OUTCAST Ops: Red Ice

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Norman Kwan unlocked the front door and walked into his home. In the hallway, the grandfather clock rang twice, the bell sounding hollow in the empty house. He closed and locked the door behind him, then tossed the keys into the dish on the side table next to the door and walked into the living room.

He was tired. It had been a long day that had started off hard and gotten progressively worse — meetings about the recent incidents, exhaustive discussions about increasing police funding, and making arrangements to personally attend a couple of the slain police officers funerals. It had been the most sober morning he’d ever had as a supervisor.

Then the mayor’s attempted assassination destroyed the last vestiges of normality. The abrupt entry of several SFPD plainclothes detectives into his office while he was talking to the police chaplain was the first sign that the day had gone very, very wrong. His first thought was that he was finally being arrested for spying, but then the senior detective told him what happened to Nicholle Pagliei and that City Hall was on lockdown. He’d been immediately taken to a safe room, along with other city supervisors and senior administrators. They had sat there for hours, trying to piece together what had happened via TV news reports, social media posts and phone calls to anyone who might know what the hell was going on. By the time six o’clock rolled around, they were certain only of the most basic facts.

Kwan had demanded to go to Saint Francis Hospital in order to visit the mayor. The detective in charge had demurred, but Kwan, already drained and stressed out, angrily put his foot down. Seeing no way out, the detective backed down, and they had ridden to Saint Francis in a convoy of half a dozen cars and two dozen armed police officers. The ride had been long enough for Kwan to regain control over his temper, and once they arrived at the hospital, he had apologized to the detective for his earlier outburst over demanding to see the mayor.

The time at the hospital was filled with dread. Kwan had known Mayor Pagliei for fifteen years, and while her personality made it hard to like her, he respected her for her convictions. But seeing her in the bed, surrounded by monitors and IV bags, it was hard to reconcile that with the image of a tart-tongued politician who had been a force in the city for nearly two decades. After three hours, he was told to go home. Home he went to an empty house, with a police presence out front. The morning was going to be a mess — his mess. As President of the Board of Supervisors, he was now the acting mayor.

“Congratulations, Mayor.”

Kwan spun around, at first wondering who would be stupid enough to offer congratulations under such circumstances, but then he realized the words were Korean. Once he framed the speaker in that light, he recognized the voice instantly. Rhee stood there, a thin smile on his face.

“How did you get in here? Police are all over the neighborhood.”

Rhee snorted. “It wasn’t hard. I am trained. They are not.” His smile turned colder. “I didn’t even have to kill anyone.”

“What the hell did you do? The city’s in an uproar. I spent thirty minutes on the phone with the President of the United States trying very hard not to give in to his request and declare a state of emergency. What are you trying to do?”

“It was decided by the Marshal himself that it was time to increase your worth to Pyongyang.”

Kwan felt the fear form in his stomach like a mini-iceberg. The Marshal — Kim Jong-un — was seen by most North Koreans as the closest thing to a living god. But Rhee had come to realize that the current ruler was no different from his father or grandfather — brutal men who ruled with an iron fist and punished entire families if one person stepped out of line. “By trying to kill the mayor? Are you thinking at all?”

Rhee’s smile disappeared. “Are you questioning direct orders from the Marshal?”

“I am asking for an explanation. The federal government wants me to declare a state of emergency so they can come down on you and the triads!”

“The Triads are my concern, not yours. The mayor’s removal was for your benefit. It was decided that some time as mayor would look good when you run for the Senate.”

Kwan felt his knees go weak. He took a couple of steps back before he found a chair and sat in it. “That is the height of insanity! The feds will investigate everything! If they uncover any link between me and the Triads—”

Rhee smiled again. “Which doesn’t exist. There is no one who can place you or any Triad leader in the same place at the same time. You can honestly say you have never met any of them. You are safe.”

Kwan realized he was right, but he crushed the relief he felt. “What about the feds? If they do catch you, they’ll find out about me.”

“They will not catch me.”

“Why are you even here? To congratulate me in person?”

