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have made a scene on the bridge. I wasn’t exactly very mobile in my parachute rig.”
    “And ...” Feliks nodded at the van again.
    “I don’t know who he is. Never saw him before. I tried to take him alive, but he was wearing a vest and it came down to him or me.” The cigarette burned bright as Lake turned toward Feliks. “And you do prefer that it was me, don’t you?” His tone was light, but there was an edge to it.
    “Of course, of course,” Feliks said. “You did well. But this is very serious. Beyond what they planned to do, we don’t have a clue who wanted this done. And the body from the boat complicates matters. This might not be a simple Patriot plot.”
    No shit, Sherlock, Lake thought, but he kept the words to himself. Feliks seemed worried, which was a first in the years they’d worked together. Lake rubbed his forehead. “There is an advantage to them all being dead.”
    “There is?” Feliks waited.
    “My cover is still intact.”
    “Ah, yes.” Feliks smiled without any humor. “And, of course, our three friends have just vanished off the face of the earth, correct? Or perhaps they should be in an accident? The van perhaps?”
    “I think disappearing would serve better,” Lake suggested. It was the way they worked. Outside the law. Even if he had taken any of the three alive, Lake knew from experience that the men would never have seen the inside of a courtroom. And the people of San Francisco would never know how close they had come to disaster.
    “Starry and Preston were supposed to disappear,” Lake added. “The guy in the boat not coming back is the one that’s going to rattle someone’s cage.”
    Feliks touched Lake’s arm and indicated that they should walk over to the van now that everything was loaded. “And? With your cover intact? What then? Can you find out whose cage is getting rattled?”
    “I’ll try.”
    “You have any leads?”
    “I don’t know,” Lake said. “I’ve heard rumors.”
    “You don’t know. Rumors,” Feliks repeated. “That’s it?”
    “That’s it.”
    “All right. You have two weeks.”
     

     
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    HUNGNAM, NORTH KOREA
    MONDAY, 29 SEPTEMBER 1997 2:47 a.m. LOCAL
     
    “The helicopter cannot take off,” Nagoya said, removing the earplug for the satellite radio.
    Nishin simply looked at his partner, waiting for an explanation. The two men were crammed into a niche two-thirds up the side of a six thousand foot mountain. The only thing keeping them from tumbling down to the valley floor below were snap links hooked into ropes attached to cams they had lodged in small cracks farther in the niche. It had taken them four days of climbing, all done at night, to go over the top of the mountain and make their way down to their present position. They’d been here for six hours, watching and waiting for the final word.
    “The North Koreans have spotted the ship and are shadowing it,” Nagoya explained, carefully coiling the earplug cord.
    Getting in was always easier than getting out, Nishin knew. Getting in they’d been flown on a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to a point forty miles off the North Korean coast. The entire flight had been made barely ten feet above the wave tops to avoid radar. Then the helicopter had slowed to a forward speed of ten knots, the back ramp had been lowered, and a rubber boat had been pushed off the rear, Nishin and Nagoya following right behind in their wet suits.
    They’d used the engine to get within a kilometer of the shore just south of Hungnam Harbor, checked their position, and then sunk the boat, swimming the rest of the way. Then across the rocky shore, to the base of the mountain, over the mountain, and now here overlooking the valley.
    They both knew the ship could not launch the recovery helicopter with the North Koreans watching. It would be like turning a spotlight on the entire mission.
    “What did Nakanga say we should do?” Nishin asked, looking into the valley. Smokestacks billowed