Together now on the ground, the two men wrestled for dominance. Jake was hampered by the stiffness in his left shoulder from the bullet graze that evening. But eventually Jake had his legs wrapped around the man and his arms around the guy’s neck in a sleeper hold, like an anaconda squeezing the life from a pig.
“You think this is over?” the Slav said roughly, without proper air. “This is just the beginning.”
Jake whispered into the man’s ear. “I already know about your boss. The lobbying firm.”
The Slav tried to struggle free, but Jake had full control.
“You tell me who pulled the trigger on my friend, and I’ll let you die quickly,” Jake promised. “If you lie, I’ll take my time.”
Suddenly, a voice echoed through the darkness. “Jake. It’s Pam. It’s over. We’ve got them all.”
The Slav tried to say something, but Jake tightened his grip on the man’s throat.
“Who shot Toni?” Jake asked through grit teeth.
“Fuck you.” The Slav tried to struggle again, but he wasn’t making any progress and he knew it.
“You tell me,” Jake said, “and I won’t hunt down everyone you’ve ever known and kill them as well. It will end here.”
Pam’s voice was getting closer. And now Kim also called out to Jake. Both of them had flashlights scanning the forest for Jake.
Jake heard the man mumble something but he wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “Say again?”
The man finally forced out “The Lobbyist.”
“I know that,” Jake said. “I need a name.”
With as much strength against Jake’s arms as the Slav could manage, the man shook his head. “We don’t know his name.”
The lights were getting closer.
“What does he look like?” Jake implored.
“Red hair and freckles.”
That’s all Jake needed. How many men from the lobbying firm could look like that?
As Jake saw the lights get closer, the Slav twisted beneath him and said, “Do it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just let them send you to a black site for interrogation.”
“We all made your girlfriend water-tight,” the Slav said and then laughed.
Without thinking, Jake simply twisted his body until he heard the familiar snap of the man’s neck, which he hadn’t heard since killing that terrorist in Tunisia. The Slav’s body went limp.
Just as Jake rolled away from the long-haired man, the flashlights found him and the two Agency officers quickly closed in on his position.
Kim put his gun away and reached to help Jake up. “Are you all right, Jake?”
“Just hunky dory,” Jake said, taking Kim’s hand and getting to his feet.
Pam was checking out the other dead man and then she came over to the two of them. “Is this guy dead?”
“Afraid so,” Jake said. He pointed off to the forest. “But I think I might have just winged a couple of the Koreans.”
“No problem,” Pam said. “I’ve got the locals surrounding the park. With this snow they should find all of them.”
“Nice work,” Jake said.
She looked at the man with long hair. “Did that man say anything before he died?”
Jake shrugged. “A lot of swear words. Mostly in Czech. About all I know in that language.”
“Too bad,” she said. “It would have been nice to interrogate him.”
Looking off toward Kim, Jake simply shrugged again.
“Kim, get Jake to the Air Force base,” Pam said. “You take the car. I’ll find a ride back to the office.”
“No way,” Jake said. “I have to accompany the congresswoman to the six-party talks.”
“That’s not necessary,” Pam said.
“I promised,” Jake said.
“I understand. But the six-party talks are off. That crazy man up north was yanking our chain again. He had no intention of sitting down with us.”
Jake shook his head. “We should just nuke his ass.” After he said it, he thought about the technology he had been protecting ever since he first set free the professor in Montana. The North Korean dictator might make a good candidate for this weapon. Of course the list would be long. But he would be a good start.
Jake reached out his hand to Pam. Instead of shaking, though, she pulled in and hugged Jake.
Pam pulled away and said, “Thanks for getting those who killed Toni.”
He nodded and then rubbed Pam’s arm. “No problem.”
“You’ve gotta go,” she said.
“All right. It’s been real. Take care.”
Jake and Kim hurried off toward the parking lot.
31
Jake had Kim stop off at the embassy to pick up Congresswoman Lori Freeman, before dropping them both off at Kunsan Air Base, where a Gulfstream jet awaited them.
Up in the air now and heading toward the northeast at cruising altitude, Jake finally took off his leather jacket, revealing his bloody left shoulder.
“You’re hurt,” Lori declared. She got up and went to Jake to get a closer look at his bullet wound.
“I got lucky,” Jake said, and then ripped his shirt away from the sticky blood. “It just grazed the top of my shoulder.”
She got up and went toward the cockpit to talk with a female Air Force senior airman, and then came back with a first aid kit. Lori helped Jake take off his shirt, cleaned the wound and patched the ripped flesh with four-inch bandages, running the white tape down to his chest on one side and to his shoulder blades on the other. Then she found a clean shirt in Jake’s backpack and helped him pull it over his head.
“Thanks,” Jake said.
Lori sat across from him. “You better see a doctor when we get to…where’s this jet going?”
“Andrews.” Jake glanced at her and wished they had more privacy. Although he was beat up and tired, he would somehow find the strength.
The airman turned down the lights and went through the cabin to close all the window shades. Since they were heading east, it wouldn’t take long before they hit sunshine.
Jake must have fallen asleep almost immediately. When he finally woke up, he only did so because the airman was nudging his arm.
“Sir, would you like something to eat,” the airman asked.
Nodding, Jake said, “And some coffee, please.”
He glanced about the cabin and finally saw Lori in the back seat on the phone with someone. She smiled at him and put up her index finger.
Finally she clicked off the phone and put it into her purse. Then she came forward and sat across from Jake. “You slept like a baby.”
“You mean I cried every two hours and crapped my pants?”
“Wow,” she said. “I had no idea you could be funny in the morning.”
“Maybe you need to hang out with me a little longer,” Jake said, hopeful.
“Maybe. I was just on the phone with the Speaker. Since the six-party talks failed, I have a week left before our next session.”
“What do you have planned?” he asked.
She leaned closer to him and put her hand onto his knee. “I was hoping you could delay your return to South America and spend some time in DC. With your favorite representative.”
Jake smiled at her conspiratorially. “I’d rather be with you.”
Lori slapped his leg. “You are so bad.”
She didn’t know the half of it. “All right. But I need to take care of a few things, including attending the funeral for a friend.”
“I understand.”
No, she didn’t. But that was all right.
An hour later they landed at Andrews outside of DC. A car and driver waited for the congresswoman outside the operations building. The driver wasn’t too happy to see Jake, since their last encounter Jake put the man in a sleeper and shoved him in the trunk. Lori and Jake got into the back seat.