The sole aircraft in the hangar, a sleek, white Gulfstream G550, had already been unplugged from its APU by the ground crew, who had conspicuously disappeared as the car approached the loading stairs.
As the men climbed out of the vehicle an attractive woman stepped out of the office of the fixed-base operator. Her blond hair was pulled into a neat bun, and her generic flight attendant’s uniform was perfectly pressed.
Adara Sherman was officially the flight coordinator for the Campus G550, but this was just one of her many duties. She also provided security to the aircraft, organized every bit of travel for the operators in her organization, dealt with customs issues, and performed other duties as required.
Clark stepped up to Sherman as soon as he climbed out from behind the wheel. “Good to see you again.”
“You, too, Mr. Clark.”
“What’s the situation?”
“We’re fine. Customs is dealt with, the ground crew and office personnel are giving us some space.”
“I assume that cost a small fortune.”
“Discretion comes cheaper here than in some other places. Can I help with the body?”
“We’ll handle him. Just let the flight crew know we needed to be out of the country an hour ago, so anything they can do to expedite will be appreciated.”
Sherman headed for the stairs.
Driscoll and Ryan carried the body of Colin Hazelton onto the plane while Clark and Chavez stood guard at the entrance to the hangar, making sure no personnel from the FBO or the airport made the mistake of taking a peek into the hangar during this critical moment of exposure.
Adara had already placed a body bag on the floor of the cabin. The presence of several ready-to-go body bags in the cargo hold of the G550 was a grim reminder to the operators of The Campus that the work they did was high stakes, but this was the first time one of the bags had been put to use. Hazelton’s body was zipped inside, then he was placed into a hidden compartment built between the rear bulkhead and the cargo hold. It was specifically designed to hide a full-sized man, but it was just barely large enough for this role. Each of the operators had tested it out, and it had even been used operationally to hide one of the men during immigration and customs inspections.
All agreed that the person who customized the compartment had done so with no plans to put it to personal use.
Hazelton had no complaints, however.
When all were on board and the hatch sealed, the pilots began taxiing toward the tarmac. Slowly at first, but soon they began expediting their departure off the nearly empty runway, and they were airborne in minutes.
Shortly after leveling off, Adara served the men coffee, juice, and water. Clark sat alone up at the bulkhead, and here he called Gerry Hendley, the director of The Campus and the owner of the jet. While he drank coffee, Clark carefully filled him in on everything that had happened.
Soon the entire team converged around the teak table in the center of the aircraft, and together they inspected the note Colin Hazelton had scribbled seconds before succumbing to his wounds. Both Clark and Chavez wore reading glasses, but even with their corrected vision it was hard to make out the writing. It was clear there were only four words in total on the page, one word alone, and then below it, two more. Then, at the bottom, four more letters had been scribbled, badly, almost one on top of the other. The wide blood smear across the chicken scratch only added to the difficulty of discerning Hazelton’s penmanship.
Chavez said, “The first word is four letters, but it’s completely obscured by the blood. Not a clue. Below it, there are two words. The first one looks like… is that ‘skata’?”
Clark said, “That means ‘shit’ in Greek.”
“You speak Greek?” Ryan asked, surprised.
“No, but I had Greeks working for me in Rainbow. Working for me causes a man to cuss, I guess. I heard that one a lot.”
Driscoll turned the sheet his way to look it over, and he leaned even closer. “It’s not ‘skata.’ I think it’s ‘skala.’”
After everyone looked again, Chavez and Ryan agreed with Driscoll, and Clark gave in to majority rule. “Okay, ‘skala.’ Sounds like a proper name. Central European, maybe?”
Ryan was already at his laptop Googling the word while Adara Sherman refilled his bone-china coffee cup next to him. With excitement he said, “Got it! It’s a town in Poland.” Then, with a voice less enthusiastic, “Wait. It’s also a town in Bulgaria. Shit. There’s one in Ukraine, too. Another in the Faroe Islands.”
Driscoll mumbled, “Well, damn. That’s not very helpful.”
Chavez said, “It might be a person as well. I knew a Hungarian Army captain with that surname, back in CIA. He died in a helo crash fifteen years ago, though. Clark, you know anybody named Skala?”
Clark shook his head. He was concentrating on the next word now. “What’s that? Four letters? Looks like ‘IATA.’ All caps.”
Ryan Googled that as well. “International Air Transport Association. Might just be a coincidence.”
Sherman was pouring orange juice for Chavez. She hadn’t said a word during the conversation, because no one had asked her opinion. But she glanced at the page and said, “Prague.”
The four men turned to look up at her, so she clarified. “Sorry. It’s the ICAO airport code. That’s Václav Havel in Prague. Czech Republic.”
Ding said, “I thought the Prague airport code was PRG.”
Sherman smiled. “You are thinking of the IATA code that’s used commercially, what you see on your ticket or when you book a flight. The ICAO is what pilots use.”
Ding looked at her doubtfully, but Clark buttressed her claim.
“Hazelton was a pilot. He was ex — Air Force and held a multi-engine private pilot’s license.”
Ryan said, “Skala could be a Czech name. Maybe if we go to Václav Havel Airport in Prague and start looking around for a guy named Skala, we will get lucky.”
Clark said, “For now we are heading back to D.C. The first item on our agenda after returning is to sit down with a certain someone and find out everything she knows about this. After that we’ll decide how we are going to proceed.”
Clark held the note close to his face to look at the last scribble, down at the bottom of the page. After a few seconds he nodded, then tossed it on the table. “Hazelton’s last note tells us there is trouble ahead, boys.”
The others looked the note over. It was clear to all of them.
DPRK.
Sam took the words out of the others’ mouths. “I hate those guys.”
The Gulfstream flew northeast toward the dawn, the four men in back trying to catch as much sleep as possible because to a man they expected the events of the previous evening were merely the beginning, and more trouble lay ahead.
6
For as many of the twenty-eight years Choi Ji-hoon could remember, he had been surrounded by those who told him he would someday lead his nation. Most of those people were sycophants, though he’d never heard such a term. He knew these people only as unimportant. Still, he believed them. He believed them because his father, the only person who mattered, had told him the same thing. Choi Li-hung explained to his son, Choi Ji-hoon, that someday he would die, and when that happened, young Ji-hoon would replace him to become the Supreme Leader of North Korea.
Ji-hoon’s father promised his son he would rule, but he did not reveal to his son that he had absolutely no faith in his ability to do so. Choi the father thought his son to be weak and lazy and not exceptionally smart, and he considered him the biggest sycophant of all. By the age of twenty-two, young Ji-hoon had become a party official, and his one duty involved traveling around North Korea commissioning works of art to commemorate historical events in the nation. Ji-hoon turned this job into a vehicle by which he could suck up to his father. Every single painting and statue Ji-hoon ordered created was of Choi Li-hung, a blatant way to curry favor and earn his succession.