The game master, p.9
The Game Master, page 9
Chun’s eyes narrowed. “Do you seriously believe I won’t kill you?”
“I believe that if you do, you’ll never get the antidote in time.”
“Antidote? Is this what you’ve been reduced to? Poison? The weapon of old women?”
“Which is why you didn’t expect it. You were looking for an elephant when you should have been watching out for mice.”
“It was in the champagne?”
“Yes.”
He shoved the pistol into Ogilve’s face. “Then you lose. I didn’t drink the champagne.”
“No. But she did.”
Rani sat up straight.
“Is this true?” Chun demanded.
She nodded.
“Did you really think I would not discover that she worked for you, Chun? That she has been your faithful Mata Hari for years?”
Chun’s brow creased. “Tell me how to save her.”
“I will text you the antidote when I am safe. Within thirty minutes.”
“I will beat it out of you now.”
“Can you get it out of me in an hour? Because that’s how long she has, at most, unless she gets the cure. And I think you know I won’t break that quickly. Because you’ve tried it before.”
Chun’s gun wavered. “You are a complete degenerate.”
“I am what you made me.” He shoved Chun back, hard.
“How do I know you will text?”
“I’ve never lied to you, Chun. Can you say the same?”
“If you knew I was coming, why didn’t you move your meeting?”
“Because I wanted you to understand something.” He leaned in close. “You’re not as smart as you think. You’re not omniscient. You’re not all-powerful. And you will never outsmart me.” He placed his hand over Chun’s gun and wrested it out of his hand. “Your reign of terror is over. Your days of raping and beating defenseless women are over. Your ignorant dreams of South American paradise are finished. I’m going to blow your—”
A sudden blow smashed down on his head. A trickle of sticky blood oozed down the side of his face. He batted his eyes, struggling to remain conscious.
Rani held a broken champagne bottle. “I will not allow my master to be defeated because of my stupidity.”
Chun retrieved his gun.
Ogilve staggered toward the door.
“You’ll never make it, you arrogant fool.” Chun pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
“But—I loaded the gun this morning.”
“Removed the bullets,” Ogilve said weakly as he lurched through the doors and slammed them shut behind him. “While I was monologuing.”
#
Ogilve entered the elevator texting. His immediate concern was that he not pass out until he was safe. Then he could call Julian and attempt to repair the damage.
He hated being dependent upon others. But he had no hope of defeating Chun. Not alone.
Come on, BB, he thought, as he watched the elevator floor numbers glide by. Do it. Before it’s too late.
33
BB kept his eyes glued to the copter window. He knew Palmer would call everyone he knew to track them.
“Wherever we land, the cops will be waiting for you,” the pilot shouted. “What are you gonna do? Shoot your way out with that little pistol?”
“Direct confrontation is rarely the smartest approach,” he replied. “Ever play Risk?”
The pilot stared at him as if he were from another planet. “What?”
“Risk. The board game. Maybe when you were in college?”
“Yeah, I’ve played it.”
“Then you know—or I hope you know—that the smartest strategy isn’t to drop right into the most desirable countries and start fighting everyone in sight. That’s a rookie mistake. The smart player holes up in Australia.”
“Who wants Australia?”
“Exactly. But there’s only one way in. A bottleneck. An entrance that can be controlled. Territory that can be defended.”
“I understand the concept,” Linden shouted from the back seat. “But how does it apply to our current increasingly desperate situation?”
“We need a bottleneck,” he answered, gazing out the window. “And I think I know something that would just do the trick nicely. Hoover Dam. There’s only one way in.”
“Then that’s where the cops will wait for us.”
“I don’t think they can get there before us. They’ll set up a barricade at the end of the bottleneck and wait. And wait. And by the time they realize we’re not coming, it will be too late.”
“Because we’re going to stay there forever?”
“Because we’ll leave the other way. The one that doesn’t show up on their maps. I know a guy who lives out in the desert not far from the dam.”
“Why in God’s name would you know someone who lives in the desert?”
“He’s a long-time colleague. His work makes it advantageous to remain out of sight.”
“Drug dealer? Pimp?”
“Artist.” He paused. “He’s quite good at generating identity papers. Passports and such.”
“You’d need someone like that in your life, wouldn’t you? Given your lack of conventional ID.”
“He can smuggle us out. Get us the cash we need. Then we shop for clothes and other necessaries, because neither of us can go home. Then we catch a flight.”
“Did you say passports?”
“Did I not mention? I finished the puzzle.” He passed her the completed grid.
“It’s . . . a divining rod? A pitchfork? The letter Y? Are we going to Yemen?”
“No.”
“Space Needle?”
His eyes rolled. “You’re holding it upside-down.”
She reversed it.
Her lips parted. “We’re going to—”
He placed his hand over her mouth. “Don’t say it.” He tilted his head toward the pilot. “We don’t want anyone following us.”
The pilot turned his head. “It would be useful if I knew where we were going.”
