Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation (8 page)

K
incaid started down the stairs, weaving through the line of scantily clad women with martinis and highballs in their hands. She didn't look back to determine whether her pursuer had followed; she could already
feel
his eyes on her, as surely as she'd felt them while standing across from the restaurant in the freezing cold in Dosan Park.

Gridlock on the landing between floors one and two required her to throw a few sharp elbows, which earned her a barrage of sharp words and dirty looks—but didn't slow her down.

When she reached the bottom of the stairs she recalled the layout of the first floor and headed left toward the room where she'd checked her coat. As she moved through the crowd she felt for the reassuring outline of the handgun in her waistband.

On the second floor Kincaid had done what most of the single ladies in the club were doing—she'd looked for a man. At first she merely thought a guy would help her to blend in, allow her time to spot the killer before he spotted her, giving her an advantage, maybe allowing her the time to get behind him. Then she noticed something that sparked a much better idea. She went to the bar and squeezed between two men, a younger one flirting theatrically with a young woman, and an older one who looked as though he'd already given up for the night and was now determined to get sloshed.

She had spotted the older man from across the room, selected him because of the bulge beneath the left breast of his suit jacket. When she reached the bar she pressed her right side against his left to confirm what she'd thought she saw.

“
Choésong hamnida
,” she said, apologizing to the man for nudging him to the side and causing him to tip over his drink. She knew she'd slaughtered the Korean phrase, but hoped the floor-shaking music had drowned out all but its essence. She grabbed a rag off the bar and helped him clean up the spill.

“It is fine,” the man said in English, his speech clearly slurred. “You are American, yes?”

She smiled as she turned to face him. “Yes, yes, I am. Did my awful pronunciation give me away?”

“I
love
America,” he said cheerfully, ignoring her question. Though it was possible he hadn't even heard her over the music. “I
love
the New York City. Is that where you are from?”

Kincaid kept an eye out for her stalker. “Not quite,” she said. “I'm from a small town in the heartland. It's called Red Creek, Kentucky.”

“Ah, Kentucky!” he cried. “I
love
Kentucky bourbon
and
Kentucky Fried Chicken. Can I buy for you?”

She leaned into him, hoping she didn't reek of sweat. “You want to buy me a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken?”

The man threw his head back as though she'd just dropped the funniest line he'd ever heard. Then his head came forward and butted the top of hers just as he started to speak.

“Terribly sorry,” he shouted. “So, so sorry.” When he saw that she was uninjured, he returned to his initial train of thought. “I meant, can I buy you a Kentucky bourbon? Wild Turkey, maybe? Or Jim Beam? Perhaps Old Grandfather?”

“Old Grand-
Dad
,” she said, correcting him.

“Very well!” He reached over the bar and shouted in the direction of the bartender. “Two shots of the Old Grand-Dad!”

Kincaid's eyes caught sight of her pursuer climbing to the top of the stairs.

“Do you want to dance?” she said.

“Dance? Yes, sure.” He searched for the bartender. “Let me just get our drinks.”

“He can
bring
them to us. I really, really want to get out there with you.” She turned to the bartender. “Will you serve us the drinks out on the dance floor?”

“Of course,” the bartender said in near-perfect English, with a near-perfect smile. “I will have someone bring them to you.” He looked at the older gentleman in the suit. “Have fun, you crazy kids.”

When they reached the dance floor, Kincaid immediately got into the rhythm of the K-pop as her partner looked on, slack-jawed. She spun around and slowly backed her rear end into him, moving it methodically against his midsection.

He reached around her body and clasped his hands in front of her stomach. When he did, she quickly spun around to face him, leaving their lips only inches apart. She ran her hands up the sides of his legs, up his rib cage, and felt for the holster beneath his jacket.

There it is
.

As she nuzzled his neck, she slipped her hands inside his jacket and ran her fingers up his torso. He threw his head back, his eyes rolling upward in ecstasy.

She shot a look across the dance floor and saw her pursuer standing near the top of the staircase with his arms folded across his broad chest, watching her.

A young woman in a short skirt carrying a tray of neon test tubes tapped her on the left shoulder.

“Two shots of Old Grand-Dad,” the young woman said.

Kincaid took one of the test tubes and threw it back. Her dance partner waved a hand in front of his face, declining his own. “No, thank you. But please, put both drinks on my tab,” he slurred.

Kincaid winked and grabbed the second shot and put it to her lips. Her dance partner's eyes widened to show her he was impressed.

“They're small,” she said as she pulled him close to her again. She let him smell the bourbon on her breath then planted a sensual kiss on his cheek as her hands once more traveled inside his jacket.