“I had hoped the mayor would die in the assassination attempt, but she is still alive.”

Kwan made a spitting sound. “If you can call being in a coma alive. Her spine’s shattered in three places. Her liver, stomach and large intestine are damaged and one lung has collapsed. It will be a minor miracle if she lives out the week, and she’ll never recover enough to hold political office again.”

Rhee held Kwan’s gaze. “Nevertheless, she needs to die.”

“Why are you—” Kwan stopped in mid-sentence as the realization dawned on him. “You want me to do it.”

Rhee smiled again. “Call it a loyalty test. You have been too long outside the borders of the fatherland, comrade. You might have forgotten who the real enemy is. It’s time to remind you.”

Kwan’s hands became fists, though he kept them by his side. “How am I supposed to kill her? She’s heavily guarded! How will I ever run for Senate if I’m in prison?”

“I doubt you’d be the first. But seriously…” Rhee chuckled at his own joke while he reached into a coat pocket and withdrew a small case. “With this. It contains a syringe with a fast-acting poison that the best scientists in the Democratic People’s Republic assure me will look like simple heart failure. Eject the contents into one of the IV bags. It’s colorless, tasteless and impossible to detect.”

He held it out. “Consider this as an opportunity to increase your standing in the world.”

Thoughts and emotions clashed in Kwan’s mind. The thought of taking the case and flushing the contents down the toilet in front of Rhee was on the heels of the overwhelming urge to either shout for help or punch the smug bastard. But the cold harsh reality was that Rhee had him over a barrel and they both knew it.

As if Rhee was reading his mind, the major said, “Remember your family here and back home. I don’t need to harm you to hurt you.” He raised the case so that it was in front of Kwan’s face. “Your choice.”

Kwan snatched the case of out Rhee’s hand. “Some choice.”

“Excellent. You have forty-eight hours. Remember your brother, his wife, your niece and nephews. Are they worth less than one person who is nearly dead anyway?” The major tilted his head. “Or maybe your own wife and children are more of an immediate concern.”

Kwan felt his stomach flip-flop. For a brief moment, Kwan considered attacking Rhee. If he could catch the man by surprise, he might be able to injure him, or maybe even kill him. But the idea died as fast as he thought of it. Rhee was a soldier, a highly trained killer, while Kwan was a spy — one who stayed in shape, but twenty years older than Rhee, with little fighting skill and no experience in combat. Rhee would kill him, kill his family, and then put his brother and his family into a prison camp.

“I have no choice, do I?” Kwan held the case in his hand. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to get over to the hospital again. I have a city to run.”

“It won’t take but a few minutes to administer. But she will die in the next forty-eight hours, either naturally or by your hand.”

“Fine,” Kwan snarled. Get the hell out of my house and never come back.”

Rhee’s smile was icy as he walked out of the room. Five minutes later, Kwan searched the house and found no sign that Rhee had ever been there.

Kwan sat in his home office long after Rhee left.

He kept the room’s main lights off, preferring the small desk lamp. An open bottle of scotch sat on the desktop, along with a half-filled glass. The office, like the house, was quiet and dark.

He was living a lie. It was clear the despot that ruled his homeland was living in a fantasy, too, except that people were dying for the Young Leader’s delusions, just as they had with his father and grandfather. Kwan had read everything he could to find out what he could about the American view of North Korea. He learned the Americans regarded Kims as dangerous wackos, kids with a penchant for western pop culture playing with lethal weapons, but otherwise nothing more than a minor irritation when compared to China, Russia, and the Islamic religious fanatics. To most, North Korea and the Kims were a joke, something to be made fun of.

But Kwan knew the family was not a joke. They ruled with iron fists, and there were men like Rhee who would follow their orders without hesitation, who would kill people without a second thought.

Now he was caught up in his homeland’s insane plans. He wasn’t sure why Rhee had allied himself with the Triads, but he knew it wasn’t good. But what could he do? To refuse Rhee would mean his death and that of his wife and children, as well as the imprisonment of his brother. He was trapped. He could see no way out.