BB offered a wry smile. “Just get us near Hoover Dam. I’ll take it from there.”
His cell phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket.
This was not a call. It was a messaged photograph.
Kadey was tied up, arms behind her back. A gag divided her face. Her clothes were ripped.
She looked terrified.
A text came with the photo. The countdown starts now. 100 hours until she’s permanently deleted.
A moment later, a second text arrived.
Your move.
He put the phone away before Linden could see the images. “We don’t have much time.” He stared off into the clouds. “But we will find her, Linden. We have to.”
Part Two
Every Move Has Consequences
34
The White House, Situation Room
Washington, D.C.
President Fernandez sat with his eyes glued to the digital display on the satellite surveillance feed. The green screen reloaded on a second-to-second basis, but the fundamentals remained the same. The Xs represented the Korean People’s Army. And the Os, his military advisors assured him, represented the greatest threat to the stability of the free world. And for that matter, the stability of the unfree world.
“So if I understand this correctly, Chun has assembled a secret army,” Fernandez said. “An army that the leader of the official army doesn’t know about. That’s not particularly surprising. North Korea is brutal, violent, and chaotic. The president is a puppet, which is just as well, because he’s a spoiled brat and a madman. If I lived in North Korea, I’d want my own army, too.”
“The question is, why now.” Fernandez’s chief of staff, Ross Blake, slid a leather-bound report across the long conference table. Blake was no military expert, but he had an innate pragmatism that Fernandez had found invaluable throughout his years in office. “Traditionally, military leaders don’t assemble private armies just so they sleep better at night.”
“You think he’s planning a coup.”
“We don’t think he’s planning to unseat Kim Jr., if that’s what you mean.” Blake ran his hand across his completely bald scalp. “The cult of personality attached to that family goes back decades. But Kim is largely a figurehead, at least when it comes to foreign policy. The head of the military, General Yoon, has both authority and the means to back it up. The two have a practical working agreement. Kim has a free hand in domestic matters, when his health permits him to leave his bedroom. Yoon runs the international show.”
“And that’s what concerns us.”
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gordon Decker, obscured his view of the satellite feed. “Our intel says Chun’s secret army troops are loyal, committed, and entirely invisible to Yoon.”
“What’s the point of that?”
“There’s only one possible answer, sir. Chun wants Yoon’s job.”
“He’s going to overthrow his immediate superior?”
“You don’t assemble a secret army and then hope your boss dies of old age.” Decker was a military and political expert, and he had a wonderful gift for cutting to the heart of the matter. Fernandez could tolerate his gruff attitude in exchange for being told directly and convincingly what he needed to do. The secretary of state was on her way to the White House from Lebanon, but in the meantime, he felt secure with Decker.
“I suppose not.” Fernandez leaned back in his padded chair, his hand pressed against his forehead. Thank God for advisors. Foreign policy made his head hurt. He put on a good show, but he knew he wasn’t up to the challenge of global geopolitics. Some people enjoyed this business, a real-world version of Diplomacy. But he didn’t. He liked giving speeches, shaking hands. He liked looking out into a crowd and seeing people cheering him. But he never wanted lives depending on him. Much less, God forbid, the fate of nations. “What do we care, ultimately? So there’s a new man at the head of the army. Haven’t we just replaced one loose cannon with another?”
Decker shook his head, making his jowls quiver. “Better the devil you know, Mr. President.”
“And you have questions about Chun?”
“Big ones. We don’t know enough about him. He came from humble origins. He’s been heavily involved with Korea’s military research, some of which is cutting edge and seriously unconventional. And now, after more than twenty years of dutiful service, he wants to take over. Why?”
“I give up. Why?”
“We don’t know. But we’re concerned that . . . there might be a reason.”
“There’s no might here,” Blake said, cutting in. “There is a reason. We just don’t know what it is.”
“Our worst fear,” Decker continued, “is that Chun’s got something. A weapon, perhaps. Something that he thinks gives him power. Especially if he’s got an army backing it up.”
“He won’t do anything Kim doesn’t approve.”
“We don’t know that, sir. He’s been at odds with his government before. And he’s been overheard by intelligence officers expressing a desire for change.”
“Change in North Korea could only be for the better.”
“I don’t agree.” Blake cut back into the conversation. “This is the undiscovered country—from whose bourn no traveler returns.”
Fernandez hated it when Blake showed off. “What’s the worst that could possibly happen?”
“The worst is that he could take a dangerously unstable nuclear nation and make it even more dangerous and unstable. That he could use his army and weaponry to affect not just his nation but the entire world. That he might have a private agenda.”
Fernandez shrugged. “I still don’t see why this is occupying so much of our time. We do have an actual war or two, you know.”
“Yes. Those are the conflicts we know. We worry about the ones we don’t know.”
“The North Koreans are pip-squeaks.”