As she moved up toward the holster, she considered how he might have gotten inside the club with a gun. Probably he was a cop, though she knew from Janson that most cops in Seoul didn't carry firearms. Which meant that her dance partner was most likely a specialist armed officer with the Seoul Metropolitan Police. Either undercover or off duty. Given his slurred speech and the pungent scent of scotch coming off him, she assumed it was the latter.

From the corner of her eye, she watched a drunk young European man collide with the killer, spilling a drink down the front of his jacket and shirt. A perfect diversion.

She seized the opportunity.

B
ECAUSE PATRONS WERE NEITHER
entering nor exiting the club in droves at that hour, the coat-check girl had abandoned her station in the enormous coatroom. But Kincaid couldn't know how long it would be until she returned, so she had to hurry. Concealing herself between two racks of overcoats, she breathed heavily and examined the weapon in her hands.

A 9mm Daewoo.

She ejected the magazine and counted thirteen rounds. Popped the magazine back in place and pulled the slide, chambering a round. She switched the safety off and cocked the hammer. Sneaked a look between the coats.

He has to have seen me.

A tingle of anxiety rushed up her spinal cord and she shivered. Just before she'd reached the coatroom she slowed just enough to catch a glimpse of him in her periphery. She hesitated a few seconds to afford him enough time to spot his prey.

He knows where I am. Why isn't he here yet?

Did he think it was too much of a risk to kill her inside the club? Was he waiting for her to make her exit before resuming the chase? Well, Kincaid wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. She could sit here all night. She'd wait for the coat-check girl to return to her post then try to get her attention without startling her. She'd ask her if she could borrow her cell phone and she'd call Janson, fill him in on her situation.

After a few minutes her haunches began to tire. She shifted to one knee but kept the handgun held out in front of her. She'd have to be cautious with all these people around.

No civilian casualties.

If he'd had to stash his gun, would she still be able to prove he'd been trying to kill her once police arrived on the scene?

Maybe she should aim for the leg. Then again, maybe she wouldn't have to fire at all. Maybe she could pull the gun on him and lead him somewhere private. Ask him who he was working for. If he wouldn't talk, she could smack him in the teeth with the butt of her gun.

No torture.

She'd play things by ear. But first he had to come after her. First he had to show his stone-cold face. He'd have to confront her.

She shifted onto her haunches again, waiting.

Where are you, you son of a bitch?

S
in Bae watched the woman duck into the coatroom on the first floor of the T-Lound nightclub. He'd spent time in this building back when he was conducting surveillance on a target from the National Intelligence Service. His subject had been a young man from Jeollabuk-do, Korea's agricultural heartland, who was naturally enthralled with Seoul's party circuit. Sin Bae spent more time following him in bars and dance clubs than he had spying on him at his home and office combined. Many of the young man's meetings took place right here in T-Lound. Meetings with a supposed dissident from the North.

Once Sin Bae had collected enough evidence of the young man's betrayal, he expected his Cons Ops handler Ping to turn the photos and videos over to the South's National Intelligence Service. Instead Ping issued Sin Bae new orders handed down directly from Washington. He was to kill the young traitor. Catch him alone at his Seoul apartment and place a single bullet in the back of his skull. For all-too-personal reasons, Sin Bae was happy to do it.

He waded through the sea of teens and twenty-somethings drinking and tripping and rolling, trying to dance the drugs out of their systems. Keeping one eye on the coatroom, he moved toward the restrooms. Down that corridor, past the restrooms was a private room occupied by the club's manager, whom Sin Bae had passed on the stairs just minutes earlier. The office, which contained a small hidden door that opened onto the rear of the coatroom, would be empty. So as he slipped down the hallway, he dug into his pocket for his lock pick. Once he reached the door it took Sin Bae only seconds to gain access.

In the plush private office, Sin Bae flashed on the night he'd terminated the young man from the National Intelligence Service. It had been one of the few jobs over the years of his secret employment with Consular Operations that actually afforded Sin Bae pleasure. Killing was one thing. Executing a young man selling secrets to the North Korean regime in Pyongyang was quite another.

Sin Bae once lived in Pyongyang. As a young boy, he'd attended the city's schools, played ball on its streets, and pledged allegiance to the Communist Party. Although he came from a family of modest means, Sin Bae enjoyed his early childhood. But that childhood ended abruptly on a brisk September evening when his family's humble apartment in the city capital was visited by several agents from Kim Il-sung's security force.

He'd been seven when it happened. When his mother and father and sister and grandparents were forcefully taken from their home and tossed in a political prison camp called Yodok, based on allegations that Sin Bae's uncle had criticized and conspired against the party.

Sin Bae didn't truly understand what was happening. While he nearly hyperventilated from fear, his mother told him they were going on an adventure.

