Kill Chain (22 page)

Too bad Niner’s not
here.

He frowned at the thought
of his missing friend.

If anything happens to
him, we don’t rest until they’re all dead.

The senior officer turned
toward him. “He says he moved the grate.”

Dawson’s eyes widened
slightly. “He’s admitting to it?”

“Yes. He says someone
paid him a million wons to replace it.”

Dawson’s eyes narrowed as
he did the mental math.

About a thousand
bucks.

Good pay for a few
minutes of work.

Wait a minute.

“Replace?”

The officer nodded. “Yes.
He says when he arrived the grate was removed. He replaced it then was supposed
to leave.”

Dawson looked at the man.
“Do you speak English?”

He nodded.

“Who paid you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t
know. I do odd jobs around the city for money.”

Atlas grunted. “Huh, you
can make a living like that?”

“Sure. You’d be amazed at
what people are willing to pay for someone to do things for them, especially
the questionable things.”

Dawson snagged on the
last statement. “Like?”

“I shouldn’t say.”

The senior officer jabbed
the air with a finger. “You talk now or I hand you over to the Americans.”

Atlas growled menacingly,
it eliciting the desired response.

“O-okay. Well, if
someone’s neighbor refused to mow their lawn or trim their hedge, I go in and
do it while they’re at work. If someone wants to sabotage a competitor’s sale,
I’ll post a few hundred bad reviews of their store.”

“So someone asked you to
remove a grate.”

He shook his head. “No.
Replace
a grate. It was already removed when I got here.”

“Then you were supposed
to leave.”

“Yes. And never come
back.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t
know. Curious, I guess. Then when I saw you, I realized this had to have
something to do with the kidnapping.” He waved his hands in front of him. “I do
some questionable things, but nothing really illegal. I don’t want to have
anything to do with kidnapping people.”

“How were you hired?”

“Over the Internet.”

Again with the
Internet.

“Okay, we’ll need
everything you have on the person who hired you.” Dawson motioned toward the
senior officer. “Give him your address, we’re going to need access to your
computer.”

The man laughed, pulling
out his phone. “Who uses computers anymore?” He handed it to Dawson.
“Everything’s on here.”

Unknown
Location
Republic
of Korea

Nancy
held onto Niner tight, never wanting to let him go. She had seen only glimpses
of him since their time together in Mozambique, he apparently a regular part of
her father’s security detail when they traveled outside of the country.
Whenever she did see him he was on duty, stoically guarding her father behind a
pair of sunglasses, though she was certain he nodded—almost imperceptibly—when
she waved to him.

It was enough to fire her
dreams for a week.

And feel guilty about
cheating on Jeff.

Is it cheating if it’s
just a fantasy?

That was a Mom question,
so she doubted she’d ever really get an answer.

She sniffed, finally
letting go, painfully aware that the returned hug was a little on the loose
side of things. She stared up at the handsome soldier, though not far up, she
rather tall, he rather short.

If we dated, I don’t
know if I could wear heels!

“Thank God you’re here!”
she finally said, her voice cracking. She turned to the others. “He’s part of
my dad’s security team! We’re saved!”

Excitement swept through
the room, gasps of relief met cries of joy as everyone leaped to their feet,
hugs exchanged, some rushing over to thank their saviors.

“Ladies, please, there’s
been a misunderstanding.” Niner stepped forward, holding his hands out. “I’m
really sorry, but we’re not here to save you.”

Nancy’s chest tightened
and her eyes narrowed as her smile slowly faded. “What do you mean?”

“He means he and his
friend are joining you as our guests.”

Niner looked about the
room, apparently searching for the source of the voice. His eyes settled on a
speaker with a camera mounted beside it. “Why did you take us?”

“Insurance in case
your friends get close. They might think twice before interfering if it might
cost the lives of one of their own.”

Nancy grabbed onto Niner,
squeezing him at the waist, trembling. He placed an arm over her shoulders, his
hand patting her as he continued to stare at the camera. She closed her eyes
and sighed, feeling safe for the first time.

And for the first time,
not missing Jeff.

Crawford
Residence
Forest
Hills, Washington, DC

“I think
I’ve got something!”

Jeff glanced over at the monitor
showing Clarence and Vic, the former excited about something. “What?”

“I found the IP address
for a LiveLeak posting of the video.”

Jeff shrugged. “It’s
probably just spoofed.”

“It was. DoD, so you know
it’s BS.”

Vic spun in his chair. “I
don’t trust anybody in the military. I wouldn’t put it past them to be involved
somehow.”

“Hey, asshole, my dad’s
in the military!”

Vic stopped spinning. He
leaned into his camera. “Yeah, and do you trust him?”

