The Master Hacker E-Book

Steve Burkart

• Herausgeber: Proisle Publishing Services
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 451

Beschreibung

When SunHee Nham, a disaffected North Korean computer scientist working in China decides to escape her conscription, she takes a few secrets with her. Her dream of living in freedom in the U.S. begins to prey on her mind when she thinks about the hardships under which her fellow countrymen are forced to live. After a chance meeting with John Darque, the head of a covert organization charged with maintaining the balance of power in the world, the two form a partnership to destroy a weapon system she developed for use against Western nations. When she becomes aware of pursuing Chinese agents, she knows her freedom will be short lived. To make matters worse, she realizes her association with Darque's group will put it in danger of being exposed. SunHee's noticeable depression changes for the better when Darque posses a plan to turn the tables o a group of rogue nations intent on using the technologies she developed to blackmail the rest of the world. She agrees to help Darque with his plan in the hope that the results will create the spark of change needed to better lives of her countrymen. However, with change comes sacrifice, and sometimes the price of sacrifice can be very high.

Steve spent the majority of his 22 year military career in Europe in military intelligence during and immediately following the Cold War. He has in-depth personal experience of counterintelligence work during the 1980's, often referred to as "the decade of spies".Steve's second book, "The Master Hacker", was named by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group as one of the best indie books of 2018, and selected as a finalist in action/adventure (fiction) category in the 2018 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Leseprobe

The

Master Hacker

By

STEVE BURKART

Copyright © 2023 by: Steve Burkart

ISBN:978-1-960224-49-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher disclaims any responsibility for them.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Other Books by the Author

The Orchestration

The Darque Side

Chapter One

The lights in the cockpit were dim in the darkness of the starlit cabin. The occasional flicker of a needle in one of the gauges caught the pilot’s eye, but the flight from China had been relatively smooth, and he would be glad to land the plane and get some rest before returning.

The pilot glanced over at his copilot and smiled as he saw the man’s head appearing to be disjointed as it bobbed up and down in sleep - an activity he spent a lot of time perfecting.

Checking the clock in the wall of gauges in front of him, the pilot decided to let the other man sleep a little longer before waking him up to assist during the landing of the craft.

He didn’t like flying into North Korea for any reason; their military was suspicious of everything entering their country. They would rather shoot down any perceived threat, real or imagined, than allow it to land safely and then determine the reason for its arrival.

As if flying into North Korea wasn’t bad enough, the cargo he was carrying was being guarded by a group of eight heavily armed Chinese soldiers who sat silently around a large, wooden crate that had been loaded onto the craft before he arrived to fly the mission. A quick look into the cargo hold had earned him a stern rebuke from one of the guards, accompanied by what some might describe as the deafening sound of several selector switches being turned from ‘safe’ to ‘fire’ on the AK-47’s with which they were armed.

A loud voice coming through his headphones not only brought him back to focus on what he was doing, but also awakened the copilot as the same voice interrupted a dream when it came through his headset.

The plane was on a glide path that would take it over a series of hills and into a valley where a military landing strip was located, and the pilot would soon be able to spot the two rows of parallel landing lights marking his destination.

The guards, along with the unmarked crate, made the pilot uneasy, and he would be glad to get the plane on the ground and away from its cargo … both human and otherwise.

She had been planning this trip for quite a while, even to the point of acquiring several disguises and passports in different names. Her hope was that these would help her cross different borders to reach her final destination in the United States.

Her name was SunHee Nham, and her goal was to flee North Korea and live the remainder of what she knew would be a short life in relative freedom, rather than the cage in which she now found herself confined.

Other than an uncle and niece who resided in the U. S., unbeknownst to both the Chinese and North Korean Governments, she had no family. This eliminated one of the major tools used by those countries to maintain control over their citizens whenever that option was deemed necessary to guarantee a desired result.

The two governments had decided to control SunHee’s life to make sure she continued her work to develop a system that would protect both countries from missile attacks. The prototype of what she had developed now rested in the belly of a Chinese military transport plane that would soon be landing near the airport from which she planned to depart.

She could feel the icy stares of guards stationed throughout the terminal, and wondered if they seemed so cold because she even thought of leaving such a paradise, or because she was leaving and they couldn’t.

Her next step was to check in for a flight to Kuwait, one of the few countries North Korean international airlines, Air Koryo, flew to from which a direct flight to the U.S. could be made.

With ticket in hand, she headed for the passport control section and struggled to keep her breathing under control and her demeanor natural. She had gone through this same procedure for several trips in the past, but none of them had been as important as the flight on which she was about to embark.

The officer at the station watched her approach and closely scrutinized the passport she presented, probably looking for any excuse to refuse her passage to the flight waiting area, but finding none, he finally let her pass.

As she entered the area, she looked at a departure schedule for her flight and saw that it was slated to leave on time.

A quick glance at her watch showed she had less than half an hour to wait, and knew the aircraft would soon begin boarding.

