Ghost Ship

TWENTY-EIGHT

With a plan that went no further than getting themselves to Korea, Kurt and Joe had packed quickly. Their host, Mohammed El Din, gave them a lift to the airport in his armored limousine, bidding them farewell in the traditional Arab style: with a hug and a kiss on each cheek and parting gifts.

To Joe he gave a small hourglass.

“The hourglass is to help you learn patience,” El Din said. “It didn’t seem to help you,” Joe noted.

“Why do you think I’m getting rid of it?”

Joe laughed, and El Din’s beaming smile came out again. El Din turned to Kurt next and handed him a small case.

Opening it, Kurt found an antique revolver, known as a Colt Single Action Army. It was in excellent condition, chambered for Colt’s .45 caliber rounds, six of which were lined up in a neat row beneath the barrel. It was the type of weapon a gunfighter might carry — in fact, the Single Action Army was often called the Gun that Won the West. It was the standard U.S. sidearm from 1873 until 1892.

“Dirk told me you collect dueling pistols,” El Din explained.

“This is not exactly of that era, but I thought you would like it. It was given to my great-great-grandfather by an American who helped my family escape from Barbary pirates.”

“I can’t accept this,” Kurt said. “I should be giving you a gift.”

“You must take it,” El Din said, “or I shall be offended.”

Kurt nodded and offered a slight bow of thanks. “It’s a beautiful weapon. Thank you.”

A smile crinkled El Din’s weathered face. “May peace be upon you,” he said.

“As-salamualaykum,” Kurt replied.

With El Din’s influence, Kurt and Joe bypassed security and boarded their plane.

The Korean Air A380 double-decker was spacious, which would serve them well on a flight that would span nine hours gate to gate.

It was a long trip, and by the time they reached Seoul, the whole world had changed. The blinding sunlight and heat of Dubai were gone, replaced by a cold, misty rain. The nature of their mission evolved as well, though for the minute neither Kurt nor Joe were told how or why. But instead of a rent-a-car and the next step in their privateer’s underfunded journey, they were met at the airport by three men in dark suits and mackintosh overcoats.

State Department IDs were flashed. “Come with us,” the leader of the group said.

With little choice in the matter, Kurt and Joe collected their luggage and climbed into the back of a van with diplomatic plates. It took them north.

As the lights of Seoul receded, Joe pointed out the obvious. “If we’re going to the consulate, we must be taking the scenic route.”

“We’re not going to the consulate,” Kurt replied. He knew who the men were. He recognized their style and their tightlipped expressions. T hey were employees of t he company. “ We’ve been shanghaied,” he said, “and we’re not even in China.”

The van continued north for another fifteen minutes until they were nearing the Demilitarized Zone. With the razor-wire fences and guard posts visible in the distance, the van turned east and drove through an unpopulated area filled with trees, huge satellite-tracking arrays, and towers bristling with strangelooking antennas. There were no buildings to be seen.

Eventually the road began to drop. Smooth concrete walls rose up on either side until the van was traveling in a channel twenty feet deep. It cruised beneath an overhang, and the channel became a tunnel lit with orange lights.

Somewhere deep beneath the rolling hills of central Korea, the underground road curved tightly and came to an end. A huge steel door opened and let them into a parking area. They were escorted from the van and led to a command center.

Inside, two men were talking. Both looked rather haggard but in different ways. The first was a Korean colonel in military dress, the second figure was an American. He reminded Kurt of a businessman staying late at the office to finish a big project. He wore a white dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a loosened red tie. His jacket rested on the back of the chair next to him.

“I suppose you two are wondering why you’re here and not at the Ritz-Carlton,” he said.

“Actually, we booked the Hilton,” Kurt replied, “though it didn’t quite look like this on the brochure.”

A weary grin came across the table. “My name is Tim Hale,” the American replied. “I’m the CIA station chief for the DMZ. This is Colonel Hyun-Min Lee, deputy director of security for the South Korean National Intelligence Service.”

All four men shook hands and sat down.

“We know who you’re looking for,” Hale explained. “We know why. And we want to help.”

“Why?” Kurt asked. “What’s changed?”

“Your friends at NUMA dove on the wreck of the Ethernet,” Hale said.

“And?”

“No sign of Sienna Westgate or her children.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Kurt said, “considering the shape of the wreck. When a vessel breaks up on the way down—”

“That’s the interesting part,” Hale said, cutting Kurt off. “The Ethernet is sitting on the bottom in one solid piece.”

Kurt narrowed his gaze. He suddenly felt confused. He’d seen the sonar scan. The ship had come apart.

Hale explained what they’d learned. “The report you saw was doctored. Someone tapped into the South African Coast Guard database and changed it. The SACG sent you what they thought was a legitimate file, but you saw what someone wanted you to see.”

“Why?”

“So you wouldn’t dive the ship and find what your friends found,” Hale said. He went on to explain that three bodies were recovered from the ship: two members of Westgate’s crew and his personal bodyguard.

He also told Kurt what had happened to the Condor and the submersibles. “To hack both of those systems and gain such control is quite a feat,” he said. “Especially considering NUMA has stringent safeguards in place.”

“Obviously, not enough,” Kurt said.

