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The Armageddon Machine-North Korea just stole China’s superweapon… After an attack on a military base in China a frightening secret weapon is stolen by a radical group of North Korean terrorists. Their goal? A unified Korea under their own rule. They ar

North Korea just stole China’s superweapon… After an attack on a military base in China a frightening secret weapon is stolen by a radical group of North Korean terrorists. Their goal? A unified Korea under their own rule. They are willing to do anything to achieve this goal, and now they have in their possession a terrifying weapon like no other. It will be up to intelligence services around the world, including the top secret NTRA, to find the weapon known as Dragon's Breath, and take down a group of extremists who are willing to go to length to get what they want, even if they must use the Armageddon Machine. BuzzNet Tags: terrorism,terrorist,doomsday,invasion,korea,north korea,radiation,national security,wmd,secret agent,terrorist attack,secret weapon,weapons of mass destruction,free spy thriller novella 1st Pages June 17, 2014 Series CA-13 BCRS ratings? Xining Military Complex, Qinghai province, People's Republic of China He turned to go back inside, but stopped when movement caught his eye. He turned back and scanned the powdered white surface of the ground, perfectly smooth except for a few well-beaten tracks leading to and away from the main building. He couldn’t see anybody. He took a few steps forward and strained to make out the fence line fifty yards away. He could just make out the chain-link fence by the reflection of the security lights glinting off of it. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. He held the rifle down in a low-ready position. His boots crunched in the snow with each step he took. He stopped and listened. All he heard was the howl of the wind, and the far off sound of city traffic. Then there was the crunch of snow off to his left. The guard swung around and lifted the rifle to a high-ready position. He could just make out the silhouette of a man about forty feet away, hidden mostly in shadow. “I am unarmed,” the man called back. “Step forward slowly!” the guard commanded. “Come into the light.” “Do not shoot,” the man said. “I am unarmed.” The guard never felt the shot that ended his life, the bullet entering his skull from behind and then fragmenting, each fragment digging a different path through his brain matter. He fell to the ground and lay there with a pool of blood expanding around his head, creating a halo of blood in the snow. “Thank you, Cobra,” the shooter said. “Let’s go.” Captain Lin was in the Black Room--ominously (and appropriately, he felt) named to reflect what the room contained. In the late hours of the night, and early hours of the morning, when all was quiet and still, he often liked to come into this room, something that few people on the base had the clearance to do. Whenever he came he would stand tall, with his hands clasped behind his back. That’s exactly how he was standing just then, looking at the device that sat in the Inner Room--a small room formed by four Plexiglas walls and a Plexiglas ceiling. The device--which was about the size of an old VCR-- and the metal table it sat upon were the only objects inside the Inner Room. Even Captain Lin did not have the clearance to enter that room. The knock came again, louder and more insistent this time. Captain Lin sighed--why was he cursed to be in command of such useless incompetents? An emergency. To his men, a backed up toilet was an emergency. “Please hurry, Captain.” He was looking at a group of men in white camouflage that stood facing him, each with a weapon in hand. “Is this it?” he asked. “Just this?” “Get this door open,” he commanded, gesturing toward the door to the Inner Room. “We were not able to get the codes,” Viper said. “No matter; this will be easy enough.” The three men left the room, leaving the door standing open. They turned a corner and walked partway down the hall. The man with the bag took out a small black device with two buttons on it. He pressed one button and a little green light on the side of the device lit up. He looked to Viper, who nodded. The man pressed the second button and there was a loud concussion from within the Black Room. Viper and Cobra rushed around the corner. Captain Lin’s body was still lying on the ground near the entrance to the Black Room, and his uniform had caught fire. They walked around the smoking body and entered the Black Room; two men followed. The group of men hustled through the halls and corridors, passing several dead soldiers along the way. They left the way they had come in, through the door that the guard had propped open. The other group of men--the group they had split from when they first entered the building--were already waiting for them outside. “Good.” May 26 -- 14:25 UTC/7:25 am local time David walked to the banks of the river and hunkered down, squatting on his hams and reaching down into the water, scooping up a double handful and splashing it on his face. It was pleasantly cool, and it sent a brief, pleasant shiver down his spine. He dipped one hand back into the water and felt the movement of the water, his hand creating little eddies on the surface, as he listened to the familiar sounds of the living woods. His body tensed, and he withdrew his hand from the water as he realized that there was another sound on top of the familiar sounds, a sound that was out of place. He turned to the right and scanned the tree line; something or someone was approaching. Then he heard something that chilled his blood--the unmistakable sound of a pistol slide being cocked back. The sounds drew closer. He chanced a quick peek around the corner and saw two men emerging from the woods, neither of whom looked like a hiker. One of them held a gun. David moved back as far as he could, and held the hunk of wood like a bat, ready to swing. The men moved closer, whispering between themselves, their voices too low for David to make out what they were saying. He could hear the crunch of their feet on pine needles, the scrape of their boots on the dirt. Before the first man--the one without a weapon--could answer, he came into view; as he took a couple more steps, he turned and saw David standing there like a Major League batter getting ready to send the ball into the bleachers. The man’s eyes went wide, but before he could say or do anything the other man came into David’s view and David swung, the wood swinging around in a vicious arc and catching the armed man in the face. “Stop! Please! We mean you no harm.” David turned back around to face this man, who was getting back to his feet. “That’s Agent Greeves. I guess you could say he can be a littler overly cautious, but he’s telling you the truth--we really mean you no harm.” David lowered the makeshift bat a little at the mention of that name. David thought about this for a second, and then broke into a broad smile and dropped the hunk of wood. Inside the house David found his first aid kit, and he did a fair job of bandaging Agent Greeves’s nose. He also gave Greeves something to take the edge off the pain. The man sat at the table with a wad of gauze wrapped around his nose, his eyes tearing up slightly, looking haggard and in pain. “So,” David said, turning his attention to Agent Norwalk, “which outfit do you belong to? CIA?” “The National Threat Reaction Agency.” “That’s not surprising. It’s a relatively new agency, and its existence hasn’t been made public yet.” “Hank a Director,” David said. “He always preferred to be out where the action was, not sitting in some cushy office. Things change, I guess.” “That’s what we’re hoping, but--” David looked at Agent Greeves, who nodded in assent. “Okay; I’ll bite. What can you tell me?” “We don’t know. Soon.” “What’s the nature of the weapon? Is it nuclear? Chemical?’ when . David thought it over. “Against my will, if necessary?” David asked. “Bigger than you could ever imagine,” Agent Norwalk said. “Sir, if it’s all right with you, we really should get going without delay. Anything you need will be provided for you once you’re in Washington.” “I assume we’re headed to PDX?” David said. Washington, D.C. The driver--who David had not been introduced to--was a beefy G.I. Joe-type, undoubtedly a soldier, or at least a former one; he drove in silence, seeming to take no notice of his backseat passengers except for a couple of occasions when David caught him looking back at them in the rearview mirror. Then again, he may have just been checking to see if they were being tailed. David glanced at his watch. When they arrived at their destination, he glanced at his watch again; Agent Marquez had been right on the money--it had indeed taken ten minutes. At the gate the driver flashed his identification and the security guard hit a button, raising the barrier arm and lowering the tire spikes that barred free entrance into the parking lot. They drove through, and the driver quickly pulled up to the main entrance of a drab, non-descript building. “I don’t see any security guards,” David said. “Anyone could just hop over that thing to get in.” At last they came to a door that stood alone at the end of a winding hallway. This door had both a keypad and a card swipe. Agent Marquez swiped her ID and punched five digits on the keypad too quickly for David to follow. The little light on the keypad turned from red to green, and Agent Marquez opened the door. When they entered the room the door shut behind them with a soft click. They were in a short hall with another door at the end of it, this one just a plain door with no security clearance needed to get through. Agent Marquez opened the door and they entered a large office filled with busy people who were moving back and forth between desks, sitting at computers or hunched over stacks of papers. “David Diehl; long time, no see,” said the General. He pounded David good-naturedly on the back before releasing him. They both laughed. David had seen Hank in action long before he had stars on his shoulders, and this was one man he didn’t ever want to tangle with. The opposite wall started to move then, rolling up completely to reveal a large screen. The screen came to life, showing an aerial image of what looked to David like a military base. There were a series of small buildings built in a rough square, and off to one side stood a much larger structure. “Yes,” the General answered. “It seems that in the early hours of the morning the number of troops in the main building were at their lightest. If the raid had happened just ninety minutes later the number of troops would have been doubled, maybe even tripled. Which means?” “Correct,” the General confirmed. “They knew when the number of soldiers on base would be at an ebb, and they used that information to their advantage. As far as we know every soldier in the building at the time of the raid was killed. When they were finished, the assailants planted enough explosives to level the building. That big building you see there was reduced to a smoking ruin.” “That took us some time to figure out,” General Cromwell said. “We knew about the raid within twenty-four hours, but for quite some time we didn’t know General Cromwell motioned to an aide who sat alone at a small table in the corner of the room; the aide bent to the laptop set in front of him and hit a button. The image on the big screen changed, and a reproduction of an official-looking document appeared on the screen. *** From: Gen. Ma Shangkun (CotGS) I regret to inform you that Dragon’s Breath has indeed been lost after the callous and villainous attack on the Xining Military Complex that we discussed previously. I had hoped that Dragon’s Breath would be found in the wreckage; unfortunately it was not. I will leave it to you to inform all necessary parties. *** “I’m sorry, sir, but I see something called Dragon’s Breath mentioned twice in the report. What is it?” The General gestured to the aide with the laptop again, and a moment later the image on the screen changed. The people gathered around the table leaned forward; some of them squinted--none of them knew what they were looking at. All they saw was a dark object sitting on a table. is He said it so matter-of-factly that for a moment everyone just stared at him blankly, too bewildered to say anything. A few people laughed nervously; David did not. “They were really willing to pull the temple down around them just to take some land?” David pressed on. “They were arrogant; they’ve been that way for decades. Despite all the fearsome parades of troops, and the columns of tanks and SAM launchers put on display, the truth is that the Chinese are far behind us in many respects, such as simple organizational structure.” “Wait a second,” a blond-haired man spoke up. “If Dragon’s Breath is missing, who the hell has it?” “Yes,” the General replied. “This,” the General said, “is the hierarchy--as best as we can figure--of an organization within North Korea that calls itself Violet Dawn. They are a group of fanatics drawn together by a philosophy of Korean supremacy. Or, more accurately, “No shit,” the blond guy who spoke earlier blurted out. The General went on: “You’ll notice that the top bracket has the name Mamba in it. That’s who we think is quarterbacking this organization. All we have are codenames.” “And they are willing to end the world?” David asked. “What’s their angle?” David asked. “What you’re looking at, ladies and gentlemen, is a rough draft of a plan for invasion of the Republic of Korea by the DPRK; the exact date that this plan was drawn up is unknown, but we think that it was between three and five years ago.” were “I agree it doesn’t make much sense,” the General said. “Our best guess at the moment is that they intend to use the device in the same manner as the Chinese intended--as a threat. They invade the South and warn us that if we step in they’ll use Dragon’s Breath.” “Any idea of the exact location of Dragon’s Breath?” David inquired. “Most of you will be receiving these binders you see here,” General Cromwell said. The glass wall morphed again, once more becoming clear. “Stinson...” the General said. David looked up from the report he was reading. David laughed at the absurdity of it. “Well,” David said, “I wasn’t given much of a choice. You sent a couple men out to find me and tell me that there was a national emergency, and that you needed my help. What was I supposed to do--tell them good luck, and send them on their way?” a national emergency, David.” “How so?” “Yeah,” he said. “We can’t afford to. Hopefully this will all be over quickly, and we can have a drink together, you and I. We can talk about old times.” Agent Marquez stood, tucking her binder under her arm. She looked at her watch. “Where exactly are we headed?” he asked her. David stopped in the doorway and turned back to face General Cromwell. “What is it?” “Smartass,” General Cromwell said to the empty room.