For the most part, she kept her head down as she walked because she knew making eye contact was not only sometimes taken as a challenge, but it was also difficult to remember people with whom no eye contact had been made.

The speaker system came to life with the plane’s boarding announcement, and she made her way toward the gate along with the other passengers.

She found it difficult to remain calm knowing her every move, along with those of the other passengers, were being closely watched by people monitoring security cameras throughout the terminal, but continued to calmly move toward the gate.

When she was 10th in line from the final barrier to boarding the aircraft, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and watched as several armed men started to close in on the gate. Even though her heart began to race with the implication of her possible arrest, she forced herself to continue moving forward as if unaware of the activity.

The squad of armed men began to move more quickly as the line of boarding passengers snaked slowly forward. When she was the third person in line, the traveler at the gate suddenly made a rush toward the tube leading to the plane, but was tackled by one of the armed men and dragged away screaming by the rest of the team.

The woman taking tickets at the gate appeared to be a bit shaken, but forced a smile and tried to act as if nothing had happened while continuing to collect passes from the remaining passengers.

What had occurred at the gate was not a topic for discussion among the seated passengers; everyone knew the matter was a state issue, and it was best to ignore such incidents. They were all satisfied to know they weren’t the one the guards had dragged away … especially SunHee.

Once all the passengers were seated and buckled in, the pilot announced their impending departure, and SunHee tried to relax. So far everything was going as she had planned, except for the incident at the loading gate. It had caused her a great deal of anguish, and even though she realized she was still not in the clear, she was surprised she had gotten this far without being stopped.

She checked her watch again and realized she only had a little more than half an hour to reach the next step in her plan, and she had no control over the events she envisioned happening.

After removing what looked like a small makeup-compact from her purse, she opened the lid and pried the mirror from its backing, then pushed the button secreted beneath it before replacing the mirror and container in her purse.

Several miles away, a device prepositioned by her came to life by emitting a red light that illuminated a small control panel displaying constantly changing numbers. The numbers were calculations of the angle of approach, altitude, and speed of the approaching Chinese cargo plane carrying SunHee’s anti-missile system prototype. When the numbers reached the ones she had programmed into the machine, it would fire a small ground to air missile at the plane that would guarantee not only its destruction, but also the antimissile system it was delivering to North Korea and all the personnel on board.

She had no idea where the cargo plane was currently located, but knew the plane she was on would fly over the air strip where it was supposed to land. Once her aircraft took to the air and began to climb toward its designated cruising altitude, she looked out the window beside her seat hoping to see the flash of the missile hitting the plane. The resulting explosion would be the diversion she felt she needed to ensure her escape from the hell she had been forced to live in.

The pilot of the cargo plane was listening to his copilot read through a prelanding check-list while confirming the position of dials, handles and gauges as they were called out. He had already received permission from the control tower to stay on his final approach to the strip, and everything was going smoothly when he cleared the last hill and spotted the landing lights on the strip.

A sudden alarm began to sound inside the cockpit, and it had been so long since he last heard the noise, he didn’t initially recognize what it meant.

One of the lights on the control panel began to flash, and he immediately knew what was happening.

“Missile lock,” he almost screamed.

He tried to recall the evasive steps he was supposed to take to outwit the projectile’s guidance system, but had no time to react before he spotted the fiery bloom of the missile being fired.

The pilot had a death grip on the transmitter button as the missile hit the fuselage, and that allowed those in the control tower to hear him screaming. His horror-stricken voice wasfollowed by the sound of the plane breaking up as parts of it, the antimissile system, and the humans on board fell to the ground.

SunHee was looking out the window while her plane made a sweeping turn, and saw a flash she thought was close to the ground. As she continued watching, a bigger blossom of flame developed, and she felt sure it was the cargo plane exploding as it hit the ground.

She felt certain the anti-missile system, such as it was, would be destroyed beyond anyone’s ability to duplicate or study its components, and it would be impossible for anyone to discover it didn’t work and was never intended to. That fact was surprising since she had been able to convince the governments of both China and North Korea that it would.

She knew one other thing about which she had mixed emotions. No matter what happened from that point on, she would never again see her home or be able to spend time with the downtrodden citizens of her native country whose plight she had hoped to improve. Even so, she was pleased with what she had just accomplished.

To celebrate her deed, she removed a sleep mask from her bag and placed it over her eyes not only to shut out the light, but also to hide her smile.

What followed was the most restful sleep she had experienced in months.

Chapter Two

As he was admiring the recently erected split-rail zigzag fence lining both sides of a grassy portion of the lane leading to his cabin, he was glad he transplanted it from an old plantation rather than waiting 100 years for it to acquire the patina of age and weather. The new look reminded him of the wooden boundaries in and around many Civil War battlefields.

The view he was enjoying was suddenly interrupted by a crouching figure moving near the base of the railings, and he reached for the pair of binoculars lying nearby. After adjusting the focus, he was able to identify the source of the activity, and began to smile.

