No Way Back (20 page)

“They don’t speak any American,” Sonny says, gesturing toward an easy chair, inviting me to sit. He slips down on the sofa, switches the boy from shoulder to lap. The kid keeps stealing glances at me, then turning to Sonny and piping a few words, as if I’m a great curiosity. Which I guess I am. Sonny’s tone is so gentle and patient when he replies to what are obviously questions. It’s hard for a moment to reconcile the hard-eyed heavy I know with this obviously doting father.

“Tell you something, man,” Sonny says. “Wish to God I learn another trade when I was young. ’Cause this”—he makes a sweeping gesture that seems to take in his son, his wife, the neat-as-a-pin apartment—“this is all the world, for me.”

“That’s the problem. They get us when we’re too young and too stupid.”

“Hunh. Exactly right,” Sonny says. “Okay for some people, they born to it or something. Like that animal Mistah Boy. But big problem, if sometime you see better way, right way to live. I gotta work very, very hard to be somebody else, have this kind of life.”

Sonny’s wife returns bearing a tray with two bottles of beer and a dozen little bowls of Korean snacks I can’t ID. She giggles a little when I say “Thank you very much, Missus Park” in my fractured Korean, then gin
gerly eases herself onto the sofa, one hand cradling her enormous belly. The boy slips off Sonny’s lap, snuggles up between his parents. She ruffles his straight black hair, then gives Sonny a look of complete trust and adoration, which he returns.

A look I’ve never shared with anyone.

And suddenly I have a flickering image of Nadya and me, in a peaceful home with a child, gazing at each other in that same way. Fucking pipe dream, I know that. But the idea lingers anyway.

I don’t overstay, I feel like an intruder whose presense is soiling something delicate and fine. We chat a bit about the boy and the baby to come, Sonny translating. The boy’s curiosity eventually gets the better of caution, because he comes over to me, starts talking, touching my hand, trying to bend my fingers to show me how strong he is. Sonny and his wife laugh, a true couple.

When I’ve finished my beer, made some polite sounds to Missus Park, given the boy a good handshake, Sonny drives me back to Kim’s. We don’t talk much; he seems to be in some quiet state of grace.

“That was great. Thank you,” I say when we stop in Kim’s circular drive. “Get home safe, man.”

“You betcha,” he replies.

Then I shut the car door, watch Sonny pull away. And wonder, just for an instant, if I’ll ever have such a place to go.

SAME HYUNDAI, SAME STONE-FACED DRIVER, SAME—
though I can’t be sure about the exact route—trip to the Lotte next afternoon. Mister Kim left early for his corporate HQ, Sonny’s either with him or at home enjoying a day off. Nadya, same proprietary air, waiting for me in the lobby. She smiles in that way I suddenly realize I’d miss terribly if she ever stopped giving it to me.

Allison’s another small shock when I see her in the spook suite. She’s deliberately scruffy, hair only finger-combed and yanked into that ponytail, pilled old sweater, patched jeans, hiking boots scarred and dirty. She looks like one of those so-serious Dutch girls backpacking their way through parts of the world they oughtn’t even dream of going, not if they knew shit about what could happen to them—or had enough imagination to consider it.

“Uh, they actually let you in the lobby, dressed like that?” I say.

“Skip the lame jokes, Terry,” she says, crisp and professional. There’s no sign I can recognize that she’s pissed over the near fiasco of yesterday, the face-off with
Westley she had to’ve had, the diplomatic visit to Kim later. But she’s not the loose, easygoing Allison I like, either. “Let’s just get down to it.”

Rob’s on one of the sofas. Nadya sits on the other. I join her. Allison keeps standing.

“Right, the gang’s all here. So let’s run through this trip one more time, just to be sure we’re all on the same page,” she says. “Rob stays here for the duration. Are you all linked, Rob?”

“Yeah. I’ve established secure communications with our help on the ground in Vlad and Pyongyang. I ran four test messages with each. No problems. I’ll run another tonight, and another tomorrow.”

