“The Asia Star,” General Kim announced.
Colonel Hourani checked his watch. It was one in the morning. “And when do we sail?”
“The tides are mild here in Yonghung-man Bay so you can leave anytime. The ship is loaded, fueled, and provisioned.”
Hourani turned to one of his men and asked in Arabic, “What do you think?” He listened to the long reply, nodding several times, then turned back to the general, who sat opposite him in the limo. “Assad Muhammad is our technical expert on the Nodong-1 missile. He would like to take a look at them before we depart.”
Kim’s expression didn’t change, but it was clear he didn’t like the idea of a delay. “Surely you can accomplish your inspection at sea. I assure you that all ten missiles your country has purchased are aboard.”
“I’m afraid Assad does not do well on boats. He would prefer to inspect the missiles now, because he will likely spend the voyage in his cabin.”
“Odd that you would have such a man accompany the rockets back to Syria,” Kim said coolly.
Hourani’s eyes tightened. His country was paying nearly a hundred fifty million sorely needed dollars for the medium-range strategic missiles. Kim had no right to question him. “He is here because he knows the rockets. He worked with the Iranians when they purchased their Nodongs from you. That he has trouble on the sea is not your concern. He will inspect all ten, and we will sail at first light.”
General Kim was under orders to stay with the Syrians until the ship departed. He’d told his wife he wouldn’t return to Pyongyang until morning, but by remaining with the Middle Easterners, he would forfeit several hours with his latest mistress. He sighed at the sacrifices he made for the state. “Very well, Colonel. I will have the harbor master informed that the Asia Starwon’t leave until first light. Why don’t we get on board? I will show you to your cabins so you can stow your luggage, then Mr. Muhammad can inspect your new toys.”
The driver opened the rear door, and as Kim slid over to exit, Colonel Hourani placed a hand on his uniformed sleeve. Their eyes met. “Thank you, General.”
Kim’s smile was genuine. Despite their cultural differences and the inherent suspicion and secrecy surrounding this mission, he felt he really did like the colonel. “It is no problem.”
The three Syrians each had their own cabins, but only a minute after being shown their accommodations, they met in the one occupied by Colonel Hourani. Assad Muhammad sat on the bunk with a briefcase beside him while Hourani placed himself at the desk below the room’s single porthole. The oldest of the trio, Professor Walid Khalidi, leaned against a bulkhead, his arms crossed over his chest. Hourani then did a very strange thing. He touched the corner of his eye and shook his head, then pointed at his ear and nodded in the affirmative. He indicated the ceiling-mounted light fixture in the center of the cabin and the cheap brass-plated lamp attached to the desk.
“How long do you think the inspection should take, Assad?” he then asked.
Assad Mohammed had taken a miniature tape recorder from his suit jacket and hit Play. A digitally altered voice, actually that of Hourani himself, since he was the only member of the team who spoke Arabic, replied, “I think no more than a few hours. The most time-consuming part is simply removing inspection covers. Testing the circuits is simple.”
By this time Hourani had also drawn a recorder from an inside jacket pocket and set it on the desk. As soon as Assad finished speaking, he, too, hit the Play button, and the conversation continued as the men remained silent. At a predetermined moment in the script, Walid Khalidi added his own recorder to the ruse. Once the three recorders playing altered versions of Hourani’s voice were working, the trio of “Syrians” moved silently to the far corner of the cabin.
“Only two bugs,” Max Hanley mused quietly. “The Koreans really do trust their Syrian customers.”
Juan Cabrillo, the chairman of the Corporation and the captain of the merchant ship Oregon, tore the fake mustache from his upper lip. The skin beneath was lighter than the layers of self-tanning cream he’d used to darken his complexion. “Remind me to tell Kevin in the Magic Shop that his appliance glue is worthless.” He had a bottle of the suspect glue and reapplied a line to the back of the mustache.
“You looked like Snidely Whiplash trying to keep that thing in place.” This from Hali Kasim, the third-generation Lebanese-American who’d been newly promoted as the Oregon’s Security and Surveillance director. He was the only member of her crew who didn’t need makeup and latex inserts to pass as Middle Eastern. The only problem was he didn’t speak enough Arabic to order a meal in a restaurant.
“Just be thankful the Koreans left their translator at the airport,” Cabrillo said mildly. “You mangled the little soliloquy you’d memorized and delivered during the car ride. Your proposed examination of the missiles sounded more proctologic than scientific.”
“Sorry, boss,” Kasim said, “I never had an ear for languages, and no matter how much I practice, it still sounds like gobbledygook to me.”
“To any Arabic speakers, too,” Juan Cabrillo teased.
“How are we on time?” Max Hanley asked. Hanley was the Corporation’s president and was in charge of all their ship’s operations, especially her gleaming magnetohydrodynamic engines. While Cabrillo negotiated the contracts the Corporation took on and was responsible for a great deal of their planning, it fell on Max’s capable shoulders to make sure the Oregonand her crew were up to the task. While the crew of the Oregonwere technically mercenaries, they maintained a corporate structure for their outfit. Apart from his duties as the ship’s chief engineer, Hanley handled day-to-day administration and acted as the company’s human resources director.
Under his robes and head scarf, Hanley was a little taller than average, with a slight paunch. His eyes were an alert brown, and what little hair remained atop his reddened skull was auburn. He had been with Juan since the day the Corporation was founded, and Cabrillo believed that without his number two, he would have gone out of business years ago.
“We have to assume Tiny Gunderson got the Dassault airborne as soon as he could. He’s probably in Seoul by now,” Chairman Cabrillo said. “Eddie Seng has had two weeks to get into position, so if he’s not alongside this scow in the submersible now, he never will be. He won’t surface until we hit the water, and by then it’ll be too late to abort. Since the Koreans didn’t mention capturing a minisub in the harbor, we can assume he’s ready.”
“So once we plant the device?”
“We have fifteen minutes to rendezvous with Eddie and get clear.”
“This is gonna hurt,” Hali remarked grimly.
Cabrillo’s eyes hardened. “Them more than us.”
This contract, like many the Corporation accepted, had come through back channels from the United States government. While the Corporation was a for-profit enterprise, the men and women who served on the Oregonwere for the most part ex–U.S. military and tended to take jobs that benefited the United States and her allies, or at the very least, didn’t harm American interests.
With no end in sight on the war on terror, there was a never-ending string of contracts for a team like the one Cabrillo had assembled — black ops specialists without the constraint of the Geneva Convention or congressional oversight. That wasn’t to say the crew were a bunch of cutthroat pirates who took no prisoners. They were deeply conscientious about what they did but understood that the lines of conflict had blurred in the twenty-first century.