Following the movement with the binoculars, John Darque, the man with the field glasses, watched as the movement materialized as a large, male, black and tan German shepherd with a bad attitude that allowed Darque to be its master. Darque had acquired the dog, which he named Bill, from a police department that was going to have it euthanized after it ripped the throat out of a suspect it chased and caught. It turned out the suspect had shot and killed a man, and then shot Bill when the dog located him in a sewer pipe. Darque admired the dog’s sense of justice.

While Darque watched, Bill disappeared into a clump of tall weeds between the fence and Darque’s partially hidden cabin in the woods, and if the wind had been blowing, he wouldn’t have noticed it at all.

Viewing the scene through the kitchen window in the cabin, Darque occasionally took a drink of coffee from a mug he hadn’t cleaned in over three years, a point of pride with him, while trying to determine what had attracted Bill’s attention. When he spotted his partner, Penny Miller, exercising in the yard, he had his answer.

Penny had almost been killed in a ‘planned’ accident, but had just about completely recovered from her injuries. Darque was amazed as he watched her bend to touch her toes then continue on down until the palms of her hands were flat on the ground. He tried to do that once, at Penny’s urging, and the tips of his fingers came to a stop about half way between his knees and his feet.

As she finished stretching, Penny started going through some martial arts movements intended to help her regain the high degree of skill she had possessed in several disciplines before the accident. He also suspected she endured the sometimes painful and stringent regimen to help her deal with the death of a friend who was in the car ‘accident’ with her.

It was not her first traumatic experience. She had been married once, and the situation turned violent when her husband and a friend of his once raped and beat her until she was unconscious, and then dumped her in the driveway of a hospital before trying to disappear. It took her a while, but she finally located the two men and removed their genitals with a straight razor after killing both of them by breaking their necks. The grisly remnants were stored in separate bottles of grain alcohol located on the bottom shelf of a cabinet in her house in Virginia. She didn’t see the items as trophies, but as reminders of the power she had to control her own life, and the length she was willing to go to in that endeavor. She had discussed the matter with Darque before they exchanged house keys, which they decided would be their marriage license, and neither had brought up the subject since. She never mentioned where the rest of the remains of the two were located, and he had never asked. Everyone has secrets, and this was one of hers.

The incident did, however, have a lasting effect on her life. Whenever she and Darque were apart, she slept with a straight razor under her pillow, and if he entered her house unannounced, he made sure to make enough noise to awaken her before ever considering approaching her. Once awake, the razor magically disappeared.

Their relationship was based on mutual respect, trust and understanding, but they kept their shows of affection and personal feelings private. Their work was difficult enough without bringing personal problems into the equation.

As he continued watching, a movement in the grass caught Darque’s eye. He could tell Bill was closing in on his target while selecting the best angle of attack that would allow him to pounce from ambush to surprise and overwhelm his prey.

It was at this point that Penny turned to face Bill, and instead of waiting for him to spring his trap, she charged into the weeds and sent him scurrying around the yard with her in hot pursuit.

Foiled again.

The activity caused Darque to smile, which was something he seemed to do more often at the cabin than when working at his agency’s headquarters, referred to by members of his organization as ‘the Cave’.

Since no armed conflicts were the primary focus of the news media, there seemed to be a feeling of peace in much of the world, but Darque knew peace was an illusion; a dream that could never be achieved in a world as divided as the one in which he lived.

Peace implied that everyone was happy with his or her position in life among a population of more than 7 billion people, and that wasn’t, and never would be, the case. When looking at some of the governments and despots who ran them, dissention could be a good thing. Unfortunately, like most things in life, change involved a trade-off; cherry pie for increased weight, or freedom for the loss of human lives. Sacrificing one’s life for change is usually an individual choice, and not one willingly undertaken by most people.

One more thing he knew was the absence of war was not peace; it was a time of relative calm between periods of conflict during which countries rearmed and prepared for the next armed engagement. Still, the illusion of peace was far better than the reality of war filled with thoughts of doom and apprehension.

He considered the future to be his next breath, and knew it wasn’t a guarantee. He had seen people take a breath who were dead before they could exhale. Life was a precious gift, and each day was a reward, but like most rewards, some people earned and used them wisely and some didn’t. It was his job to eliminate the ones who didn’t.

Darque’s thoughts were interrupted when Penny and Bill entered the cabin after chasing each other around the yard, and both of them seemed close to the point of exhaustion.

“He seems to be getting better at stalking, but he still has a way to go before he’ll be able to sneak up on me,” Penny announced triumphantly.

“Are you sure he wasn’t just taking it easy on you because you’re a cute blond?” Darque asked.

“Quite,” she said as she punched him on the arm hard enough for him to know he would have a bruise.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “Do you want a little ice for that arm?”

“I’ll be just fine,” he said with a grimace.

“Suit yourself,” she said with a little chuckle as she walked away.

Out of habit, Darque usually kept the TV on for background noise to help make electronic eavesdropping more difficult, buton this occasion, he heard something that caught his attention, and began to listen more closely while rubbing his arm to lessen some of the pain.

