Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Janson Equation (18 page)

Kim Il-sung Square
Pyongyang, DPRK

J
anson couldn't help but feel as if he'd just stepped onto a film set in Burbank, California. Though he had traveled the world, he'd never once set foot in a city quite like this.

Draped in freshly fallen snow, Pyongyang seemed to Janson like a well-preserved corpse: lovingly manicured; meticulously arranged; respectfully presented. Despite a population of over three million, however, the capital of North Korea gave the distinct impression of serving merely as a vessel, a shell, a foundation for a city utterly devoid of life.

The architecture was as old as the nation itself, erected atop the rubble of the Korean War. Yet there was not a speck of graffiti to be found. While poverty ran rampant in the rest of the country, not a single homeless person lurked in these city streets.

The sky was as white as the snow, and clean. Only one motor vehicle—the old, gray Pyeonghwa Pronto he'd hot-wired in Kaesong—could be seen from Janson's vantage point in Kim Il-sung Square, making it impossible to imagine a traffic jam.

The sidewalks were litterless. But lifeless as well.

The impressive structures, Janson thought sadly, were indeed set pieces, show-things for visitors who would never be permitted to view the hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of wrongly imprisoned and starving.

Janson broke away from the depressing (albeit scenic) vista to continue his hunt for Yun Jin-ho.

In Kaesong, Janson had realized that the industrial park represented his last opportunity to obtain some intelligence. Of course, his cellular phone had become useless the moment he entered the tunnel in the DMZ. And calls to South Korea from the North were barred—
except
calls emanating from the Kaesong Industrial Region, which housed the North's only South Korean companies.

So Janson had stealthily entered the buildings, looking for a landline.

The mission was less difficult than he imagined. Much of the complex was not currently in use. With Kim Jong-un as a landlord, Janson supposed, it shouldn't have come as a great shock.

Once he located a functional yet unoccupied office, Janson immediately tried dialing Park Kwan. When the call went straight to voice mail, he hung up and attempted Kang Jung. Both had their phones shut off, just as he'd feared. Good security on their part; bad luck for Janson. At least until he spotted an inconspicuous slip of paper posted on a cork bulletin board on the wall directly behind the desk.

The paper listed the area codes inside the People's Democratic Republic of Korea, nearly all of them within Pyongyang's city limits, since the capital was just about the only place in the country where telephones were permitted. Janson's first thought was to call the Swedish embassy, which provided Protective Power for US citizens in North Korea. Risky, but initially it seemed to be his only option.

Then his finger slid down the page to a spot where two international calling codes were enumerated. Although the countries were identified by Korean symbols, Janson recognized the codes. The first belonged to Russia, the second to China.

Janson's heart began to beat faster. Before entering the tunnel, he had tried reaching both Morton and Grigori Berman. Neither hacker had answered his phone. Janson now had at least one more shot at contacting Berman in Moscow.

He lifted the handset of the old phone and dialed the Russian's number from memory.

Grigori Berman picked up on the first ring. Ten minutes later, Janson had a Pyongyang address for Yun Jin-ho. An address that was unavailable even in Nam Sei-hoon's system at the National Intelligence Service in Seoul. Although Janson repeatedly asked, Berman refused to divulge his source. After a few halfhearted attempts, Janson decided not to press the issue.

“All right, forget it,” he finally said just before hanging up. “Again,
spasibo
.”

“You are very much welcome, Paulie.”

Janson would later regret not pushing harder.

W
HEN
J
ANSON FINALLY LOCATED
the address, a few blocks north of Kim Il-sung Square, he decided his best bet was simply to ring the doorbell of Yun Jin-ho's apartment. But when he reached the top of the front concrete steps, the yellowed label next to apartment 5B didn't contain Yun's name.

Janson considered the possibilities. Perhaps this was a new address and the ancient tape hadn't yet been updated.
Could he be using a legend?
Given the regime's tight controls over the population, Janson didn't think so. No, it was far more likely that this was the wrong address altogether. Janson deflated. Just like that, he lamented, he could very well be returned to square one.

