The Eye of God (Sigma Force 9)

“I’ll take you at your word. Just get that Eye here in time.”

“Monk is working on—”

In the background, Duncan could be heard yelling, “That’s your plan!”

Gray heard a rising commotion, people yelling. “What’s going on?”

Jada answered, flustered, but clarifying little, “We’re on our way.”

The connection abruptly ended.

Gray simply had to trust that they knew what they were doing. He called Seichan next. After a longer than expected delay, the connection was picked up.

“Where are you?” Seichan demanded, sounding angry.

Not having the time to analyze her curt response, he simply told her and ended with, “Come straight here.”

She cut off the connection just as brusquely, not even bothering to acknowledge him.

Gray shook his head and headed on foot back inside.

He would have to trust she would do the right thing.

29

November 20, 9:06 A.M. IRKST

Olkhon Island, Russia

Seichan didn’t know what to do.

Pak leaned close to her face. She smelled the tobacco on his breath from the cigarettes he had been chain-smoking since he got here.

“Tell me what they said! Where are they?”

He still held her phone in his hand. Behind Pak, the stone-faced North Korean unit leader—whose name she had learned was Ryung—continued to hold a pistol to Rachel’s chest. Pak had forced Seichan to find out where Gray was, then ended the call before she could warn him in any way.

Both of the North Koreans were clearly losing patience.

Pak stalked across the common room of the inn, angrily puffing on a cigarette. Ju-long hung back by the fire, looking none too pleased about any of this. Seichan got the feeling he was under some coercion. He was a man driven by money and position in Macau. For him, there could be no profit in what was happening here.

Not that such sentiment would lead him to help them.

Rachel was bound to a chair across from her. Both of them had been expertly immobilized by Ryung’s men. There was no magical way to free themselves from this situation. No secret knife, no way to break the chair or slip her bonds.

Seichan knew the reality of the situation. They were both at Pak’s mercy—an emotion she doubted existed in the man.

Recognizing this, Seichan had told them earlier where Gray and the others had gone, to Burkhan Cape. If she had failed to do that, they would have shot Rachel. She had no doubt of that. She only had to stare over to the innkeeper’s legs sticking out the kitchen door, one shoe fallen off, sprawled in a pool of blood, to be certain.

So she told them about Gray’s sunrise meeting at the coast. She sought to buy time, hoping to create a long enough delay for Monk to arrive at the inn and possibly upset the scenario, maybe even rescue them, or at least allow Seichan a possible opportunity to free herself and Rachel during the chaos.

After her earlier confession, Ryung had dispatched a handful of men to Burkhan Cape. They returned thirty minutes later, getting confirmation that Seichan had spoken the truth. But while they were questioning the shaman, the man simply stepped out of the mouth of his cave and threw himself to the rocks below, never revealing where Gray had gone from there.

The North Koreans had to accept she didn’t know either—not that they didn’t use the time to rough the two women up. Rachel and Seichan had matching cigarette burns on the back of their hands as proof.

Then came the damned call.

Pak had used the opportunity to get an update.

“Don’t tell them,” Rachel said around a split lip. “You know what’s at stake.”

Clearly growing frustrated with Seichan’s delaying tactics, Pak stubbed out his cigarette and returned from his angry stroll around the room. He came back rubbing his palms, a gleam of dark amusement in his eyes.

Seichan went cold.

“Let’s make this interesting, shall we?” he said.

Parting his palms, Pak revealed a North Korean silver coin in his hand. On the surface was the smiling visage of the dictator Kim Jong-il.

“You know I am a betting man,” Pak said. “So a game, a wager. Heads. We shoot your friend. Tails. She lives.”

Seichan glared at the man’s needless cruelty.

“I am going to keep flipping this coin until you tell me,” Pak pressed. “The first head that comes up, she dies.”

Ryung fixed his pistol more firmly to Rachel’s chest.

Stepping back, Pak flipped the coin high into the air. It flashed silver in the lamplight.

Seichan relented, knowing she could delay no longer. “Fine! I’ll tell you!”

“Don’t!” Rachel warned.

The coin struck the floor and bounced until Pak trapped it under his boot, wearing a mean smile, enjoying this way too much.

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” he said. “Now tell me.”

She did, telling him the truth, changing tactics. If stalling no longer worked, her best hope was to get them all moving. Once under way, she might find an opportunity to break free.

“Very good,” Pak said, pleased with himself.

He lifted his shoe.

The fat-cheeked face of Kim Jong-il smiled up from the floor.

Heads.

“Looks like you lose,” Pak said and signaled his man.

Ryung stepped back, aimed his gun, and shot Rachel in the chest.

Horror as much as the blast made Seichan jump, rocking her chair back, almost toppling over.

Equally stunned, Rachel stared down at the blood welling through her shirt—then back up at Seichan.

Seichan gaped at Pak, at his betrayal.

He shrugged, looking surprised at her response. “It’s the usual house rules,” Pak said. “Once the dice are in the air, all bets are final.”

Across the way, Rachel’s head slumped to her chest.

Seichan despaired.

What have I done?

9:20 A.M.

Cold darkness enfolded her.

All her strength and heat seeped out the single hole in her chest, taking at last the fiery pain with it. With each fading breath, she felt a small ache remaining, more spiritual than physical.

I don’t want to go . . .

Rachel struggled to stay, but again it was not a fight of muscle and bone, but of will and purpose. She had heard the others leave the inn, abandoning her to her death.

But Monk would come . . .

She held on to that hope. She knew he could not save her, not even with his considerable medical skill. Instead, she clutched to that thinning silver strand of her existence for one purpose.

To tell him where the others had gone.