Sin Bae curled his fingers around the door handle and slowly twisted it in his hand. When he peered inside, the racks upon racks of heavy coats reminded him of Yodok winters.

When he and his family finally arrived at Yodok, Sin Bae's mother could lie to him no more. The camp was surrounded on every side by steep mountains and treacherous rivers and other natural obstacles, by barbed wire and watchtowers and uniformed men with large guns. The people already living at the camp appeared skinny and filthy; many of them seemed sickly and close to death. They wore rags and ate insects off the ground.

The night his family arrived and were thrown in their hut, Sin Bae held his younger sister Su-ra in his arms, rocking her gently as she cried herself to sleep.

Now as Sin Bae lightly stepped foot through the door leading to the rear of the coatroom, he pushed Yodok from his mind.

Jessica Kincaid sat on her haunches holding a handgun in front of her. He took another light step and was only a few feet behind her. He could sense her breathing heavily.

With his right hand he reached across his body and gripped his left cuff link.

He took another step forward then lifted his arms above Kincaid's head.

In a single fluid movement he extracted the garrote from his cuff link and wrapped the wire tight around her throat again.

He counted the seconds in Korean.

Il…i…sam…sa…o…

When he reached
shibo
, former Cons Ops agent Jessica Kincaid would be dead.

A
ll Jessica Kincaid glimpsed was a sliver of his shadow. Instantly she shot backward off her haunches as the wire closed around her throat. Pushing her body back against his, she raised the Daewoo with both hands and attempted to aim the barrel of the gun over her shoulder. But with her breathing cut off she felt herself fading, sinking rapidly into a lethal panic.

Her finger hesitated over the trigger, just long enough to allow the assassin to knock the gun from her hand. But as his arm shot up to parry the Daewoo, the garrote mercifully loosened against Kincaid's throat, permitting her to manage a breath. When the gun hit the floor, her attacker immediately kicked it with all his strength. It spun in circles as it skidded, stopping several racks away, out of sight.

Kincaid reached back and clawed at his face. Felt her fingernails dig into his flesh. But the garrote continued to cut into her throat.

She had six, maybe eight seconds before she lost consciousness.

Within twelve she'd suffer irreparable brain damage.

After fifteen there would be no coming back.

With her breathing cut off she couldn't make a sound. Not that it would have helped her over the earsplitting music in the dance club. The coatroom was slightly quieter than the bar, but even in here a scream couldn't carry ten feet.

If she was going to survive, Kincaid would have to fight off the killer herself.

She leaned her chin forward and tried to throw her head back to break the killer's nose but couldn't gain the necessary momentum with the wire wrapped around her throat. All she had were her legs.

Although her legs were exhausted from the earlier chase, she felt her adrenaline pumping and her muscles tense. She bent at the knees and attempted a sudden thrust.

Her legs shot backward as her assassin fumbled for his footing. She thrust again and felt the killer's back slam into the wall. The wire loosened once more.

This was her last chance.

She threw her right hand forward then plunged her elbow backward into his abdomen. Behind her, the assassin seemed to momentarily lose his breath, so she grabbed hold of his right arm and attempted to fling his body over her shoulder.

He was too heavy, too strong.

You're not gonna die in a stinking coatroom, Kincaid!

But in the time it took her to attempt the throw, her attacker had regained his position and tightened the garrote around her throat again.

Kincaid flailed her arms helplessly. A white frame surrounded her vision on all sides and she suddenly felt as though she were drowning. She imagined herself struggling in the ocean, about to be pounded by a thirty-foot wave off Oahu's North Shore, with Paul Janson nowhere in sight.

Two seconds passed, then four.

When she reached six, she felt herself dropping into a deep, painful sleep from which she knew she would never wake up.

O
N THE SECOND FLOOR
of the T-Lound nightclub, Park Kwan spun around one last time, searching for the girl. But she seemed to have vanished into the ether. Deeply disappointed, he attempted a step back toward the bar and stumbled, catching himself on another man's shoulder.

The man shot him a look that made Park glad he was carrying his gun.

Oh hell, he thought. I'd probably better get home anyway.

He had work in the morning and was in for a battle. Already his head pounded; nausea had crept into his stomach.

His last few drinks suddenly shot like a geyser into his esophagus but he quickly managed to swallow them down.

Not here. Please, not here.

That would be the scene that finally ended his career.

At the bar he hailed the bartender and requested his check.

“No luck with the woman?” the bartender said in Korean as he swiped Park's credit card.

Park smiled. “So she
was
real after all. I thought I might have hallucinated the entire evening.”

“No, she was quite real. And she was
hot
.”

“And now,” Park lamented, “she's gone.”