“Good. I’ll send you a retest from Vlad tomorrow,” Allison says. “Your arrangements, Nadya?”

“Arranged. Mister Kim has his usual suite at the Best Eastern Hyundai, on Semenovskaya Street. Sonny will camp in it. Terry’s in an adjoining room on one side, and Kim’s numbers man, old Mister Yoon, and his assistant have a suite on the other. I’m in a single on the floor above. Directly above.”

“Fine,” Allison says.

“On arrival, they’ll all dawdle in one of the restaurants, Terry and Sonny at the bar, Kim and Yoon at a table. I check in alone, sweep their rooms before they go up, mike Kim’s suite. That properly done, I signal Rob, he confirms the link. Then I go down, do my hooker act on Terry.”

“Good. If you don’t get hit on by our Russki slut, Terry, if she just walks right by like you don’t exist, you tell Sonny to get Kim out of there,” Allison says. “You do not, remember, speak or understand Russian. If she stops, starts flirting with you in broken English, you let Sonny know it’s okay to take Kim to the suite. After they’ve gone up, you take Nadya to your room. I’ve ex
plained all this to Kim. Kim’s on board. Please arrange an ‘all clear’ signal with Sonny. A subtle one.”

“Will do,” I say. “Where’ll you be in all this?”

“Moving. A different place each night. But I will be close by always.”

“And the dinner with the generals?” I ask.

“Unfortunately, we have to let them arrange that. We don’t know where yet. It will definitely be someplace very good, which means very public. We’ll know exactly where some hours before, which will give Nadya time to check the place out. You follow Sonny’s lead on how to handle security going to, during, and coming back from the dinner. It’s important there’s no deviation from Kim’s normal Vlad pattern. He’s got to behave as he’s behaved on every previous trip, clear?”

“That bit sounds insecure,” I say.

“It has to be. But I’ll be near with Carlos. Out of sight to you, but everything will be on our screen. Nadya will be close, too. And you’ve got the Olympus, the cell phone, right?”

“What cell?” Rob says. “There’s nothing in the communications plan about Terry carrying a cell.”

“I decided, Rob, it would be a good idea. Just as backup, close quarters,” Allison says, voice even but brisk.

“Hell, if he’s walking around with it on, his location can be triangulated. Not good,” Rob says.

“Only by someone with equipment like yours, who also happens to be looking for him, and who also happens to know the number,” Allison says. “Nobody is likely to be looking for him. And it’d fail, anyway. The cell is brand new, no calls made, none received. Nobody knows the number but me. So, as you well know, no triangulation.”

That shuts Rob up, but he shifts his position slightly,
tenses a little. I know what it is: he hates little surprises like this. Tough shit, pal, I’m thinking. Need-to-know only, and you, not me, didn’t have the need this time.

“Anything else?” Allison asks.

“The meet? The exchange?” I ask.

“We won’t know that for sure until after the dinner. We’ll be flexible. Since it’s a small item, there will be no need for skulking around, midnight meet in some waterfront warehouse or anything—as you’re no doubt used to and comfortable with. Our generals wouldn’t want that any more than we would. Kim will ask for something semipublic, they won’t go for it, he’ll suggest his suite. I think they’ll agree.”

“If they don’t?”

“We’re flexible, as I said, Terry. Carlos and I and Nadya will be in the shadows anywhere Kim goes. It’s in the generals’ self-interest to do this straight, quick, and clean. And I’ve got an asset watching their backs, ready to interdict if they’ve got a local threat behind them. We’re covered all around.”

Now would be the time for Nadya to say something smart-ass, lighten everything up, the way she always does. She doesn’t. She avoids looking back when I try to catch her eye.

“Okay, then,” Allison says, “I’m flying out in a few hours, commercial, as per plan. Carlos’s ship docks tomorrow. Nadya and Terry go on Kim’s plane day after tomorrow, Nadya peels off at the airport. Next time you see her, Terry, she’ll be all over you in the Hyundai bar, offering you a special rate to get laid. Sound good?”

