James Cobb - The Arctic Event

Randi caught his eyes as he looked back one last time, and then he was gone.

She closed her eyes and sat unmoving for a long moment. Mission accomplished.

She knew what would happen next. The information contained within Franklin Sun Chok’s laptop computer and within Sun Chok himself would be poured into the North Korean ballistic missile program. The information would promise leads in the direction of a foolproof countermeasures system that could defeat the U.S. antimissiles and leave the cities of the American West Coast open to attack.

But one after another, each promising lead would reach a technological dead end after devouring a precious percentage of the North Korean military budget and thousands of equally precious research and development man hours.

Eventually it would become apparent to the North Koreans that they had been duped, that their intelligence coup had, in fact, been a time bomb planted within their armaments program by the United States.

North Korea’s “Dear Leaders” would be displeased. Specifically, they would be displeased with Franklin Sun Chok. The displeasure of the “Dear Leaders” would not be trifling.

Randi snapped her eyes open. If she were not careful with her memories, the cold-sweat nights would return.

From the concourse windows, she watched as the elderly Ilyushin jetliner climbed away from the airport on the final leg of Sun Chok’s last journey. Returning to her seat, she waited for the next Cathay Pacific flight to come in and unload before making her call.

“Mr. Danforth. This is Tanya Stewart out at Capital. Mr. Bellerman wasn’t on his flight. What should I do now, sir?”

Translation from agent doublespeak: the package has been successfully delivered.

Danforth sighed theatrically. “Los Angeles strikes again! I’ll look into it, Tanya. In the meantime you’d best get back here. Something’s come up.”

“What is it, sir?”

“They need you back in the States as soon as possible. At the Seattle office.”

Randi frowned. The States as soon as possible? This was a deviation, and a radical one. Upon completion of this assignment she was supposed to ease out of China over a period of days, maintaining her businesswoman’s cover. And what the hell was in Seattle?

“I’m already setting up your travel arrangements,” Danforth continued. “You’ll be flying out this evening on Asiana to Seoul, and from there by JAL. There will be a reservation waiting for you at the SeaTac Doubletree.”

“I see, Mr. Danforth. Should I swing by the office?”

“Yes. I’ll have your tickets, and we can go over the outlines of this new project. You’ll be met by a Mr. Smith in Seattle. He’s with one of our associate firms, and you’ll be working with him on a joint venture.”

Randi frowned. Mr. Smith? The Agency would never use a cover name like that. It must be the real thing.

Her frown deepened. It couldn’t be. Not again.

San Francisco Bay

The diseased mind known in the Bay Area as the “BART rapist” settled back in his seat and luxuriated in the contemplation of the next woman he would destroy. The big Bay Transit Authority SuperCat passenger ferry was just backing away from the Market Street terminal, and he would have a full fifty minutes for his contemplation before their arrival in Vallejo. It pleased him that she was already his possession but still totally unaware of it.

The Bay Area’s public transport systems were his private stalking ground, and as with all his previous half-dozen assaults, this one would be a work of art, in its inception and execution and in his evasion of the police, a thing of great beauty. The actual debasement of his prey would merely be the delicious frosting applied to a master baker’s cake.

He never used the same persona twice. For this act he would be a cross-bay business commuter, recently moved from the city to the wine country north of the bay. His falsified identification would support the cover story, as would his assumed appropriate appearance: graying temples and wire-framed glasses, sweater and slacks and an expensive tweed jacket with suede elbow patches, Birkenstocks and dark socks. It would all match the image conjured in the mind of any stupid policeman or security guard who might question him.

Even the contents of the paper bag he carried primly on his knees would be justifiable to any random police check: two pint tins of interior enamel paint, a selection of small paintbrushes, a few cards of hardware screws and cupboard hooks-all things a new DIY home owner would be justified in possessing-complete with a purchasing slip drawn on a downtown San Francisco decorating store.

In such company, the roll of duct tape and the box cutter would be totally unremarkable.

He had taken equal care with his past assaults. In the last, he had been the grimy mentally deficient street person, and in the one before that, the slovenly truck driver, and so on. The police didn’t have a clue whom they were truly pursuing.

A pity, in a way, that he could not be admired for his artistry and his genius.

Riding the thunder of its hydrojet drives, the SuperCat cut northeastward across the bay, its twin bladelike bows slicing cleanly through the low swells. Beyond the ferry’s windows, shore lights glittered on as the misty dusk settled. This was the eight o’clock run, the last of the day, and the ferry’s commodious passenger bay with its multiple rows of seating was three-quarters empty.

The woman whom he had honored with his attention sat in the front row to port. Contentedly munching a crisp apple purchased from the ferry’s snack bar, her attention was lost in the book resting on her crossed knee. She was beautiful, as were all his ladies-the rapist was, after all, a connoisseur. A tall brunette, she was slender but full-breasted, her long midnight black hair worn up in a neatly pinned chignon. She was somewhere in her thirties, with flawless, creamy skin, lightly tanned and glowing with health.

Her eyes were gray, and they had glinted with good humor as she had bantered with the snack bar attendant. She was a regular. Every Tuesday and Thursday she crossed on the ten o’clock morning run from Vallejo and returned on this, the last evening boat.

What she did in the city, he wasn’t quite sure. But she was clearly a woman of fashion and means; her clothes were always of superb taste and quality. This night she wore a trim gray cord pantsuit that matched her eyes and stiletto-heeled black boots.

He might allow her to keep those boots after he destroyed the rest of her clothing; they would add something to the experience.

She always read her way across the bay with a book taken from the briefcase she inevitably carried. In his weeks of preattack surveillance he had made a point of positioning himself to see the book titles as a method of getting inside her head, of deepening his advantage.

But what he had seen had puzzled him: Anthony M. Thornborough’s Airborne Weapons of the West, The Greenville Military Manual of Main Battle Tanks, and the like. Tonight’s book was a crumbling yellow-paged volume in some Germanic tongue. From its illustrations it was concerned with cavalry warfare. Such topics were inexplicable for such a refined and totally feminine individual, and totally inappropriate. He would punish her for her interest in them.

The ferry slowed as it nosed up the Mare Island shipping channel, with the blazing city lights of Vallejo to starboard and the scattered work arcs of the old Mare Island Navy Yard to port. The great turbocharged diesels grumbled down into an idle as the catamaran came off plane. They were turning in toward the docking slips, the floodlights of the ferry terminal glaring in through the forward windscreen.