“Sorry to have kept you waiting,” the officer told Lim as he made his way to a wet bar near the television area and calmly poured himself a drink. “How was your day in the mines?”
Lim glared at Yulim but said nothing.
“I know. A foolish question,” Yulim said, taking his drink to an antique mahogany desk in the den. He gestured to the guards, who dragged Lim over to a straight-backed wooden chair that faced the desk. They forced him to sit, then stepped back, flanking him on either side.
Yulim went on, “A man as wealthy as Lim Seung-Whan has probably forgotten what’s like to roll up his sleeves and do some actual physical labor.”
Lim was startled to hear Yulim call him by name. Then he saw the commandant glancing over a computer readout as well as a few smaller items laid out on his desk. Lim figured they were most likely his identification papers.
“Let’s see what we have here,” Yulim said. “Lim Seung-Whan. Founder of Lim Systems International, co-owner of the Seoul Sky-Eagles, and chairman of the board for two other corporations. Very impressive. And according to this,” he went on, referring to a newsclipping retrieved for him by the same intelligence agents who’d spent the afternoon checking on Lim’s background, “you’re one of the fifty richest men in all of South Korea. Where would you rank yourself? First? Fifth? Twentieth?”
Up until this moment, Lim had felt certain that he as well as his family and abducted friends were doomed, that they would be degraded and then killed, in essence, for sport by their captors. But now, however bleak his situation seemed, Lim felt the faintest glimmer of hope, because it was clear that his tormentor wanted something from him. And that gave Lim something he’d felt he’d been stripped of from the moment the North Koreans had stormed aboard his yacht.
A sense of control.
A reassuring feeling of calm came over Lim as he stared at Yulim, sizing up the situation.
“So that’s why we’ve been taken captive,” Lim told Yulim. “You’re after ransom money.”
Yulim shrugged. “I had no say in your capture,” he assured Lim, “but my understanding was that you’d ventured into our waters and our men just—”
“That’s a lie,” Lim countered. “We hadn’t even crossed the disputed maritime line. We were seized from South Korean waters.”
“That’s beside the point now, don’t you think?” Yulim said.
“Of course,” Lim replied. “The point is, as you say, I’m a wealthy man. Wealthy enough to buy my freedom.”
“Just yours?” Yulim inquired. “What about your friends? Your wife? Your daughter?”
“Let’s not play any more games,” Lim said. “Just name your price and we can start making the arrangements.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bullhead City, Arizona
When the FBI’s charter jet landed at Bullhead City Airport, the plan was to drop off Kissinger, then promptly take back to the air for the short flight north to Las Vegas. But while Bolan and Kissinger exchanged a few parting words, Bryce Thompson, who’d driven across the river from Laughlin to rendezvous with the jet, boarded and quickly briefed Ed Scanlon on the latest news regarding Li-Roo Kohb, and suddenly things had changed.
“Sorry, guys, but we need to go back to Plan A,” Scanlon told the others after he’d spoken with Thompson.
“Why?” Bahn asked. “What happened?”
“I don’t have all the specifics yet,” Scanlon said, “but it looks like REDI just got their hands on Li-Roo Kohb. The trail’s still fresh, so we figure the more bloodhounds we can throw at them, the better.”
“Fair enough,” Bolan said.
Jayne Bahn winked at Kissinger as she grabbed her overnight bag. “Just when you thought we were going to have to make do with love letters.”
“How about that?” Kissinger grabbed his crutches and played along. “And here I was really looking forward to missing you.”
Thompson had already arranged for a taxi, and by the time everyone had disembarked, the cab had pulled up alongside the tarmac. Scanlon got into the taxi along with the two other Bureau agents who’d accompanied him on the jet. Bolan and Kissinger took the back seat of Thompson’s sedan while Jayne Bahn rode up front.
As both vehicles pulled away from the airport, Bahn asked Thompson, “Okay, I heard the part about there not being a lot of specifics, but how about giving us at least a little to go on?”
Thompson started to fill the others in on his aborted stakeout and the news that REDI agents had apparently beaten them to a search of Li-Roo Kohb’s home, using the same cable company ruse they’d employed in Los Angeles prior to killing Dr. Yong-Im. Two blocks north of the airport, he took a left turn and crossed the bridge leading back to Laughlin. As Bolan listened to Thompson, he looked past the gleaming waters of the Colorado River and saw more than a dozen casinos lined up like gilded dominoes along the banks. The resorts were every bit as large and gaudy as their Vegas counterparts and, judging from the traffic, it looked as though business was booming.