“Forgive me for saying so, Mr. President, but it’s usually the pip-squeaks that end up causing the big problems. Austria-Hungary wasn’t exactly a world power. Neither was Germany at that time. But they brought the whole world to war. Was Troy the greatest power of the ancient world? No, but they had a lot of committed friends. Right now, Russia is dangerously unstable. China is wealthy but buried in people. The Middle East is controlled by religion and fury. And North Korea—well, who knows?”
“They won’t do anything China doesn’t want them to do.”
“Perhaps,” Decker said, “but what might China want them to do? They’ve been aggressively pushing at India’s borders ever since the skirmish of ‘62. They’ve been fighting for control of the North Indian Ocean. India signed an alliance treaty with Vietnam to explore oil deposits in the Nam Con Son basin. So China signed a military and economic development treaty with Pakistan. And we sent troops to Australia. China sent troops to the Andaman Islands. And so it goes until finally the whole world is shooting at one another.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Today? Nothing. But we should watch this situation carefully. And when the time comes, we must be prepared to take action. To make decisions that may affect the shape of the world.”
Exactly the kind he hated most. “Gentlemen, I’m a lame duck president. I don’t need this kind of stress.”
“And that’s another part of the problem.” Blake checked Decker out of the corner of his eye. “If Chun makes his play, the leader of the free world will have to respond. And I’d rather it was you than, well, either of your likely successors.”
“You don’t think much of Senator Vogel?”
“I don’t know who’s pulling his strings. He’s got a big war chest and preternatural political savvy. But bottom line, I don’t know what he wants. And that makes me nervous.”
“Every time there’s a major conflict, the maps get redrawn,” Decker added. “The balance of power shifts. And enormous power devolves to a small number of hands.” He tapped his pencil on the table. “This forthcoming election could turn out to be the most important one this country has ever seen.”
“You’re exaggerating. Surely.” Fernandez tugged on his collar. “You’ve always been a gloom and doom player. This world will keep on spinning.”
Blake and Decker exchanged a long look.
“Yes, the world will keep on spinning,” Decker said quietly. “But who’s going to be onboard to enjoy the ride?”
35
Two Days Before
Port Blair
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
General Chun pushed open the hotel suite doors. “Don’t bother getting up.”
Commander Singh sprang out of the oversized bed, clutching a satin sheet to his chest. Hindi was one of the few languages Chun did not speak, but he comprehended the words flowing from the man’s mouth well enough to know they were not friendly.
He was at the side of the bed before Singh could move. Singh opened the drawer of the end table. A silver pistol slid forward. Singh reached for it.
Chun kicked the drawer closed. “Try that again and you die. Sit still for a moment and you live. At least for the moment.”
He saw Singh’s eye dart to the other side of the bed.
Rani stood there, fully dressed.
“Surprised? A good soldier learns to dress quickly. Yes, you heard me correctly. The woman you thought was a barroom trollop is in fact working for me. Which means that you are now working for me as well.”
Singh lunged for him, arms extended. Chun slapped the attack down, hard. Singh crumpled to the floor.
He kicked the Indian officer in the side, breaking a rib. That should keep him down long enough to complete the conversation.
“I know you speak English, Commander, so let’s both do that. I also know the Indian military has stationed you here to oversee the submarine fleet at India’s battle headquarters for the Indian Ocean region. And I know how important that is. These islands are closer to Indonesia than India, but they form a protective shield between you and China, the superpower that considers your nation a major threat.”
Singh wiped blood from his face. “I do not know what you are talking about. I am here on holiday.”
“Aren’t we all. Listen, my friend, I don’t blame you. Or India. We all know China has its eyes on your mountain states. Maybe the whole country. China is building military strength—not to mention an airbase—on the Coco Islands, just a short boat ride from India’s coast. And let’s be honest, China’s maritime force is vastly greater than yours, or that of any other power in the region. American troops in Australia are of no real consequence. China could take anything it wants. Sensible to take precautions.”
“Again, I do not know what you are talking—”
He slapped Singh across the face, knocking him backward. The Indian commander attempted to rise—
This time Rani was the one who knocked him down.
“Do not attempt another attack,” the sinewy woman said. “You are as poor a fighter as you are a lover.”
Chun laughed. “Insult to injury.” He grabbed Singh by the hair and jerked the man’s head up. “Let me be clear. I will not interfere with your work. I will not undermine India’s activities, even though they clearly are not in North Korea’s interest. Bring on your marine commandos—MARCOS, I think you call them? Bring on your troops, warships, airbases, docking facilities—anything you like. Make it India’s hub for amphibious warfare. I will not interfere.”
Singh twisted his head back and forth but could not get free. “Then what do you want?”
“When the time comes, I will call you and make a request. You have submarines at your disposal. Perhaps we will send one out. Perhaps we will alter a course. I only know this: When I make my request—you will comply.”
“Are you insane? A misdirected nuclear submarine could start a world war.”
“I’m counting on it.”
“You’re talking about the end of the world.”
“The end of this world, perhaps.”