Apparently, a Chinese aircraft had crashed while attempting to land at a military air field in North Korea. There were no survivors.

The announcer droned on about the incident, and stated more information would be forthcoming when the North Korean Government released it, which meant whatever was released in the future would probably be questionable at best as far as being factual.

When Penny reentered the room, Darque was busy wearing out a path in the rug and displaying creases in his forehead. It was a mannerism he often exhibited when deep in thought or worried about something.

“What’s going on?” Penny asked.

Darque just pointed to the TV and kept pacing.

After watching the news broadcast for a while, she turned to him again.

“This kind of thing takes place on a pretty regular basis somewhere in the world. Why does this one bother you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “something doesn’t feel right.”

He continued to pace, but was interrupted by a strange noise. It had been awhile since he last heard it, but he knew exactly what it was. Someone in the Cave was trying to reach him on his secure phone.

“Are you watching TV?” a voice asked as he picked up the receiver.

He recognized the caller as one of his team chiefs, Dave Bartow.

“If you mean the item about the plane crash in North Korea, yes.”

“That’s the one,” said Dave.

“What about it?” asked Darque.

“North Korea has blamed the incident on South Korea, and an escalation to a war-time posture is rapidly developing in both countries. Fortunately, China had a few words with the leadership in North Korea, and things are calming down a bit. As of right now, the border between the two countries has pretty much returned to normal with soldiers on both sides glaring at one another and occasionally flipping each other off, but the buildup away from the border is continuing to grow. I think China will keep a lid on the North … at least until a cause for the incident can be determined.”

“I want you to start collecting everything you can find on the incident”, said Darque. “If the South didn’t bring down the plane, which I don’t think it did, and the cause wasn’t due to pilot error or mechanical failure, there has to be a reason why it was brought down. If we can figure out ‘why’, it may lead us to ‘who’. Dissent in North Korea is seldom acknowledged, but if something is going on there, we need to find out. Maybe we can become part of the problem.”

“Anything else?” Bartow asked.

“That should keep you busy until we get there,” Darque said as he ended the conversation.

He quietly looked at the pastoral scene outside the kitchen window, and sighed audibly as he lowered his gaze to the kitchen sink before turning to face Penny.

“I wish we had more information about what’s going on over there. So far all we know is that a plane went down, and that leads to a lot of speculation. I seem to be pretty good at posing questions, but waiting for answers has never been one of my strong points, and jumping to conclusions is never a good idea.”

“You need to learn to be a little more patient,” Penny said. “Some of the most highly trained intelligence personnel in the world work at the Cave, and you know they do their best work when you just give them a challenge and leave them alone so they can do their jobs. Give it a chance. The picture may change by the time we get there.”

He knew she was right, but he couldn’t help but wonder about all the possibilities.

Chapter Three

The drive to the Cave took a few hours, but Darque preferred driving to flying. He flew when he had to, but only then, and still frequently got air sick … much to the amusement of the air crews he flew with. Until they had to clean up what he left behind. They learned money could be made on time-before-accident flight bets, but wisdom told them level flights were probably a better choice.

The distance from the cabin to the Cave, and Penny’s house in that area, was through some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the eastern half of the country, and for reasons known only to Darque, he liked having his ‘Sanford and Son’ looking pick-up truck close at hand. It may have had something to do with the sniper rifle concealed in the framework of the vehicle that only he knew about.

Penny’s house was in a small community surrounded by neighbors, many of whom worked at the Cave, and the area was closely monitored by security cameras and patrol cars manned by military personnel. Those assigned to patrol the area were members of a quick reaction force trained to respond to any threat to the Cave or personnel who worked there.

Darque spent most of the trip in deep thought while Penny did the driving, and Bill curled up in the truck-bed asleep so he could take advantage of the fresh air and good weather.

Although Darque didn’t like to speculate about things where information was limited and facts were few or nonexistent, a negative situation within the borders of arguably the most antagonistic, defiant, belligerent and isolated country in the world just might turn out to be a good thing. An open, joint effort to determine what had happened, and why, was probably not going to take place. If South Korea could be ruled out as a party to what had occurred, the incident appeared to impact only North Korea and China, and that would probably preclude a war. With that as his last conscious thought, Darque slipped into a deep sleep.

Their arrival at the Cave didn’t seem to stir much interest, but some of the people who knew about the plane crash were busy intercepting and analyzing data trying to figure out not only what actually happened, but why.

The first person Darque called to his office was Bartow to get an update on the situation.

“A couple of things have changed since I talked to you on the phone,” Bartow said. “We intercepted a Russian transmission which claimed to be the panicked voice of the downed aircraft’s pilot detecting a missile lock on his plane, and then screaming that he spotted the firing of a missile from the ground. The last sound on the transmission was the plane’s explosion on impact.”

“Was there anything in the message that specified how the Russians came into possession of the communication?”

“The intercepted transmission claimed it had been received from China.”

“Why did China feel it was necessary to bring Russia into this thing?” Darque thought out loud.

