And he didn’t know if he was strong enough to resist that.
He feared he would give in, develop the weapon, then they would kill him and his family regardless once his purpose had been served.
He couldn’t risk it, nor would he. The decision had been made, and he had a plan. He wasn’t going to tell Maggie. He had convinced them at the ICC as they called it, that he was in so much pain the past few days that he needed strong pain killers in order to work, and sleeping pills in order to rest. He had enough given to him that he was convinced he’d be able to add it to the kids food, and Maggie’s, so that they’d go into a deep sleep soon after supper.
Then he’d suffocate them with their pillows, and slice his own wrists open.
They wouldn’t suffer. Maggie would never know it was her own husband that had killed her, and the children would never know it was their own father. They would go to a Heaven he prayed was real, and he would burn in Hell for what he had done, but it was a trade-off he was willing to make.
He would not be the harbinger of mankind’s doom.
Stepping up on the porch, he took a deep breath, then put on the best smile he could manage, and opened the door to greet his family, one final time.
Peterson “Residence”, Outside the International Cooperation Center, North Korea
Kane gently placed his backpack beside the steps leading up to the back door of the Peterson rancher. He pulled out the tablet computer, then peered inside.
It was dark.
Which wasn’t exactly what he had expected. Some life, voices, at least the adults. He had intentionally waited until after 9pm, since he figured the smallest, Darius, would be asleep by then. He would be the most likely to break silence and reveal his presence.
But there was nothing.
He pulled open the screen door, then pushed open the inner door. No locks. Which was expected, any locks here would be on the outside. He stepped inside, gently closing the screen door, then the inner door, and tiptoed through the kitchen. He could see a dim light down the hall, and made his way toward it.
Double-checking his tablet screen, he put his hand on the knob, and silently turned it. He felt the mechanism halt, and he pushed the door open gently, then let go, using his knee to push it open the rest of the way, one hand holding the tablet screen out in front of him, the other with a finger to his mouth, indicating silence.
What he saw shocked him. His jaw dropped, and his initial instinct was to yell out, to scream, “Stop!”, but he couldn’t. The house he assumed was bugged would be swarming with North Koreans within seconds. Instead he pushed the door shut with his foot, the click causing the man, who he recognized as Jason Peterson, to spin around, the pillow he was using to suffocate his son forgotten.
Peterson’s jaw dropped and he was about to say something when Kane held up his finger, then pointed at the screen.
He read it and fainted on top of his son.
Just perfect.
Peterson “Residence”, Outside the International Cooperation Center, North Korea
Jason awoke, groggy, then began to panic, his heart hammering, his pulse surging, as he felt a hand over his mouth. He opened his eyes, beginning to struggle, when everything began to flash back. He was smothering his beloved son when a man entered the room holding up a computer.
An American!
Jason stopped struggling, looking at the man who had his hand over his mouth, and nodded. The hand was removed, then Jason’s heart leapt again and he turned to his son to find the pillow under his head, and his little chest rising and falling, just as it should.
Thank God!
He turned back to the American, dressed head to toe in black, and saw he was pointing at the screen with the same message as before.
I AM AMERICAN. DON’T SAY ANYTHING. THEY ARE LISTENING.
The man’s eyebrows were up, as if questioning him, his free hand giving a thumbs up.
Jason nodded, returning the thumbs up, and the man smiled. He swiped his finger across the pad, showing a different page.
I AM HERE TO RESCUE YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.
Jason breathed a sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping as the pressures of the past week began to lift. Tears filled his eyes as he gave the thumbs up.
Another swipe, and another message.
STAY COMPLETELY SILENT UNTIL I TELL YOU.
Thumbs up.
The man pulled a device from his pocket, and began to scan the room, stopping at the lamp beside Darius’ bedside. He pointed at the bottom of the lamp, then put his finger to his mouth. Another device was retrieved from his pocket, very small, perhaps the size of his thumb. He placed it beside the lamp, then pressed a small button on it, waiting for what seemed to Jason an eternity, but was actually more like two or three minutes. The man looked at the device, then smiled, giving a thumbs up.
Jason returned the smile, confused, as the man swept the rest of the room for what Jason assumed were bugs, finding none. The man then went to the far side of the room, away from the device sitting on Darius’ nightstand, and sat down on the floor, beckoning Jason to join him.
He did, his aching body protesting. The man turned to face him, cross legged, and pointed at the device.
“It’s replaying the sounds from the room it recorded, and blocking any new sounds from reaching the bug by hijacking the frequency. But keep your voice low; there’re other bugs in the house that will pick up our conversation if we speak too loud. Understand?”
The man’s voice was barely a whisper. Jason nodded, not trusting his own voice.
“My name is John. No, not my real name”—he flashed a grin—“but you should be able to call me something. I’ve been sent to get you and the others out.”
Jason’s eyes again began to fill with tears, and he dropped his chin against his chest, closing his eyes. It was everything he could do not to break out into uncontrollable sobs. All around him, throughout the house, his family was passed out, waiting to die by his hand, as he had lost all hope, and here, by the grace of God, sat an angel of deliverance, sent just in time. Any later, and Darius would have been dead, and Jason wouldn’t have wanted to be rescued.