Chapter Four

Lu Ping was getting impatient. She looked at her watch for the umpteenth time with an exaggerated gesture in hopes that General Zhang’s secretary would take notice. Their meeting was set for one o’clock, and it was already twenty-two minutes past. She blew a wisp of hair out of her face and looked again at the selection of magazines spread across the coffee table, as if she hoped to find something interesting that she had somehow managed to miss the first three times she’d looked. Again, she found nothing of any interest. “Do you have any idea when General Zhang will be able to see me? I was supposed to meet with him a half hour ago.” The secretary held up a finger as the door to General Zhang’s office opened and a short, middle-aged man stepped out, closing the door behind him. The man gave the secretary a polite nod--which she did not return--and exited the offices; he took no notice of Lu Ping. A moment later the phone on the secretary’s desk buzzed; she picked it up and listened. “The General is ready to see you now. Go right in.” “Please sit,” Zhang opened. “Very good, indeed. It has been ages since I saw you last; you were just a tiny thing then. Your father was a good man, and I was honored to call him a friend.” She considered it, and took some pleasure in the thought of the woman being put out by having to bring them tea. She shook her head, however. The General adjusted himself in his chair. He laughed, and his laughter eased her uncertainty somewhat. “Dismissed?” “I would like you to take over as head of the Recovery Team.” “Yes, of course,” she said. “I will give you my best, sir.” “I’ll let you go on your way,” Zhang said. “I know you will be very busy for the foreseeable future. Give my greetings to your mother.” As these thoughts scrambled around in her head the elevator beeped, letting her know that she had arrived at her level. The doors slid open and she stepped into the dimly lit underground parking garage. She searched in her purse for her keys as she walked. She found the keys as she turned into the aisle where her car was parked. May 27 -- 07:36 UTC/12:36 am local time “I’m exhausted,” David said. “I’m assuming we’ll be given accommodations after we land?” “I’m staying in L.A., but you’ve still got quite a ways to go.” “Korea?” As they began their descent David peeked out the window to get a look at the airport. He could tell immediately that it wasn’t LAX; it was far too small. He thought of asking Agent Marquez about it, but decided that it didn’t really matter. He leaned back in his seat. It was a bumpy landing, after which the plane taxied into a large hangar before coming to a stop. David and Agent Marquez disembarked, and David walked around a bit, stretching out his legs. A door at one end of the hangar opened and a man came striding in, walking towards where David and Agent Marquez stood near the plane. As the man came closer David recognized him. It was Agent Norwalk. “Except for the nose of course.” She turned to David. He cocked his head at the Learjet. “It was good meeting you, Mister--excuse me, David shook her hand. “Just lead the way,” David said. David stopped and turned back. “FBI?” he asked. David watched her for a moment, and then turned to follow Agent Norwalk, who was waiting patiently. Norwalk led David back out through the door he had just entered through. The Boeing C-32 was waiting for them on the tarmac. “Christ,” David exclaimed, not for the first time that day. Manchester, UK What had he thought he was going to achieve? Men like him were not made to be heroes. He stopped at a red light. The man behind the wheel of the car next to him glanced over and did a double take. Kwon Hyun-kyoon pretended not to notice. Instead he looked in the mirror again, this time taking a good look at himself, seeing what the man in the other car was seeing: a middle-aged man sporting thick black-framed glasses, with terror written on his face; he looked pale and sweaty, with deep dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. Kwon stepped on the gas, swerving around a slower moving car in front of him. He made a quick turn, the car’s tires squealing on macadam. The car followed after him, nearly sideswiping another vehicle as it took the sharp turn. Kwon drove as fast as could, struggling to keep an eye on the road ahead, as well as on the car chasing from behind. He blew through a red light; he hoped that cross traffic would slow down his pursuers, but they kept on coming. He had to swerve to avoid hitting a woman crossing the street, and the left tires of his car rode up on the sidewalk for a few seconds before he was able to pull back onto the road proper. When Kwon opened his eyes he had no idea where he was, but he knew that something was very wrong. His body was one big ball of pain. He smelled gasoline and motor oil. He looked around and realized two things: he was in a badly damaged car, and he was upside down, held in his seat by the safety belt. “I already did,” someone responded. “They’re on their way.” “No, please! Don’t hurt me,” Kwon pleaded in Korean. May 28 -- 00:15 UTC/9:15 am local time “I apologize for keeping you gentlemen waiting,” the older man said, holding out his hand. “I am Commander Choi Junseo.” The younger Korean man held his own hand out as he introduced himself. “And this here is Captain Rhee Chan-sook,” Commander Choi said, indicating the woman. Captain Rhee fixed Agent Norwalk with an unflinching stare. She smiled. David and Agent Diehl took their seats again, as Sergeant Jung and Captain Violet Rhee dragged over two more seats from against the wall and also sat down. Commander Choi sat in the leather chair behind the desk. Agent Norwalk nodded his concurrence. Commander Choi opened a desk drawer and pulled out a stack of papers, leafing through them with a furrowed brow. He found what he was looking for and passed a single sheet of paper across the desk to the Americans. David grabbed it up and took a look at it; it was a printout of a photo. It looked like it had been taken with a telephoto lens from a great distance, and it showed a tallish, dark-haired man walking towards a car, his eyes hidden behind a pair of reflective sunglasses. “Who is he?” Agent Norwalk asked as he placed the sheet of paper on the desk. “If I recall correctly, Viper is second-in-command of Violet Dawn,” David said. “None.” Violet Rhee cleared her throat. “Well, gentleman,” Commander Choi said. “Unless there are any questions you would like to ask, you can go. I’m sure Sergeant Jung and Captain Rhee are eager to get on with their day.” Agent Norwalk gave David a quick nod before turning to follow Jung. David turned to Captain Rhee. She turned on her heels and walked away from him. David followed after her.