Bartow knew he wasn’t being asked for an answer, so he remained silent.

“Have the North Koreans made any statement to calm the situation?”

“No. They seem to be satisfied to continue blaming the South for now, even if the truth may make them look foolish later on. That’s never stopped them in the past. They may never disclose the truth. Their intelligence service would look bad if something like this happened and they were caught off guard; the axiom about the best defense being a good offense seems to apply here.”

“That makes sense,” Darque said, “but we need to stay on top of this. The act itself doesn’t bother me as much as why it was done. I have a feeling something is going on inside North Korea we know nothing about, and somebody, for some unknown reason, decided whatever it was, it shouldn’t be happening. The downing may have been carried out to alert the West, but there are a lot of ways that could have been accomplished without shooting down a plane.”

Darque suddenly became quiet, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes … a position sometimes referred to as his ‘thinking mode’.

Bartow patiently waited, and thought he could almost hear the wheels turning in Darque’s head as his superior tried to figure out what was going on.

“Why would someone, or even a group, bring down a Chinese plane flying into North Korea, knowing the incident probably wouldn’t create any real rift in the two countries symbiotic relationship? North Korea certainly didn’t need this kind of situation to focus its wrath on the South when a change in wind direction seems to be enough to do the job.”

“Maybe the plane itself wasn’t the real target, but a way to get at what was,” Dave said.

“Passengers?” Darque posed.

“Maybe,” Dave said, “but it could just as easily have been the cargo.”

Darque found that to be an extremely interesting point.

“You may be right,” Darque said. “It certainly makes sense. On the surface, it seems like the simple downing of a plane by a disgruntled citizen, but if what you’re saying is correct, whoever brought down the aircraft had to not only know what the cargo was, but also its destination. Not many people would know both things. I don’t think it’s wise to base decisions on assumptions, but in this case, I believe the cargo was the target, and the plane and those on board were collateral damage. The flight took place in the dark, probably in an attempt to hide the delivery from satellite coverage. Based on the affiliation of the countries involved, I think we can safely say the cargo was a weapon of some kind. North Korea may be blaming the South for the incident, but China wouldn’t bring Russia into the picture without a reason. I suspect the Russians knew about the cargo and its purpose, and the Chinese message was to advise them of the setback.”

Darque sat silently with his eyes closed, but Bartow knew he was trying to figure out what to do next.

“Is there some reason we didn’t find out about the incident until Russia got the news?”

“We still haven’t been able to adequately access the computer systems in China and North Korea, and NSA’s capabilities are limited. Unfortunately, we’re pretty much in the dark concerning activities in those locations.”

“Thanks for the update, Dave, but let me know as soon as we find out anything new. Tell the analysts to focus on anything they can find out about the cargo; I think that’s where we need to be looking.”

After Bartow departed the office, Darque turned to Bill lying quietly in a corner.

“Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make sure the plane crash wouldn’t be considered an accident. Why would a person in his right mind smart enough to plan the loss of a Chinese plane in North Korea turn around and pin a bulls eye on their back? Revenge? Disgruntlement? Martyrdom? If one of those options is the answer, why not just die in the crash; that would have been easy enough to add into the scenario. I think you’re right, Bill. Whatever reason the individual had for causing the crash, dying in it wasn’t part of the plan. But if that’s the case, where is he now?”

Darque bent down and patted the dog on the head, and was rewarded with a big yawn.

Chapter Four

The man sitting behind the desk, one of the Chinese Central Committee members named Wang Yunshan, read the report twice and finally looked up at the man who had handed it to him.

“So basically, what the report says is we don’t know anything. There are 10 bodies at a crash site in North Korea, one of our planes was shot down, a prototype of an anti-missile system to protect that country, and ultimately ours once final testing was completed, has been destroyed, and we don’t know how this happened or who’s responsible.”

The individual facing the desk fidgeted nervously under the gaze of his superior.

“We found enough pieces of the missile to know it was a Russian Strela-2, but don’t think the Russians had anything to do with the downing. As far as we know, they had nothing to gain by committing such an act, and that particular missile is available to warring factions throughout most of the developing world. For the right price and with the proper connection, just about anybody who wants one can get one.”

“That’s all we know?” the seated man roared.

“The missile was somehow attached to a computer that fired the weapon, but everything was destroyed by an explosive charge after the device fired, and it’s impossible to recover any data from what’s left of it.”

The ranking man was beginning to realize the downing of the plane was not a haphazard act with little thought, but a well-executed plan to destroy the anti-missile system. Given what little information he had, it’s the only thing that made sense.

“Who knew what was being transported on the plane, keeping in mind the individual would also have to have known the plane’s destination?” he finally asked.

“We haven’t yet been able to compile a list of individuals who would have had that knowledge, but my whole team is working around the clock to determine who could have committed such a heinous act,” the nervous man said.

“Once you come up with a complete list, account for every one on it. I suspect one of them will be missing and, if so, I believe that individual is the one you should focus your efforts on. Because so much time has passed since the plane’s downing, the person who committed this crime may already be out of the country. You need to make this investigation your priority.”

