Ryan said, “Are these guys dumbasses, showing up together like that?”
Dom answered this. “Makes me think there are others around here with eyes on. We haven’t been made, so these guys have been waved onto the X with an all clear.”
Chavez agreed. “It’s still twenty-five minutes till. With these six, Jack’s two, and the unknown other ones who gave the all clear, this is a lot of oppo.”
Jack said, “Do we want to think about doing something crazy to get this pass shut down? We’ll lose our chance at grabbing the American, but at least we’ll prevent a handoff of classified intel. One of us can flag down a cop and report a bomb.”
Dom came over the net. “Not it!”
Chavez thought it over for a second. “For now, we hang tight. We try to ID the American. If we can grab him before the pass, we do it, but if it looks like he’s going to make it to the North Koreans, one of us will pull his piece and fire off a full mag dump into the dirt. That should break up the party.”
There were a couple local cops around on motorcycles, but as this was a huge area, Chavez thought he could avoid a direct confrontation with the police.
At least he really, really hoped so.
He said, “Stay low pro, but keep your eyes peeled. This whole thing rests on getting this guy before he gets close to the North Koreans, and then getting out of here before the Indonesians get involved.”
18
Dominic Caruso had jogged a mile and a half in the past twenty minutes, which was nothing to brag about, but he wanted to be fresh if things got crazy at nine a.m. He was taking lots of breaks along the way to walk, tie his shoes, stretch, and otherwise try to fit into his surroundings here at Merdeka Square. Plus he was on his second paper surgical mask over his face, as the first one had torn due to his sweat and heavy breathing.
He stretched against the western steps of the tower, and he spoke softly after checking his watch. “It’s straight-up nine, guys. I’ve got nothing on my side.”
Jack was to the northwest, still riding around on his scooter through the increasing number of other two-wheeled vehicles and pedestrian traffic. “I’ve got eyes on some of the DPRK guys. The camera crew is remaining in the trees for now, so I don’t think the Koreans have ID’d their target, either.”
Chavez was on the far northwestern side of the square on the opposite side from where today’s target worked at the U.S. embassy.
He saw a tall man walking alone on the sidewalk toward the National Monument, fifty yards ahead of him. He wore a black trench coat and had a black backpack slung over his shoulder.
“I’ve got a possible. Northwest side of the square. Still two hundred yards from the monument, moving south down the eastern side of the road.”
Dom had moved around to the south side of the monument, so he had no view, but Jack turned his scooter around and approached from the northeast with his binos out and up against his eyes.
He saw the tallish man walking with his hands shoved into his pockets, his body slumped forward and his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. As he watched, the man scanned all around, even turning to walk backward for a second.
“Yeah…” Jack said. “That could be him.”
Chavez quipped, “And I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he’s a first-timer at this spy shit.”
“First time for everything,” Dom replied.
Chavez stepped out of the trees and began following behind the man, jogging along slowly enough to where he wouldn’t overtake him at this speed before he arrived at the monument.
He said, “Okay, our target is ID’d, let’s get another check of all the oppo we can see.”
Among the three of them, Jack, Dom, and Chavez counted ten men in the square who might have been DPRK operatives. “Christ,” Chavez said when the number was confirmed by the others, and he did some quick thinking. If Clark were around he’d defer to him, but Chavez was the senior operative now, and it was his call. He looked over the North Koreans in sight, and he took them for serious men. The fact there were at least ten involved with this also told him this pass was damn important to them. Chavez knew if he just grabbed the American diplomat and started ushering him back to the car, these ten men would intercede, probably with weapons.
Chavez wanted the traitor, he wanted the intelligence the man brought with him, and he wanted to get himself and his men out of this alive.
The scope of this operation had just increased before his eyes.
He said, “Jack, here’s how we’re playing it. Haul ass to the car. It’s behind me. Pass close to me and I’ll toss you the keys as you drive by. Bring the car here to get us all off the X.”
Ryan went full throttle on the scooter, began racing toward Ding, which meant he’d race right by the tower on his left with the North Koreans standing around and the American diplomat walking south toward them on his right.
But while complying with Ding’s orders, he said, “You do know there are no cars allowed here on the square. Local po-po is going to get interested if I get in the car and then plow over the wooden barricade to come back in here.”
Ding said, “I know. Be ready to do some Fast and Furious shit, because this isn’t going to be pretty.”
Caruso muttered, “That’s not gonna stand out.”
Chavez replied, “Five minutes from now, the first thing on everyone’s mind around here is not going to be the car driving in the pedestrian-only zone, I can promise you that.”
Jack passed the target, who by now had his eyes locked on the northwest corner of the steps to the monument. He was standing more erect, looking directly at his destination, still 150 yards away.
Five seconds later, Jack rolled past Chavez, who jogged along at a relaxed clip in his black warm-up pants and black zip-up hoodie. Jack reached a hand out and Chavez tossed a set of car keys through the air. Jack caught them deftly and headed for the exit at the northwest.
Chavez was closing on the subject slowly. He was just a hundred feet behind him now, and he knew he still had time to draw his gun and grab the man, then pull him back away from the monument where the North Koreans were waiting for him. He decided to do just that, but before he did so, he called for some backup.
“Dom, I’m going to take him in one minute, give Ryan a little time to grab the car. We’ll be just across the wide street north of the monument, and in the open. The DPRK guys are going to see us, plain as day, and they aren’t going to like it.”
Dom said, “Roger that. I’m behind the action on the south side, and I’ve got the bad guys in sight. Nobody’s got eyes on me, so I can get the drop on them if they pull weapons.” He added, “There are a whole bunch of them so I’d rather not.”
“Don’t draw, just keep reporting what they’re doing.”
“Understood.”
Ding said, “When I grab the target I’m running for these trees to the north. That should give me some cover. I’ll link up with Ryan when he gets the wheels. This might turn into a foot chase.”
Dom groaned. “Why does everybody have to run all over the place this morning?”
Jack Ryan, Jr., raced his scooter past the red plastic and wooden partitions keeping cars off the street that went into the square, heading for the parking lot where Chavez had left his rental. He heard Chavez’s transmissions to Dom, and knew the grab was going to take place in just a minute, but while he was listening to this he noticed a black Mitsubishi Pajero minivan idling in a no parking zone right next to the entrance to the square. The vehicle was empty aside from the driver, an Asian man wearing sunglasses.