Chapter Eight

Greg Toland wiped the lenses of his glasses clean on his shirt as he walked up the street he had lived on for the past fifteen years. He was on his way home after a light lunch at the Full Moon Café. Though it was spring the day felt like full summer--hot even by Atlanta standards--and Greg wiped away a thin sheen of sweat from his brow. He slipped his glasses back on, pushing them up the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I do. As a matter of fact, I live right there.” Greg almost groaned; he had come across people like this before, always with a sob story--their purse had been snatched or their wallet had been stolen, and if you could just give them a few bucks for a cab ride home they would be ever so grateful. He was right; this was where she would ask him if he could maybe spare twenty bucks, swearing to mail it back to him later. Greg considered this for a moment. The white-haired man led the blond woman up the steps, and she followed him into his house. He showed her to the landline phone that was set on a table beside the couch. When Greg came back into the living room the woman was just finishing up her call. “My friend is coming to pick me up, but she said that it may take a while; she has some errands to run first. Thank you for your help…sorry, I don’t even know your name.” She moved toward the door. “It’s all right with me if you want to wait in here,” he said. “There’s no reason for you to wait out in the hot sun.” “Do you have any lemonade?” “Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll be right out with it.” “It tastes great,” she said. “Thanks, I needed something to cool me down.” “So, what do you do, Greg?” Vera asked. He smiled. She took another sip of lemonade as she looked around the living room, her gaze stopping briefly on a row of framed photographs on the mantel. Vera took a big swig, finishing off her glass of lemonade. Greg set his own glass down on the coffee table and took Vera’s empty one. He hurried to the kitchen and filled it up again. Back in the living room he handed her the glass and seated himself once more at her side, picking up his own glass and taking another sip. Greg smiled and emptied his glass in three sips. He set the glass back down on the coffee table. Greg’s tongue felt funny, sort of thick and fuzzy. “I’m here on business, actually,” Vera said. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “It’s just ‘bithnith’,” she said. “Help…help…help…” “Whuh…hap…happening?” May 29 -- 02:08 UTC/11:08 am local time “Just let me know if you see any sign of activity.” Agent Norwalk leaned his seat back and shut his eyes. He had gotten little sleep the night before and he was dead tired. “You can sleep later. Keep an eye out.” He lowered the binoculars and looked around at the rest of the street. There were a few other businesses on this street, but their customers were sparse, and the whole block seemed pretty quiet. Jung motioned with his head, and Agent Norwalk followed his gaze. The fence that blocked the view of the back lot was slowly sliding open. A short man with a shaved head appeared--he was the one pulling the gate aside. When the gate was open the man just stood there, leaning against the fence. “Nothing going on, huh?” Sergeant Jung asked wryly. Agent Norwalk followed Sergeant Jung’s lead. They both got out of the car and shut their doors gently. They walked across to the other side of the street, and then walked up to the end of the block where the target building was. Sergeant Jung slipped around to the side, creeping up to the fence. He grabbed the top of the wooden-slat fence and boosted himself up, took a quick look, and dropped back down. Sergeant Jung searched around and spied a bucket turned over on its side in some weeds. He picked up the bucket, dumped some foul-smelling water out of it, and set it down. “Call what in? That we saw a car drive though here? We don’t really know anything yet. I want to get an idea of what is going on before I waste anybody’s time. You stay out here; if anything happens there’s a radio in the car that will put you in contact with headquarters. Use it.” His panic proved unnecessary, however, as the car passed by, the driver seemingly taking no notice of him. He breathed a sigh of relief and went back to the fence. He peered in, but once again had lost Sergeant Jung, who was no longer near the dirty window. Agent Norwalk looked through a few more cracks in the fence, but couldn’t find Jung again. Agent Norwalk put his face up to a gap between two slats in the fence and tried to see what was happening in the lot; he saw no one. He walked to the overturned bucket, rested one foot on it, took a few deep breaths, then boosted himself up and over the fence, dropping down to the ground and going into a crouch. The lot was empty, but he could hear raised voices shouting to one another inside the building. Agent Norwalk looked around the room he was in, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon, but found nothing except a couple of cheap plastic chairs. A fresh spate of gunfire erupted in the neighboring room, and he got low to the ground before peeking into that room. The man who had been crouched behind the table had abandoned the post, but Agent Norwalk could hear others in there, voices shouting between shots. Agent Norwalk looked down and saw a pistol lying on the ground just inside the room. The standing men both had their backs turned to him, and he took this moment of advantage to take two steps into the room, grab the pistol and raise it at the man who put the last bullet in the crawling man. “Put the weapons down now, or I will fire!” Agent Norwalk shouted. He stood up and looked around the ruined room. He saw a box sitting near one wall; inside there were two grenades shaped like small apples; he knew that there had been a third grenade until a few minutes ago. May 29 -- 06:21 UTC/2:21 pm local time But she had stuck with it, kept her head down, had done her job. Now, six years later, her hard work and perseverance had paid off. Three months before she had been just another analyst in the Threat Assessment and Management Department, and two days before she had been a low level analyst on the Recovery Team. Now, inexplicably, she was the leader of the Recovery Team, and she had been filled with an indelible fear over the last two days that had seemed to fill her up. What if she wasn’t up to the task? What if General Zhang had been mistaken to place such great trust in her? Failure now wouldn’t just result in a bad performance report, or a demotion. Failure would cost lives. “Greetings, Madame Lu,” Captain Yu greeted formally, voice raised to be heard above the slowing rotors. “Intelligence sources led us to believe that Lotus was being kept somewhere here in Tianjin,” the Captain said. The Captain and the Lieutenant exchanged a look. “No, ma’am. It was an old factory that has been out of use for eight months.” “I want to see this factory,” Lu Ping said. “You can fill me in on the rest on the drive over.” “Yes, ma’am. We entered the building at eleven-hundred hours. We shot half a dozen canisters of CN gas through several windows on both floors of the factory. Tactical Team One entered through the front entrance while Tactical Team Two entered simultaneously through the rear of the building. Team Three was held in reserve. There was almost no resistance on the first floor of the factory. On that floor three suspects were found in one room; all were armed, but none of them drew their weapons. They were likely too disoriented from the gas. The suspects were subdued and restrained quickly.” “Our men faced stiff resistance from the suspects on the second floor. These men were better prepared than their comrades; they had gas masks, and they opened fire as the men from Team Two attempted to climb the stairs. A firefight followed, lasting approximately fifteen minutes. We incurred six casualties in all, one dead and five wounded. I ordered the men to retreat to the first floor. I was worried about damaging Lotus, but I weighed the risk and ordered the men to fire an X99-J round up onto the second floor. Effective resistance ended immediately.” “It is a variant of the Russian TGB-7V,” the Captain said. “Thank you for the clarification, Captain.” “Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Jin replied. “All the gases have dissipated by now.” “After the detonation of the grenade Team Two gained the second floor. Of the five suspects on that floor four were dead. One was obviously dead from a bullet wound to the head, one from the explosion of the grenade, and two from a combination of bullet wounds and shrapnel.” “The last suspect had severe shrapnel wounds, as well as extensive burns,” Captain Yu said. “The medical team was rushed in. I had to pull two medics from working on our own men in an attempt to keep the suspect alive. They did their best, but the man succumbed to his injuries shortly thereafter.” “Correct. Lotus was here recently, we are certain. Radiation readings confirm it.” “Which means that the containment vessel has not been breached,” Lu Ping said as she stared at rust-colored blood stains on the floor, and burn marks that covered the floor, walls and ceiling. “Not yet. None of the men had identification on them. We are running both fingerprint and facial-recognition analysis.” “A Marine battalion had been dispatched to the port, and they are working alongside units of the Water Police, Border Patrol troops and members of the Anti-Smuggling Bureau to inspect ships in port. They have radiation scanners to help identify vessels that may be carrying Lotus.” Lu Ping turned away from the evidence of the recent carnage and headed back down the stairs. Again the men followed. Lu Ping led them out of the factory and back to the Humvee. “But the port--” Washington, D.C. “There’s an interesting report in the in-house folder,” Captain Danko said. General Cromwell nodded his assent, and Captain Danko slid the folder closer to himself, opened it and searched through the papers until he found what he was looking for. He took out two sheets of paper that had been paper clipped together and laid them on the desk before the General. General Cromwell picked up the papers and skimmed the first page. It was a report on the suspected kidnapping of a man named Greg Toland from his home in Atlanta three days previously. “On the basis that, due to the knowledge that these people have of top secret projects, they could be dangerous to us if they were to fall into the hands of an enemy state,” General Cromwell finished. “So what was kind of project was this Toland working on?” “No, it isn’t,” Captain Danko said. “I made some calls to friends at the different services and asked them if they knew anything about this guy, or who he might have worked for. None of them knew of him out of hand, but a few of them said they would look into it and get back to me if they found something. About twenty minutes ago I got a call back from an old colleague of mine who works over at DARPA now. He said that Toland once contracted with them. He appears to have worked on only one project over there, but he left five years ago.” The General’s eyebrows went up. General Cromwell read the two page report again, with more interest this time. The report was a summary of a missing persons report filed with the Atlanta PD. Greg Toland had been reported missing on the evening of the 28A neighbor reported seeing Toland speaking with an attractive young woman near his stoop sometime in the early afternoon. The neighbor was unable to identify the woman, and police remained uncertain what connection, if any, she might have with Mr. Toland’s disappearance. So ended the summary of the missing persons report. There was an addendum at the bottom of the second page letting the reader know that, as of the filing of the report, Mr. Toland had still not been found, nor had the mystery woman been identified. “Yes, sir.” Captain Danko stood, tucked his satchel under one arm, saluted and exited the General’s office. The General picked up the receiver and hit a button. The call began with the familiar brief three note ringtone letting him know that this call was being received on a secure line. The Special Operations and Intelligence Command was essentially the UK version of the NTRA. “Good afternoon, General. I suppose good morning would be more accurate, given the time difference.” General Cromwell nodded his head; they had already figured the man to be North Korean. “Indeed he did. We have a team examining the contents of the drive, and they definitely shed light on the documents that were also in the briefcase.” Captain Lucy Tinder spoke for a long time. As she went on a knot of fear slowly tightened in General Cromwell’s gut.

Chapter Twelve

In the dim conference room David Diehl sat on one side of a long conference table with Agent Norwalk and Captain Violet Rhee. On the other side of the table were five senior officers of the National Intelligence Service, including Commander Choi Junseo. Everyone at the table had their chair turned so they could see the west wall of the room, where various images were being projected as Commander Choi spoke aloud, describing what they were seeing in heavily accented English. Agent Norwalk stirred a packet of sugar into his coffee, his eyes hollow and surrounded by dark circles. He hadn’t gotten much sleep in the past two days. “Yes; one moment, please,” Commander Choi said. One of the men on Commander Choi’s side of the table laughed. “So what happened--Sergeant Jung’s death--it was all for nothing, then.” “Yes,” Commander Choi said. “The port was reopened yesterday afternoon, though the Navy destroyer CNS Shenyang is still patrolling the waters nearby.” “Did they find what they were looking for?” Captain Rhee spoke up. “Dragon’s Breath,” David finished. “Those Violet Dawn bastards must have tried to smuggle it out through the Port of Tianjin.” “Possible, yes,” Commander Choi answered. “To be completely honest, perhaps it is even likely.” “I wasn’t convinced that the theft of Dragon’s Breath wasn’t just a cover, and that the Chinese weren’t actively aiding Violet Dawn. If the Chinese are willing to close down an entire port for two days to conduct a search operation of ships before allowing them to leave, it means that they are very serious about finding this thing before it leaves their borders.” Commander Choi nodded his head, conceding the point. Commander Choi gathered up his papers nodded his head in the general direction of Captain Rhee before leaving the meeting room. One of the men who had sat near Commander Choi shut off the projector. David, Agent Norwalk and Captain Rhee left the meeting room together. “I’m not hungry,” Agent Norwalk said. “I think I’ll stick around here.” June 2 -- 05:53 UTC/2:53 pm local time The five days since he had been drugged by the blond bitch seemed like one long bad dream to him. There had been a two day drive hidden in the back of a semi among boxes of dry goods, and then two more days chained to a radiator in a dingy house. Whenever he was allowed to leave the room his captors would put a blindfold on his face, but once, while being taken to the bathroom, he was able to peek under the bottom edge of it for a moment as he and two of the captors walked past a window. In the distance he saw a tall palm tree standing against a bright blue sky. His immediate thought was that he must be in either California or Florida, the two states he most associated with palm trees. Judging by the amount of driving time it had taken to get there he figured California was more likely. Then the possibility that they had crossed the border into Mexico crossed his mind, and he gave up trying to guess where he was. Sometime later--he had no idea how long, he had lost all sense of time --there came the sound of a key being inserted into a lock and turning, and the steel door swung open with a bang. Another blindfold was put on him, but he could see weak rays of light peeking in around the edges. Someone undid the straps around his wrists and ankles, pausing once to laugh--he assumed that the fact that he had pissed himself had been noticed. He was handled roughly, made to stand and led from the room into a cold corridor. The light was brighter now. “Good evening, Mr. Toland,” the seated man said. The man pushed himself back from the desk and lifted one booted foot and laid it on the opposite knee. He and Greg stared at each other wordlessly for a moment; then the man laughed quietly. The man simply smiled. He had nothing to gain by retaliating for the comment and risk injuring his captured butterfly. “You should be grateful, Mr. Toland,” Adder said. “You are going to be part of something marvelous.” Adder stopped in front of Greg Toland and faced him. “As I said, we need you to help us finish what we started. You could also say that we would like you to finish what “What?” Greg took the binder from the nameless man and started opening the cover. “I need a shower,” he said. “And some clean clothes.” Again Greg was grabbed from both sides. The men who had ahold of him--neither of whom was wearing a mask, he noticed--led him to a shower room. He left his clothes and the binder in a pile near the door to the room, and a guard stood watch as Greg showered. There was no hot water and no soap, but it felt great to get clean. By the time he finished his shower another guard had brought a clean change of clothes, a plain gray shirt and matching pair of pants, both made out of a rough material. He put the clothes on, retrieved the binder and left his old clothes where they lay. He was just finishing reading the last few notes written in another man’s neat, tight script when the lights went out. In the darkness Greg closed the binder and sat for a while, thinking. Eventually he stood up, found his way to the bed and lay down. He found that the new bed was not much better than the first one. He didn’t think he would be able to sleep, but soon exhaustion had its way and he was asleep anyway. That night he dreamt of fire.