Once SunHee cleared the official arrival check point inside the Kuwaiti airport she relaxed a bit, but knew she still had a long way to go before reaching her destination in the U.S.

Her escape plan involved a number of objectives she had to achieve before she could reach her goal, and getting through the Kuwaiti airport without problems was one of them. As it turned out, other than a casual glance by the passport agent, no one appeared to have any interest in her whatsoever.

After a cursory check at the custom’s counter, she was one step away from her biggest hurdle: passing the scrutiny of agents allowing access to the departure area for the U.S.

She chose to fly on KLM Airlines because she had never used that carrier in the past. It was important to avoid doing anything that might look like a pattern in order to make it more difficult to be tracked by those she knew would try to find her. Her immediate concern was about how carefully the airline’s agents checked passenger documentation.

She needn’t have worried.

When it was her turn at the counter, she smiled and flirted a bit with the agent, and that turned out to be enough to earn her passage into the waiting area without any trouble.

The plane crash she caused happened two days previously, but other than a minor blurb on the news, no special interest seemed to be shown toward the incident. She knew this was probably how the incident was being handled publicly, not privately, and felt an urgency to get away from this part of the world as soon as possible.

Sitting in the waiting area put her one step closer to reaching the end of her goal, but she didn’t seem to be able to completely relax until she boarded the plane. Once seated, she realized she’d be in a cage for the next 15-20 hours before reaching JFK in New York, and there was nothing she could do but wait until the plane arrived at its destination to continue with her escape plan.

Although she knew she had a two-day head start, she also knew there was a good chance officials in both China and North Korea would be looking for her by the time the plane landed in New York. That thought caused her to rub her right forearm where a tracking device had been implanted after one of her prior trips to the U.S. Removing the tracker was a must, and she wasn’t looking forward to the task.

After considering operating on herself in one of the plane’s bathrooms, she decided that any turbulence could cause more problems than slicing open her arm with a razor blade and removing the bug with her fingers. She quickly decided it would be best to perform the surgery in a hotel room after she cleared the airport, but that would be almost four days since her departure from North Korea. Even though she knew that was the best thing to do, given the circumstances in which she found herself, she realized that was more than enough time for the people who would be looking for her to get on her trail.

From previous visits to the U.S., she had learned her cousin worked as a translator for a company that sometimes did work for the government, and hoped that would provide an opening for finding someone she could talk to about what was going on inside North Korea and China.

This act of treason would make her a hated person by many of the people inside her homeland, but she knew she had to do something to try to stop the destruction the two countries were instigating.

The flight was long and she remained nervous and apprehensive the whole trip, but she immediately began to relax once the airliner touched down at JFK.

After clearing customs and immigration without any problem, she stopped at a cell-phone kiosk and purchased a cheap one she could use to make a few calls before throwing it away.

Once she bought the phone, she went to the car rental counter where she picked up the vehicle she had reserved earlier. It turned out to be a very non-descript, gray sedan that few people would ever remember seeing. It was exactly what she wanted.

With her luggage stowed in the trunk, she headed southwest away from the city toward New Jersey, but avoided the Turnpike because of the cameras that would record her progress along it.

It seemed like forever after the long flight, but she finally drove across the border into Delaware, picked up I-95 South, and headed for a motel near Elkton, Maryland, where she had already booked a room for the night.

Once she checked into the motel, she drove to a nearby shopping center where she could buy everything she needed to preform her self-surgery. She dreaded the idea of operating on herself, but knew she had to do it as soon as possible because the tracking device also contained a poison that could be triggered remotely to kill her. The fact that the poison hadn’t yet been activated surprised her, but she knew her luck wouldn’t last much longer.

When she completed her shopping, she returned to her room and laid out her purchases, then steeled herself for what she had to do next. The thought that something could go wrong during the procedure prompted her to call her uncle not only to tell him she was in the country and hoped to visit him, but also because she just wanted to hear his voice one more time in case something went wrong.

SunHee’s conversation with her uncle was short, but a bit strained and cautious. Even so, once completed, she felt a calm come over her that seemed to say: “It’s OK. You’re safe now.”

After returning her cell-phone to her purse, she turned up the volume on the radio enough to hopefully cover any screams she might utter, but not loud enough to disturb the guests in other rooms.

It was time.

Following the instructions she had researched on her computer, she used almost a whole can of numbing spray on her arm before putting a sterile rubber glove on her other hand. She picked up the razor blade lying on the sink, and being careful not to cut any major blood vessels, quickly sliced her arm open over the lump she felt inside. Reaching into the opening, she grasped the embedded object and pulled it out of her arm. There was not as much blood as she had anticipated, so she was readily able to stem any flow with gauze pads. The last step before wrapping the arm in a bandage was to use butterfly sutures to close the wound. When everything was done, she wiped the sweat from her forehead and tried to control her shaking hand, but she knew it was nothing more than tension – or possibly the release of it.

