Lori thought for a moment and then said, “Can you tap into the local police dispatch?”
“Yes, we can monitor that,” Pam assured her.
“What about infiltration into their system?”
“To what end?”
“We send the police to false locations to stay away from Jake.”
“But we don’t know where he is.”
“We will once Kim finds the NSA contact,” Lori explained. “They will give us the location of the bad guys. Jake won’t be far away.”
Pam smiled. “Are you sure you don’t want to come work for us?”
“I’m sure. Congress is frustrating, but I like representing my people from Montana.”
Pam left to find Kim. If they were going to help Jake Adams, they would have to find the man’s contact at the NSA.
Jake caught a break when he reached the Myeongdong stop, two stops before Seoul Station. With many subway stops passengers must flow out in one direction, but this stop allowed for flow from both sides of the platform. Since he was on the lead train car, he simply scooted off and up the stairs.
Without looking back, Jake hurried into the street market, which at this time of night was filled with shoppers. Bright lights advertised everything from clothing to restaurants. He blended in with the other shoppers and then finally stopped at a rack of postcards and looked back the way he had come.
He first caught a glimpse of the Slavs walking down the middle of the street as if they were police officers on the beat. They were a block back. But where were the others. What would he do? Have someone run around the block and wait for him. He smiled. Perfect. He had them right where he wanted them.
Turning around, Jake wandered with purpose along the left side of the street. That’s where they would be waiting for him. For a split second, a man rounded a corner ahead and then scooted out of sight. He grasped his gun but then decided to hold back from scattering the crowd with gunfire.
As he got to the building where he saw the man briefly, Jake prepared himself for attack.
When the man thrust his arm toward Jake, he parried the punch, pivoted behind the guy, and struck him in the throat with a chop. Jake followed that with a kick to the knee that buckled the man to his knees. Then Jake grasped behind the man’s head and simultaneously slammed his knee into the Korean man’s face, knocking him out.
The entire incident took just seconds. Now Jake flowed back in with the shoppers. He kept his right hand in his jacket pocket holding onto the Sig.
Hesitating for a second to look at a baseball cap, Jake let his eye catch the Slavs in his peripheral vision. They had made up some distance and were now only a half block back. But where were the others?
Moving forward, Jake took a right on the next street. It was darker here, with fewer shops and not as many shoppers. It wasn’t like he could really blend in. There were other westerners here, but not many.
Just as he got to a spot where he could turn and see where the Slavs were, a roundhouse kick came out from an alley and caught him in the stomach, nearly taking his breath away. Instead of backing out to the street, Jake rushed into the alley.
It was the North Korean intel officers from the KTX train — the man in his 40s, Kwan, and his younger friend, the hot woman. It was the woman who had kicked him. She now stood in a karate stance, while Kwan simply smiled at Jake.
He wished he didn’t have to do this. But he had no choice. He could just shoot them both. Instead, he reacted with equal force. He slung his backpack to the ground and prepared for an attack — not getting into his own karate stance to give away his skills. He simply waited in a lame boxing stance.
When the woman got a nod from her boss, she came at Jake with everything her small body could produce. Punches, kicks, elbows, knees, and Jake blocked them all. She had skills, but he had fifty pounds on her. As she came at him again, he smiled and struck her once in the jaw, knocking her out.
Jake went to pick up his backpack and he saw Kwan pull a gun from his coat. He twisted to his right, shoved his hand into his pocket and fired twice.
Two flashes came at him simultaneously. Jake ran back into the street, crashing right into one of the Slavs, the one with the bald head, and the two of them hit the pavement. Rolling over, Jake hit the man with his backpack, knocking him back again. Then he clambered to his feet and looked for the man with the long hair. Where the hell was he?
As Jake slung the pack to his back, he felt a hard object against his left kidney. Instinctively, he twisted his body and shoved his elbow back, catching long hair in the jaw and knocking him back. Jake guessed the man couldn’t just kill him. They needed him for information. His advantage.
Jake ran now the way he’d come. As he got to the main street ahead, he heard the sirens and then saw a police car trying to push its way through the crowd of shoppers. He slowed to a walk and let the police car pass him.
He was kicking himself now. He should have just put a bullet in each of their skulls.
As he walked he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. He touched his jacket and his finger went into a hole in the leather. Damn it. Another leather jacket ruined. Putting his right hand inside his jacket, his hand became moist with blood. Kwan had hit him. But it was only a graze. No bone and no major arteries. Yet it still hurt. He wiped his bloody hand on his shirt and then put it back onto the gun in his jacket pocket. Well, that was two holes in his jacket. He had shot Kwan through his pocket.
Jake kept looking back to make sure the Slavs were not there. But deep down he needed them to continue after him. That was his plan. Shift from the pursued to the pursuer.
His phone buzzed and he tapped his ear bud. “This better be good,” he said. “I’m a little busy.”
“It’s Kim.”
“How the hell’d you get this number?”
“We also have friends. Are you all right. We have reports of gunfire in Myeongdong.”
“Kwan is dead or almost dead.”
“What about you?”
“I’m fine,” Jake lied. “I take it my NSA friend gave you the phone data from our long-haired buddy. Where are they?”
“A block from Myeongdong-gil, heading west toward Namdaemun-ro. Where are you?”
“Just hitting Namdaemun-ro.”
“They’re right behind you.”
“No shit.”
“It would help if you let us track you by your phone,” Kim pled.
“That won’t help,” Jake said. “I’m going down to the underground arcade. Toward Namdaemun Market.”
“Let us help you, Jake.”
As he hurried down the stairs to the underground arcade, he thought about what he really wanted the Agency to know about his actions. They had again pulled him into this shadow war. And it had gotten his good friend Toni killed.
“I need to do this my way,” Jake said. “I doubt the Agency would sanction my actions.” He clicked his Bluetooth earpiece off and wandered through the underground shops. He knew that much of the business in Seoul was conducted in these underground arcades, which would also provide shelter to citizens if and when the crazy bastard in the north started lobbing artillery rounds at the city.
Jake glanced back at the stairs where he had entered and finally saw the Slavs, the North Korean woman, and the man he had knocked out in the alley. Right where he wanted them. He smiled and strolled through the corridor under the streets of Seoul.