Chapter Fourteen

David admired the confidence of Violet Rhee as she led him around in a neighborhood that looked tough enough to make him nervous. They had left Violet’s unmarked car several blocks away, where she said there was less chance of it being stolen. “Not here,” she would say cryptically before walking out and continuing on. “The Pile of Dirt,” Violet said. David thought of asking who the “him” She turned and walked away before he could ask her who she was talking about. He followed her, wary now. His gaze shifted around, looking for any sign of danger. Violet led him around the interior of the club, staying near the wall, until they at last came to a set of carpeted stairs that led to a raised area populated by a single table. At the foot of the stairs David realized who Violet had been talking about when two men stopped them as they got close to the stairs. David threw an indignant look Violet’s way, though she didn’t seem to notice it. She was looking at a third bodyguard for some sort of confirmation. This man looked her over, then David, and turned his attention back to Violet. He nodded his head toward the stairs and Violet started up. David wasn’t sure if he was supposed to follow her or stay put at the foot of the stairs; he made a decision and started up after her as she neared the top steps. “Ah, Violet; I was beginning to think that I would never see you again,” Kenny said. “It made me so sad.” “This is Agent David Diehl,” she answered, waving a hand toward David. “From the United States.” “David, this is Kenny Kim,” Captain Rhee said, completing the introduction. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Captain?” Kenny asked as he lifted a goblet up to take a drink. “Go on, go on; I’m all ears.” “All Kenny laughed; this time the bodyguards did not laugh with him, instead burning holes into Violet with their eyes. Evidently they did not appreciate her attempt to have them dismissed. Violet said nothing; she simply held her gaze on Kenny, and waited. His laughter dissipated. “You, too,” Kenny commanded his men. “Go! Hurry, hurry.” “You are most welcome,” Kenny said. “Now let’s cut to the chase, shall we? I know that you didn’t come here tonight just for the pleasure of my company.” “There are some people who are trying to smuggle something dangerous into this country,” Violet began. “There is a possibility they may have smuggled it in already.” “Guns then.” “You don’t need to know that,” Violet said. “It would be the biggest thing you would have heard about in your life, Kenny,” she said at last. “You wouldn’t forget this.” “Is my gratitude not enough?” Violet asked with a smile. David lowered his hand from the empty holster and looked back at Violet and her captive. Kenny Kim’s face had gone red as he tried to pry her hands from his thick neck. He was making pathetic strangled sounds. The music in the club was too loud for anyone who wasn’t within a few feet of the table to hear the struggle. “And why did I do all this?” Violet asked. “For one reason only--because you are useful to me. But if you are no longer useful, what shall I do then?” “You are an insane person, you crazy bi--” “I don’t know if it’s what you are looking for,” Kenny Kim began, “but a little birdy told me about some shipments that have come in over the last couple of months from the North. Very hush-hush.” “Sounds to me like these North Koreans were putting a buffer between themselves and the shipments,” David said. “If the South Korean muscle got pinched, they would give up the people who hired them, who were themselves South Koreans. By the time those guys were rounded up and interrogated, the guy pulling the strings would have had plenty of time to skip town.” “The guy who was left to supervise could have been under orders to kill himself if he was about to be taken into custody,” David surmised. “Or at least trained to stand up to enhanced interrogation long enough for the others to get away.” know “I don’t remember. Cobra, Rattlesnake, stuff like that. Supposed to sound scary, I guess.” “I don’t know. I told you that I don’t remember.” “So, the Northern boys wanted protection for these shipments,” David said. “How many men?” “Usually when a black market shipment comes in there are a lot of containers or crates to take off a ship. But not for these shipments. The man from the North would board the ship alone, and come back minutes later with nothing; not a crate, not a box, nothing. Then he would have the muscle escort him to a location where he would change vehicles, and then he would go his way and they would go theirs.” “How do you know so much?” Violet asked. “Maybe you were involved.” Kenny Kim thought about it. “I know it sounds crazy,” Kenny said. “What can I say? North Koreans are fucking crazy.” If you should hear something new, about another shipment coming in or whatever, I want to know about it immediately,” Violet said. “Yes, I understand.” “Thank for the hospitality,” David told Kenny Kim as he rose from his seat to follow Violet. Outside, away from the noise, David breathed in the cool night air. He checked his watch and found that it was past midnight. “How does all this fit in with Dragon’s Breath?” David asked. “Our assumption is that Violet Dawn was trying to smuggle it out of China, but these black market shipments came from North Korea.” the shipments came from North Korea, which doesn’t mean they didn’t really come from China.” They found the car where they had left it. Captain Rhee had to shoo away some teenagers who were leaning against the vehicle, but they didn’t start a fuss about it. In the car Violet started the engine, then sat for a minute staring out into the night. “What if we can’t stop this?” she asked. June 3 -- 00:03 UTC/8:03 am local time “Of course, General. All documents are secured in one of my filing cabinets, and I always lock my office door behind me.” “You don’t think I need to take such precautions here in the Ministry building, do you?” General Zhang looked around the cramped office; Lu ping imagined that he was wondering why the head of the Recovery Team was working out of such an inauspicious little office. “As you are aware, General, the trail went cold after the incident in Tianjin. No clues of any import were uncovered that could lead us to the current location of Dragon’s Breath. Radiation readings tell us that the weapon was there, and recently, but that is all. None of the criminals survived the raid, so we were not able to interrogate anyone for information. The search of the port yielded nothing, as well.” General Zhang nodded, though Lu Ping couldn’t tell whether he did so because he was pleased with what he had heard, or simply to acknowledge that he understood. “Surely the North Koreans have been informed of what is happening.” “There are a number of possibilities,” General Zhang replied. “It could be that they are simply embarrassed to admit that this group has been able to defy the government for so long without punishment. There are more than a few inflated egos in that government. This could account for why they at times deny their existence. Or perhaps they are scared of the group, and afraid of the consequences of a crackdown.” “It is possible, but not likely. They have informers everywhere, from the cities to the countryside. They must know something. There is another possibility.” Lu Ping said nothing as she considered the implications of this. “Correct. We are in this alone. Which makes your work all the more important, Madame Lu. I’m sure you are aware that there are those who questioned my judgment when I chose you to head the Recovery Team. Those who said that you were untested, unready to be trusted with such an important task.” “I am honored and grateful for your faith, General. I promise that I will not betray it.” “I must be going,” he said. “I have important matters to attend to. As do you, Madame Lu. I hope we can speak again soon, and that the news will be good.” Lu Ping walked behind her desk and sat down. She did have many things to attend to, but she felt that she needed just a few minutes of quiet. She had never considered the possibility that Violet Dawn was being secretly run by the North Korean government. If it was true it would be another major complication in an already complicated situation. It was bad enough that she couldn’t expect any help from the North Koreans, but if they were actively working against the recovery efforts it definitely added a new wrinkle to the situation. June 3 -- 12:45 UTC/9:45 pm local time The street was dark in that way that he should have gotten used to but hadn’t. Another blackout, all too frequent in this country, had extinguished the lights of all the homes and streetlights of the neighborhood he was walking through. He only hoped that the power would be on in the neighborhood that he had called home for the past five weeks. He didn’t need a key since he had left the door unlocked when he left the apartment earlier in the day, so he simply turned the knob and walked in. He reached for the light switch and flipped it up. But there was no light. For a moment he stood still in the darkness, wondering what the hell was wrong with the light, and then he felt something sharp jab his arm and he found himself in a whole new realm of darkness. “Good evening, tongmu,” Cobra said. “I was beginning to think that I would not see you again in this life. I am pleased to have been wrong.” Han Ji-hoon--who until recently had been known simply as Taipan--felt like he couldn’t speak. His lips felt as if they were frozen shut, his tongue felt thick and stupid, his throat felt parched as a desert. He knew that he must speak anyway. “There is no need for lies now, tongmu,” Cobra said. “We are past that. I didn’t come up here from the South to listen to lies and excuses. Don’t you understand? We are not here to find out whynever do anything--to hurt the cause.” “Ka Sung-jin…I don’t recall the name,” Han Ji-hoon said. “Who is he?” “Ka Sung-jin…uh, yes I remember him now. An office worker, I believe. I saw him sometimes at a noodle shop that I used to go to sometimes. I think that was in Pyongyang. Y-yes, I’m certain it was there.” “You never knew that he was a member of the State Security Department?” “Tell me the truth,” Cobra commanded calmly. “We know it all!” Cobra shouted. “You must see that if we know all of this we know it all.” “You will not speak to brother Viper.” “Your friend who sent you here told us what you said to him that day.” “No, no, he is lying. I told him none of that.” “But I don’t.” London, UK Now he was in London, under the protection of some government agency he had never heard of before; he remembered that the acronym was SOIC (which the official-looking man who had informed him of his protected status had pronounced “so-ick”). The morphine was set up to enter his system in a slow, steady drip, but he also had a button he could press to up the dosage when the pain got particularly bad. The doctors had assured him that it was impossible to overdose on the drug, as there were safety features built in to prevent such an accident. “Nothing for you, I’m afraid,” Agent Hassani said to Kwon. “Doc says no coffee for you.” “Yeah; yours is right over there.” “No worries.” “Nothing. Always nothing new.” “Fucking hell, it’s pure black,” Agent Blackburn said. “I hate it like that.” The door pushed open. It was a doctor, not Agent Hassani. The doctor was wearing a matching blue scrub hat and surgical mask. “Shh!” “We want nothing from you, Kwon Hyun-kyoon,” the man answered. “There is nothing that you can give us.” The fake doctor raised the gun; the barrel was barely an inch from Kwon’s head. Kwon closed his eyes and held his breath, waiting, wondering if he would feel it and hoping that he wouldn’t. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the fake doctor and the gun that he held to the patient’s head. The nurse opened her mouth to scream, but there was another pop, and the woman folded to the ground, her scream dying with her. “Hey, what’s going on there?” came a call from behind. doctor--standing where the one hall intersected another. He pulled the pistol out of his pocket and fired twice at the doctor, who caught both rounds in the chest. The fake doctor ran for the stairs then as a woman’s scream rose up behind him. He slammed through the door and barreled down the stairs, passing no one along the way. The fake doctor turned his head and saw a brawly security guard headed right for him. Two pops stopped the guard, but they were his last two rounds; his pistol was now empty. More screams. The fake doctor ran for the exit. A would-be hero stepped in his path and he pistol whipped the man. The Good Samaritan backed away, cupping his gushing nose. The fake doctor made it to and through the exit and continued running. He stepped off the sidewalk, not knowing where he was going, only knowing that he had to get away from the hospital before the police arrived. June 5 -- 11:01 UTC/8:01 pm local time They were headed for a restaurant whose sign identified it as the Diner Americana. When they walked in David saw that the place was packed. “When I’m home I usually just grab something from McDonald’s,” David said. “But this place looks nice.” “Have you eaten here before?” David asked. “You can’t go wrong with a medium rare cheeseburger.” “A burger sounds good,” he said. They chatted for a while, joining a chorus of at least two dozen different conversations. “I’m just curious. I don’t know much about you.” “No, I’m not married.” “Why not?” Violet looked down at her own hands, which were pressed flat on the table. Here fingers were indeed bare of any matrimonial ornamentation. “No, no boyfriend.” “No, no girlfriend,” she said. “I like men, but…work, you know?” They stared at each other for a long moment, neither of them saying a thing. When the food came they dug right in. Neither of them had realized how hungry they were; over the past week meals had been quick and light, food eaten simply to keep their bodies running more than any other reason. David had to admit that the burger was very good, if a bit greasier than he would prefer, and the shake wasn’t so bad either. The fries were the best part, thick and crispy with a bit of skin still attached to them. “What’s so funny?” David asked. “Yes,” Violet answered. “How was this a work dinner?” “What happened when he got caught?” They walked to the car, which again was Violet’s unmarked service vehicle. She drove him home, “home” being a three star hotel that the South Korean government was paying for. David and Violet Rhee said their goodbyes, and he thanked her for the meal. David paused at the lobby entrance and turned back; Violet had already pulled away from the curb and was driving away, headed to wherever “home” was for her. June 6 -- 16:32 UTC/12:32 pm local time Across the table sat Ben Chancer, who looked older than his companion; not quite old enough to be her father, but old enough that people who saw them together would look at them in that way that he hated, that way that said, “What is such a lovely young woman doing with a guy like that?”. The official reason for the blackout had to do with previously unannounced war games being carried out by the People’s Liberation Army. The blogosphere was filled with reports that this was just a cover story. Some blogs that were being run from within China had gone mysteriously dark after casting doubt on the official story. “Yeah. Get the check, honey.” “FBI, get down on the ground!” one G-man barked. Her sunglasses had been knocked loose and Ben could see her wide, terrified eyes. Both Ben and Vera were cuffed, then one at a time they were made to stand and shuffled toward the vehicles. They were put into different SUVs. The FBI agents bundled into the vehicles with them, and they pulled away from the curb. Ben said nothing back. A small smile spread across his lips, and the FBI agent looked away from him. They would get nothing from him. He knew what he had to do; he wondered if Vera would do the same.

