Robie put down the coffee and rose. “You want to tell us what’s really going on now?”
His question was directed not at Marks but at Tucker.
The DCI slowly seemed to realize this by the silence that persisted. He looked down to see Robie staring at him.
“And what the hell do you mean by that?” Tucker said slowly.
“I mean I’d like to hear the truth.”
Robie took a few steps toward the man. Reel did the same.
Viola rose and stood between the DCI and them. “I think we all need to take a breath and calm down.”
Marks said, “Robie and Reel, you need to stand down on this. The mission is over.”
Reel glanced at her. “I highly doubt that.”
“What do you mean?” snapped Tucker.
“The second in command in North Korea just offs himself in France and you think it ends here?”
“The whole scene has been cleansed,” said Tucker. “There’s nothing tying us to this. He killed himself. That’s clear. When the body is found that’s what the verdict will be. Because it’s the truth.”
“You’re joking, right?” said Reel. “You think the North Koreans, the paranoid North Koreans who desperately want to be taken seriously by the rest of the world, will let this drop?”
“Why do you think they care about this?” yelled Tucker.
“Because your lip is sweating,” retorted Reel. “You are up to your ass in this, Tucker. The general’s last words were telling our president to go to hell. Do you want us to report directly to him what we were told? Since it concerns him, he might want to know.”
Marks held up a warning hand. “Reel, I get where you’re coming from, I really do, but don’t go there. Stand down. Now! This is not helping.”
Reel started to say something and then turned away, obviously furious.
Robie said, “So what now?”
Tucker looked at him. “We let sleeping dogs lie.”
“That’s it? That’s your strategy?”
Marks said, “I think we need to go wheels up and back to the States. None of what we’re doing here is productive.” She looked at Robie and Reel. “Pack up your gear and let’s roll.”
Robie kept his gaze on Tucker. “Sir, with all due respect, this is not going away, no matter how much you and the president want it to. So I would respectfully suggest that you have a backup strategy to be deployed when the North Koreans come back at us. And they will.”
“What do you know about anything, Robie?” said Tucker, but his voice cracked when he said it.
“I know enough to know that this is a potential powder keg and North Korea has nukes. And it seems like their only goal in life is to kick sand in our face every chance they get. Well, I think we just handed them a great opportunity to nail us right in the balls. And they will. The only question is how.”
Marks said, “How do you think they will?”
Tucker looked at her and then back at Robie. He seemed to be waiting for an answer too.
Reel spoke up. “They either go big or small. Going big means they launch a missile. Going small means they send out their own team of assassins against a specific target or targets.”
Robie nodded in agreement at this.
Marks said, “And which do you think it will be, best guess?”
Robie answered. “A missile does nothing. They can’t reach us or any of our allies, and they’ve never shown they can deliver a payload.”
“So, small then. A team sent out against a target,” said Marks slowly. “But what target?”
“Targets, maybe,” corrected Robie. “And if our plan was to take out their leader?”
“There is no way they can do that, Robie,” said Tucker. “The president is too well protected.”
“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. But as all of us know, he almost bought it recently inside the White House.”
Reel added, “And the North Koreans are known for having some of the most ruthless assassins in the world. And like the suicide bombers in the Middle East, they don’t mind if they die.”
“I can’t believe they would pull that trigger,” said Marks. “We would annihilate them.”
Tucker rose. “We’ll cross that bridge when and if we have to.”
Reel stepped forward. “Fine, but let’s get one thing straight. You try and lay any of this at our feet, it won’t just be the North Koreans coming for you.”
Tucker got in her face. “How dare you threaten me.”
“It’s not a threat. It’s more than a threat, Director. And as you know very well, when someone hurts me or someone I care about, I hurt them back. I don’t care what flag they’re carrying.”
She turned and left the room.
Chapter
30
DON’T EVER LET ME IN a room with that man again, because only one of us will come out alive,” said Reel. “And it won’t be him.”
They were back in the States and in Robie’s apartment.
“I don’t want to be in the same building as the guy, much less the same room,” said Robie as he moved around the kitchen making them a meal.
Reel poured a fresh cup of coffee and leaned against the sink, watching him maneuver pots, pans, and dishes.
“You get domestic much?” she asked.
“I live alone. I can’t eat out all the time. My repertoire is limited, but it fills the bill.” He held up two boxes. “Pasta or rice?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I haven’t seen any food go down your throat for about forty-eight hours. How can you not be hungry? It wasn’t like they overfed us at the Burner.”
Reel sighed resignedly. “Pasta.”
Robie heated some water in a large pot.
Reel said, “You know this is going to blow up into some huge international incident.”
“Probably,” said Robie as he looked in the pantry for some marinara sauce.
“And they’ll probably send us out again to clean it all up.”
Robie found the sauce and then tossed her a loaf of hard bread. “Get a knife, cut this loaf into small sizes, and take out your frustrations. Pretend Evan Tucker has been magically transformed into olive bread.”
While she was cutting, Reel said, “To hell with it. If they ask, I’m not going to do it. Are you?”
“Depends on what they ask and who’s doing the asking.”
He poured the noodles into the boiling water and then cracked open a bottle of wine and pulled two glasses from a cabinet. He poured the wine and handed one glass to Reel while he took a sip from the other and started cutting up some vegetables.
“What I know,” began Robie, “is that DD Marks told us to stand down and gave us time off. And I, for one, can use it. I’m too old for the Burner Box crap they pulled. And you’re not that much younger than me.”
“In dog years I’m far older,” pointed out Reel. “And that’s what I feel like, a dog. An old, washed-up dog.”
Robie finished cutting the vegetables and then began to sauté them in a heated pan that was on the cooktop. He took a sip of wine and glanced toward the window where outside the rain was bucketing down.
“General Pak said don’t let them hurt his family.”
Reel nodded. “Right. In North Korea it’s guilt by association. The labor camps over there are all based on that. If Mom and Dad get arrested and sent there, so do the kids. That way they cleanse the generations of ‘undesirables’ or whatever bullshit term they use.”
“I know that. But I checked Pak out. His wife is dead. He’s over seventy, so I assume his parents are probably dead. And he has no kids.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Not that I could find. The briefing said he was an only child.”
Reel drank her wine down and poured another glass. “I don’t know, Robie. That is odd. Speaking of family, what about Julie?”
“She’s not my family.”
“Close as you’ve got, I’m thinking.”
“I haven’t talked to her since before we left for the Burner Box.”
“Time off, like you said. You should hook up with her.”
“And why do you care?”