At the top of the stairs, Rhee and his men turned right and walked toward a door flanked by two Triad foot soldiers. Both men — known as 49s in the Triad — were taller and weighed more than Rhee, but that didn’t concern the major.
One of the 49s stepped forward, hand raised. He said in Chinese, “The Mountain Lord doesn’t wish to see anyone.”
Rhee’s jaw tightened. “He will see me,” he replied in the same language.
“No excep—”
Rhee drove a spearhand into the enforcer’s solar plexus, followed by a short, hard uppercut to the 49’s chin, snapping the thug’s head back. As his opponent staggered back, Rhee spun and slammed a sidekick into the man’s chest. The 49 flew back until he hit the door hard.
As the thug slid to the ground, Rhee unholstered his Baek Du San pistol, a North Korean copy of the Czech CZ-75. “I will speak to the Mountain Lord.” His voice was slow and hard as he pointed his pistol at the second guard. He cocked the hammer. “Or I step over your dead body and speak to him anyway. Your choice.”
The door opened, and Cho Lee, the Triad’s White Paper Fan, or senior administrative officer, stood there. He was pale with short hair and glasses, also wearing a business suit. He looked down at the 49 on the ground, then back at Rhee. “Is there a problem here?”
“I want to speak to the Mountain Lord.”
“We’re busy.”
With sudden speed, Rhee stepped forward and slammed his pistol’s butt between the second 49’s eyes, staggering the Triad member. The North Korean’s hand snapped back and forward again, striking the enforcer on the right side of his face with the Baek Du San’s barrel. The Triad thug half-spun into the door frame, breaking his nose, then slumped to the ground in a daze. Rhee’s pistol snapped up to point at Lee. “I want to speak to Hong.” Lee’s expression of annoyance didn’t change, but Rhee could see panic deep in the man’s eyes.
From inside the room, Hong said, “Let him in. The sooner he speaks, the sooner he leaves. But only him. His men remain outside.”
Rhee turned to his men and said in Korean. “Stay here. If I am not out in ten minutes, come in, kill everyone, then execute Plan D.” Muhn and Seonwoo nodded, their eyes as hard as their leader’s. Seonwoo consulted his wristwatch as Rhee walked past Lee and into the room.
The conference room equaled any Fortune Five Hundred company’s board room. Running the entire width of the building, the room featured paneled walls, with a Chinese motif across the chairs, table, paintings and standing screens. The table was long and wide enough for a dozen people, and sat perpendicular to the door. On the opposite wall, double doors, flanked by a window on each side, led to a balcony overlooking the street. The air was heavy with the aromas of food and cigar smoke.
The ten men and two women in the room watched him approach the conference table. Rhee immediately identified three of them as servants from the restaurant. Out of the others, the eight men sitting at the table he also dismissed as not important. Hong, the man he wanted to talk to, occupied at the head of the table to Rhee’s right.
Rhee holstered his pistol. “Gentlemen,” he began in accented English.
“Your rudeness is intolerable!” one of the men snarled. Rhee looked at the man. Kuang Lieh was the oldest person in the room. He was the Triad’s Incense Master, the man responsible for overseeing the group’s traditions. Unlike most of the others present, Lieh didn’t hide his dislike of Rhee.
“We have things to discuss,” Rhee said.
“Can it not wait?” Hong asked. He was trim and lean, a practitioner of the Hung Gar style of Kung Fu. With trimmed iron-gray hair and a round face, Kuan-Tai “William” Hong projected himself as a simple businessman, but Rhee knew that was a facade.
“It cannot.”
Hong looked at the servers. “Get out,” he said harshly in Chinese, “and do not speak of this to anyone. Go!” Once the servers were gone, Hong looked at a heavy-set man sitting to his right. “We need two new guards for the door.” The man stood and went over to a phone hanging on the wall, picked up a receiver and barked several words of Chinese into the handset. Then he hung up and walked back to his chair.
Hong looked at Rhee. “Would you like to have a seat?”
Rhee shook his head. “I will not be here long enough to become comfortable. There is a problem we must discuss.”
“That explosion near the Financial District this morning?” Lieh demanded. “Or the sniper attack on pier about the same time? More policemen died today, and the mayor has already promised to find out who did it!”
“Kuang,” Hong said. “Let the major speak.”
Rhee nodded. “While it is true that there were a couple of incidents today, neither your men nor mine can be tied to either scene.”
“What about the four dead ‘suspected terrorists’?” Lieh demanded.
“More of the same type that died last night. The Americans will look for something that doesn’t exist.” Rhee looked around the table. “One incident eliminated a loose thread that might have caused a problem, while the other was designed to keep the authorities off-balance. However, I will say that the Americans have moved faster than I expected. I believe that the people who rescued the DEA agents last night were a U.S. mercenary assassination team.”
The heavy-set man sitting next to Hong snorted in disdain. “You watch too many Hollywood movies. There is no such thing.”
Rhee shifted his eyes to him. Unlike most of the men in the room, he considered Meng-hau Cheng dangerous. He was the Triad’s senior Red Pole, the chief enforcer for those times when violence was needed. Cheng returned the stare, and unlike Lee earlier, there was no fear in his eyes.
“Then you are a fool. At the pier, my men were chased by men in suits who easily eliminated the four men acting as security for my team. At the hotel, they escaped a trap that should have killed them.”
Lieh scowled. “That is thin evidence.”
“Enough!” Hong’s tone cut through the growing tension in the room. “While I doubt Major Rhee’s claim of a mercenary team is real, it is possible there is a team of agents from Washington, D.C. John Casey is in town, supposedly to discuss anti-terrorist matters with the local leaders.”
Rhee nodded. “In any case, I think it’s time to bring the main lab on-line and discontinue the test lab.”
“Is that wise?” Lee walked over to a chair and sat. “There are still a few things that have to be finished.”
“The test lab is too exposed,” Rhee replied. “I think it should be closed down now.”
“I have a dozen men guarding the lab at any one time,” Cheng countered. “And our friends inside the police department will let us know if there’s a raid coming.”
“Like they warned us about the rescuers last night?” Cheng opened his mouth, then closed it slowly and nodded.
Rhee glanced about the table. “This operation is vital to both you and my country. The main lab is in a safe place, known only to you here in this room and a few of my most trusted personnel. Once the lab begins production, the Americans will be helpless to stop the spread of the drug.”
“You are poking a sleeping dragon with a stick,” Cheng said darkly.
“Which is why I wish to consolidate all project operations at the new lab. With your permission, I will pick up the materials and the chemists from the test lab tonight and take them to the new facility.”
“What about the slaves?”
Rhee waved a hand dismissively. “We have no need of them anymore. The new site has enough slaves, and I do not wish to transport any more to the site.”