Chapter Twenty

“Do you have any idea what this is about?” Agent Norwalk asked David as they filed into the room with Captain Rhee, Commander Choi and a host of other NIS top brass. David had been whiling away another night alone at the hotel, flipping through channels on the TV and looking for anything in English, when he had received a call from Commander Choi telling him that he had to get to NIS headquarters immediately, and that a car would be there shortly to collect both Agent Norwalk and himself. They had met in the lobby, and that was when Agent Norwalk had first asked if David knew what was happening. The car had arrived less than a minute later, and two serious-looking men had driven them to headquarters. “Good evening, everyone,” General Cromwell said. “Greetings from Washington. It’s good to see you again, Commander Choi.” “We understand, and we thank you for your concern, General,” Commander Choi said. .” The photograph disappeared, and once again the General and the others in the States occupied the screen. . The witness gave a statement that he saw Toland speaking with an unknown young woman, further stating that, to the best of his recollection, he had never seen this woman with Mr. Toland before. We deployed a team to Atlanta under FBI cover to conduct our own investigation. Our break came when we pulled footage from the surveillance systems of gas stations and convenience stores within a five mile radius of Mr. Toland’s home. We zeroed in on footage from a security camera at a Mobil station about a mile from Toland’s home. At approximately three minutes past noon on the day of the 28On queue the surveillance footage appeared on the screen. “This is footage at the same gas station approximately thirty minutes after the man and woman departed,” General Cromwell continued. “Now we see the man enter again, alone this time. He purchases a beverage and exits the store.” The footage shows the man lifting his phone to his ear. “The agents who reviewed this footage had a hunch, and they followed it. They sifted through footage from exterior cameras of several businesses nearer to Toland’s home. The camera outside a bank three blocks away from his home shows the same vehicle you just saw pulling into the bank’s parking lot at 12:25.” th “Hello, David.” “What’s so special about this Toland guy, General?” Agent Norwalk spoke up. “You mean the United States has its own Dragon’s Breath?” “We do.” The General paused to take a drink of water before continuing: “No broken bones,” General Cromwell said. “Our methods are much subtler than that. But he did get information. He revealed that the pair who we believe took Toland were a couple, possibly married. He didn’t know their real names, but he gave us the cover identities they were using when he worked with them. We did a search using those names on the off chance that they were still using them. That’s where they slipped up. They were still using the same cover identities of Gerald and Paulina Miller. We traced the “Millers” to an address in Manhattan, and staked out the location overnight. Again we had an FBI cover. Shortly after eleven-clock in the morning they exited the apartment building where they lived and walked to a café a few blocks away to eat lunch. In the interest of civilian safety we waited until they were walking home to move in on them.” General Cromwell looked down at some papers on the table on front of him. “It turns out that they were not married after all, but they were living together. The man’s names was Ben Chancer, aged forty-four. Just as our agents were about to start their interrogation of him Mr. Chancer swallowed a poison capsule that he had hidden on his person. His death was quick and painful. The agents who witnessed his death rushed to the room where Ms. Polk was waiting to be interrogated. They found a similar capsule hidden in the neck lining of her dress. All she would have to have done is duck her head down and bite down to free the capsule, and then swallow it. Apparently this was a security measure that she and Mr. Chancer routinely used in case they were apprehended. Evidently she didn’t have the stomach to go through with it.” “Viper,” David repeated under his breath. Commander Choi shook his head, visibly displeased with this news. “No; that is all for now, Commander.” June 8 -- 05:30 UTC/1:30 pm local time . He had also tried to make himself look like James Dean, but he had been given a face only a mother could love--or so his mother told him--so he had given up the affectations, but kept the name. “Still paranoid as ever, Jimmy,” Lu Ping said. “You should really get out more, Jimmy. There’s a whole wide world out there.” Jimmy Chen was staring back at her, and she looked away from him, pretending that his comment had meant nothing to her. She picked up a folder sitting on a small table and opened the cover, flipping through the first few pages. “I have your report over here,” he said. She took the thick folder, opened the cover and scanned the first page of Jimmy’s report. She riffled through the pages, reading bits and pieces. She closed the folder and slipped it under one arm, satisfied; she would give the report a thorough read-through later and elsewhere. She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and retrieved an envelope, which she handed to Jimmy. As moments before she had inspected the pages contained within the folder, now Jimmy Chen inspected the contents of the envelope. He opened the envelope, slipped the ends of a different kind of paper out of it and thumbed through the bulk of it, doing a quick count. The envelope contained eight thousand yuan in a mix of denominations, mostly fifties and twenties. This was what Jimmy usually charged for a job like the one he had performed for Lu Ping, but in this case this money was only the second half of what he had asked of her due to the higher level of danger involved. She had accepted the higher cost and had paid him the first half of the payment up front. The money had come from a funds account used to pay low-level informants in the employ of the Ministry of State Security, which her security clearance gave her access to. “You do that.” Kusong, North Korea His days consisted of waking at the crack of dawn, not because he was naturally an early riser, but because that was when the guards would start banging on the steel door of not only his cell, but all of the others. It was the day after he had arrived that he came to realize that he was not the only prisoner being kept at the facility. There were others--other physicists, engineers, manual laborers. They had all been brought there for a reason, and they all had a purpose. The weapons--which their captors referred to as Fireblossoms--were constructed with great care in a large, factory-sized sealed room that had its own air supply. When not at work the prisoners were sent back to their rooms to while away the lonely, quiet hours. The exception was an hour-long period every evening when they were allowed to gather together in a cramped common hall. Greg wasn’t sure why they were allowed this small concession; he thought perhaps their captors fancied themselves merciful. Wong, a Chinese national, sidled up to Greg. “I started smoking when I was fourteen. I’m not picky; I would smoke just about any brand if they would just give it to me. I know they have cigarettes; I can smell it coming in under my door at night when the guards smoke in the halls. I think they may smoke near my door purposely, just to torture me.” The South Koreans finished their conversation as one of them walked away from the other, obviously displeased with the outcome of their talk. On the other side of the room several of the worker bees erupted into a fit of laughter at something one of them had said. Laughter wasn’t something one heard often in this place. “I think I have a rash,” he said. “Can you tell me if my neck looks red?” “It feels like a rash,” Wong insisted, scratching the same spot again. The man had spoken the words quietly, as if he were afraid of being overheard. “What happened to him?” “I overheard one of the guards saying that Viper will be visiting in a few days,” Wong said conspiratorially. Here Wong looked around to see if any of the guards were watching or listening. “What was his name?” Greg asked quietly as two guards rounded up a few of the North Korean worker bees and headed away with them. “His name was Shen Dao,” Wong replied. “But we called him Father Dragon.” June 10 -- 20:12 UTC/3:12 pm local time Khee Jun-yeong took another drink, relishing the pleasant burn as it slid down his throat. The heat was nothing compared to the hatred that burned within him, hatred of the pigs passing him by, so drunk with their money and absolutely certain of their righteousness, flocking to this temple of consumption. He could still remember the feeling of hunger, He finished the last of the liquor, set the empty bag-wrapped bottle down on the bench and stood up. He picked up the duffle bag and slung it over one shoulder. It was a warm Texas afternoon, and he wiped the sweat from his brow with one sleeve, took a deep breath and entered the shopping mall. The interior of the place was noisy, like a hall of echoes. A man bumped past him, but he didn’t mind. A righteous fire burned in the pit of his stomach, and a great power coursed through his veins. He was pure, he was reborn. He was a brother of the Violet Dawn. He was proud. The first scream of the afternoon rose up as a woman in a green dress noticed the man with the gun. Her scream was cut short as Khee Jun-yeong squeezed off two rounds. The woman fell to the ground, silent now. A deep red stain spread across the front of her dress. The world erupted in noise, screams, and shouts. And gunfire. He finished the second clip and started on the third. A man tried to rush him as he changed clips, but Khee was fast, and he dropped the guy while he was still at least five steps away. Khee stepped onto an empty escalator and rode it to the second floor. He looked about for more targets. The rats were hiding, but he would find them. A shot rang out, and Khee heard something whiz past his ear. He spun around and saw a mall security guard crouching on one knee and pointing a pistol at Khee. A second shot caught Khee in the gut; it felt like someone had slammed a hot sledgehammer into his stomach. Khee pulled the trigger of his own weapon, and three bullets knocked the guard to the ground, his pistol clattering away from him. Khee changed back to single shot and fired one more round into the guard before turning and walking on. Voices were shouting at him. He looked to the left and saw two cops leaning around a corner. They were shouting, but it felt like his ears were stuffed with cotton and he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Washington, D.C. “But how can we be certain that this guy was connected with them?” one of the men sitting opposite the General asked. reasonable “Either you’re certain or you’re not.” “Let us review the evidence,” the General said, hoping to appease the congressman. “We have a young man of obvious Asian origin. He appears to have been between the ages of twenty-five and thirty, of medium build. He walked into the Grand Pines Mall in Dallas, Texas, yesterday afternoon, shortly after three o’clock, and opened fire with an H and K MP5 submachine gun. Casualties: twenty-five dead, thirty-two wounded. Five of the wounded are still listed in critical condition. Rep. Varrick nodded his head, apparently convinced of the “reasonable certainty” of the matter. “It’s possible,” General Cromwell answered. “We just don’t know at the moment.” “Do you have an idea about why this guy did what he did?” the DoD rep asked. “This doesn’t exactly have the hallmarks of a sophisticated terror op. This was just sloppy.” “Do you think this media blitz, the push to get the shooter’s picture out there, will lead to any solid tips?” a rep from Homeland Defense asked. they know the guy, but it turns out to be someone else entirely, people looking to get their name in the paper, somebody looking to settle a score by pointing the finger at someone they’ve been quarrelling with, and so on. We can only hope that within the haystack there is in fact a needle, and that we are able to see it for what it is when we come across it.” June 12 -- 00:14 UTC/9:14 am local time They had landed at Incheon International Airport shortly after seven in the morning. David Diehl and Violet Rhee had brought three NIS agents along with them. They were met at the airport by a Captain and four officers from the National Police. From there they had driven to the SWAT assembly point. Incheon’s one SWAT squadron had been supplemented by a second squadron from Seoul, which had arrived earlier, in the dark hours before dawn. There were more than two dozen uniformed National Police officers on standby, ready to swoop in and secure the scene when the operation was over. After the APC pulled out of the new opening it had made in the house, and after its machine gun had fallen silent, the SWAT officers charged into the house. For ten tense minutes David and the others who had stayed back from the battle could only listen as at least a dozen separate firefights took place within the house. The only reports of what the situation inside the house was like came by way of shouted reports over the police radio, but David didn’t understand any of what was being said and no one bothered to translate. “Maybe our best chance will be to question some of the wounded men once they are stable,” she said. “They will probably be given something for their pain, which will hopefully lower their defenses.” “Do you speak English?” he asked the man. “I already did.” “Ask him again,” David said. “Nothing good,” she answered. He moved away from the row of handcuffed men and looked over the wounded men who were being seen to by paramedics. Some of the wounded had already been evacuated, but there were still at least a half dozen laid out on the floor. David knelt next to one of them. The paramedic who was attending the man started to say something, but a sharp word from Captain Rhee cut him off. The paramedic looked first at Violet, and then at another member of the medical team, evidently his superior. This man simply nodded his head, and the paramedic stepped away. David looked down at the wounded man. “I need a latex glove,” David said. The man cursed in Korean; David didn’t need to speak the language to get the gist of what the man was saying. David pressed against the man’s wound again, and blood seeped out from it. The paramedic protested, but David ignored his exhortations. “What did he say?” David asked. “He says that Cobra escaped during the firefight using a secret passage.” “It’s a trap door,” she said. Both he and Violet pulled out there service weapons. Violet called for a group of SWAT team members to follow as she and David climbed down into a low passageway. David, who was in the lead, called for a light, and in moments a flashlight was handed forward to him. He flicked it on and pointed it down the passageway, but the light wasn’t strong enough to reach the far end of it. They started forward, David and Violet Rhee followed by six suited-up SWAT officers. The passage was narrow, so they had to move in single file. “The bastard got away,” David said. “It’s Agent Kim,” she said. “They finished their search of the house. All they found were a cache of guns, and a few knives.” June 12 -- 04:48 UTC/1:48 pm local time Toland nodded, but said nothing. He was trying his best to maintain a calm demeanor, to be unreadable. In truth he felt more nervous than he had ever felt in his life. His stomach felt like it was twisting inside of him, and once already he had had to will himself to not vomit. “Is something wrong?” Wong asked. Three North Korean guards stood at the edges of the room, watching over the lot of them; they cut imposing figures with rifles slung over their shoulders. Greg Toland watched the guards, wondering just how quickly they would react if he made a dash for the door that Viper and Adder has disappeared through earlier, sizing up his chances. He decided that he didn’t like the odds. He figured the guards would probably have a dozen bullets in him before he reached the door. The door opened and both Viper and Adder appeared. They were both smiling as they chatted in Korean. Toland watched as they came nearer, his body tense. The two men walked right up to him. Adder appeared to be thinking about it. “You should feel honored,” Viper said, more serious now. “You are serving in a great cause.” Viper and Adder both stopped and turned to look at Toland; Viper’s eyebrows were raised in curiosity. Viper’s brow furrowed in confusion. Toland could see that he didn’t understand the vernacular. “The birds.” Viper nodded his head. Viper seemed to think about whether or not he wanted to answer the question. “Then you’re the man I need to talk to,” he said. “In private.” “No; I won’t talk out here,” Toland said. “Wait,” Viper said. “You want to talk, Mr. Toland? Fine. We will talk in private. But if I decide that whatever you have to say is a waste of my time I will have you beaten severely. Do you understand?” “I do.” “This is ridiculous,” Adder said. “Keep working,” he said. “I won’t be long.” After the three men walked through the door, as they entered a hallway, Adder took up a position beside Toland, throwing curious glances at him as they walked. Toland thought the man was worried, concerned that something might have gone wrong with the project on his watch. Toland hoped the man was scared; let him swim in fear for a while. “You see, the thing is…” Toland began. Neither Viper nor Adder said anything. Toland could see that Viper was clenching his teeth in anger. “We’re all going to die,” Toland said. “Every single one of us will die one day. Some of us will just die sooner.” Viper looked from Toland to Adder, not sure what was happening. Adder drew his weapon, raised it and fired three times. The first round was a bit off, and missed Toland. The next two rounds hit Toland in the chest; one tore through his left lung, exited, and tore through the right one as well. The second one pierced his heart. But it was too late, and with his last act in this world Greg Toland brought his hand down, throwing the metal capsule that he held in his hand to the floor. The capsule was comprised of two segments fitted together. When it hit the floor it came apart, releasing a small cloud of fine white powder. Adder looked at the broken capsule, and at the powder now settling on the carpet. “He just killed us,” he said.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