With the surgery complete, she swallowed some pain pills, turned off the TV and lights, and went to bed with the hope that a good night’s sleep would help her deal with the exhaustion she was beginning to feel.

Chapter Five

“Did anything happen overnight to change what we learned yesterday?” Darque asked Penny as he entered her office.

“We really don’t know,” she said. “Not being able to hack into some of the North Korean and Chinese systems is really slowing down our efforts to find out what’s going on. Every now and then we pick up a little blurb that might mean something, but we can’t fit what we pick up into anything we know.”

“Anything we pick up concerning the incident will add to the bigger picture; it’ll just be one more piece of the puzzle,” Darque said.

“Well,” she said, “we did pick up one thing. Apparently, the Chinese are trying to locate a North Korean computer expert who worked in China, but there was no indication of why. It may or may not be something connected with the crash; we just can’t say one way or the other.”

“Keep digging. The downing didn’t go unnoticed, and others will be asking about it if explanations aren’t forthcoming on their own.”

When Yunshan looked up from his desk, he saw the same man who stood in front of him the day before.

“Well,” he said. “What have you found out?”

“The only person we can’t find who was working on the system was the person heading the project. A North Korean computer scientist named SunHee Nham.”

“What do we know about her?”

“She traveled extensively to attend computer courses around the world that dealt with theory and application. Shedeveloped the anti-missile system onboard the downed aircraft. It was reportedly the main feature of something called Project Tiger.”

The mention of the initiative immediately brought the committeeman to his feet.

“Where is this woman now? She needs to be questioned as soon as possible, and cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of our enemies.”

The man in front of the desk had no idea what Project Tiger was, but knew from the tone of his superior’s voice that he better find the missing woman … and quickly.

“What measures have been taken to locate this woman?”

“We were only able to identify her a short time ago, so … ”

“So, no steps have been taken to locate her?!” Yunshan yelled. “This woman can destroy us, and you’ve done nothing to find her?”

“I had no idea who she was,” the man stammered, “but I’ll find her no matter where she is.”

“You fool! She already has at least a three-day head start on you and could be anywhere in the world. How do you plan to find her?”

“I’ll have people start checking airports and train stations for any indication that she departed through one of them. I feel confident we can find her.”

Yunshan was silent and the man before him was beginning to wither under his superior’s gaze, but knew it was in his best interest to remain silent.

There was a sudden change in the sitting man’s expression, and he again addressed the person standing before him.

“If this woman was associated with the project you mentioned, we would have taken the precaution of having a tracking device embedded somewhere in her body so we could monitor her movements. I suggest you start there.”

“I’ll check with the responsible department immediately,” the man said, “but don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

“I hope you’re right,” Yunshan said. “Your life depends on it.”

SunHee was up early and anxious to get back on the road, but wasn’t looking forward to the day’s drive on I-95 playing bumper-tag and dodgem through the traffic jams that comprised much of the road system through Baltimore and the Northern loop around Washington, D.C. When she reached I-66, she planned to head west and stop overnight near Front Royal, Virginia, in the Shenandoah Valley. She knew she would get more anxious to complete her trip the closer she got to her destination, but she also knew she needed to rest.

Although she had already repacked the few things she had removed from her luggage the previous night, the activity caused the arm she had operated on to ooze a small amount of blood through the bandage she had applied to the wound.

After rebadging her arm, she swallowed a few more pills to take care of the pain she knew would soon put in an appearance.

Once she had reloaded her car, she took the tracking device she had removed from her arm and slammed the car door on it several times before dropping it through a sewer grate.

It was time to begin the rest of her life, whatever that meant and wherever it took her, but it would be on a path she chose; not one chosen for her. With that thought in mind, she smiled, climbed back into the car, and headed back to I-95 to continue her journey.

“You got a minute?” asked Major Schilling, the head of the security force at the Cave, as he entered Darque’s office.

“For you, Bugs,” Darque smiled, “always.”

The officer had earned his nickname eating things in survival scenarios that most people wouldn’t even touch.

“As per the requirements of this organization, one of our personnel reported a contact with a foreign national from a Communist country to me. This happens every now and then, and the encounters usually turn out to be innocent, but knowing why you’re back from your period of rest and recreation, I wanted to make you aware of it.”

“OK,” said Darque. “What have you got?”

“A female translator, named Maria Soun, came to my office earlier today to report that her cousin recently arrived in the U.S. for a visit. She said the woman had previously attended different universities in this and other countries around the world to take computer courses to advance her education. Maria has no idea why her cousin is currently in the U.S., but thought it might be to attend another computer seminar. Apparently, her cousin called her home and talked to her father about paying them a visit, and Maria and her father are anxiously awaiting the woman’s arrival. Maria has only been working here for a year, and had no reporting requirement at her previous jobs, but mentioned having a cousin living in a Communist country on her security questionnaire when she applied for a job with us. She noted that her cousin’s name was SunHee Nham, and she had visited Maria and her father on three occasions over the past 10 years. I already ran her name through our files and found nothing derogatory on her.”