Nevertheless, he pressed the buzzer for 5B and waited. If no one answered, he'd break into the building and enter the apartment to search for clues.

But following a few silent, uneasy moments, a voice, young and female, squawked through the intercom. Janson leaned in toward the speaker but couldn't make out what the young woman was saying.

He responded by reciting Yun Jin-ho's name, leaving a clear question mark at the end. Then he waited for a reaction.

He expected at the very least a barrage of questions about who he was and what he wanted with the man. Janson had prepared several answers in advance. But the woman surprised him by pressing the buzzer instead. The door came unlocked and Janson opened it, unsure whether this was an auspicious beginning, or he was marching straight into a trap.

He muttered a curse at Berman's obstinacy over not disclosing his source for the address. But then he thought, Does it really matter at this point?

For Janson, there was clearly no turning back now. As he opened the door and started up the stairs, he pictured the bridge that Jina Jeon had pointed out in the demilitarized zone and briefly considered the irony.

Without question, Janson had long ago passed the point of no return.

S
TEPPING INTO APARTMENT
5B felt like stepping back in time. To the left was a kitchen, clean but cluttered, showcasing appli­a
nce
s that had no doubt lived through the installment by the Soviets of Kim Il-sung as leader of North Korea six decades ago. On the kitchen table, large enough for two, sat a single plate containing half a pancake, kimchi, and an egg, with a small cup of soy sauce on the side.

Janson's eyes wandered around the flat. The interior was every bit as gray as the exterior, with little else to boast about: a tape deck resting next to a stack of audiocassettes; a boxy 12-inch television topped with rabbit ears; a prehistoric sofa that would unquestionably crack under Grigori Berman's ample weight.

The young woman who opened the door stood in front of him with slumped shoulders that rose as she took in the full sight of him. If she was frightened by Janson's presence she had no intention of showing it.

“You are an American,” she whispered.

Having just passed a number of gargantuan billboards featuring cartoonish American soldiers dressed in uniforms from the mid-twentieth century, all carrying rifles with razor-sharp bayonets pointed threateningly at young children, Janson wasn't sure how to respond.

When in doubt, Janson often went with the truth. As he did now with a single bob of his head.

“You are looking for Yun Jin-ho,” she said so softly he could barely hear her. “May I to ask you why?”

For a North Korean, at least, the young woman's English was sublime.

“Are you his wife?” he said, trying to match her volume.

She hesitated then finally shook her head.

“But this is his home,” Janson said, motioning toward walls covered in faded gray wallpaper, peeling at both ends.

“No,” she said, “this is my parents' home. I live with them.” She evidently noticed the subtle change in Janson's features. “Do not worry; they are both at work and will not be home until late.”

“They work in Pyongyang?” he said to keep her talking.

“Yes, both my mother and father, they work for the party.”

Janson felt something shift in his chest. In North Korea “the party” could only mean “the Workers' Party,” the communist party, the party of the late Kim Il-sung, the late Kim Jong-il, and the country's current dictator, Kim Jong-un.

“Are you hungry?” the young woman said, pointing to her small breakfast plate.

Although he was famished, Janson shook his head. North Koreans barely had enough food to eat for themselves. The famine of the 1990s killed off 10 percent of the country's population, and according to a recent United Nations panel, hunger and malnutrition continued to be widespread—and continued to result in untold deaths.

Janson studied his host's face. Like most North Korean women she wore no makeup. She, in particular, needed none. She was a natural beauty, her body slim but healthy. People in Pyongyang ate better than the rest of the country.

Janson fought off the confusion he felt. If this were the delicate dance he'd anticipated, he didn't want to step on her toes. Yet he couldn't account for her letting him into her home, for her offering him breakfast, for her not running away, screaming, the moment she recognized that he was “an American bastard,” as the North's ubiquitous propaganda espoused.

