Chang Su was shaking her head, tears flowing to her cheek.
Yuri waved his gun around. “You’re half right, Jake.”
“Where’s the DVD?”
Looking confused, Yuri said, “You know more than I thought. Your friends told you that?”
“I’ve got more friends than you might think,” Jake said, his eyes moving toward the front window. “You don’t think I’d come all the way out here without the cavalry?”
Yuri laughed. “Your American Westerns.” He shook his head. “Jake, I think you might be crazy enough.”
Before Jake could respond, all hell broke loose.
First, the front window shattered, a bullet flying in and catching Yuri in the stomach, buckling him to the floor and sending his gun bouncing across the oak boards.
Then something completely unexpected happened. Chang Su knocked the gun from her sister’s hand, sending it across the floor toward Jake. Su followed that up with some major martial arts. But Li, caught off guard at first, recovered and sent her sister flailing across the floor with a kick to the sternum.
Su jumped back to her feet and the two of them locked and wrestled each other to the floor.
This gave Jake an opening. Still dazed, he flung himself to the floor and grabbed his gun.
Suddenly, the front door crashed in and Fisher was there at one side, his gun drawn.
“You all right, Jake?” Fisher yelled.
Jake rose to his knees. “Yeah.” Then he started to crawl toward Yuri.
The flash from Jake’s left surprised him, and he crouched lower. The bullets seemed to fly right over his head. The return fire came from the door. Three shots.
Guttural laughter echoed from the back room, followed by giggling.
Jake lifted himself up, his gun aimed toward the laughter. He fired six times and then rolled to his side.
Silence.
Then there was sobbing from across the floor.
“Fisher, you still with us?” Jake yelled.
He heard a grunt from the outside doorway. “Took one in the leg. Same one that I sprained in the drop.”
Jake lowered himself to the floor and gazed across to where the two sisters had been fighting. Su was huddled there, holding her sister with both arms, and tears streaming down as she cried.
“You get that bastard in the back room, Jake?” Fisher said from the doorway. He had dragged himself from around the corner, and his head was now visible.
“Don’t know. Think so. About time to find out.” Jake rolled to his left, his gun aimed toward the back room. All he saw was a hand and a gun about a foot from that.
Jake got up and rushed toward the man, his gun pointed and ready to fire. He kicked away the man’s gun and checked for a pulse. Nothing.
Jake hurried into the room, which turned out to be Yuri’s bedroom, and checked for anyone else. “It’s clear, Fisher.”
Looking down at the man on the floor, he saw that it was a Chinese man whose face he had seen before. He was sure it was one of the men who tried to kill them in the hotel in Dandong, and the same guy from Seoul.
Fisher dragged his leg to where Jake stood. “That’s the guy who kidnapped you? Li’s runner?”
“Yeah. How’s Turner?”
The Agency man shook his head and then cast his eyes on Chang Su, who was still holding her sister.
Jake went over to Chang Su and kneeled beside her. Li’s neck was bruised and obviously broken.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said.
Reaching inside Li’s leather jacket, Jake finally found the DVD, which he handed to Fisher.
Su let her sister’s head rest on the floor and then wrapped her arms around Jake, her sobbing escalating into frantic crying. Jake held her tight in his arms, her head enveloped in his chest.
49
Jake Adams put his nose against the cold window, his eyes staring at the aqua-blue water of the Inn River flowing by. Across the water were rows of colorful apartment buildings with Gothic and Baroque facades. The snow from the night before left a layer of six inches in the city, but the mountains all around the city had gotten at least two feet.
Thinking back over the past two weeks, Jake had been able to piece together all that had happened. Su had told him how her sister had been working for both the Chinese and Yuri. The Chinese man had been the handler for both of them over the years. Su had assured him that she had not been working both sides; only with the Agency. She had left Osan because she had seen this old handler, and knew he was still controlling her sister. She had to stop Li. Nothing else mattered. Li had disgraced her family, and she needed to save face for all of them.
The Chinese government, much to Su’s dismay, was still holding her family. But Jake knew that would change soon. The Agency had provided DNA and planted a story that both sisters were dead. The government would let the family go, but Su could never return to China.
Turner had taken a round to his head, dying instantly, and was recognized in a private ceremony for he and Armstrong back in Langley, Virginia.
Fisher had been picked up by a private jet in Khabarovsk, and Jake heard he was convalescing his leg in Central Oregon, along with another Agency officer who had taken a bullet in the arm.
Two hands came up around Jake from behind. The left hand, still in a cast, GPS tracker removed, rubbed his chest just below the bandage from his surgery to his shoulder, and the right hand came to his chest, the fingers running through his hair.
“You’re awake,” Jake said.
Chang Su put her lips against Jake’s right shoulder and kissed him. Then she raised her head and nibbled on his right ear.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she whispered. “The mountains. The snow. The river. And you.” She lay her head against his back.
Jake turned around and gazed at her wonderfully naked body. She was perfect, he thought. He pulled her to him and they embraced for a long time.
They kissed gently and then Jake placed her head against his chest. Together they turned and gazed at the river and the mountains.