Ballistic Force(39)

Scanlon had just gotten off the phone, so Bolan told Kissinger to get back to what he was doing and turned his attention to the Bureau agent.

“Any news on Li-Roo Kohb?”

“Afraid not,” Scanlon said. “But before we go on, I gotta say you and the little lady did quite a job out there.”

“We just went with the flow,” Bolan said. “No big deal. And you might want to make sure you don’t call her ‘little lady’ when she’s within earshot.”

“I don’t plan to,” Scanlon said. “Anyway, what I was getting at is that I took a little heat up front for letting you guys tag along, but now everybody’s singing a different tune.”

“Good for them,” Bolan said. “But let’s move on.”

“Right,” Scanlon said. “Like I said, Li-Roo is still missing, along with the guys that grabbed him. They ditched the Explorer just up the road in the parking garage at Harrah’s. Odds are they stole another car and did a plate switch, but until somebody leaves the casino and realizes their wheels are missing, there’s nothing to go on there except the prints we lifted off the SUV, and we’re not expecting much on that front.”

“Because you don’t have any REDI prints to cross-reference,” Bolan guessed.

“Exactly.” Scanlon reached for a printout he’d just downloaded from the Bureau’s database. “However, we do have a partial gallery of mugshots on these guys, and we picked up a match with one of the guys who was in on the abduction.”

Bolan glanced at the printout, which showed an enlarged still-frame of one of Li-Roo Kohb’s abductors as taken from one of the River Shores casino surveillance cameras. Directly alongside the shot was what looked to be a black-and-white passport photo of a hard-looking North Korean with dark eyes and prominent mole on his right cheekbone. Bolan compared the two photos. It seemed pretty clear that both shots were of the same man.

“His name is Bryn Ban-Ho,” Scanlon explained. “We’ve got him ranked the same level on the pecking order as Hong Sung-nam, so the odds are he’s heading up a separate team from Hong.”

“I take it, then, that Hong and this other Killboy didn’t show up on that surveillance footage.”

“No,” Scanlon said. “Like I said, they’re probably working separately, which means Hong might not have left L.A. after all.”

“Either that or he’s headed to Las Vegas to take out Kang.”

“If they don’t have a third team in Vegas, yeah, that’s a possibility,” Scanlon conceded. “In any event, nothing’s happened up there yet, but we have to figure if they’re going to make a move, it’ll be soon. We’ve got reports that REDI already tried their luck with the other defectors in D.C. and Chicago.”

“But you already had those guys in protective custody, right?” Bolan said.

Scanlon nodded. “Yeah, but REDI didn’t know that. We went ahead and planted look-alikes just like we’re doing in Vegas. We wound up with a shootout in Chicago when they showed up. We took the whole team out but lost a man doing it.”

“What about Washington?”

“Apparently they smelled a rat, because they bolted right after they showed up at the safehouse,” Scanlon said. “Our guys gave chase but lost them on the Beltway.”

Bolan took in all the recent developments. He didn’t like the way it added up.

“I don’t think they’re going to bite in Vegas,” he concluded. “You gotta figure these guys are communicating with each other somehow. With everything that’s gone on, there’s no way they can’t know we’re on to them now.”

“I’d agree with you, except for a couple things,” Scanlon said. “First off, it’s not a given that the teams are in touch with each other. As a matter of fact, all our intel on REDI points the other way. When they send out a team, they don’t bother giving them the big picture. They probably figure it’d be a distraction, plus the fact that if they wind up caught like our guy here, they have less info to give up. In this case, it wouldn’t surprise me if the guys in Chicago and Washington didn’t even know there are other defectors here in the States, much less that there are other REDI crews going after them.”

“For our sake, I hope you’re right,” Bolan said. “But don’t forget that all the defectors were on that list we found in L.A.”

“You’re right.” Scanlon struck himself on the side of the head with the butt of his palm. “What an idiot! So much for that theory. Damn it! And I was just on my way to the airport to fly up to Vegas. Now, hell, I don’t know…”