“Provided it was his boat,” Tokaido cautioned. “We still don’t know that for a fact.”
“You’re whistling in the dark there, my friend, don’t you think?” Michaels replied. “There’s just too much pointing that way.”
Tokaido sighed with frustration.
“I know,” he conceded. “You’re right.”
“For what it’s worth,” Michaels said, “we’re close to slipping a couple special op teams across the border. I’m just on my way to hammer out the details, but I’m going to push for an insertion point near where the boat was taken. With any luck, we can position ourselves to make some kind of move if something breaks.”
“That would be great,” Tokaido said.
Michaels excused himself. Tokaido turned back to his work and tried to busy himself figuring a way to unscramble the KPA’s radio signals. A few minutes later his cell phone rang. It was Aaron Kurtzman.
“We’re in luck, if you can call it that,” the computer expert announced.
Kurtzman went on to explain that an NSA satellite monitoring the Yellow Sea had managed to snare images of a luxury yacht being intercepted by a North Korean gunship near the coordinates mentioned in the radio dispatch CRCC had glommed onto during the night.
“The blow-ups are as grainy as hell,” Kurtzman said, “but we were able to get the make of the yacht and cross-reference with some data files on your cousin. It’s his boat, all right. And from the looks of it, it’s pretty clear everybody on board was taken alive.”
Tokaido was relieved, but his concerns were far from being laid to rest.
“How many people were aboard?” he asked.
“I counted six,” Kurtzman said. “Three men and three women. Any idea who your cousin might’ve taken along?”
“No, but I’ll work on it,” Tokaido said. “Were they in southern waters?”
“Gray area,” Kurtzman said. “They were right near the point where the MMDL splits off from the Northern Limit Line.”
The Maritime Military Demarcation Line was an extended border North Korea had claimed in 1999 in an effort to claim jurisdiction over ferry traffic between Incheon and a handful of islands off its southwestern coast. South Korea had steadfastly refused to acknowledge the ploy, and in recent years there had been countless incidents between the two sides regarding rights of safe passage through the area. This apparently was the latest.
“It’s a moot point, I guess,” Kurtzman said, “because now KPA has the boat and whoever was on board.”
“What about after the seizure?” Tokaido asked. “Is there any footage showing where they were taken?”
“Afraid not,” Kurtzman said. “You know how these satellites work. They pass over an area, then move on to another target. We’re jumping forward and trying to get footage of their nearest naval base, but my guess is they’ll keep the boat under wraps for a while. And I wouldn’t hold out much hope of getting any frames that show where the prisoners were taken.”
“I doubt it, too,” Tokaido said.
“Pardon me for snooping a little when I brought up your cousin’s dossier,” Kurtzman went on, “but you never told me what a major player he was in Seoul. A guy like that would be quite a catch for the KPA.”
“What are you saying?” Tokaido said. “You think they targeted him?”
“I don’t know, but it might not be a bad thing if they did,” Kurtzman suggested. “They’d have to know he’s more valuable to them alive than dead.”
“Ransom?” Tokaido said. It was a scenario he hadn’t considered.
“Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve tried it.”
Tokaido recalled his earlier conversation with Colonel Michaels and said, “But the timing’s all wrong. With everything else going on, why would they want to resort to something like this? It’ll only throw them off their game plan.”
“Good point,” Kurtzman said. “Then again, if it swells up into a brouhaha, we’re going to wind up being as distracted by it as they are. Maybe even more so. They could use it to their advantage.”
Another possibility occurred to Tokaido. “Maybe it’s not money they’re after,” he said. “Maybe they’re angling for an exchange.”
“I don’t follow you,” Kurtzman said.
“The defectors. Maybe they want to barter my cousin for the members of the nuclear team they can’t get their hands on. What’s the latest on that, anyway?”
“Well, so far they’ve killed one of the defectors and nabbed another one,” Kurtzman said. “We stopped them, though, in Chicago and Washington, and Mack’s on his way to Vegas in case they try to make a move for the guy there. That leaves just this Shinn guy who’s dropped under the radar.”