The moment Mack made his way up to the second floor, he felt the instant tension and knew something was wrong. His team--Ethan included--was assembled around a table, an obvious makeshift war room. His beeper had gone off in the plane, so he wasn't at all surprised that there was trouble.
Jaimie looked up, her face a little pale and strained, but she leapt up, a smile blocking out the worry. That look alone was worth everything to him. Uncaring that Sergeant Major was watching, or that his team had grins on their faces, he swept her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly. He took his time, feeling her cling to him, the slight trembling in her body.
He framed her face with his hands. "Are you all right?"
Jaimie nodded. "I'm glad you're back. We have a bad situation here, Mack."
"I can see that, honey." He reluctantly let his arms drop, stripping off his jacket. "Sergeant Major, you're cleared. The mission was a success."
Griffen nodded his head just once in understanding. The old, faded eyes smiled at Mack briefly in acknowledgment before he indicated the computer screens above their heads. "You're looking at the reason for World War Three, Mack."
He looked up and studied the two unlikely faces. A small girl of about ten looked back at him, her shiny black hair framing her face. Beside her was a serious young teenager, perhaps seventeen, with razor-straight, gleaming black hair and dark eyes hidden behind black-rimmed glasses. "And they are?"
"Dae-sub Chun is seventeen. A nice young man, far ahead of his age. The girl is a niece of an old friend. Her name is Mi-cha Song. Dae-sub Chun's father is General Kwang-sub Chun. He just happens to be the ambassador to D.P.R.K. Permanent mission to the UN."
Javier lowered his gear to the floor. "That doesn't sound good."
"Democratic People's Republic of Korea," Sergeant Major reiterated.
"No," Javier said. "I'm guessing anything to do with North Korea right now isn't going to be good, not when our countries are posturing at each other."
"It gets worse," Griffen said. "The girl is the sister of one of our agents. Both children have been kidnapped."
"Was the girl's abduction deliberate?" Mack asked. "Is our agent compromised?"
Griffen shook his head. "No, she was with the boy at a museum. She had been visiting General Chun's family. We don't believe she was the target so much as Dae-sub. Educated guesses by Chun leaned toward blackmail at first. It seems one of their leading scientists accidentally stumbled upon a particularly unstable and highly explosive compound. Somehow Doomsday was able to infiltrate the lab and obtain the information. The general was certain he would be contacted very soon with a demand for the formula and compound. We all know the general's wife was killed last year, and that he loved her very much. It nearly broke him. He isn't a young man and now, with his son in grave danger, well, this is a desperate situation any way you look at it."
"Then you've been in touch with General Chun?"
"Yes, very quietly. He can't be seen talking with us, of course."
Mack found a chair and gratefully accepted the cup of coffee Kane pushed into his hands. He'd been up all night and traveling all day and needed rest. But the room was tense, Jaimie looked stressed, and Sergeant Major Griffen was as grim as he'd ever seen him.
"Lay it out for us," Mack said and waved Gideon and Javier into chairs.
"We took the weapons in the warehouse," Kane said. "The mission went like clockwork, boss. When Shepherd and Estes tried to break in, we killed two of their men. We managed to tag both of them with a tracking device. We couldn't have asked for a smoother operation."
Griffen took up the story. "We traced them all the way to China. Beijing to be exact."
Mack sat up straighter. "China? What the hell would Shepherd and Estes want in China?" He sank back. "Never mind. If you want to go to North Korea, you have to go to Beijing, right?"
Kane nodded his head. "They met with Frank Koit and Holeander Armstice, both known members of Doomsday. The four traveled together to North Korea. The next day, these two children were snatched from the museum and their bodyguards were slain. The kidnappers left behind an American assault rifle."
"To implicate the United States," Mack guessed. "Because we aren't in enough trouble already, with both countries pissed off at each other over the nuclear issue."
"Publicly North Korea has warned of military action against the United States," Kane said. "Even if they knew we weren't guilty of kidnapping these children, to save face they'd have to retaliate if it looked to the world as if we were responsible for grabbing them."
"The world would be on their side," Griffen said. "Using children as pawns in a nuclear debate would be despicable."
"And the children would have to die," Mack added. "You know they'd kill them. What other choice would they have? Even if they pretended, the boy was raised by General Kwang-sub Chun. You know he'd spot any inconsistencies. One thing, he won't panic, not if he's anything at all like his old man."
"Privately, North Korea has asked for us to aid them in getting these children out alive."
Mack sighed and rubbed at his temples. "Are you certain the kids are still alive, Top?"
"We have to believe that," Griffen said. "I want your team to go in and bring them out."
Jaimie made a small sound of distress. Mack swung his head to look at her. She was curled up in a chair a few feet away from the table, partially hidden in the shadows, her face averted. "He makes it sound so easy."
"We have to know where they are," Mack said. "Unless our bugs have stopped working."
"Oh, no," Jaimie said, "they're in place. They're relaying the information just fine." She rubbed her hand over her face. "They're transmitting from under the American embassy in Beijing. The American embassy, Mack. If the kids are found there, the world is in trouble."
"Shit," Javier commented.
"Thank you for your contributi
on," Griffen said. "As you can see, Mack, this requires a delicate hand. You have to get in unseen, scoop the kids back without anyone knowing you--or they--were ever there. That means no shots fired. Nothing that could possibly draw attention to this situation."
"With no shots fired? Against a terrorist organization that thrives on as much violence and publicity as possible?" Mack looked at Kane. "When do we leave?"
"I'll provide as much intel as I can from here," Jaimie volunteered.
"You have to go with them," Sergeant Major ordered. "I'm not asking."
There was a shocked silence. The men looked at one another. Mack looked at Jaimie. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly, fists clenching until the knuckles turned white, until her fingernails bit deeply into her palm. "You know I can't go with them, Sergeant Major," she whispered softly, a thousand tears in her voice, her chest aching. "I would if I could, but it's impossible. I nearly got Mack killed on our last mission together."
"She can feed us intel from here," Mack said.
Griffen shook his head. "I don't need her feeding you intel. I need her to do whatever she does to get you all in and out quietly. If there was another way . . . But she's what we have and we have to use her skills."
"I don't work for you anymore." Her voice was stiff. She didn't look at any of them.
"You never stopped. And I'm not asking," Griffen retorted.
Jaimie stood up so fast her chair went over backward. "You're not going to do this to me. Arrest me."
"Don't think I won't. This is what you were trained for and, by God, you're going to do your job."
"Sergeant Major." Mack's voice was low. Ice-cold.
The room went dead silent. Kane moved. The action was subtle, but he put his body between Jaimie and the rest of the room.
Griffen rose, his eyes narrowing. He did a slow sweep of the room with speculative eyes. "Are you threatening me, soldier?"
The tension in the room rose significantly. Mack didn't so much as blink, letting it stretch out almost to a breaking point. "I said nothing to give you that impression--sir."