“We’re not sure what is, these days,” Hale replied.

“Which leads us to your main suspect,” Col. Lee said. “Mr. Than Rang, head of the DaeShan Group, and a man with many sinister connections to generals in North Korea.”

Kurt sat dumbfounded. “Are you trying to tell me Than Rang is a North Korean sleeper agent?”

“No,” Lee said, “the other way around. Than Rang is interested in the inevitable day when North and South finally embrace in reunification. His corporation has spent years buying up ancient deeds to land in the North. The deeds are worthless of course, but if unification ever comes about, he will have some amount of standing to claim nearly one-third of the land in North Korea. To bolster his claims, he’s spent years currying favor with the generals and others who float just below the level of the Glorious Leader, Kim Jong-un. If change ever comes, these friends of his will be the first to benefit, just as the ardent defenders of communism in the old Soviet Union awarded themselves the vast majority of state-run industries as soon as the country turned to capitalism.”

“What does he give them?” Joe asked.

“Cold hard cash, high-tech machinery, and advanced software,” Lee said.

“And possibly well-known programmers and hackers,” Hale added.

“In exchange for nearly worthless land?” Kurt asked.

“Much of it lies above proven reserves of minerals,” Col. Lee said. “And Than Rang has already shown a knack for taking played-out mines and increasing their production, in many cases to record levels. He would no doubt be very successful if his scheme ever came to pass.”

Joe held his phone up, bringing it close to his mouth like a pocket recorder. “Note to self: Invest retirement nest egg in DaeShan Group.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Hale said. “We don’t see anything happening for a long, long time.”

Joe brought the phone back up. “Cancel note to self.”

Kurt laughed. “I get it. You want us to do some dirty work. The question is, can you get me into North Korea?”

“No,” Hale said. “You wouldn’t last five minutes there if we could.”

“Then what?”

“Than Rang is having an elegant reception for his business partners,” Col. Lee explained. “There will be wine, women, and song, as you Americans like to say. Most important, there will be a guest arriving and delivering a very important package. I believe you know the man. Fortunately, he doesn’t know you. At least not by sight.”

“Acosta,” Kurt said with disgust.

“He’s bringing the other hackers,” Joe guessed.

“Exactly,” Hale said. “He will exchange them for a large sum of diamonds and a painting by one of the masters.”

Kurt’s mind was running now. “For such an exchange to happen, both items would need to be verified.”

Hale said, “Acosta isn’t interested in getting a fake, and Than Rang isn’t interested in delivering a couple of dupes to his friends in the North. They’ll both need experts to make sure the goods are bona fide. Than Rang will use several techs from his company to give the prospective hackers a final exam of sorts. Most likely, they’ll be given a complex code and asked to break it, and then perhaps a secondary task of inserting a program through a sophisticated firewall. In the meantime, Acosta will be examining the painting and that’s where we get our chance. You see, Acosta holds himself out as a big-time collector, but he knows less about art than he pretends. Far less. To make sure he’s not swindled, he’s arranged for a legitimate expert named Solano to go with him. For a healthy fee, Solano will verify what is no doubt a stolen work of art to begin with. It’s all a very sordid business.”

“What do you want us to do?” Kurt asked.

“Mr. Zavala here will pose as our friend Solano, who hails from Madrid. They’re the same build, almost the same height. With a little makeup and subtle lifts in his shoes, Joe will be the spitting image of the wayward art expert.”

“What if Acosta figures it out?”

“He won’t,” Hale insisted. “He’s never met Solano. Only talked to him on the phone. And they’re arriving separately. Solano comes in tomorrow, Acosta will be here the day after.”

Fortunate timing, Kurt thought. But there were problems. “What about his voice? If they’ve talked, Joe will have to sound like Solano.”

“According to his file, Joe speaks fluent Spanish.”

Joe nodded.

“The only concern is that this is Catalan Spanish,” Hale said. “But we’re going to take Solano out of circulation before he makes it to his hotel, get him to talk, and allow Joe to practice his voice.”

Kurt didn’t like his friend taking the risk, but he knew they weren’t likely to get another chance at this.

“Should be a piece of cake,” Joe said.

“I’m going in with him,” Kurt insisted.

“Of course you are,” Hale said. “Because your job is to place a transmitter on one of the hackers while Joe keeps Acosta and the others busy.”

Kurt nodded. That sounded fair, but then what? “I think we can all picture the outcome if we fail. But what happens if we succeed? You can’t get them out of the North any more than we can.”

“The thing is,” Hale said, “we’re not sure where they are. Any of them. North Korea has a cyberforce known as Unit 121. We’ve confirmed that some of them operate in China, others have been tracked to sites in Russia, and some to sites right here in Seoul. You don’t have to be at home to attack a country these days. You can launch your strike from anywhere you find a computer terminal and an Internet connection. If they like, these people can wage war in their pajamas.”

Kurt understood, but something was missing. He studied Hale. Both he and Col. Lee were rather inscrutable. Maybe it was the nature of their occupations or the hangdog expressions that told him they’d been working the angles long and hard on this one. Either way, something didn’t quite fit. Kurt couldn’t begin to guess what it was, but he had a feeling he’d find out at the worst possible time.