James Rollins - The Eye of God - A Sigma Force Novel

“But this is worse.”

Rachel nodded and wiped a tear. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“He’s been going downhill for a while. But it’s been so gradual, each small decline easy to dismiss and excuse. Then suddenly you truly see him. Like on this trip. And you can no longer deny the truth.”

Rachel covered her face with her hands for a long breath, then lowered them again, struggling to keep her composure.

“I don’t know why I’m burdening you with this,” she said.

Seichan knew but remained silent. Sometimes it was easier to open one’s heart to a stranger, to test emotions upon someone who means little to you.

“I . . . I appreciate you helping to watch over him.” Rachel reached out and took her fingers. “I don’t think I could have done this alone.”

Seichan involuntarily stiffened, wanted to yank her hand back, but fought against it. Instead, she whispered, “We’ll do it together then.”

Rachel squeezed her fingers. “Thank you.”

Seichan slipped her hand away, awkward at the intimacy. She knew Rachel wasn’t only thanking her for shouldering the burden of her uncle, but also for allowing her to share her fears. Silence fueled anxieties, gave them their true power. Expressing them aloud was a way of releasing that tension, of letting go, if only for a brief time.

“I should get back to my uncle.” Rachel stood up. As she headed out, she paused at the door. “Gray said you found your mother. How wonderful that must be for you.”

Seichan froze, weighing how to respond. She considered taking Rachel’s example, of telling the truth, of attempting to share her own fears and trepidations with another, a near stranger to whom she could test what it would feel like to open up.

But she had been silent all her life.

It was a pattern hard to break—especially now.

“Thank you,” Seichan said, hiding behind a lie. “It is truly wonderful.”

Rachel smiled at her and left.

As the door closed, Seichan turned to the bright windows, ready to face what lay ahead, glad to put thoughts of warring Triads, her mother, and all of North Korea behind her.

Still, she felt an ache deep in her stomach.

Knowing her silence was wrong.

1:15 P.M. KST

Pyongyang, North Korea

“What is she doing in Mongolia?” Hwan Pak asked.

Ju-long followed the North Korean scientist out of one of the administration buildings of the prison. Ju-long was still at the camp, not as an inmate, but for his own protection.

Or so he had been informed.

Once he’d been freed from the interrogation room in the middle of the night, it had taken hours to settle matters, to discover their captive had escaped out of North Korea, whisked away by American forces, not that this event would ever be officially acknowledged.

It had put Ju-long in a precarious situation. The North Koreans, especially Hwan Pak, needed someone to bully, someone to blame. Ju-long was a convenient target.

Still, from long experience, he never entered hostile territory without a secondary plan in place. Years ago, as a precaution, he had taken to tagging his merchandise, including sales like this. It was only sound business practice to keep track of your inventory.

While the pretty assassin had been in his custody and drugged, Ju-long had planted a micro-GPS tracking device on her. She had been significantly abraded and lacerated following the ambush in the streets of Macau, when he’d slammed his Cadillac into the bike she had been driving. He had the microtracker—a postage-stamp-sized wafer of electronics—sutured beneath one of her wounds. Eventually it would be found or the battery would die, but in the short term, it worked wonders at keeping tabs on his merchandise.

Earlier this morning, he had played this card, informing Pak about this ace up his sleeve. Ju-long suspected it was the only reason he had been treated so well after last night’s events. They had even offered him a bed in the officers’ quarters, where he caught a couple of hours of fitful rest. Before retiring to bed, he had placed a call to Macau and had the tracker activated. It had taken longer than he would have liked to discover the escaped prisoner’s whereabouts, mostly because no one expected to search so far afield.

“I don’t know why she’s in Mongolia,” Ju-long admitted as they reached the same building where all this had started, the prison’s interrogation center.

Pak had said he left something important here, something to help them capture the woman. Ju-long followed the man through the building to the back. They entered the same room where he and Pak had been trapped last night.

A new prisoner sat strapped to the chair, his head hanging listless, blood pooled beneath him. Cigarette burns blistered his arms. His face was so badly bruised and swollen that it took Ju-long a moment to recognize him.

He rushed forward. “Tomaz!”

It was his second-in-command.

Hearing his name, Tomaz groaned weakly.

Ju-long swung to Pak, who stepped forward with a smile. It seemed the North Korean had been denied his pain last night and took it out on another this morning.

“Why?” Ju-long asked, furious.

As if taking cruel joy in punctuating his point, Pak lit a cigarette, drawing deeply until the tip glowed a fiery red.

“As a lesson,” Pak puffed out. “We don’t tolerate failure.”

“And this loss of the prisoner was my fault?” He pointed to Tomaz. “His fault? How?”

“No, you misunderstand me. We don’t blame you for her escape. But we will hold you accountable for her capture. You will continue to track her and accompany an elite Spec Ops team to retrieve her. The Americans rescued her for some reason. My government wants to know why.”

“I don’t handle lost merchandise,” Ju-long said. “In good faith, I delivered her to you. She was in your custody when she escaped. I don’t see how this is my responsibility.”

“Because you did not screen your merchandise as thoroughly as you should have, Delgado- ssi . You delivered what my government considers to be a bomb onto our soil, one that was still armed. If we had known this woman was so important to American forces, we would have handled this differently. So you must make amends for this grievous error and embarrassment to our country.”

“And if I refuse?”

Pak removed his pistol, set it to the side of Tomaz’s head, and pulled the trigger. The shock as much as the noise made Ju-long jump. Tomaz fell limp within his restraints.

“Like I said, this is a lesson.”

Pak reached for his phone and held it out to Ju-long.

“And this is your incentive to succeed.”

Stunned, he took the phone and raised it to his ear. A voice came immediately on the line, trembling with fear.

“Ju-long?”

His heart clenched with recognition, and all it implied. “Natalia?”

“Help me. I don’t know who these—”

Pak snatched the phone back, keeping his pistol pointed at Ju-long’s chest. A wise precaution, as it took all of Ju-long’s control not to break the North Korean’s neck. But he knew it would do his wife no good.

“We are holding her . . . and I suppose your son, too . . . in a location in Hong Kong. Neither will be harmed as long as you cooperate. At the first sign of insubordination, we will have a doctor remove your son and mail his body to your home. We’ll keep your wife alive, of course.”

If that happened, Ju-long knew his son’s death would be a kindness compared to what they’d do to Natalia.

Pak smiled. “So do we have a deal?”

19

November 19, 1:23 P.M. ULAT

Rural Mongolia