Bailey shook his head slightly before saying, “My name is Stan Bailey with the U.S. embassy here in Seoul. There has been a huge misunderstanding, gentlemen. It appears that the two of you were mistaken for international terrorists on an Interpol watch list.”
“We’re tourists,” Jake said.
“Yes,” Bailey said. “They know that now.”
The Korean officer, not saying a word, simply bowed his head in shame.
“Well. Thank you, Mr. Barney.”
“Bailey.”
“Sorry,” Jake said.
Bailey opened a folder and handed back their wallets, which the two of them accepted.
Without saying another word, Bailey escorted the two of them out the building into his car in the visitor’s lot. They drove through the center of Seoul, the darkness of dusk and the headlights of cars swerving in and out of traffic a confusing blend of chaos.
Jake said, “What the hell was that all about?”
Bailey shook his head. “Bullshit. They were pissed that we had not turned over the woman to them. They had some shit on you, Jake, but they wouldn’t tell me what.”
“But why pick up me?” Fisher asked.
“We’re not sure. Guilty by association, I guess.”
“Where’d the woman go?” Jake asked him.
Bailey hesitated as he honked the horn and weaved around a small bus. Finally, he said, “Korean Air flight to Vladivostok.”
“Russia?” Fisher asked.
Bailey nodded.
Jake contemplated that. Russia. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but he knew that things were becoming clearer now. “Do you have her by satellite?”
“Clear as day,” Bailey said. “We’re sure she has no idea you slid a tracking device into her leather jacket. From what the guys said, that was one smooth exchange, Jake.”
“Do we follow her to Russia?” Fisher asked.
Bailey glanced at one then the other. “Not officially.”
“What about the other signal?” Jake asked Bailey.
Fisher was confused. “What other signal?”
“Before you got here,” Jake said. “We put a tracker on Chang Su. My contact in China. She helped me get the photos. She had broken her arm. So, we weaved a satellite tracker into her cast.”
“I don’t understand,” Fisher said.
“Su took off,” Bailey explained. “She has been a double agent in the past, so we weren’t sure we could trust her completely.”
“That’s not true,” Jake said. “You weren’t sure.”
“Turns out I was right.”
“She left. We don’t know she’s working both sides.”
Bailey sighed as he entered the southbound freeway toward Osan.
“What?” Jake said.
“She got on the same plane to Vladivostok.”
“Shit. Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Our guys watched her. She stayed back a ways, watching the other woman. Then, when the woman got on the plane, Su followed her.”
Fisher broke in. “Sounds like she was surveilling her.”
“Right,” Jake agreed. “When’d she buy her ticket?”
“Why does that matter?” Bailey said.
“Matters a whole helluva lot.”
“At the counter, just before she got on,” Bailey said. “Traded in a ticket to Shanghai.”
Fisher had a look of incertitude on his face. “Why buy a ticket to Shanghai?”
“Two reasons,” Jake said. “First, she needed a ticket to get past security into the international terminal.” This second part Jake was only guessing on, but he was fairly sure he was correct.
“And second?”
“Second… she thought the woman would go to Shanghai. She was just as confused as us.”
“That sounds hard to believe,” Fisher said.
“That she knew where the woman was going?”
“No. That she was as confused as me. Why Russia?”
“I had seen the woman before,” Jake said.
“Li?” Fisher said. “The woman I had been following all across the west coast?”
“Yeah. And she recognized me. When I asked her if she was Kim, there was no way for her to hide her recognition of me. She was truly shocked.”
“Where did you know her from?”
Jake thought about that. He was close to eighty percent certain, even though it had been dark when he had pulled the mask from her head before his run through the snow.
“Russia,” Jake finally said. “Her and a friend took me for a ride and got me into this whole mess.”
They drove on through the darkness toward Osan.
45
They had gotten back to Osan Air Base by five in the evening, Jake and Fisher both a bit tired and confused, and Lieutenant Colonel Stan Bailey with another surprise for them.
First, Bailey had brought them to an electronic surveillance facility, with dozens of language experts from the Air Force and Army in front of computer terminals, headsets on, and listening to the North Koreans, Chinese and Russians.
The three of them settled next to a 40-inch plasma screen with a map of the entire region displayed. There were blips all over the place, Jake noticed. Each contact was coded and could be called up with a mouse click. The colonel moved a staff sergeant away and took a seat in his swivel chair, directing the mouse on two blinking dots, one red and one white.
“The red one is the woman you know as Li,” Bailey said. He clicked the mouse twice and a box opened in the upper right quadrant of the screen. Inside the box was a photo of the Asian woman, along with a description of her background.
“You know that much about Li?” Fisher asked.
Bailey looked up at a confused Agency officer. “Yes.”
“What about the white contact?” Jake asked.
Bailey moved the mouse to the white blip and clicked twice. Another box opened with Chang Su’s information, along with a photo that must have been a few years old. The information stayed on the screen for only a few seconds, because Bailey clicked both off and maneuvered the mouse back up to the region with the two contacts.
“Now here’s the problem,” Bailey said. “The two of them left Vladivostok, and are heading toward Khabarovsk Province in the Russian Far East. Jake is familiar with this area.”
Jake thought about that, and it seemed like months ago. Yet, it had been less than a week since he had been in Russia for the missile launch.
Bailey highlighted a square section surrounding the two contacts and then enlarged that area. “Judging from the speed, and local sources on the ground, they’re both on the Trans-Siberian Railway about two hours out of Vladivostok, with another ten hours to Khabarovsk. That train is scheduled to arrive there by midnight.”
“Why not just fly there?” Fisher asked.
Jake leaned in and pointed to a spot along the route. “The rail line follows the Ussuri River. Cross the river and that’s the Manchurian frontier. We sure Li isn’t heading there to make the drop?”
Bailey shrugged. “We aren’t sure of much.”
“No, no,” Fisher said. “That woman is a control freak. She’ll place the DVD in the buyer’s hand herself.”
“That’s why we need the both of you to head them off,” Bailey said, emphatically.
“How the hell can we catch up with them?” Fisher asked.
Bailey smiled. “Follow me.”
The three of them left the building, piled into Bailey’s Humvee, and then crossed the base toward the hangars. He parked outside the same hangar where they had parked the B-2 earlier in the day. Two security policemen guarded a secure door off to the side of the main hangar doors, and Bailey parted them with Jake and Fisher at his tail.
The inside of the hangar was now in subdued red lights. The B-2 sat in the center as technicians scurried about, preparing the aircraft for flight.