Now they just might survive this ordeal.
And he would have to live with the guilt of what he was in the process of doing.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, gently squeezing. He looked up, forced a smile, then wiped his eyes clear.
“I had lost hope.”
The man nodded, glancing over at Darius’ bed.
“I gathered that.”
Jason felt himself begin to lose it, and he bit down on his finger, hard, the pain keeping him from tipping over the edge.
The hand patted him twice on the shoulder.
“Listen, I need you to keep it together for me. Can you do that?”
Jason nodded, wiping his eyes clear again and taking a deep breath.
“Okay, I know where your house is obviously, and I know where Carl Shephard and his family are. I’ll be seeing them next.” John paused then motioned toward Darius. “You didn’t plan this together, did you?”
Jason shook his head.
“Good. Now, what I don’t know is where the third guy is, Phil Hopkins. Do you know what house they’re keeping him in?”
“Probably the nicest one on the street.”
The bitterness was not lost on the man.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s the guy who got us into this. He’s the one who had us and our families kidnapped. He’s the one—”
John held up his finger, cutting him off, Jason suddenly realizing his voice was rising. He took a deep breath and nodded.
“So this was his idea, and you guys never had any part in it.”
“No, none.”
“And has he expressed any regrets? Reservations?”
Jason shook his head. “No, he’s still cooperating fully. The idiot thinks they’re going to give us each ten million dollars and let us walk at the end.”
&
nbsp; “Not likely.”
Jason felt a slight vindication at the words. Not likely. If this man, obviously an expert, didn’t think the North Koreans were going to keep their word, then he was justified in doing what he had attempted to do only minutes before. He felt his chest tighten again at the thought.
“What about Carl Shephard?”
“I think he’s even more pissed off about the situation than I am.”
John nodded, looking at Darius.
“Are they all like that?”
Jason flushed, his head dropping. “Yes.”
He felt a hand on his shoulder again, the touch of a fellow human being, on his side, who had the power to help, providing an incredible amount of comfort. “Don’t feel guilty. You were doing the only thing you could think of to do. They would have tortured and killed them, slowly, even if you killed yourself. This is a brutal regime. They don’t think of their enemy as human.” He paused. “What did you give them?”
“Some pain killers and sleeping pills. I convinced my handler I needed them because of the beating I took.”
John examined Jason’s face for a moment. “How many pills?”
“Half a dozen of each I guess. I ground it up and put it in the mashed potatoes and made sure everyone ate them. I said I had eaten at work.”
“Okay, they should be safe then. They’ll be out ’til morning most likely so I can’t extract you tonight. We need to reach the coast, and there’s no way we can do that carrying everybody.”
Jason’s eyes narrowed. “The coast? Wouldn’t we go south, to South Korea?”
John shook his head. “To the most heavily guarded border in the world? No, I don’t think so. We’ll head west of here to the coast, and try to get into China.”
China! Jason almost blurted it out, but bit his tongue. His expression apparently made his feelings obvious to his rescuer.
“Yes, China. Our intel suggests they had nothing to do with this, and we’ve arranged a route out for you. And besides, trust me when I tell you you’d rather be in their hands, than the North Koreans, especially since we’d be able to confront them diplomatically on your behalf. The Koreans just don’t give a shit about anything.”
“How will you get us out?”
“You’re going to sleep as soon as I leave. I’m going to set up more of those devices in your house. You won’t see them, nor will they. Tomorrow I will come at ten p.m. local, when the sun is down, and collect you. You and your family will be sitting outside, on the back step, without talking. You can have one small bag, filled with water and food. We have six miles to get to the coast, and none of it will be on the road. Put the most comfortable shoes on you can. But be ready to go. I will get the Shephards first, since their son is older and I can be assured he’ll be quiet.”
“What about Phil?”
“If I can find his house between now and tomorrow night, I will be terminating him.”
Jason felt bile form in his mouth and felt himself begin to fade. The casualness of the statement was horrific. No matter what Phil had done, he was still a friend. Or was he? He was still something. Someone he knew, someone he had cared about just last week.
“Is that necessary?”
“Can he complete the research on his own?”
Jason shrugged his shoulders. “I doubt it, but it’s possible. They brought the entire damned lab here. Everything including the contents of the drawers.”
“Which I assume is where you found your satphone?”
Jason nodded. “Is that why you’re here?”
John smiled. “Very smart. And I assume that’s why you were beaten?”
Jason managed a slight, painful smile. “Apparently it was worth it.”
“Now you said they’ve got the lab. Is it set up?”
“Yes, they just put the EMP in today.”
“EMP?” John seemed excited by this. “Can you activate it?”
“Yes, but they’d know. It’s not exactly quiet. And Phil would see me doing it as well. We’re never alone.”
John rubbed his chin.
“The EMP would wipe out all of the computer research. Is there any paper?”