When Agent Sarah Marquez drove up to the scene it was hard to believe that a group of terrorists had set up base there. It was a small, nice-looking house on a shady, nice-looking street in East Dallas. Those neighbors not awakened by the noise of the raid just after dawn had soon thereafter been awakened by the knocking of police and NTRA agents on their doors. “Agent Marquez, I’m Agent Bell. I was in tactical command of the raid here.” “Show me to it.” “I thought they didn’t have basements in Texas,” Agent Marquez said. “Something about a high water table and shifty clay.” “The levels are extremely low,” Agent Bell said when he saw the look on Agent Marquez’s face when she saw the man with the wand. “There’s no danger.” “The trunk hasn’t been moved?” Agent Marquez said. “I could open the lid for a moment.” “Nope. We thought it better to wait until we get this trunk to a safe, secure facility before we open the box. The report said that there were two surviving suspects?” she asked. “I have agents at the hospital ready to step in when the doctors give them the okay.” “Sir, the transport is here,” the agent said. The man stepped outside again. “After you, Agent Marquez,” he said. After the men in the spacesuits--as Agent Marques thought of them--had been inside the house for over a half hour, she wondered just what in the hell was taking them so long. She understood the need for caution, but she was eager to get the device somewhere safe, where it could be analyzed. June 13 -- 05:22 UTC/1:22 pm local time “How high should our hopes be that they will really do all that they can?” Lu Ping asked. Colonel Guo didn’t answer her. He looked around at some of the others gathered around the table before looking back at Lu Ping. Colonel Guo thought for a moment. “All right, then,” she said. “Thank you for your report, Colonel.” “I apologize,” she said. “I’m just a little tired. I guess all of us have been working hard; I’m sure I’m not the only one who hasn’t been getting a full night’s sleep lately.” She listened as the man filled the group in on the thoughts and concerns of the MOD. The mee________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ting broke up a half hour later, after everyone had gotten a turn to speak and to ask questions. As the people gathered around the table got to their feet and shook hands, or passed a little idle chatter for a few minutes before clearing the room, Lu Ping kept an eye on one particular member of the group. Even when Lieutenant Li, the newest member of the Recovery Team, came over to have a few words with her, Lu Ping surreptitiously kept one eye on the man. June 15 -- 00:07 UTC/9:07 am local time superpower, but He believed it even as he accepted that he was dying. The wound in his leg was bleeding much too fast for him to have any hope of staunching the flow. All he could do was hold a wadded up piece of shirt, which he had torn off a dead body, to the wound as he shouted orders to his men. He tried to stand, but his left leg--his wounded leg--hurt too much, and he sank back to the floor, trying to stay as low as possible to avoid gunfire. There was an explosion outside, and too late he covered his ears against the noise. A high-pitched ringing blotted out all noise momentarily, and when the sounds of battle (and of his own quick breathing) returned, they sounded muted, like the noise from a TV in another room. Sandsnake lifted himself up so that he could peer over the windowsill. Below he could see men in fatigues scurrying around like rats. Rats in army fatigues--that’s what they were. A bullet ricocheted off the wall just to the right of his head, and he ducked down for cover. He could hear the soldiers, those rats, yelling back and forth to one another, coordinating their attack. They were traitors to their people, every last one of them. He hoped that when Violet Dawn completed its revolution each of the traitors was found out and punished. He checked his pistol, making sure there were still plenty of rounds in the clip. There was gunfire downstairs, followed by screams of pain. Sandsnake had no idea which side was doing the screaming. He supposed that it made little difference. He waited. He was getting tired, had to fight to keep his eyes open. If he could just get a little sleep, he knew that he would feel better. No time for sleep now, though. Then all he could see was darkness. June 16 -- 11:11 UTC/6:11 am local time That was when the decision was made to move her to Fort Hood, where she could receive a more thorough interrogation. It had been a two and a half hour drive, the ambulance escorted by four vehicles, two carrying NTRA agents and two carrying soldiers who were dressed in civilian clothing but were armed to the teeth, ready to counter any attack on the convoy. “Ms. Mihn,” Agent Marquez spoke. “Can you hear me?” Again Mr. Tong translated, and again there was no response from Mihn Ji-hyun. Agent Marquez let out a quiet sigh. “Once we are satisfied that you have told us all that you know, we will let the doctor give you something for the pain,” Agent Marquez said. Mihn Ji-hyun opened her eyes and looked at Agent Marquez for a moment, and then closed her eyes again, having said nothing. “What are the names of your superiors within the organization?” After Mr. Tong had translated, and after Agent Marquez saw that Mihn Ji-hyun was content to remain silent, she looked toward where Agent Mulroney stood near the rolling table and gave a slight nod of her head. Agent Mulroney put on a pair of latex surgical gloves, extracted a small packet from the case and tore off one end. He slipped an alcohol pad out of the torn packet and wiped down a spot on Mihn Ji-hoon’s arm near the inside crease of the elbow. He moved back to the table, tossed the used alcohol pad aside, and took a small glass vial out of the case; it was filled with a cloudy liquid. He set the vial down on the table, took one of the needles out of the case and slipped off the plastic cap. With the needle in one hand, he picked up the vial in the other, inserting the needle through the rubber stopper at the top end of the vial and drawing a small amount of the milky fluid into the syringe. He extracted the needle and set the vial back down on the table. When Mr. Tong failed to translate Agent Marquez looked at him. “What is she saying?” Agent Marquez asked. Mr. Tong told the woman, raising his voice to be heard over her groaning. The woman responded to him. To Agent Marquez, it sounded like she was struggling to keep from screaming. He translated, and Mihn Ji-hyun responded, sounding like she was on the edge of hysteria. Agent Mulroney repeated the procedure, only this time he used a vial filled with a clear liquid. He cleaned a patch of the woman’s skin near where he had made the first injection, and gave her a second one. Within fifteen seconds the moans and groans subsided, and Mihn Ji-hyun laid her head back on the bed and closed her eyes. A tear spilled from one eye, tracing a path down one flushed cheek. “She asks that you come closer,” Mr. Tong said. “She says that she is too tired to raise her voice.” “Why didn’t you let us know that you spoke English before now?” Agent Marquez asked. “Ms. Mihn,” Agent Marquez spoke. “Tell us where we can find other Violet Dawn cells here in the United States. We know that the one you belonged to isn’t the only one.” Agent Marquez went back to her chair. Seoul, South Korea He was speaking to Captain Violet Rhee, who sat across from him at her desk. They had met up in the cafeteria to share a light breakfast, and now David sat watching as she read over a report that had been left on her desk overnight. The report was printed in Korean, so he had no idea what it said. “I’m afraid not. They either know nothing or are pretending not to know.” “Perhaps they really don’t know anything. Seems to me like they’re just muscle.” “David.” “We have a call from Washington. It’s urgent.” “Do you mean that not even Commander Junseo will be allowed to sit in,” Violet asked incredulously. “All I know I sthat a message came in for the two of us to haul ass to a secure phone and wait for an incoming call.” Violet Rhee looked as if she wished to protest further, but under the stern gaze of her commander she remained silent. Commander Junseo led the way and Agent Norwalk followed. David hung back for a moment. He turned back to Violet; she did not attempt to hide her displeasure at being left out. “I’ll fill you in if I can,” he said. “The phone’s speaker has been turned on so that you both can speak with the General. If you gentleman should need anything, let me know,” Commander Junseo said. David and Agent Norwalk entered the room, and Commander Junseo closed the door after them. The two agents took a seat at the table, and Agent Norwalk cleared his throat. “Yes. Agent Diehl is sitting right beside me.” “Are the two of you alone?” General Cromwell asked. The General continued, without waiting for either of the listeners to confirm his order; there was no question that they would obey his orders. “Fireblossom is the end result of a project started by Violet Dawn. We believe that over a period of at least four years they have kidnapped scientists from several different countries and smuggled them into North Korea. They used the technological advances brought about by China’s Project Dragonfire to build a similar weapon. Unlike Dragon’s Breath, of which there was only one built, Violet Dawn has manufactured several Fireblossom weapons, possibly more than a dozen. We got our hands on one of the Fireblossom weapons that were in the possession of a VD terrorist cell based out of Texas.” David and Agent Norwalk looked at each other for a second, apprehension etched on both of their faces. “If one of these bombs was set off in the middle of a heavily populated city…” David began; he was unable to finish the thought. “But the people living in that city would be dead,” David finished. “But why would they want to leave the infrastructure intact?” “That’s the theory we are currently operating under,” General Cromwell said. “This especially makes sense if you consider that possibility that American targets, as well as possible targets in Europe and elsewhere in the world, are only secondary targets. The primary targets--and keep in mind that this is still a theory, albeit one we place great stock in it--most likely lie within South Korea. And why would Violet Dawn place great importance on leaving the infrastructure of South Korea’s cities intact?” “And they don’t want to take over a blasted country,” Agent Norwalk added. immediately, and will hopefully be touching down here in DC no later than eight o’clock Eastern. A vehicle will be waiting to bring you to NTRA HQ. Good luck, gentleman.” Violet Rhee was understandably curious when David told her that he was leaving for the States. She was an intelligence officer herself, though, and understood when he told her that he was under orders not to disclose anything. He did let her know that her people would be teleconferencing with General Cromwell the next day, at which time she would know all there was to know. Someone was knocking at the door to the hotel room, and David heard it through the open bathroom door. He figured it was Agent Norwalk coming to talk about their trip. Agent Norwalk could wait; David didn’t want to get out of the shower just yet. He unlocked the door and pulled it open. It wasn’t Agent Norwalk standing outside his door; it was Violet. They stood staring at each other for a moment. Violet looked him over. He laughed. “No; he doesn’t know that I’m here. I came because I wanted to tell you…I wanted to…” June 18 -- 16:58 UTC/9:58 am local time “There’s a secure satphone up near the cockpit. Cromwell’s on the line and he wants to talk to you.” Agent Norwalk shook his head. “Agent Diehl speaking,” he said. “Fill me in, Hank,” David said, abandoning formalities. “Agent Diehl…David…,” the General trailed off. “We’re diverting your flight because Edwards is too close to L.A.” The words had no effect on David at first; they seemed too absurd to have been spoken, and for a moment he wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming. If so, he wanted to wake up now. despite a lifetime of practice. “I know that must have been hard to hear, David. It happened about eight hours ago; I just got a free moment, and I thought I would tell you myself.” “N-no. No, no family. No friends, as far as I know. But Jesus, Hank, all of those people. How many have been lost?” “It appears so,” General Cromwell said. “But some of them will live?” David asked. “Jesus fucking Christ,” David said below his breath. “Not yet. Right now we think that the cell that set off the Fireblossom in L.A. might have jumped the gun. Intel tells us that the shit has hit the fan in North Korea, and Violet Dawn is feeling the pressure.” There was a pause. “Do you really believe that?” David asked. “What happens after we land at PDX?” “I’m betting that’s a lie. Get something to eat. Okay?” “Same to you, Hank.” June 18 -- 01:10 UTC/9:10 am local time The corridor led to the storage area behind a clothing store; the store had remained closed for the day. The store was owned by a cousin of Jimmy Chen, and Jimmy was the first person Lu Ping saw when she came out of the corridor. With Jimmy there were three men and two women, all of them either standing or sitting on boxes. They turned their inquisitive eyes on Lu Ping as she entered. “Welcome, Madame Lu,” he said. “We’ve been waiting for you.” “I’m glad to see you here, Mister Yeung,” Lu Ping addressed the man who had spoken. “I will explain everything momentarily. Jimmy, has Wu Lei arrived yet?” “I’m right here,” he said. “I will,” Lu Ping said. Wu Lei laughed at this. --was rotten. That’s why I got in touch with Jimmy. I placed great faith in him, and he came through for me.” “You spied on us?” one of the women asked. “Yes. I believe that I have. And after what happened to the city of Los Angeles, the need to take him down is more urgent now than ever. And I need you to help me do it.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