“If you think we should pursue this, why don’t you have her go to your office and Penny and I will meet you there.”

“Give me about 15 minutes,” Bugs said.

“Just out of curiosity, what country is her cousin from?” Darque asked.

“Funny you should ask,” said Bugs, grinning like a child with a new puppy. “She’s from North Korea, but does some kind of work with computers for China.”

Chapter Six

When Darque and Penny entered Major Schilling’s office, the security chief and Maria were already present and engaged in an informal conversation.

Maria recognized Darque and Penny as soon as they entered the room, and immediately began to look nervous.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked.

“Not at all,” Darque assured the woman, “but I have some questions about the person you brought to Major Schilling’s attention.”

“SunHee?” she asked looking puzzled.

“Is that the name of the North Korean lady you mentioned to him?” Darque asked.

“Yes,” she said. “SunHee Nham.”

“How do you know her?”

“She’s a cousin on my father’s side. She visited us on a few occasions over the past several years when she was going to school in this country, but we hadn’t heard from her in quite a while until yesterday evening.”

“Do you remember the schools she attended?”

“Not all of them, but MIT and Carnegie Mellon were two of them,” Maria said. “She was interested in computers, but I don’t know if she ever got a degree. She went to many schools in several different countries, but seemed to be more interested in specific courses rather than completing a degree. She’s very smart.”

Penny, Darque and Bugs just looked at each other.

“How did she get in touch with you?” Darque asked.

“She didn’t get in touch with me. She called my father last evening to see if she could pay us a visit, and he let me listen in on the call. She’s going to come to our house tomorrow evening for dinner.”

Darque had to think quickly about how to take advantage of the situation.

“Do you think your father would mind if Penny and I showed up during the visit?” Darque asked.

“I don’t think so, but I’ll have to ask him,” Maria said. “Is something wrong that you need to talk to SunHee about?”

“I don’t know,” Darque answered truthfully, “but with what recently happened in North Korea, I’m curious about why she suddenly showed up after a relatively long period of no contact at all. There’s a possibility this may not be just a friendly visit, and depending on what we find out, we may have to take steps to protect you and your father. You can go back to work now, but please call your father and find out if it’s OK for us to attend your reunion, and let Penny know the details when you get an answer. Don’t worry … I’m sure everything will be fine,” Darque said as he smiled reassuringly.

Maria didn’t look all that reassured as she left Major Schilling’s office, but she would do what she had been asked. No one outside her coworkers, other than her father, knew what she did or where she worked, and that’s the way it was supposed to be. The job she did required a certain amount of secrecy and she understood why. When asked by outsiders what she did, she told them she filled out and filed medical bills for insurance agencies.

After Maria left the office, Darque, Penny and Bugs sat silently looking at each other.

“What do you want me to do?” Penny asked.

“I have no reason to doubt Maria’s loyalty, but I want you to stay near her in case something unexpected happens. If her cousin is involved in some way with the crash in North Korea, Maria’s life, as well as her father’s, may be in jeopardy. SunHee’s would certainly be.”

“Do you think somebody will come looking for her?”

“If she had anything to do with the downing, I suspect someone is either already on her trail or soon will be. I doubt if North Korean or Chinese Intelligence services are aware of her relatives in this country. If they were, they probably wouldn’t have allowed her to travel outside their two countries, and never to the U.S.”

“As long as Maria and her father don’t get looked at too closely, I think they’ll stay undetected,” said Bugs. “According to the file we have on him, Mr. Nham was a young farmer forced into the North Korean Army during the Koran War. Although he had been reported as KIA during an assault on his artillery position, he had, in fact, surrendered to U.S. troops. After extensive vetting, he was cleared to work for the U.S., and had been hired as an interpreter. When the conflict ended, he moved to the U.S., changed his name to Soun, and was hired by the CIA as an interpreter/analyst; the same position his daughter now holds with us.”

“If that’s the case,” said Darque, “any association detected between SunHee and her uncle and daughter would be based on ethnicity rather than on a family connection, and that should help to protect their true relationship. That could prove to be important.”

“Why don’t we issue a watch at airports for people carrying North Korean or Chinese passports if you think someone will be sent to find her?” asked Penny.

“It’s too easy to acquire the passports of other countries. People like us are the ones who will come looking for her, and we can manufacture and issue passports from any country in the world whenever it becomes necessary. I’m sure other countries have the same capability.”

Darque then turned his attention to Major Schilling.

“Bugs, I want you to warn your roving guards to stay watchful for anything out of the ordinary. I know that’s not very specific, but if SunHee is the person responsible for the plane crash, she’s been on the run for at least four days now. Chinese Intelligence would have discovered by now that she’s missing, and they won’t waste any time trying to locate her. She may or may not have made a mistake or left a clue about her destination, but we won’t know that until we’re able to talk to her, and that won’t happen until she shows up at her uncle’s house tomorrow evening. It also means the other side has another day to try to find her.”

“Can you give me any idea about what to look for?” Bugs asked.