The bartender nodded and set Park's tab down with a pen.

As he signed the receipt, Park wondered what had possessed the young woman to dance with him. Surely she hadn't put on that show for the price of two drinks of Kentucky bourbon.

Shit.

Gasping, he quickly checked his back pocket for his wallet.

It's gone.

When he looked up to inform the bartender that he'd been pickpocketed he realized he'd set his wallet down on the bar in order to retrieve his credit card. A lightning bolt of relief traveled through his body.

Then a thought.

Slowly, he reached inside his suit jacket.

“You OK?” the bartender said as he picked up the signed receipt. “You look as though you've seen a ghost.”

Just my early retirement, Park thought.

But no, that wasn't all. Someone could get hurt.

“The girl,” Park shouted, “did you see where she went? She took something from me.”

The bartender pointed to the stairs. “I think I saw her heading back down to the first floor. She looked as though she was in a hurry. Do you want me to alert the bouncers at the front door?”

“No need,” Park said. “I'll take care of this.”

He snatched his credit card off the bar, stuck it into his wallet, and headed off. He couldn't allow anyone to know what had happened, not even the bouncers. If word got out that he'd brought his gun into a nightclub and had it stolen from him, he'd not only be out of a job, he'd be disgraced.

He snaked through the crowd down the stairs, his head rapidly clearing as the reality of his situation sank in.

On the first level he surveyed the dance floor and thought, It will be impossible to find her in here. But then, would she really steal a police officer's gun only to run downstairs and continue dancing? She'd have to be insane. She'd know that Park would realize his weapon was missing before too long. He was drunk, not catatonic.

She must have bolted outside.

He darted toward the front entrance then remembered the frigid temperatures and doubled back for his overcoat.

When he reached the coatroom, the girl who had taken his coat and given him his ticket was nowhere to be found.

So much for getting out of here in a hurry.

He gazed into the coatroom; there had to be at a least a few hundred coats and jackets. He glanced at his ticket and spotted a number. Surely each rack would be marked.

He stole one last glimpse over his shoulder to see whether the coat-check girl was returning, then opened the short gate and stepped inside.

He checked the ticket again—“92-E.”

As he passed through the first aisle he felt confident he would find his coat. Then he would find the woman who had stolen his gun. He couldn't arrest her, of course. He'd be humiliated. But he could certainly threaten arrest, and interrogate her to find out why she'd done it. The reason, that was all he wanted from her now. Well, that and his service weapon.

His eyes suddenly caught on something, a small piece of black steel on the floor not ten feet away.

My gun!

He scrambled toward it, filled with new hope. He picked it up off the floor and examined the gun in his hands.

Wonderful, he thought. I shall live to work another day.

K
INCAID THOUGHT SHE WAS
seeing things. The garrote had cut off the oxygen to her brain. Her life was flashing before her eyes in reverse.

But, sweet Jesus, shouldn't it be moving a bit faster?

And why did it begin with the man she'd danced with upstairs? She had only a couple of seconds of consciousness left. Couldn't her mind just hit the highlights?

Wait, that
is
the guy I danced with upstairs.

She wondered whether she had the strength for one last move to try to get his attention.

She braced her body against her killer's as warm blood dripped down the collar of her shirt. She again kicked her feet, only this time out instead of down, barely reaching the nearest rack of coats.

The front tip of her foot knocked into one of the sleeves, causing it to sway.

She watched the man she'd been dancing with for a reaction.

After a moment that felt like forever, he twisted his neck and shot a wild look in her direction.

He'd sensed the movement and was trying to figure out precisely where it had come from.

Kincaid narrowed her eyes and concentrated on him. She looked down at his hands and felt a rush of excitement when she saw that he'd found the gun.

The drunken man finally turned his entire body toward Kincaid and her assassin. He spotted them. Froze for just an instant as he analyzed the situation then lifted his weapon and trained it on them.

Shit, he's not going to be able to get off a clean shot.

But the wire around her throat suddenly loosened and she knew that the killer had seen the man too.

Maybe just enough of a diversion.

She seized the opportunity, throwing her head forward then slingshotting it back into her killer's face.

This time her skull connected with his nose.

The garrote fell from around her throat.

She stole a deep breath then spun, throwing an elbow to the right side of the assassin's face. More blood shot from his nose.

With a well-placed kick, she swept his legs out from under him and he fell to the ground like a stone. But before she could pounce on top of him to pummel him, he popped back up to his feet and took off in a dash.

Kincaid started after him but only made it a few steps before she staggered into the wall, light-headed and short of breath.

She was alive and ready to go on the offensive. But reality dictated that she needed some time to recover from the attack.

For the time being, the bastard who'd tried to kill her would have to wait.