you point me to Commander Stark? Before she could answer, he added, “And maybe a candlelight dinner and drinks at my place?”
The nurse rolled her eyes at his tacky come-on. She pointed to a hallway bustling with troopers.
“Last I saw, he was over there, with all those other troopers.” Sarcasm lay heavy on her voice. “And by the way, I don’t think he’s gay, so you’ll have to find a different dinner partner.”
The younger nurse, still looking down at her paperwork, lost control and snorted a laugh that made her whole body convulse.
Tomer’s face reddened as he registered the nurse’s insult. He turned to the hall Nurse Tanana had indicated and saw Commander Stark talking with several troopers and police officers.
Agent Tomer made eye contact with Commander Stark and immediately started into a long stride to the clustered group of troopers and their commander.
“Oh, geez,” Stark muttered under his breath. “Why did they have to send that idiot? Is everyone else on leave or something?”
“What the hell, Stark?” Tomer said in a bowling alley braggart tone as he approached. “Why wasn’t the FBI called on this thing sooner? Terrorism is our turf, not AST’s. When are you cowboys going to learn? No matter — the FBI is on scene, large and in charge.”
The other officers let out groans and shook their heads as they turned and left.
“Tomer,” Stark responded in a deep, even tone, “Mind your manners. We called once we knew for sure it was terrorism and not just gang activity. I didn’t want to waste my time having the report stuck at the bottom of your ‘suspected terrorism’ list. Waiting until we had bodies was the only way we could ensure your quick response.”
“Bodies? I thought it was one body,” Tomer said.
“Things have changed.” Stark replied. “Follow me. I’ll give you the full scoop.”
Stark led the FBI agent into a conference room the hospital had set aside as his temporary command center.
Commander Stark had never liked Tomer. The FBI agent, although he was considerably younger than Stark, treated him like a subordinate instead of a peer. He reminded the trooper commander of a pushy used-car salesman, or a loud-mouthed pimp.
Tomer was a federal jerk-off who gave a bad name to the employees of the US government. He had been stationed in Alaska as punishment for pissing off too many people with his attempts at butt-kissing around their headquarters in Virginia. Stark had been warned of his coming by a FBI friend, Steven Michaels, assistant director of anti-terrorism training at the National Police Academy.
“Bob, we’re sending you a live one. He’s a good investigator, but has a loud mouth and an attitude that seems to piss off everyone he makes eye contact with. He had been selected for the Tampa anti-drug unit, but ran into the Tampa SAC at a bar up here and made a pretty bad impression when he hit on the chief’s much-younger wife. His assignment came from the top, so there’s nothing I can do about it. Just wanted to let you know so you could be prepared.”
When Tomer first arrived, Stark tried to give him the benefit of a doubt. At their first meeting a little over a year ago, Tomer seemed intelligent and not at all like Michaels had said. Stark thought perhaps it was just a case of bad timing or that maybe the youngster had learned something and wouldn’t be so bad as his friend had said.
That impression was quickly dispelled on their second meeting, when Agent Tomer joined him and several other emergency services chiefs for the Alaska Homeland Security Conference. Within twenty minutes of arrival, Tomer had managed to insult nearly everyone in the room with a combination of his attitude and several poorly selected phrases demonstrating that he felt himself to be the final word on law enforcement.
“After all,” he said, “I am the only federal agent here. Therefore, I am the senior ranking officer. I expect full cooperation in all law enforcement and Homeland Security matters from each of the subordinate state and local agencies.”