For eight years his name had been Tarantula, and that was how he thought of himself. He watched the building across the street, and waited. He had always been a patient man, and he displayed that patience now; he had been waiting for three hours, sitting on a bench across from the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security, North Korea’s feared secret police force, which shared a name with China’s intelligence ministry. Tarantula was feeling no fear at all. In fact, a sense of calm had settled over him the night before, a welcome end to days of worry and anguish. He worked his tongue in his mouth, feeling the thin wire wrapped around a back molar, reassured by its presence. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, then opened his eyes and stared up at the blank windows of the Ministry building, a thousand dead eyes staring back at him. Time slid by and around him, everything seemingly in slow motion--the people walking past, the few cars on the streets, a group of soldiers passing by on some errand he would never know of. Kwoong looked up into his face with a quizzical look, feigning forgetfulness. Mr. Ho from Shanghai didn’t exist; he was merely a code word (one of many) used between members of Violet Dawn and their fellow travelers to identify themselves to one another. The guard went back inside after throwing one last suspicious look at Tarantula. “Please have a seat,” Kwoong offered. “I know. That is why I am here, Mr. Kwoong. We have been very disappointed that our...friends in high places have failed in their duty to us.” “You clearly do not understand the meaning of loyalty, Mr. Kwoong.” “I understand everything,” Tarantula said. “I understand that we were foolish to ever place our trust in pigs like you.” Kwoong picked up the telephone and punched two buttons. A moment later he spoke something quietly into the phone; Tarantula didn’t catch what he said, but then again he wasn’t really listening. “What are you doing?” Kwoong asked with a tone that was closer to annoyance than apprehension. When Kwoong tried to pass by Tarantula he was pushed back. “Unlock this door,” someone called from outside. “Open this door immediately!” commanded the voice from the other side of the office door. “This is your reward, Mr. Kwoong,” Tarantula said. “”“Help!” Kwoong called. He never finished the thought. A tremendous explosion rocked the building to its foundations. Of the four thousand people who were in the building at the time of the explosion, only thirteen would survive.

