“Are we sure that’s where he is?” Danko asked Alex.
The two of them were looking at an iPad with a map of the house.
“It must be,” Alex said. “It looks like a safe house. The perimeter is secured by a high stone wall. The metal gate. I’m guessing it wouldn’t take much security to hold the place. But remember, we’re not going to strike. We’re going to grab Adams and go.” He looked across the room at the Koreans, who seemed content in plush leather chairs and together on the sofa. Two of the men were playing a loud video game, with guns and bombs blowing up the screen. “Kwan,” Alex interrupted.
The older man turned and simply lifted his chin.
“Do you know if this is a CIA safe house?” Alex asked.
Kwan got up and shuffled into the kitchen, taking a look as Alex first showed a map location and then switched to Earth view and zoomed into the house with the tall wall. “I don’t know. We know about one in Incheon by the airport. But I don’t know this house. Do you think they are there?”
“We think so,” Alex said, “but it looks like a damn fortress. Not sure we can break in and get Adams there.”
“Why not just kill the man?” Kwan asked.
They had never given the entire story to Kwan or his young female sidekick, who Alex was still having a hard time forgetting after their encounter on the train. He was hoping to open her up again that night. The Lobbyist had said to only give them enough information to do their job. They didn’t need to know the type of information Jake Adams possessed.
“He has something we need,” Alex said in explanation. “We will kill him eventually. But only I will do that. He killed a friend of mine. Do you understand?”
Kwan nodded. “Of course.”
“Make sure your men…and woman know this as well.”
“I will.”
“Where is Ra Min Jee?”
Kwan’s eyes shifted to the left, toward the door. “She went to a nearby temple to pray.”
Alex was confused somewhat by that revelation. He himself had been raised in the Catholic Church in Prague, but hadn’t gone to his knees to pray since before he joined the Czech Security Information Service. Part of that, he knew, was probably due to his association with the Russian CVR, a group of Godless ideologues who only prayed for mother Russia and Karl Marx. But now his only pleasure, other than the comfort of a woman like Jee, was the accumulation of as much money as he could acquire. Yet, he didn’t believe unconditionally in the concept of capitalism. Money was comfort. And all humans needed to feel secure. He wondered if Ra Min Jee was praying for money or her ideology.
Jee knew that a good lie was easier to sell when part of the lie was actually true. One could even beat a lie detector with that concept. So, she had gone to a nearby Buddhist temple to pray before she went to her real meeting.
Now she wandered down a narrow street in the Myeongdong street market area to meet her contact. At this time in the afternoon most of the shops, especially the restaurants, were closed. Motorcycles with large baskets on the back end delivered goods to the store owners. Others used hoses to clean the streets. Jee had been to this area to shop many times, so she knew that the streets would be cluttered with people once darkness shrouded these narrow streets. She had exchanged her high heels for comfortable flats, her 9mm auto secured in the right pocket of her long leather coat.
Just as she was about to go into the coffee shop a block from Myeongdong Catholic Cathedral, a man approached her from the other direction, appearing from a skinny passage between two buildings. A few feet away and she finally saw the shimmer of a knife at the side of his right leg, his unnatural gate giving him away.
Without saying a word the man turned with Jee and started to lead her toward the space between the buildings. She wasn’t sure if this man was with her contact. When the two of them rounded the corner, she saw the truth. Two other men stood waiting, and neither of them were her contacts.
Her instincts took over. First she pled for her life like any defenseless woman might do. The men smiled and let down their guard. She elbowed the man with the knife in the jaw, while nearly simultaneously grasping the knife hand and shoving the blade to the hilt into the man’s right leg, bringing an instant flow of blood and a scream of pain. Then she pulled the knife out as she twisted her body behind him, kicking the back of his knee and buckling him to his knees. She grasped his chin, flung the man to his back, and then finished him off by kicking him in the face, knocking the man out.
The two remaining men were about to attack, but she pulled out her gun and pointed it at them. They scurried down the passageway like frightened rats. Jee folded the switchblade and put it into her right pocket and returned her gun to her right pocket.
Okay, she thought, they were not with her contact. Now she casually turned and walked into the coffee shop. Her contact sat at a corner table with a nice view of the front door.
Ignoring her contact, she ordered a coffee with red bean paste and waited. Her eyes considered the others in the shop. A young man and woman sat out front by the window, each of them on iPads and not even considering each other. A man with a thick winter coat leaned back against the wall across from her contact. He would be the security, since he was checking her out and not looking at his boss. The only other person in there was a young woman, an obvious student, with a laptop open and a text book and papers spread across a table meant for four people.
She got her drink and walked directly to the table with her contact. She had only met the man one time, and only knew him as the Lobbyist. Her intel told her that his profession actually matched his moniker.
The Lobbyist said, “Your men failed.”
“They are Kwan’s men,” she corrected. Then she blew on her coffee and took a sip.
“We know where to find Jake Adams,” he said. “I’ve already told the Slavs. They know that he must be taken alive. We need his information.”
Her real boss needed to know what that information was, but she knew not to ask this man the question. “I understand. But that will not be easy.” She hesitated to sip her coffee. “Why do we need the Slavs? They stick out like the black bear in a snowy field.”
“I know,” the Lobbyist said, “but they have a personal stake in this now. I promised them they could kill Adams after we get everything from him.”
She understood that. “What do you want from me?”
“I like that. Straightforward and clear.” His eyes glanced briefly at his security man, but he tried to cover that by looking elsewhere in the room. “Everyone has a boss, Jee. Even me. They are concerned about these six-party talks at the DMZ in two days. As you might know, some would like things to stay as they are. They want the south to be in constant conflict with the north. But others…”
“Like your boss?” She sipped her coffee and tried not to smile.
“Others would like the north and south to reunify like the Germans did years ago. They feel it will make them much stronger, especially with trade with China and America.”
“But?”
“They would like to maintain a competitive advantage by keeping down labor costs in the north for a period of time.”
“So,” Jee said, “this is all about money?”
“Everything in this world works on money, Jee. You must have learned that at the University of Washington.”
How did this man know about her college? “I knew that I had little money and others had much more.”
“Exactly.” The Lobbyist looked deep into her eyes. “Did that make you envious? Or did it make you want to work hard to rise up to their economic level?”