“Depends on the rate, and what it includes,” I say.

“Oh, the works. You know those Natashas.”

Do I? Seems not. Back at Kim’s, after I’m sure Allison has gone to catch her flight, I phone Nadya, suggest din
ner. She teases around, but she’s flat, halfhearted about it, and finally begs off. Maybe tomorrow, she says. But she doesn’t say what the maybe might be.

Okay, I figure, we’re really on the job now, fun’s over, she’s behaving professionally. Normal, natural, and about time. After all, she isn’t some half-crazed SEAL, juked on adrenaline, ever ready to rock ’n’ roll. She knows she’s heading into something serious, wants to get herself clear and concentrated, not play. That’s what the rational part of my brain transmits, accepts. The more primitive part, where instincts reside, lights up a little, signals something’s off, something’s not quite as it should be.

Decide I’ll ignore it: the light’s dim, the signal weak.

And I have forgotten it, though I’m still disappointed and actually missing the girl, when Sonny appears in the staff lounge after dinner. I give him a detailed briefing of the meeting in the spook suite, all the arrangements. He seems satisfied, even appears to admire the thoroughness of Allison’s tactical dispositions.

“Hunh. Good idea, some guy on the Russkis’ backs. Good idea, exchange in Mistah Kim’s suite. Nobody fool with us there. Dinner, I think, no worries. What we gotta watch is moving from hotel to airport after exchange. Anybody want to hit us, they do it then.”

“That’s when I’d strike, if I was on the other team,” I say.

“How you do it, if you a bad guy?”

“Three-car block, somewhere where the airport road leaves the city, enters the suburbs. Have to see the route to be sure, but I’d pick a place where traffic’s pretty thin, maybe an exit ramp. One car in front of Kim’s stops, two others come up fast, bump his butt and block a turn. Very close, cars touching. Quick snatch, no shooting unless Kim’s guys start it. Gone in thirty seconds.”

“I think Mistah Kim’s guys see anything like that coming, they shoot the shit out of the front blocker, drive real fast around it, and make it to airport okay.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I say. “One thing. Allison says there’s got to be no deviation from Mister Kim’s ordinary behavior and methods.
I’m
a deviation. How do we handle that?”

“Two men, always. Me and one of my guys. Two this time, you just a new guy, no big deal.”

“So how do we behave?”

“Kind of disappear, you know? Never real close to Mistah Kim. At dinner, we stand at bar, sit at a separate table. At meeting, we’re like statues. Don’t move, don’t talk, don’t stare. Act like we don’t understand shit. Usually there’s a couple of Russkis, acting just like that. Never make eye contact, pretend they don’t exist. You sense anything about to happen, you let me know before you act, right? Same-same for me. We make any moves, we move together, understand?”

“Sure. No problem.” And that’s half-true. I’ll team with Sonny, unless my cell vibrates and Allison gives me a word. Then I’ll move so fast it’ll be over before Sonny or anyone else can blink twice.

It’s what might happen after I’m done, what Sonny might try if he doesn’t like it, that troubles me a little. Allison’s factored that into the plan, for sure. Which means Allison reckons I’m expendable.

Nothing personal. Just business. Right, Allison? What asshole dreamed up that rationalization? Why do assholes like me go into situations, knowing that’s the twisted ethic? Answer: because we think we’re so good, so deadly, that nobody can take us down.

Never shows up in any postmortem: inflated ego as cause of death. The actual physical agent—bullet, knife, whatever—never would have found its mark if our
fucked delusions hadn’t led us into the kill zone in the first place.

Allison and her kind know this, they count on it. I liked her better when she acted as if she had scruples, when she was still pretending—back in D.C., back in California—that I wasn’t just a tool she needed to do one thing and would leave behind without thinking twice after the thing was done.

Wonder if she ever worries I realize that? She sure didn’t bother acting or pretending today. Wonder if she ever considers I might not dig it, might really escape and evade, then come hard after her?

