Ballistic Force(11)

Yong-Im froze in place, his horror escalating with the sudden realization that these weren’t mere burglars. That they’d called him by his real name could only mean one thing: they were either from the North Korean secret police or REDI, the dreaded Research Department for External Intelligence. It didn’t matter which entity they represented. Now that they’d found him, Yong-Im knew that he was a dead man. Still, there was a part of him that grasped at the false hope that he could somehow avoid the inevitable.

“You have the wrong house,” the scientist pleaded. “My name is not Yong-Im. My name is Evan Rohri. You can check my wallet. You’ll see!”

Hong and Ok-Hwa exchanged a glance, then Hong suddenly whipped the weighted sock around, striking Yong-Im in the jaw.

The man’s cry was drowned out by the blaring of the television set. A welt began to form on his jaw where he’d been struck.

“I’m sure they gave you a new name when you defected,” Hong taunted the scientist, “but you are Dr. Yong-Im Hyunsook from the Project Kanggye Nuclear Team. There’s no sense trying to deny it.”

“My name is Evan Rohri!” Yong-Im persisted.

Hong lashed out again with the weighted sock. Yong-Im threw a hand up and deflected the blow. His fingers went numb where the ashtray struck them.

Hong signaled Ok-Hwa. The younger man moved forward, grabbing Yong-Im and pinning his arms behind his back. Hong laid into the scientist a third time with the sock, splitting his lower lip and breaking two of his front teeth. Blood began to seep from the corner of his mouth.

“We’ve found you and we know the addresses of the others, except for Shinn Kam-Song,” Hong told the older man. “Tell us where we can find him and maybe we’ll let you live.”

Yong-Im stared at his captors, trembling. He couldn’t help them, even if he wanted to. After they’d defected, the Kanggye Team had been split up and, for their own protection, none of them had been told where the others had been relocated to, much less what their names had been changed to. He spit out the blood pooling inside his mouth and clung to his first defense.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he insisted. “I don’t know about any nuclear team! I’m a retired accountant! I’ve lived here in America since I was a child!”

“Liar!” Ok-Hwa screamed at the prisoner. In a burst of fury, the young Killboy initiate tossed his gun aside and jerked Yong-Im across the carpet, slamming his head against the corner of the coffee table. “Do you think we’re fools?”

Hong reached into his tool kit for a syringe filled with an amber fluid. He had a feeling they were going to need truth serum to get Yong-Im to talk. As he readied the needle, his partner continued to throttle the doctor.

Hong became alarmed by Ok-Hwa’s ferocity and finally set aside the syringe and rushed over to intervene.

“Ease up, you idiot!” he shouted. “We want him alive!”

But Ok-Hwa was caught up in his bloodlust and he continued to hammer Yong-Im’s skull against the tabletop until Hong forcibly pried him away. Even then, Ok-Hwa continued to rage at their prisoner.

“That will teach you!” he seethed.

Hong dragged his protégé aside, pinned him against the wall, then went nose-to-nose with him.

“Who’s running things here?” he demanded.

“He wasn’t cooperating!” Ok-Hwa countered.

“Who’s running things here?” Hong repeated, shaking the younger man.

“You are!” Ok-Hwa relented. “You’re in charge!”

“Don’t forget it!”

Hong released Ok-Hwa and turned back to Yong-Im. The defector lay sprawled facedown on the floor, blood from his mouth discoloring the carpet. He wasn’t moving. Hong crouched over the man and turned him over. Yong-Im’s face was bruised and swollen. His eyes were open, but his stare was vacant. Hong let the man go and slowly stood. Ok-Hwa met Hong’s livid gaze with one of his own.

“I didn’t mean to kill him!” he said. “I was just trying to get him to cooperate.”

“There’s not much chance of that happening now, is there?” Hong said coldly. He turned the television up even louder, then went to a nearby desk and yanked out one of the drawers, spilling its contents onto the carpet. He’d already looked through everything in the desk and taken pains to make it appear that nothing had been disturbed. But now everything had changed. They needed to cover up the real reason for their visit. They couldn’t afford to make it known that the Kanggye Team was being targeted by REDI. Until they got their hands on the other defectors, they needed to maintain the element of surprise.