Trevor Scott
Lethal Force
PROLOGUE
The lights of the Jung-gu or central district glittered through the swirling clouds as the silver and red cable car rose higher toward the North Seoul Tower, the highest point in the city. The Tower was like a large needle sticking out of Seoul’s highest mountain, surrounded by Namsan Park, the most famous green space in the capital city.
Standing against a rail in a corner of the cable car, the Korean woman glanced casually at the others inside with her. Since this was the last car of the evening, she would not have to endure screaming children and the slow elderly. No, the others were mostly young couples looking for romance, and young men looking for trouble. Her contact would already be at the base of the tower waiting for her, she guessed. At least that was the plan. But she knew these meetings rarely went as planned.
She glanced into her own reflection in the windows of the cable car and considered her clothing, which was completely out of character for her, where she had exchanged her normal skirt and high heels for practical black slacks and Nike running shoes. As she had waited for the cable car below, the wind had picked up and she was glad she had worn the black turtle neck under her leather jacket, which she left open enough to easily reach inside and extract her 9mm Sig Sauer. But she didn’t think for a minute she would need this sub-compact semi-auto handgun for tonight’s encounter. After all, she was only there to meet with an agent of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. NIS officers had recruited this man for years and finally got him to agree to provide information on North Korea’s nuclear program. Although the target agent was ostensibly a businessman used to acquire nuclear technology, the NIS suspected he also worked for North Korea’s National Intelligence Committee of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers Party. North Korean Intelligence was primarily concerned with spying on U.S. forces in South Korea, but the Agency knew the North was now also trying to enhance their nuclear capabilities by attempting to exploit American businessmen and scientists in South Korea and even on American soil.
That was why the NIS wanted the CIA to assess the agent from the North first-hand, and why Pam Suh, the Seoul station chief, wanted to look the guy in the eye and see if the NIS had truly turned the guy. Even though she was the youngest officer to ever head this post, she had a penchant for discerning the truth with simple questioning. At least her experience led her to believe so.
She glanced down at her phone as if to be viewing a text from a friend, but was really reviewing the photo she had of the North Korean agent one last time. Then she turned and looked up as the cable car slowed and came to a halt at the upper terminal.
All the others on the car streamed off, leaving her to follow them toward the base of the tower.
In the summer, she knew, this place would be full of tourists and locals. But this night in January was colder than normal, and not many were willing to brave the cold and windy evening. Namsan had a plush coat of snow now, giving the place a serene ambiance like the foothills west of Lake Tahoe after a fresh downfall.
As she got closer to the base of the tower, her left arm instinctively touched against her gun, a comforting gesture but one that could give away the fact that she was carrying a weapon to a trained operative.
She finally saw her contact sitting by himself on a bench at the edge of the forest, where she knew a paved trail led down the side of the mountain for those who wanted to descend nearly eight hundred feet to the Myeongdong area of the central city of Seoul.
The man glanced up at her as she approached, as if he recognized her but wondered why she was late. But she wasn’t really too late. Her NIS contact told her to take the last cable car.
Sitting with his arms across his chest, it was as if the agent was trying to hold his long coat closed against the cold night air.
She stopped a few feet from the man and instinctively glanced about the park and back toward the base of the tower. It was darker here and the man was somewhat in shadow.
“The view is beautiful at night,” she said to the man in Korean, the phrase she was supposed to say.
Her contact was required to reply that it was much more beautiful now, but he simply opened his mouth and no words escaped. Then one arm fell away and his black wool overcoat opened, showing her a pool of blood at the man’s stomach. His head drifted to the left and his eyes remained glazed over, his mouth slowly closing as his mandible muscles lost all strength.
He was dead.
She slowly reached for her gun as she scanned the area for whoever killed the guy. Just as she started to slide her gun out, a flash of light shot out from the bushes at her.
But she had turned sideways just at the moment the flash and puff from the silenced gun sent a bullet her way.
With her gun out, she rushed toward the trail at the edge of the park, a few more flashes trying to stop her retreat.
Just as she reached the first downward set of stairs, she aimed her gun toward the killer and shot twice, the report from her gun breaking the silence. A couple of women screamed and everyone at the base of the North Tower scrambled for cover.
She hurried down the stairs, taking them two at a time until she reached a downward paved slope.
Suddenly her feet slipped on ice, sending her onto her back just as she heard a couple more coughs from the silenced gun. Her arms tried to cushion her fall, but then she also lost her grip on her gun, which slid down the pavement a few feet from her.
Losing her breath somewhat, she turned to see the shooter on the top of the stairs. Rolling quickly to her side, bullets struck the ground where she had just been.
Grasping her gun, she aimed at the shooter and shot two more times, thinking she might have hit the man since he disappeared into the trees at the side of the stairs.
Get the hell up, Pam, the voice inside her screamed. She found her footing, her gun pointed up where the shooter had been. Nothing. Maybe she did hit the guy. Regardless, she carefully retreated down the slope until she found the next set of stairs. Here even the stairs were slippery with ice. Her only thought was that at least she was wearing the running shoes and not her high heels, and the fact that the shooter would also have trouble with the ice.
The two of them exchanged gunfire a few more times as she rushed down the tall hill. Where the trail opened up somewhat and the sun had gotten a chance to clear the ice and snow, she made up time. But she also guessed the shooter would do the same.
Out of breath now, she found an ambush point where she could catch the shooter in the light while she crouched behind a rock in the shadows. She waited, trying to slow her heart beat, her gun pointed directly at a spot where the man would appear.
But he never did show up. He had obviously decided to back track. Seconds turned to minutes, and she tried her best to understand what had just happened. In the year that she had been the Seoul station chief, she had never had to even pull her weapon, let alone shoot at someone to defend herself. What in the hell just happened?
Then she got up and slowly made her way down the hill and out of Namsan Park.
1
The nine-foot fly rod swished through the thin mountain air with almost no sound, the tapered line tipped with a nymph caressing the sky above Jake Adams and landing expertly into a back eddy. Jake adjusted his line in anticipation of a strike by a nice brown trout. He had been catching rainbows most of the morning and afternoon, but his guide put him on this section of the Chimehuin River just an hour before dark, an area known for the German imports, attracting fly fishermen from around the world. At least those who could afford the long trip and expensive lodges of this region — the beauty of Patagonia nestled against the Andes, with Chile just beyond the peaks.