He had so many questions. But even in his state of exhaustion, he quickly puzzled together the reason the young woman would not be willing to provide any answers. And why she spoke in such a low voice despite the fact that they were alone.

The home could well be bugged. The Ministry of State Security, North Korea's primary counterintelligence service, was responsible for investigating cases of domestic espionage. If Yun Jin-ho and this young woman were even remotely suspected of spying, the MSS would be listening in.

Janson's eyes instinctively moved to the wall over the television, where three spotless framed photos hung. One of Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader. One of Kim Jong-il, the Dear Leader. One of Kim Jung-un, the Great Successor.

The young woman stepped closer to him. For a moment Janson thought she was about to embrace him. Instead she stood on tiptoes and cupped her right hand behind his left ear.

She whispered, “We should go someplace else to talk, yes?”

Janson nodded but said nothing. He felt embarrassed by how filthy he must be, how awful he must smell. From the hours he spent crawling through the tunnel. From his brawl and firefight in the DMZ. From his unanticipated ride in the fish truck. He'd managed to find a bathroom and clean up some in Kaesong but not nearly enough to make himself presentable.

Her lips went to the side of his head again. “There exists a safe house not far from here.”

Janson mustered all his concentration as she softly spoke the street address and apartment number into his ear.

“You should go first,” she said. “If we were to be seen together…”

Janson didn't need her to complete the sentence. If they were seen together, the young woman would very likely face the same penalty that Janson would face if he was spotted in the country alone.

I
n the security room on the second floor of the Grand Hyatt Seoul, Sin Bae removed his heavy overcoat and draped it over the man who had been monitoring the cameras. Then he took the dead man's seat and studied the controls. He needed to move quickly. The body of the first guard (whose keys he had taken) was tucked safely away in the dumpster behind the hotel. But there was no way to know whether yet another guard would attempt to enter the security room before Sin Bae could extract the information he needed.

Sin Bae identified the controls that switched the monitors from one camera to another, then flipped through all of the cameras to identify the location of each. He played with the buttons until he figured out how to rewind a specific video feed.

Fortunately, each video was time-stamped. Since Sin Bae had made a note of the precise time Kincaid and Kang Jung had entered the hotel, as well as when the man from the nightclub arrived nearly a half hour later, locating the floor they were assigned to would be that much easier.

Voices in the hallway caused him to pause and turn toward the door. The voices, those of two or more Korean men, increased in volume as they drew near.

Sin Bae rose from the dead man's chair.

But then one of the men broke out into laughter and the second man joined in. Soon the voices faded down the hallway.

Sin Bae sat down and relaxed, determined to get the information he needed quickly so that he could get clear of the security room without killing any more of the hotel's staff.

Ki
NCAID WATCHED
P
ARK
K
WAN
pace the room holding the cordless telephone provided by the hotel. Her thumb went to her lips of its own accord and she bit down hard, catching both nail and flesh.
Damn
, she nearly shouted. She pulled her thumb from her mouth and examined the fingernail and surrounding skin. Raw but no blood. She cursed herself; this was a habit Janson had drummed out of her years ago. That she was returning to it now while he wasn't here made her even more frustrated.

Where is he now?

Is he safe?

Please, let nothing have happened to him.

She returned her attention to Park Kwan's baritone as he switched seamlessly between English and Korean.

“I see,” he said into the phone, his expression giving away nothing. “Yes, please.” He stopped in front of the desk Kang Jung was sitting at and picked up a pen and a pad of stationery with the Grand Hyatt logo. “All right. Go ahead.”

Kincaid casually wandered over to him, her arms folded across her chest. She peeked over his forearm to see what he had written.

Double damn
. Whatever it was, he had written it in Korean.

Finally, he set down the phone.

“Good news?” she said.