She should be afraid.

If she isn’t, she knows things I never will.

Fine clear morning, crisp air. Busan doesn’t look too bad on the way to the airport, from behind the tinted glass of one of Kim’s Lincolns. I’ve seen much worse. ROKs with Daewoos at the gate don’t hesitate, just wave our convoy through that single gate to the private aviation sector. A Gulfstream IV with that little Korean magic circle painted on its tail is warming up outside the hangar. The 747 is inside, asleep.

“Oh, he only uses the big one for longish hauls,” Nadya says, walking up to me once we’re out of the cars and on the tarmac. We didn’t get together, didn’t even speak, on the single day we could have, but she seems close to her usual cheerful, mocking self. “The big one’s for Singapore, Bangalore, Kuala Lumpor, Guangzhou, all the faraway places where our Mister Kim has assembly plants or factories or offices.”

“Sure,” I say.

“Vlad’s a shortish haul, relative to those. Anyway, Mister Kim doesn’t consider the airport there adequate
for his 747. Something about runway length, careless air traffic controllers, poor ground crews,” she chatters on.

I watch Kim and Yoon, his numbers man, head up the gangway into the Gulfstream. Trailing Yoon is a stranger, tall Korean in maybe his late twenties carrying a big aluminum Halliburton.

“So who’s the new guy? Baggage handler?” I ask.

“Oh, that’s Tommy. Some kind of MIT genius, a wizard with computers. Whatever you do, don’t go near that case of his. He has guard-dog reflexes about that case,” Nadya says.

“What’s so special about a laptop?”

“It’s Tommy’s special laptop. He never lets anyone around it. Not even Mister Kim,” Nadya says. “NEC’s most powerful model. But Tommy, I’m told, has tweaked and supertuned it. Way beyond anything that comes from the factory. MIT Media Lab special. That’s why he’s so proprietary.”

“Don’t see any need for a guy like that and his gear. On a simple merchandise purchase.”

“Ah, think chemist doing a purity test on a cocaine buy,” Nadya says, then walks to the gangway, goes on up.

Damn! The item the Russians are selling is computer-related. Hardware of some type? Software’s more likely. I’m racing through the thousands of possibilities when Sonny waves me over, we board the Gulfstream. Soon as we’re in, the little Japanese flight attendant—she has that lifeless porcelain-doll face, but I can’t be certain she’s the same one we’ve flown with before—levers the door shut, bows, points toward some empty seats.

Sonny and I sit, buckle up. The setup’s like Kim’s U.S. Gulfstream: no rows, just a lounge with big leather chairs. Kim, Yoon, and the wizard are at the far end, facing forward. Nadya’s a couple of seats forward, her back
to the portholes. Sonny and I will be flying backward. Doesn’t bother me, though Sonny’d prefer another arrangement, judging from the way he fidgets.

“Comfortable, Mister Prentice?” Kim calls. “Looking foward to the trip?”

“Absolutely, Mister Kim,” I say.

“Your first visit to Vladivostok, I believe?”

“Yessir, it will be.”

“Well, to be frank, it is one of those places that could be pleasant, should be interesting at least, but manages to be neither. In fact, it’s pretty damned nasty.”

This draws smiles from Yoon, Nadya and Sonny.

“But, then, we can’t always choose our venues in business,” Kim says. “Or with whom we do business, regrettably.”

“I understand, sir,” I say. “In my position, though, unpleasant, uninteresting, and nasty are actually an advantage.”

“How is that, Mister Prentice?”

“Encourages total concentration, total focus on my particular task,” I say. And maybe pushing it a little, I add: “Also provides an ideal environment for judicious application of my particular skills.”

No reaction for a moment. I have gone too far.

Then Kim laughs, and everybody else smiles. “Very aptly put, Mister Prentice. Truthful, too, I imagine,” he says. “I’m very much hoping, however, that you won’t have to apply any of your particular skills on this trip.”