Chapter Thirty-Five

In the green glow of the night vision goggles, the house looked like just any ordinary home, like a million others in the city. The windows were bright squares of flaring light. The large house was set back on a side street, and the nearest house was at least five hundred yards away and looked as if nobody was currently living there. There was little traffic along that street, which was as good as Lu Ping could have hoped for--isolation, where she and her team could carry out their operation without interference or prying eyes. She lowered the googles from her eyes and handed them to Wu Lei, her second-in-command for the operation. With them was Jimmy Chen, as well as Lin and Song, one of the men and one of the women from the meeting at the clothing store. Yeung and the others from the meeting had moved off two minutes before to sneak around the back of the house, where they would hunker down until the order was given to make entry. Wu shook his head and rolled his eyes. Lu Ping just smiled. “Just remember to stay back until I call for you,” Lu Ping said. “Keep your radio low, but pay attention. If you hear the order to abort, or if things go really wrong, make your way back to the van and wait for three minutes. At that time you leave with anyone who has made it back by then. The second van will still be there for any stragglers.” “Team Two is in position. Over.” “Are you certain the message was sent?” she asked. “All right. Helmets on and weapons check,” she said. She clipped the radio to her belt and started forward in a running crouch. Her team followed, while Jimmy Chen hung back as had been planned. They moved quickly and silently, shadows in the darkness. They crossed a well-kept front yard and stopped on the stone path leading to the front door of the house. They came upon two more guards as they made their way through a series of hallways. Since their weapons were all equipped with silencers, these guards were unaware that shots had been fired, and were caught as unaware as the first guard had been. Echo,” came a voice from behind a door at the far end of the dining room. “Lin, Song and Han,” Lu Ping said. “You three clear the rest of the house.” Lu Ping whipped around, bringing her gun up to meet any threat. Feng and Yeung were wrestling with Li Hong. He had tried to swallow one of the papers from the table, but all he was managing to do so far was to choke on it. Yeung pulled the paper out of the man’s mouth and swatted him on the side of the head. Li Hong held his head, looking at Yeung with a hurt, confused expression on his face, as if he could fathom why he had been struck. Li Hong did not respond. Lu Ping nodded in acknowledgment. She turned her attention to the man sitting across from Li Hong. It was the first time she had gotten a chance to really look at him, and immediately she realized that he looked familiar. “I have never seen you before, Madame,” he said in a low voice. I have no idea who that is,” he answered. The man didn’t respond to the threat; he didn’t even look at Lu Ping when she spoke to him. A flash of anger--no doubt brought on by the all too fresh memory of Wu Lei’s ruined throat--rose inside of Lu Ping, and she pistol-whipped the stubborn man. He screamed and grabbed his head, and when he took his hand away there was blood on it. “The man simply looked back at her defiantly, and she raised her pistol to hit him again, causing him to flinch back. “His name is Hu Qi,” Li Hong repeated. “Does he know that you are here?” he asked in return. Hu Qi laughed. It was a deep, grating sound that seemed to move through his throat reluctantly, as if he was unaccustomed to laughter. “He just laughed again, and it sounded even more unpleasant than the last time. “What did he mean by that?” Lu Ping asked Li Hong. June 23 -- 21:00 UTC/2:00 pm local time The plan crumbled within hours of being implemented, as thousands of vehicles started to pile up at the checkpoints as huge numbers as people attempted to flee the urban centers. It was time for Plan B, and Plan B meant that while everybody crossing the security lines could possibly be stopped and asked for identification, only a small percentage actually were. Security forces--a mixture of local and state police as well as National Guardsmen, the make-up varying from city to city--were to use their own discretion about who to stop and which vehicles to search. An issue quickly arose around racial profiling; security forces were accused of pulling aside people of Asian descent for extra screening. Then orders came down from Washington. Agent Norwalk was to fly south, to an Operational HQ stationed fifty miles outside of San Francisco, while David was to go north, to a similar OHQ near Seattle. The orders didn’t give them any hint as to why they were being sent to these locations, simply that they would be briefed once they had arrived at their respective destinations. “Follow me, sir,” the soldier said as he and David climbed down off the plane. David looked around. He saw a house set back on a small plot of land that seemed like it was in threat of being swallowed by the woods that rose up behind it. “But it’s just a house. I don’t even see any guards around.” The soldier led David to the house’s large dining room, which little resembled any dining room David had ever seen. There were tables set along one wall, with a series of computer monitors stacked on it in a row. Men were bustling about, some in uniform and some in civvies. One man--a burly guy with a thick beard, who reminded David of a lumberjack-- took notice of the newcomers and came over to them. The man stuck out one beefy hand and flashed a brilliant smile; David was surprised to see anyone smiling under the circumstances. “I’m ASAC O’Donnell,” the big man said. “But you can call me Phil. I’m in operational command here. Or rather, I was. Now that’s your job, I guess.” “That’s what I’ve been told.” ASAC O’Donnell checked his watch. “I’m not entirely sure. From what I hear we got a tipoff from the Chinese.” “Yes, but we’re obviously not waiting until the clock runs out to move. The take down operation for the local Violet Dawn cell is set to take place anywhere from twenty-four to forty-eight hours from now. The boys in Washington are setting it up so that all of the cells across the country can be taken down at once.” “That’s above my head.” ASAC Phil O’Donnell led David into another room, where they sat down at a tabled covered with maps and reports. David was scared. What scared him most was the knowledge that he was now personally overseeing an operation to take out a terrorist cell that had a weapon that could wipe out the entire population of Seattle.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Viper felt cold and hot at the same time. He hadn’t known that was even possible, but now he knew only too well. It hurt to breathe, and every time that he coughed there was blood. The people around him kept glancing at him with concern. He knew that he must look like an awful mess to them. He hadn’t dared look into a mirror in at least a week. He wore a knit cap on his head to cover his bald head; a small consideration for the sensitivities of the others. He smiled at the thought of it. Across the room a young woman--he had forgotten her code name, though he was certain she had told it to him at some time or other--turned toward him and flinched away when she saw his smile. It was probably the missing teeth that put her off. Or the flaking skin. He felt a cough coming on and held it in; he didn’t want to see more blood coming from his body. It was bad enough what he saw whenever he had to use the toilet. The tickle in his chest subsided, and he considered it a small victory. He pulled his jacket around him a little tighter as a chill ran though his body, making him shudder. “No, sir,” the man said as he let the curtain fall back into place. Viper was jerked awake as one of the windows shattered inward as a projectile came sailing through it. There was a moment of shock in which everybody stared dumbly at the metallic canister that rolled across the floor until it came to rest against a wall. Then the canister started expelling a noxious cloud of gas, and pandemonium broke loose. Discipline and order broke down in mere seconds as everybody started to do a thousand different things at once. Some of Viper’s comrades went running for the storeroom for gas masks, while others rushed to get their guns, and still others headed for the closest exit they could find. He continued to crawl as two of his comrades fell to the floor with multiple bullet wounds from the gunfire that continued to pour in from outside. Viper managed to fight the coughing spell and resume his belly crawl. He wound around the two dead men, and then a third. He made it out of the large central room and out into a hallway. Viper climbed the stairs as rapidly as he could, even as his legs wanted to give out, even as every part of his body just wanted to lie down and never get back up again. With each step it felt as if he were wearing lead weights strapped to his ankles, but he fought against that weight, fought against his own failing body even as it betrayed him, as it threatened to betray his plans and his honor. The guard came closer, his gun still raised. The guard came close enough to see Viper’s sickness-ravaged face through the faceplate, recognizing him. The guard lowered his firearm and saluted. Viper waved away the salute. Viper took a moment to breathe. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. He tried again, and this time the light flashed green. He opened the thick door of the safe. There were a series of shelves inside; all of them were empty save for one. A black box, made from steel that was lined with lead, stood alone on that shelf. on the first floor. The woman carrying the box stepped out of the house and walked up to a man who was wearing a bulletproof vest over his dress shirt and tie. The woman took off her gas mask and presented the black box to the man. June 25 -- 13:15 UTC/6:15 am local time A uniformed man with captain’s bars on his cap checked a laptop that was placed on the table before him before looking back up at the television screen. David turned back to the screen. Seattle was spread out below, before and around the choppers, a city that still hadn’t completely wiped the sleep from its eyes, and that faced a danger that was closer than all of those people below could imagine. Even after what had happened to L.A., many Seattleites took comfort in the mistaken belief that they weren’t strategically important enough to be targeted by the terrorists. They didn’t understand the nature of the enemy. David had to beat down a flutter of panic in his gut. Failure now didn’t mean a bad mark on a report, or a demotion in rank; failure meant death for thousands or more. Failure meant a future self-inflicted gunshot to the head after the bender to end all benders. David watched as the choppers slowed their rate of speed as they approached the target. He saw the target appear far below. The target was an apartment building that was only fifty yards from Interstate 5. David picked up a pair of headphones with an attached microphone, and slipped them on his head. “Hold steady for the moment. Over.” The Captain looked down at his laptop and typed something in. After a few seconds he looked back up at David. “Team Leader, this is Operations Command. You are to remain in a holding pattern until further advised. Over.” David kept one eye on the clock hanging on the wall to the right of the television screen. The seconds passed much too slowly for him, each second feeling like at least ten. On the screen the city streets and buildings on the ground sped by as the choppers whirled around in a circle around their target, waiting for the order to drop their men. David took a breath, and then spoke into the microphone: One by one the three choppers of the Operations Team swooped down and hovered over the roof of the apartment building, pausing just long enough for four black-clad soldiers to rappel down onto the roof out of each Black Hawk before the choppers whirled away again. They worked quickly and efficiently, every man knowing his role and exactly where he was supposed to be. “Switch over to Active Coms Channel,” David said. “Watch your three o’clock!” “He’s down. Clear the next room.” “OpCommand, this is Operations Team. We have cleared the apartment. All targets neutralized. We have the Fireblossom. Repeat, we have the Fireblossom. For God and country. Over.” David took off the headphones and set them on the table. He covered his face and started to shake. Captain Reynolds looked at him, visibly uncomfortable. For a moment people thought that David was crying, but as he took his hands away from his face it became apparent that he was laughing with joy.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

This operation was different than the raid on the meeting between Hu Qi and Li Hong. This time Lu Ping wouldn’t just have a small force backing her up, but a whole company of soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army, as well as two dozen agents of the Ministry of State Security. And she had Feng and Yeung with her, the fellow survivors of her little band. In less than an hour--a very long stretch of time in which the survivors of the raid felt they might be raided themselves at any moment--Jimmy had cracked the encryption and found a pot of gold. The pot of gold came in the form of a folder marked She had rushed immediately to the headquarters of the Ministry of State Security. She didn’t need to fret about who to trust any longer. Thanks to Hu Qi’s little insurance policy--which he had probably thought would protect him if he ever fell out of favor with the rest of the conspirators--she now knew who the double agents and traitors were in the Ministry. She also knew about what Viper had thought of as the “day of reckoning”, which Hu Qi referred to in his documents as X-Day. Soon after the North Koreans discovered the factory where the Fireblossom weapons had been made, a dozen That was where Lu Ping was headed now. The helicopter she was a passenger in was one of six, and they were to be met by three truckloads of soldiers who had set out two hours before from their base fifty miles away. The helicopter landed one at a time in an open field and the passengers disembarked quickly. Lu Ping conferred with Colonel Chun, who was in charge of the troops. He assured her that his men were ready to go. Lu Ping and those she had brought with her boarded the trucks and they headed off. Colonel Chun, who stood nearby, nodded. When the time came, it was Lu Ping who gave the order. The raiding party rounded the hill and headed for the cabin. Lu Ping led the way, with Yeung, Feng, and a dozen MSS agents at her side. Behind them was a line of soldiers decked out in fatigues. They moved quickly, but quietly, with weapons drawn. Halfway to the cabin some of the soldiers broke off and started on a course that would take them around to the rear of the cabin, where they would guard against any attempt at escape in that direction. Lu Ping and the rest of the party continued on their original course. Lu Ping inspected herself. The bullet had hit her in the chest, but had been stopped by her vest. She was okay, though she could expect a nasty bruise to form later. She moved to the spot where Zhang had fallen. He was still alive, but bleeding profusely. His breathing was quick and shallow as she stared up into her eyes. She saw pain in those eyes, but no fear. them?” Lu Ping looked at the man who had delivered the news, then back down at Zhang. “Your cause is lost,” Lu Ping said, “You have nothing left to win. Tell me where it is.” “It’s…not…over,” he managed to finish. But she knew the truth of it. Dragon’s Breath wasn’t in the cabin. It was out there somewhere. And someone knew where it was.

Chapter Forty

It was the day when the nation celebrated its independence from an imperial power. There had been a debate among city and town councils across the nation on which would be the appropriate way to celebrate the occasion. Some decided to scale back their normal festivities, but most were opting to go the whole nine yards--carnivals, elaborate fireworks shows, and everything else. The general feeling was that this was the way a nation showed its strength, that people would not change their way of life out of fear or sorrow. The country would move on, as it always has. The thing that was bugging him the most at the moment was the fate of Dragon’s Breath. It had been the theft of that terrible device that had started the whole thing. The Chinese reported that the weapon had been found and destroyed. But they hadn’t allowed any foreign representatives to inspect the device, or to witness its destruction. Perhaps he was just being paranoid, but something about it bothered David, and he couldn’t help being nagged by a doubt about how truthful the Chinese government was being. He noticed a small commotion fifty yards away and he turned to see what was going on. A woman was trying to cross the cordon behind which the general crowd was kept away from the stage. The woman was trying to tell the officers who held her back that she knew someone near the stage, asking them to let her pass. David knew that voice. He jogged over and put himself between the woman and the cops. David flashed his own pass. Some of the crowd nearest them were looking at them now. “Yes; I understand.” “I was starting to miss you,” she said. “I managed to get a hold of Norwalk, and he told me that you would be here today. I asked him not to tell you I would be here; I wanted to surprise you.” “I hope you don’t mind,” she said. David checked his watch. At exactly two o’clock the Cardinal began ringing the bell. The bell was rung in memory of the dead. There were too many dead to ring the bell for each lost soul individually, so each toll would count for a thousand people. With each ringing tone, a thousand lives that had been snuffed out. - Assistant Special Agent in Charge. DARPA - Democratc People's Republic of Korea. The official name of North Korea. Fireblossom - Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. A national automated fingerprint identification system maintained by the FBI. LZMinistry of State Security (MSS)National Threat Reaction Agency (NTRAProject Dragonfire - IATA code for Portland International Airport. ROK - Satellite phone. Threat Assessment and Management Department (TAMD- Korean equivalent of the word "comrade". Violet Dawn (VD) Click to Post

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