“Well…” He was clearly being guarded with his words. He didn't want to get her hopes up. “…it's news, at least. I shall leave it to you to determine whether it is good or bad.”

Kincaid nodded, displaying a crooked smile that undoubtedly betrayed her fierce anxiety. “OK, mister. Out with it, then.”

“OK,” Park Kwan said. “They were able to triangulate the sig—”

The phone on the desk began to ring, sending a startled chill up Kincaid's spine. She reached for the phone but Park Kwan was slightly faster.

She took a step back and listened to him speak to the caller in Korean. Holding the handset against his chest, he turned to her. “Do you know a gentleman named Nam Sei-hoon?”

The name instantly rang a bell. Kincaid recalled Janson mentioning the name during the flight to Seoul from Honolulu.

“
One of my oldest and closest friends
,” he'd said.

She reached out for the receiver.

“This is Kincaid.”

“Ms. Kincaid,” the voice on the phone said, “I will be blunt. You and the people you are with are in grave danger. I need to bring you in.”

“Bring us in?”

“I am told that your pursuers know that you are at the Grand Hyatt hotel. An assassin is on his way. You have ten minutes, fifteen at most.”

“We
can't
come in,” Kincaid protested.

“Listen to me.” The man's voice was stern, authoritative. “You have no choice. You must get out of there as quickly and quietly as possible. There is a safe house just across the road. It is in an eleven-story apartment building. You can see it from the hotel. Take the stairs and go to the top floor. From there you can watch the entrance to the Grand Hyatt. The apartment number is eleven-E. At this moment the door is unlock—”

“I'm sorry to cut you off,” Kincaid said, “but we finally have a lock on the boy. And we have to pursue him immediately.”

Following a moment of hesitation he said, “My men can handle that, I assure you. Where is the boy?”

“He's…” Kincaid turned to ask Park Kwan but suddenly thought better of it.
Bad security
, Janson would say. If he found out she'd told
anyone
—even an old friend of his like Nam Sei-hoon—where Wyckoff was, she'd never hear the end of it. “He's…” She paused again. “I can't exactly say right now, but I'll know soon.”

There was a lengthy silence on the other end of the line. Finally the man said, “All right. Pursue your lead. But please use extreme caution.”

“We will.”

“And you are leaving the hotel now, I presume?”

“We'll leave right away, I promise.”

“Good. Let me give you a number where you can reach me.”

S
IN
B
AE FROZE
the screen. There she was, Kang Jung. He was amazed again to find how much she looked like Su-ra.

In the days following their arrival at Yodok, Sin Bae had learned more and more about the ghastly conditions in which he and his family were expected to live. The prison camp stretched for miles in every direction, ten villages packed to overflowing with nearly three thousand people.

Malnutrition was rampant; no one had enough food. A fellow prisoner who possessed little training and no medical supplies played the role of doctor. Many, especially children and the elderly, died of simple colds. And the latrines—outhouses consisting of nothing more than shacks over holes in the ground—were far too few in number. The putrid stench of urine blended with excrement hung everywhere.

As he grew older Sin Bae realized he no longer wanted to live.

But he knew his death would mean the death of his mother and father and eventually his sister, Su-ra. So he exerted himself even harder and grew stronger each year. He ate frogs and salamanders and earthworms for nutrition. He stole clothes from the freezing and rice from the starving. In order to survive he became something less than human.

Because by the age of thirteen, Sin Bae no longer wanted to die.

The phone in Sin Bae's hand lit. He held it to his ear but said nothing.

Ping said, “Change of plans.”

Sin Bae looked down at the body at his feet, covered with the overcoat he'd borrowed from the apartment across the street. He frowned in frustration.

Ping said, “You are going to follow them from the hotel. They will lead you directly to the boy. You are not to engage them until the boy is in sight and his identity is confirmed.”

“Understood,” Sin Bae said softly.

“The little man will take care of the packages you are leaving behind. But you must hurry. The three are leaving the hotel now.”