“What happened?” Adem asked.
“I think they were ambushed by men with suppressed weapons.” Shin paused to finish taking off his snow pants, then continued. “We may need to get out of here quickly. I need to call Mr. Kim.”
“We have bad news, too,” Adem replied. “Mr. Kim has been arrested. We saw police at his house not more than thirty minutes ago.”
“God damn it! Why didn’t you say that sooner!” Shin shouted.
“Wait!” Nikola said. “No one knows we are here. This house has no connection to Kim and cannot be traced to him. This is the safest place for us right now, especially with those vials of poison.”
“Did you see Mr. Kim being taken?”
“No, but as we pulled up, someone was being put in an ambulance, which left the house under guard.”
“Why didn’t you follow them?”
“We did not want to be recognized.”
“Recognized? Why would anyone be suspicious of you?”
“We shot a police officer last night.”
“You did what?” Shin exclaimed, a look of shock on his face.
“We shot a policeman,” Adem muttered in response.
“Idiots!” Shin shouted. “Why did you do that? You stupid, sons of bitches! I should just shoot you myself! I can’t believe they sent such stupid men to work with us!”
Nikola waved his hands in defense as he tried to explain. “Somehow they found out we had stolen the TVEC truck. The officer came to the house to question us. As we opened the door, we heard a dispatcher tell him that we were armed and dangerous, and possible terrorists. Backup was on the way. We would’ve been caught if we waited. So we shot him, changed vehicles at Mr. Kim’s, and came here.”
“Ah shangno museki!” Shin cursed in Korean. He paced around the living room, considering the options. He stopped in the center of the room. “If we don’t hear from Mr. Kim by midnight,” he said, “we will assume that he is out of the game. We will give Captain Park and the rest of the team the same amount of time. If they are not here within the next hour, I will take command, and we will move on with what we have left.” He turned to his soldiers. “Do you all understand?”
“Yes, sir!” said the three North Korean soldiers.
Nikola and Adem nodded their heads.
“You men go get cleaned up and put on fresh clothes. We may have to leave soon,” Shin said.
He turned to the two Albanians. “How many disrupters do you have with you?”
“We have two.” Nikola replied.
“How about the teams in Anchorage and Valdez?”
“They should have three each. Two of ours were at Mr. Kim’s house, and we can presume the police have them now.”
“Call your other teams and tell them to be ready to go as scheduled. If Captain Park is not here soon, I will take some of the vials with me and Sergeant Sun and head to Anchorage. Sergeants Kil and Cho will stay here and prepare for the deployment in Fairbanks. You two will continue with your original plan.”
“What about Valdez?” asked Sergeant Cho.
“Valdez will have to wait. If there is enough left after Anchorage, I will to get over to Valdez, but we will have to see how that goes. In the meantime, let’s hope Captain Park arrives safely and we can continue as originally planned. Either way, within twenty-four hours we will be done, and hopefully on our way back home.”
Lieutenant Shin glanced at his watch. It was just after 21:00 hours.
Chapter 24
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital
Fairbanks Alaska
19 December
23:09 Hours
Special Agent Anthony Tomer, FBI, arrived at the hospital just after eleven o’clock. He was tall, over six feet, and about twenty pounds overweight. Tomer’s belly pushed at the buttons on his black suit jacket. Crow’s feet wrinkles stretched from the buttonholes. He wore a blue silk tie loosened several inches from the neck. A tuft of thick brown chest hair jutted into view above the open top button of his white dress shirt.
A charcoal-gray wool overcoat hung over his body. It flapped around his knees with every step he took. A highly polished gold ring, topped by a diamond-inlaid black onyx stone, flashed on his right pinky. One hairy wrist was wrapped by a Rolex watch. The other sported a thick gold chain, its links dangled beneath his cuff, held tight by matching gold cuff links.
Unknown to him, his sense of fashion had earned him the nickname “Mafia-Disco-Pimp” among the other agents.
Tomer flashed his badge at Faloa, who buzzed him into the secure wing. He strode directly to the nurses’ station and flashed a flirtatious smile at an attractive nurse reading the contents of a clipboard toward the back of the open area behind the counter.
A younger woman sat below the lip of the counter, leaning over a page and writing on it. She glanced up briefly as Tomer peered over the counter, then back down at her paperwork. The nurse looked up from her clipboard. “I’ll take care of him. You get that report done.” She looked at Tomer with a stewardess-like lifeless smile. “Can I help you?”
“Hello there, darling.”
Tomer’s smile widened. An eyebrow curved upward in an impish James Bond-like smirk. He looked at her nametag. His gaze drifted from the nametag and focused on her breasts then he slid his eyes up to her face as he read the tag. “Tanana Billings, RN. Wow, what an exotic name.”
Tanana stepped toward the counter. As she drew near, she coughed and nearly gagged as she caught a whiff of Tomer’s cologne. She curled her nose at the bittersweet isopropyl stench and waved her hand through the air between them. Her eyes watered. “Whoa! What is that smell?”
“Sexual Addiction,” he said in a wolfish tone. “It often has that