Clarence leaned even
closer. “More than I trust you, dickhead.”

“Okay, okay,” interrupted
Jeff, they getting into dangerous territory. “What did you find?”

“Well, I started crawling
for anything using the same spoofed IP, and found half a dozen posts on sites
that don’t make sense for a DoD user to be posting at, but that’s nothing out
of the ordinary. Lots of people post shit when they’re supposed to be working.”

“True.”

“But, I found a Facebook
posting using the DoD IP address.” Fingers flew and suddenly they were browsing
vacation photos of a happy family somewhere on a beach. “They’re in Mexico.”

Vic grunted. “So?”

“So? Maybe if you parked
your hatred for all things military, you’d be able to put that thing you call a
brain into gear, and realize that a DoD IP address doesn’t get used in Mexico.”

Vic leaped to his own
defense. “Maybe they posted them after.”

“Nope, look at the
comments. They’re from today, and they’re still there.”

Jeff smiled. “I get the
feeling you’re about to tell us something more.”

“You know me oh so well.
The guy’s been posting photos all day but only one batch used that IP address.
All the ones before and after were a regular IP address in Colorado.”

Jeff’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s weird. Shouldn’t they be using an IP in Mexico?”

“Exactly! I think he
RDP’d into his home computer from Mexico, then posted the photos that way!”

Vic stopped another spin
of his chair, suddenly interested. “You mean like GoToMyPC or something?”

“Exactly! Anyway, I think
he happened to be logged in when the malware on his computer hijacked it and
downloaded that North Korean video!”

Jeff smiled. “It makes
sense, but we need to be sure. We need—”

“I’m already sure.”

“How?”

“I’m logged into his PC
right now.”

“You hacked his password
already?”

“Shit, he’s got birthday
photos of his wife and two kids all marked as public, and uses his wife’s
birthday as his password.”

Vic cursed. “Man,
somebody has to give this dude a lesson in the Internets.”

“You’ve been logged in
this entire time? Why didn’t you just tell us?”

Clarence grinned at the
camera. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Jeff shook his head.
“What did you find?”

“What we’ve been looking
for.”

Jeff felt a smile spread
across his face as his heart began to race. “You found the video’s source
site?”

“Yup.”

He hesitated to ask the
all-important question. “Is it still up?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Then let’s get to work!”

Embassy
of the United States Seoul
32
Sejongno Street, Seoul, Republic of Korea

“Mr.
President, we now have one of your agents and a South Korean agent in our
custody.”

President Starling
exchanged a concerned look with Red, the phone on speaker so the operator and
Langley could listen in, no one else in the embassy privy to the truth. Though
they had all suspected what had happened to the missing operator, at least it was
now confirmed, and by the sounds of it, he and his Korean counterpart were
still alive. “What are your intentions?”

“Nothing, as long as you
do exactly what I say.”

Starling drew a long,
slow breath, closing his eyes as he struggled to stay calm. “You still haven’t
told me what you want.”

“Does that mean you’re
ready to negotiate?”

He opened his eyes and
looked at Red who was nodding, as if reminding his President of what was at
stake. “Yes.”

“Excellent. You will
continue to refrain from informing your counterparts of the truth. If we detect
any change in your military posture, we will kill the hostages starting with
your daughter. Understood?”

Starling closed his eyes
for a moment then picked up the picture on the desk, his daughter laughing at
the camera, a preserved family moment that could never be duplicated. “Yes.” He
decided to try and move things along. “What is it you want? You mentioned our
record on the environment. Do you have specific greenhouse gas emissions targets
that you want me to propose?”

There was a laugh from
the other end of the phone. “Mr. President, you and I both know that treaties
are useless, especially those negotiated under duress. Even if I held your
daughter long enough for you to pass the climate change treaties necessary to
save our world, you would simply either ignore them or rescind them.”

Starling frowned, staring
at the phone sitting beside the leather blotter. This man was clearly no fool,
not that he expected him to be, though it had been his experience that those
blinded by religion, whether the worship of a deity or the new environmentalist
cult of Anthropogenic Global Warming, were quite often prone to rash statements
and decisions.

Apparently not today.

“Then what is it you
want?”

“Money, Mr. President.”

Starling’s eyes shot
wide. “Is that all this is about? Ransom?”

“No, nothing so repugnant
or crude. You will receive a list of environmental charities in the next few
moments. You are to transfer the amounts indicated in that message into the
accounts listed, then publicly announce that you have made the donations, and
challenge the other leaders to do the same, on a percentage of GDP basis. The
United States currently comprises 22% of the total Gross Domestic Product of
all the G20 nations. The information you will receive will indicate the
expected amounts from the other nations should there be any questions.”