Jason shook his head. “No, everything is kept on computer. If there’s paper, it’s scanned and stored electronically. Notes are shredded. At least that’s how we ran things back home. So there’s nothing here except electronic records.”
“Backups?”
“I don’t see how they would have had time. And from what I’ve seen at the lab, there’s no external linkages from a data perspective to the outside. I think we’re wholly self-contained.”
“Prototypes?”
“They’re there, but would be destroyed by the EMP.”
“We need to activate that EMP somehow.”
“I could program it to go off.”
“Huh?”
“It’s linked into the lab computers. I could write a program that would activate it, say at midnight tomorrow. Our lab would be empty, the buildup is only a couple of minutes, and it’s only the last minute or so that you can really hear the thing, and there’d be no time to stop it once started, without knowing what you’re doing. And judging from the techs who installed it today, I’d say Carl, Phil and I are the only ones who know how to handle it.”
“Do it. I’m going to talk to Carl in a few minutes. I’ll let him know what’s going on so he can help you tomorrow without you having to talk about it. Don’t say anything to your family about this until ten minutes to ten.” He fished something out of his pocket and handed it to Jason. It appeared to be a small wrapped chocolate candy. “What time do you put your son down for bed?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“Perfect.” John fished a device that resembled a remote control from his pocket. And for the next ten minutes, John explained the plan to Jason, who desperately tried to remember all the steps.
“Got it?”
Jason couldn’t honestly say he did. “I hope so.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll do fine.”
John stood and helped Jason to his feet.
“Promise me one thing.”
John looked at him. “What?”
“If this doesn’t work, we don’t come back here.”
John’s jaw squared, a look of respect written on his face as he looked directly in Jason’s eyes.
“You have my word.”
And the fact that Jason didn’t doubt it, made the pit in his stomach all the more hollow.
Peterson “Residence”, Outside the International Cooperation Center, North Korea
Jason awoke to a hand gently shaking his shoulder. He opened his eyes, but it was still too dark to make out anybody. His heart was momentarily in a panic, but he quickly remembered the plan.
Part one, the wake-up call.
The remote control was handed to him, and as his eyes adjusted, he could see the outline of John giving him a thumbs up. He returned it, and the shadow disappeared.
Jason made himself comfortable for the next hour, simply sitting up in bed, waiting for the red LED lights on the alarm clock to read 5:45, fifteen minutes before the house would begin to stir. He stared at the numbers, ticking past five am, far too slowly.
His eyes drooped.
He woke with a start, his heart slamming against his chest in panic. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the clock. 5:48. Oh no! He searched for the remote, but couldn’t find it. Feeling around, he found it at his side, on the bed. Grabbing it, he looked at the display, then pressed the number one. The light went out. He then pressed each of the eight lit numbers until the display was dark. He then placed it in the nightstand, and lay back down.
His heart continued to race until the alarm screamed, announcing six am. He pretended to wake with his wife, giving her his usual kiss, then headed into the bathroom. He looked around as he went through his morning routine, trying to find the device planted in this room, but couldn’t find it. After John had made his promise last night, he had gone through the h
ouse, searching for all the bugs, and planting the recorders, while Jason lay in bed, trying to fall asleep. He had thought he wouldn’t have much success, but he had, not waking until John had woken him to hand him the control.
And he assumed the same thing had happened at Carl Shephard’s “home” later.
Dressed, he found his wife and kids at the table, looking a little groggier than usual. He gave them all hugs and kisses, a little more intense than usual, the guilt he felt over what had almost happened last night still consuming him. But the hope he now felt, the first since their capture, fueled his aching body, and he attacked his breakfast, knowing he’d need all the energy he could muster for the day’s, and night’s, events.
He shoveled the eggs onto his toast with the fork, then into his mouth. Maggie sat down, dipping her toast into the soft egg yolk.
“Sorry I fell asleep on you.”
Jason’s chest tightened as he tried desperately to think of a way to change the subject.
“Don’t worry about it, I was dead tired too.” He pointed his toast at the eggs. “Do these eggs taste different to you? Fresher?”
Maggie shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe. Probably from a nearby farm?”
Jason shoveled the rest of his food into his mouth in record time, then jumped up. “That was great, Dear, thanks.” He placed a kiss on Maggie’s forehead, then headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He successfully killed the rest of his time until he heard the crisp knock on the front door.
This is it!
He checked himself in the mirror, then headed for the door, kissing the kids and Maggie, and joining his handler in the idling car waiting to take him to work. He waved at the sad faces standing in the doorway, his own smile, forced the previous days, genuine.
And you’d better knock it off.
He wiped the smile off his face, hoping Kimmy hadn’t noticed. That’s the name he’d given his handler. If the man wouldn’t give him a name, he’d make one up. And since they all worshiped their great leaders Kim Jong-il and Kim Il-Sung, Kimmy seemed appropriate.
A term of respect it was not.
They drove to the International Cooperation Center in silence, Jason staring out the window, looking at his surroundings with renewed interest, now that he would be soon leaving them. They pulled up to the front of the building, and he climbed out, a blue jumpsuit holding open the door, nodding to him with crisp military respect.