“I’ll call you when I’m home.”
Jake hung up, exited the highway, and turned onto Twelve Mile Road in Novi.
“You know I have to go, right?” he asked.
“This is consistent with your danger,” Nick said.
“Can you look after Linda?”
“You mean — what? I didn’t say you were going to die. I mean I sense certain death, but I don’t know that it’s you. It could just be somebody you interact with.”
“I mean stay with her. She gets lonely easily, even with her kids around. She needs someone to just look after her and let her know she’s going to be okay.”
“Sure,” Nick said. “Wait. How long? I have a pretty busy schedule back home.”
“I know. I know I’ve called it hocus pocus, but I’m proud of you for making a business out of your abilities. I’ll cover your loses and whatever you need to throw at your clients to keep them coming back happy.”
“Sure,” Nick said. “I think that’ll work. But how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
Jake stomped through the doorway into his four-bedroom suburban lie. In the entryway, feminine lines drew voluptuous curves under a pink robe, and dark hair touched the woman’s shoulder. She greeted him, but her smile faded.
“Something’s wrong,” she said.
“Linda, you remember Nick, right?”
“Yeah,” Linda said. “Hi. What’s going on?”
“I went to pick up Nick.”
“No kidding,” she said. “I mean you have a look.”
“Later,” Jake said. “Are your kids home?”
“You know where they are. The boys are upstairs. Christina is sleeping over a friend’s house tonight.”
“Call her. Make sure she’s there.”
“Jake?”
“Just do it!”
Linda recoiled, and Jake realized he had yelled. He felt Nick’s hand on his arm reassuring him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But you need to call her.”
“She’s not answering,” Linda said.
“Call the parents where she’s staying.”
“You’re scaring me, Jake.”
“I’ll kill him if he’s bringing your kids into this.”
“Who, Jake?”
“Call.”
Jake watched Linda put the phone to her ear and heard her apologizing for calling late as he brushed by her towards his office. He closed a door behind him. Recalling his security code, he sat and accessed an encrypted web site. His fingers danced on the keyboard.
Rickets’ voice shot from desktop speakers.
“Are you home?”
“Where’s my stepdaughter?”
“You assume I follow you that closely,” Rickets said. “That’s good.”
“Where is she?”
“I know she’s not home with you. Beyond that, I don’t know. Do you need help finding her?”
Phone to her ear, Linda opened the door and mouthed inaudible words about having found her daughter. Jake nodded and ushered her out the door with a stern finger.
“No,” Jake said. “I know where she is. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t bringing my step kids into this.”
“Your cooperation keeps them off the table.”
“Keep it that way.”
“Are you ready?”
“How long do I have?”
“Thirty minutes,” Rickets said. “I recommend you leave sooner. Dragging it out makes it worse.”
Jake ran his hand through his hair and reclined.
“Okay. What’s next?”
“A taxi is watching and will meet you at your mailbox when you stand next to it. Bring an empty duffel bag so any watching neighbors are less suspicious. You’ll have a situation report and tech manuals in the car.”
“So, that’s it, then?”
“That’s it.”
“Is Renard involved?”
“Yes. He’ll brief you.”
Jake found comfort in his friend’s involvement.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Where the hell am I going?”
“You’re going where I know you’ve succeeded before,” Rickets said. “You’re going back to Taiwan.”
CHAPTER 3
“Who is the other?”
Jeongkwan Kim cringed when he realized he had spoken the words aloud. His bunk mate on the Romeo-class submarine rolled to his side, and the room fell silent except for Kim’s heartbeat and the deep breathing of sleep.
He scanned faces of his shipmates in his mind, speculating the identity of the other, his secret accomplice. The question had plagued him since leaving the naval base in Haeju, North Korea days earlier, and it had consumed him in the final hours motionless on his back.
He lowered his sneakers to the deck plates, propped open his bunk, and rummaged for canisters of compressed hydrogen cyanide gas. They weighed heavy against his thighs as he slid them into his overall pockets, but they made no sound as he crept away.
He ducked through a door into the engineering compartment and heard the gentle hum of the propulsion motor. Pushing his hands into his overalls, he turned the corner around an electronic equipment cabinet and spotted a man in a sweaty jumpsuit seated before a control panel.
“What brings you back here, Kim?”
“Looking for Li,” Kim said.
“Why?”
“Can’t sleep,” Kim said. “I’m trying to figure out how to fix that lube oil leak.”
He hoped the man wouldn’t pry further.
“He’s near the shaft bearing looking at it now.”
Kim nodded and darted away. He turned and descended a ladder through a machined lip welded between deck plates. A cubby hole by his ear caught his attention.
He unlatched the cubby door and withdrew an air mask. While plugging the mask’s feeder hose into an emergency air line, he glanced at his watch. He was early.
Considering that the other agent might act ahead of schedule, he pushed the mask against his face. Synthetic rubber pinched his cheeks as he inhaled stale, metallic air from the emergency header.
He heard footsteps on the plates above and pressed his back against a lube oil tank until the sailors departed.
Minutes passed in solitude, and Kim reflected upon the Chinese agents who had approached him with promises and threats. The money would feed his family for years, and his cooperation assured that they would live to spend it.
Hesitating, he doubted his resolve, but the Chinese said that the other agent would strike from the forward compartment while he struck from the aft. The submarine crew was doomed regardless of his compliance, he knew. He swallowed, blinked, and reached for a door latch.
He pulled and heard the grumbling whir of fans. The canister he lifted from his pocket filled his palm, and as his finger curled, the pin yielded slowly. He heard a hiss and saw billowing compressed gas.
He tossed the canister into the fan room and followed it with its twin. He shut the door, backed up against the lube oil tank, and waited.
Minutes passed as he slowed his breathing. He heard a distant thud that he hoped was a collapsing corpse, and the thought relieved and horrified him.
Time slogged forward as Kim prayed that the gas massacred the crew. He pinched the air hose and snapped it free. Holding his breath, he climbed the ladder and sought a new emergency air connection. He reached and pressed the hose into the header and inhaled.
As he caught his breath, he noticed the unmoving form of the last man he had spoken to. He detached his air hose, stepped over the corpse, and plugged in to fresh air.
The body below him revealed pinkish skin from the acute poisoning. Kim balanced his weight above his former colleague and twisted a control knob. The propulsion motor murmured its baritone eulogy and hummed to a halt.
Kim crept forward to a new feeder. He inhaled several breaths before stooping through the door into the main compartment. His heart raced with the anticipation of meeting the other.