“I didn’t say you did, sir. Please don’t move. There will be questions. You, too, sir,” he added, pointing at Karr.
Dean belatedly realized he’d made a serious mistake.
6
Rubens stared at the large screen at the front of the Art Room. “When did you last hear from her?” he asked.
“It’s over ten minutes now,” answered Telach. “She was in this room here.”
The red dot from Telach’s laser pointer moved through the boxes on the schematic of the airport terminal building, skimming across the lower left-hand side of the screen. Their information on the layout of the terminal was sketchy, based largely on Lia’s observations when she had arrived a few days before. The building was only one story and not very large, and they knew exactly where Lia was thanks to the small implant of a radioisotope in her body. They also gathered that the belt controlling and powering her communications system had been removed, since the signal and feed had died without being turned off. As a security measure, the communications gear only worked when close to the implant in an operator’s skull.
“It’s nearly eleven o’clock their time,” said Telach. “Nighttime.”
“I see that,” answered Rubens. He glanced at Lia’s runner, Jeff Rockman, who was sitting a few feet away, staring at his computer screens. His head slumped forward and his face looked like the color of a bleached bone.
“You’re sure she was struck?” Rubens asked.
“No doubt at all,” said Telach, though the question had been directed at Rockman. “The blows were pretty loud. The plane took off five minutes later.”
“No indication that they knew she was an agent?”
“As I said, we think the officer was looking for a bribe.”
“And Lia didn’t give him the money?”
“She tried. He just seemed — she didn’t act submissive at first….”
Telach’s voice trailed off, but Rubens could easily picture what had happened. Lia had run into a young officer who expected to be treated as a god. Suddenly confronted by someone who didn’t cower at his sneer, either he or his minions had lost it.
The man wouldn’t have been assigned to the airport because he was a genius or a stellar officer. And in his eyes, women — even Chinese women — would be lower than animal dung. Hopefully he was smart enough to realize that killing a foreigner would cause him difficulty.
Not much to pin one’s hopes on.
“She could be dead,” blurted Rockman.
Rubens glared at him. “Let us remain calm. We will watch the situation as it develops and respond accordingly.” It was a cold reply but the correct one. The Art Room needed to operate with quiet detachment. “Contact the terminal manager,” Rubens told Telach. “The civilian. Have the call come from someone from the airline who noticed that she wasn’t aboard the plane, looking for her. Then the military people there, then the people in town. Everyone she’s spoken to since she landed.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone in Korea if you have to. I want it clear that people are asking about her. Don’t blow her cover; be judicious.”
“Yes, boss,” said Telach. She nodded to Rockman, who began arranging the calls with the translators.
“Have the Russian plane move in,” said Rubens. “Have them just fly in. I want them there.”
“Just go there? It’s nearly an hour from the border and they won’t be able to get fuel.”
“Just go. We’re paying them enough, aren’t we?”
“They’ll just take off if she doesn’t show up.”
“Have them wait as long as they can. Get Fashona in place.”
Rubens could send in an extraction team from South Korea, but that would blow the entire operation. More important, if that was actually necessary it would probably be too late.
He had to get Lia back, at all costs. But it was critical to do so in a logical, calm manner — and his job now was to communicate that to everyone else. The matter was as under control as it was going to get for the time being; he had to signal confidence by moving on to the next problem.
“What is going on in London?” he asked Telach.
“The police brought Dean and Tommy to the station for questioning.”
“Was the victim our messenger?”
“We believe so. He had a brown beret. But he didn’t have anything with him, not even a scrap of paper. And neither we nor the police have an ID.” Telach punched the control unit on her belt and the screen at the front of the Art Room flashed with a grainy video image of a man with a brown beret walking along a park path. She watched the sequence intently, then jabbed her thumb hard on the controls to stop it a few frames before the man was assassinated.
“That’s the messenger?” said Rubens.
“Yes,” said Telach. “Whoever shot him was in the bushes on this side of the park. It’s about two hundred and fifty yards away. Well planned. Probably escaped through the fence there, into that apartment complex.”
“What’s Johnny Bib working on?” asked Rubens.
“His team is slated to review the Biowar file,” said Telach, referring to a mission Deep Black had recently completed. The Biowar mission had taken the Deep Black team around the globe to Thailand and Burma (or Myanmar, as the dictators there preferred), where they had stopped a designer virus. “They’re in the process of setting up interviews with scientists so they can get background information on the virus biology before proceeding.”
“Give him the information about the two Web domains, the sites on the World Wide Web that were supposedly used to send messages. Tell him to find out what he can about them.”
“We already had the information checked on. It was authentic,” said Telach.
“Yes. But I want Johnny Bib to look at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rubens glanced at his watch. He had a meeting at the White House he couldn’t miss — just couldn’t miss. And yet he couldn’t leave the Art Room now, not with Lia’s fate unknown.
“Should I alert the embassy in London?” Telach asked. “To get Dean and Karr out?”
“Yes. Suggest to Tommy — no, better make it Dean. Tell Dean to call the embassy. As soon as the call is placed, alert them there and get someone to pick them up. No sense having them waste more of the day with the police.”
By “them there” Rubens meant the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Lia’s moving!” said Rockman from his console.
Telach went over quickly. Rubens followed as well. “Moving or being moved?” he asked.
“Impossible to tell.”
Rubens looked over the runner’s shoulder at the terminal building schematic on the computer screen. Lia’s position was marked by a small green dot that moved to the right along one side of the building. The dot stopped near the area they had identified as the reception area — but not quite inside.
“Still no audio,” said Rockman.
“Did you get through to anyone there?” asked Rubens.
“The civilian manager,” said Rockman.
“He assured us there was no problem,” said one of the translators nearby. “But of course he would say that.”
“Keep making the calls,” said Rubens. “Prudently, please. Polite concern, nothing more. They are very sensitive, and at the moment they have what we want. Where’s the Russian plane?”
“On its way,” said Rockman. “We may have to bribe the people at the terminal again.”
