“That idiot!” he snapped. “Didn’t he stop to think that bringing them here might jeopardize the secrecy of this location?”
“It wasn’t entirely his decision,” Dahn said. “The southerners were sent here on orders from the same general who ordered their abduction. A general who, it so happens, is atop the list of those we feel are attempting to resurrect Operation Guillotine.”
“What general are we talking about?” Oh wanted to know. “What’s his name?”
“I can’t give you that information,” Dahn said. “But the fact that he arranged to send the abductees here to Changchon naturally makes us wonder about his relationship with Yulim.”
“But if they’re plotting a coup, why would they bother drawing attention to themselves with a kidnapping?” Oh wanted to know.
“I asked the same question when I heard the news,” Dahn confided. “But you have to consider that the reason we were able to break up the first group of conspirators was that, while shrewd, they weren’t particularly smart, especially in terms of covering their tracks. It might be the same case here. My guess is they saw the kidnapping as an unexpected opportunity and went ahead with it without considering the consequences.”
“An opportunity for what?” Oh wondered.
“The ransom is several million U.S. dollars,” Dahn said. “Revolutions need to be financed, like everything else. We know that Yulim had been short-shipping opium hauls to the north, so we expect he’s probably dealing some heroin on the side, but here is a chance for an even quicker cash infusion.”
Oh nodded absently. He was still reeling from Dahn’s earlier revelations. So many things were happening, and he’d been oblivious to them all. He felt foolish, and although he could see no evidence linking Major Jin to Yulim’s involvement in a conspiracy against Kim Jong-il, he’d now reached the point where it seemed that nothing would surprise him.
“What can I do to help?” he asked Dahn.
“I can take it from here,” the sergeant told him. “Besides, you’re due back in Kaesong, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Oh said, “but there is a problem with my jeep. I won’t be leaving for another hour at least.”
“I prefer to work alone,” Dahn said, “but if you’ve had any dealings with Yulim, I could use a pretext for visiting his quarters. Any suggestions?”
Oh thought a moment. At first nothing occurred to him, but then he recalled the unsavory interest the commandant had taken in the teenage girl that had been brought by truck to the opium fields the day before.
“I know that on occasion Yulim likes to indulge himself with some of the female prisoners,” he told Dahn. “I think he arranges for some of the officers here to do the same. That might be a way to go.”
“I might have guessed as much,” Dahn said, grinning ruefully. “You have no idea how often an officer’s weakness for women has proved his undoing.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Zane Island, Pacific Ocean
It took Mack Bolan, Ed Scanlon and Jayne Bahn slightly more than forty-five minutes to reach Phoenix’s Luke Air Force Base and secure passage aboard a Learjet C-21A originally chartered for a flight to Guam. The jet was nearly fifty percent faster than the converted Young-333 cargo plane carrying the two defectors and their REDI captors, however, allowing the pursuers to quickly make up for lost time: so much so, in fact, that the C-21A touched down on the runway at the USAF base on Zane Island nearly a full hour ahead of the Young-333’s estimated arrival time.
Zane Island was a five-mile swath of palm-infested flatland located eighty miles due west of Oahu. After failed incarnations as a pineapple plantation and a haven for off-shore bankers, Zane had been appropriated by the Air Force, which in 1993 had converted the west end of the island into an alternate refueling stop for military craft diverted from their usual cross-Pacific itineraries by inclement weather. When an upgraded air base had been built farther inland two years earlier, the Air Force had leased the original facility to a Japanese consortium that, in turn, sublet hangar space and airstrip access to a handful of international cargo outfits, including the Far East Trading Company.
“On the bright side, it’s unlikely that anyone from Far East works the control tower,” Major William Cook explained once Bolan and his colleagues had disembarked from the Learjet, “so it’s not like somebody’s going to be able to sound the alarm once we move in.”
Cook had been apprised of the situation well in advance of Bolan’s arrival, and he’d already assembled a small force to storm the cargo facility. A team of twelve special-op Rangers were huddled in the rear of a canvas-shelled supply truck parked just off the tarmac, and there were two Apache war choppers idling on the nearby runway, prepared to lend aerial assistance.