This seemed to relax Skála a little. “I would very much like to have a beer,” he said.
While Dom went to the kitchen to get Skála a beer from the refrigerator, Jack went into the bedroom and looked at the little spider hole in the back of the closet. It was two feet wide and five feet tall and only a foot and a half deep, smaller than a casket and certainly just as dark.
The North Koreans had this guy spooked enough to virtually bury himself alive in his own home, and this realization chilled Ryan.
Inside the hole Ryan found Skála’s mobile phone and a laptop. There was a battery charger plugged into both devices. Jack took it all out and headed back for the living room. Here he found Dom standing with a beer in his hand. Skála was in the bathroom urinating, but Dom made him leave the door open so he could be sure he wasn’t trying to escape through the little window high in the wall.
When Skála finished in the bathroom, he came out and sat on his couch across from an archway that led to the hallway to the front door. Dom gave him his beer, then sat next to him. Jack sat in the chair on Skála’s left.
Jack asked, “How long have you been in your wall?”
The man looked down at his watch for a second, then he said. “Almost two and a half days. I came out at night for a few minutes to walk around and use the toilet.”
“Who are you hiding from?”
He didn’t answer the question. Instead, he asked, “Who are you?”
“A friend of ours met you at the airport. He wanted us to look you up.”
“What friend?”
“Colin Hazelton?”
Skála didn’t react to the name at all. Jack said, “Big American. Early sixties.”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “So… if you are friends with him — you are working with—”
Dom interrupted. “We told you we’re not with anybody. Somebody killed Hazelton. We think it might have been the North Koreans. We are here to find out why.”
“They killed him,” Skála said softly. He didn’t seem surprised, but the weight of the words affected him. He chugged a third of the bottle of beer. His terror was greater even than his exhaustion, and his hands trembled.
Jack said, “You gave Hazelton some documents.”
Skála nodded. “Yes. Five sets of papers. EU diplomatic passports and Czech travel authorizations.”
“You still have copies of them?”
“No. I deleted everything.” He shrugged. “Of course I did. I didn’t want to get caught with it.”
Jack winced in frustration. “Who were the people?”
“I don’t know. I was given photographs. I made everything else up.”
“Where were they from?”
“I don’t have any idea. I guess they are Americans, because the American was the one who paid me and picked up the documents.”
Jack shrugged. He wasn’t so sure. He asked, “And where were they going?”
Skála cocked his head. “North Korea. Of course. I created paperwork claiming them to be Czech diplomats traveling to the mission in Pyongyang.”
Jack said, “Somebody killed Hazelton in Vietnam and took the documents, but I don’t know who, and I don’t know why. I don’t even know if they made it to North Korea.”
Skála surprised Ryan by saying, “They made it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because the North Koreans themselves came here, last week. They said they needed paperwork to get more people into North Korea. They offered big money. Said over time there would be dozens traveling. I tried to explain to them how dangerous it was for me. I almost got caught with the last batch of five I created. There was no way I would be able to pull off forging that many. But they wouldn’t listen. They got threatening. They were animals. I had no idea anything like this would happen.”
Dom snorted. “So when you agreed to work with the North Koreans you never imagined you might be working with the North Koreans?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes I work for an organization in the U.S. that needs forged EU passports.”
“Sharps Global Intelligence Partners?” Jack asked.
Skála nodded. “Yes. They are the ones who came to me. I thought this would be the same as ever, but the man wanted the North Korean letters as well. I was surprised. I thought it was just for some cover story, I didn’t think they actually would be traveling there. The American paid me twice my normal rate, so I agreed.”
“This was Hazelton?”
“No. Another man. An Englishman. Thirties. Very polite. A pleasure to work with.”
“Then what happened?”
“The day before I had them ready he called me. He’d taken ill, something he ate, he said, so another man from his company would meet me at the airport to collect them. I was told to package them up in a way he could not see the contents. This man was your friend. The big American. He took the documents and left.
“I thought that was the end of it. Then North Koreans from the embassy here came, and they told me if I didn’t agree to work with them they would kill me. I agreed, but said I needed to wait a day before getting access to the passport-printing equipment. I used that day to hide.”
“Why didn’t you run away? Why stay here?”
“I wanted to run. Of course. But I couldn’t think of any place I could go without using friends for help. I was afraid of involving anyone else. They would have learned about the forgery. Anyway, I thought the North Koreans would give up after a day or two.”
“But they didn’t, did they?”
“They came back, two nights ago. I was in my hiding place. I know it was them, I heard their voices. Of course I don’t speak their language, but they sounded like the same men. They were here for a long time, but they didn’t find me.”
Ryan looked around the room. “Wait. They were in your apartment?”
“Yes, all over.”
He and Dom exchanged a look.
Skála saw the look. “What?”
Dom just said, “Shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
Jack stood back up. “They might have left a listening device. Something that would let them know if you came back.” He turned away from Skála and called Biery. “Gav. We still okay out there?”
Biery replied confidently. “Quiet as a tomb.”
“Okay,” Ryan replied. “We’ll be moving in five minutes. Eyes peeled.”
“Roger.”
Seconds later, in the office building on nearby Baranova Street, Gavin Biery launched out of his chair. A knock at the door to the office made him jump up and spin around.
He didn’t answer at first. He sat back down and willed whoever it was to go away, because he had a job to do and didn’t want to let the guys down.
Another knock.
He started to call Jack and Dom back, but he stopped himself. He would just ignore the knocking. He had wanted to be involved in fieldwork, after all; he couldn’t let Dom and Jack know he spooked every time someone rapped on the door.
Another set of knocks came, but he focused his attention through the binoculars at the street below Skála’s apartment to make sure nothing was going on.
He heard the rattling of keys now, and a key sliding into the lock of the door. He figured it was just the superintendent of the building, a woman named Gretta. She’d come by once before, and shaken her keys like that. He leapt to his feet and ran to the door. Even though Jack had placed a rubber door stopper to keep the door closed, Gavin figured if Gretta couldn’t get in she’d immediately start making problems. On his way through the kitchen, though, he picked up a steak knife, just in case, and slid it under the cuff of his shirt.
Just as he did so the door opened and he saw Gretta entering alone. She was an older woman, she’d walked the men through the property when they arrived the day before, and he knew she was no threat. Under her arm he saw a square air filter.