Outside Busan
South Korea
Jon? Can you hear me? Jon!”
A woman’s voice. Familiar, but too distant to place.
“Jon!”
Smith opened his eyes and squinted against the fluorescent lights. Randi’s face was hovering above him and he could feel the warmth of her hand in his.
“Good to have you back. I swear you’ve been nothing but trouble lately.”
“You get what you pay for,” he mumbled, trying to figure out where he was and how he’d gotten there. He remembered Randi coming to rescue him and the wheels falling off that operation pretty quickly. Then a car trunk and after that nothing.
“Jon? How are you feeling?”
A man’s voice. This time he was able to process it without too many skipped beats. He let his head loll to the left and saw Fred Klein standing there in his ever-present rumpled suit. His mouth was curled into a disapproving frown but Smith sensed it wasn’t aimed at him.
“I think…I think I’m okay.”
“My people had to do a little more work on your back and reinflate your lung again but they said the screws in your shoulder blade were fine and the broken ribs will heal on their own. Until they do, though, I’m told they’ll hurt like hell.”
Smith nodded weakly and turned back to Randi, who seemed genuinely worried. “Stop looking at me like that. It’s making me nervous. How did you get us out of the trunk?”
She released his hand and backed away, the expression of concern turning uncertain.
“I was having her followed,” Klein said when it became clear she wasn’t going to answer. “We set up an ambush, took out the men in the car, and then flew you here.”
Smith looked around him at the windowless hospital room. “Are we back in the States?”
“I’m afraid not. We had a doctor and equipment on the jet but you were having a lot of trouble breathing. We had to make an emergency landing in South Korea.”
“Seoul? What hospital are we at? I know the director of…”
He fell silent when Klein shook his head and walked to the door. Smith leaned forward as far as he could when the director of Covert-One opened it. The building beyond was nothing more than the rotting carcass of an abandoned warehouse. Rain fell through the collapsed roof, and the rusted top of a crane jutted from the floor twenty feet below. A dangerous-looking man with Eastern European features and an Israeli assault rifle glanced back at them and then returned his attention to the warehouse floor.
Klein quietly closed the door and took a seat next to a table, its only purpose seeming to be to hold an enormous flower arrangement. “We have places like this set up all around the world specifically for these kinds of situations. It’s the first time we’ve used this one.”
“The president will be happy his money wasn’t wasted,” Smith managed to get out.
Klein nodded. “We just need you to concentrate on healing, Jon. No one can get to you here, so you don’t have anything else to worry about.”
Smith tried to sit up, but the attempt wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped. He motioned to Randi and she helped ease him forward. A few extra pillows kept him there.
“I’m still not clear on how we got out of the trunk. Your guys just started shooting on a public road?”
Klein’s irritation was immediately visible and Randi retreated again.
“Not only a public road, but a crowded public road. Randi discovered you were alive and went after you without telling me. By the time I found out, I didn’t have the luxury of anything subtle.”
“You sent Jon to Japan,” Randi said, defensively. “You implied he was dead.”
“I implied that because I believed it to be likely.”
“What you believed doesn’t make any difference. How could I be sure you didn’t set him up? That you weren’t setting me up?”
Klein let out a long, frustrated breath. “Randi, you’re as talented as anyone I’ve ever worked with, but without trust this relationship isn’t going to work.”
“You’re lecturing me about trust? I notice you were having me watched.”
“And where would you be if I hadn’t? In my experience, trips that start in car trunks rarely end well.”
“Fred’s right,” Smith said. “And he walks the walk, Randi. He’s always been there for me. And frankly he’s always been there for you, too.”
“The past is no guarantee of the future.”
“If you want guarantees, you’re in the wrong business.”
Her face tightened as though she’d just swallowed something toxic. “Fine. I screwed up and I apologize.”
Klein nodded. “Apology accepted. Now let’s put it behind us and start fresh.”
She crossed the room and offered her hand. “Deal. But if you ever decide to cross me or Jon, make sure you finish the job.”
He held her hand in his grip. “And if you ever decide to cross me, I suggest you do the same.”
She gave an almost imperceptible nod and it was done.
“Now that we finally have that out of the way,” Smith said. “Could someone tell me what the docs said about my prognosis?”
“Sorry,” Klein responded. “You should have a full recovery but it’s going to take time and a fair amount of work. There’s a medical rundown in the folder on the table next to you. You’ll understand it better than I would. Having said that, I don’t need a medical degree to know that you were lucky as hell.”
Smith nodded. “The bolt got slowed down by a boat hull before I got hit. If it hadn’t been, it would have gone right through me.”
“And that reminds me,” Klein said. “One issue we haven’t discussed is that you had some fairly highly radioactive material in your pocket for an undetermined amount of time. It’s all in the folder, but the doctor said it could cause problems with reproduction and that you should get regular cancer screenings going forward.”
Smith would have laughed if he didn’t know how excruciating it would be. “I think the family ship has sailed for me, Fred. And if I keep working for you, I doubt I’ll live long enough to have to worry about cancer.”
Klein seemed a little bothered by that and changed the subject. “I appreciate you getting the evidence out. There was no second chance on this.”
“What happened to it?”
“I have it locked down at the marina waiting for you.”
“Any thoughts on who attacked me? And who convinced Randi’s friend to turn on her?”
“We don’t need to talk about this right now, Jon. You should save your strength.”
“I’m awake and I’m guessing the TV’s in Korean. Give me something I can think about to take my mind off my back.”
“It had to be someone powerful,” Randi offered. “Noboru isn’t some small-time crook. I’d put his net worth at around a quarter of a billion dollars and his IQ high enough to know better than to piss me off. Now that I know you’re okay, I’ll be going back to Japan so he and I can have a little chat.”
“That might be problematic,” Klein said, retrieving an iPad from the table next to him. He tapped in a few commands and the television bolted near the ceiling came to life with video of a sprawling mansion overlooking the ocean. The flames consuming it looked to be rising more than a hundred feet in the air.
“This was captured by a Japanese news helicopter. Randi, I think you’ll recognize the building.”
“Noboru’s house.”
Klein nodded. “The blaze started about fifteen minutes after you were taken away.”
“Can I assume that he and his men were inside?”
“It would appear so. Obviously, the bodies are badly damaged but an initial autopsy suggests no sign of smoke inhalation. They were dead before the blaze started.”
“What about the men driving the car we were in?” Smith asked. “Did they work for Noboru?”
“I don’t think so. There wasn’t much time, but I had one of my men take a photo and the index finger of the driver—”
“The index finger?” Randi said, sounding impressed.
“I like to be thorough. Unfortunately, neither the photo, nor the fingerprint, nor a DNA analysis has revealed anything. Beyond his being of Japanese descent, I can’t tell you anything about that man. He doesn’t seem to exist.”
“What about the Japanese authorities?”
“Complete silence on the issue. My men shot up a car in heavy traffic, killing four men, and it’s like it never happened.”
“Like it never happened?” Smith said. “That takes a lot of juice in an age of cell phones and Twitter.”
He started coughing and put a hand to his mouth. It came back spattered with blood. Not much, though. It looked residual.
“Look, Jon. We’re going to get out of here and let you sleep. You focus on getting well and when the doctor gives the okay—hopefully in a few days—I’ll put you on a jet home. We can talk more then.”