Clean Cut Kid (A Logan Connor Thriller Book 1) Read online

  * * *

  Park didn’t lie. A North Korean pulled the black bag off Jean Luc’s head. He was chained to an airplane jet engine. The hulking mass of steel and wires sat in a hangar bay. He quickly started absorbing details. The bay floor was not the standard garage floor concrete of most bays; instead, it was highway asphalt. The roof and the walls were all one structure. They were made of massive metal beams meeting at the top in an arch. Corrugated metal sheets formed the sides. A few of them were missing rivets or sections where the steel sheets didn’t meet flush. They weren’t gaps caused by age, as much as poor workmanship. The steel parts showed a few paint chips but not much rust. So, an asphalt floor, slipshod siding, and a range of cheap materials. This hangar was new, and it was built in a hurry. That meant they weren’t in an official North Korean government hangar.

  He didn’t see Park or Lee Ha-Rin, but this must be a black site—a hidden operation. Making it look like a hangar meant that US and South Korean spy planes flying overhead couldn’t see the true purpose of the building.

  Jean Luc looked around. He saw plane parts scattered around the hangar. A completed cargo plane sat like a beached whale in the hangar. Its cargo door opened like a yawning mouth. Okay, he thought, we’ve got a working plane. Now, I just need to live through whatever comes next.

  Whatever comes next came fast. A North Korean man, a muscular powerlifter type, lumbered over to him. The man wore a black business suit, black leather gloves, and a black mask over his nose and mouth. He didn’t say a word as he approached. Where are Juliette Verlay and Sydney? Are they meeting their own torturers somewhere else?

  The man, his torturer, pulled his fist back and drove it straight into Jean Luc’s nose. Not again. His nose sparked with pain. Blood spattered on his face and mouth. His eyes watered, but he couldn’t wipe them with his hands chained.

  As the pain was blossoming fully, the man shouted in English, “Who do you work for?”

  Jean Luc prepared a whole series of lies. He opened his mouth to say he was Belgian and then froze. Oh, this guy is good. He’d asked the question in English while Jean Luc was thrown off. He wanted to hear how well a so-called Belgian could speak English.

  Jean Luc responded in French, “The Belgian Air Component. Chief Warrant Officer Jean Luc Sejour. Serial number…”

  The torturer hit him in the face again before he could spit out his fake serial number. The punches came faster and harder. The torturer battered Jean Luc with his left and his right fist. Eventually, with each blow, they stopped feeling like anything, as they just melded into a single throbbing misery. He was trained for this. He could withstand far more than that without cracking.

  When the big man’s gloves became too slick with Jean Luc’s blood, he pulled them off to keep battering with his bare fists. On his left ring finger, he bore the impression of a wedding ring that he removed.

  Wedding rings weren’t very common in North Korea. So, he probably wore one to make him a more effective spy around the world. If you wanted to pretend to be married in the Western world, he needed a wedding ring. A ring finger with no indentation or tan line would be a dead giveaway. Okay, so he keeps Western customs. He’s likely to have been married to another spy. That would have made it easier to travel for work. Time to take a shot from half-court and hope for the best.

  “I’ll confess,” Jean Luc spat through bloody lips. “I’ll confess,” he said again.

  The torturer smiled and folded his arms. In Korean, he said, “Go on, then.”

  Jean Luc met his eyes and smirked. “I’ll only confess to Park.”

  Anger flashed across the torturer’s eyes. The corners of his mouth curled up like an animal snarling. He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked. Looks like I was right.

  Whatever the effect Jean Luc had on women it seemed to be amplified after a woman came out of a recent divorce. The worse the husband, the stronger the effect. A torturer was probably a pretty lousy husband.

  The torturer cocked back his fist to swing again.

  Jean Luc smirked again. “Nuh-uh. I’m trying to confess. Get your commanding officer.”

  The big man held his cocked fist for a minute and then let his arm drop. He heel-turned and marched off. That was another guess but a pretty solid one. What would make a man like that want to leave a woman like Park? If she were his superior officer. He didn’t seem like the type to tolerate a woman telling him what to do or earning more money than him.

  After a few minutes of Jean Luc bleeding down the front of his shirt spitting out clots, Park walked in. She pulled another North Korean flag handkerchief out of her pocket and knelt in front of him, and tried to wipe away the blood as best she could.

  In French, she said, ‘If you just told us what you know, you could save yourself a lot of pain.”

  Jean Luc looked her in the eyes and pleaded with her. “You know that’s not true. You know your ex-husband. You know the Great Leader. They’re going to kill all of us. You have to help us.”

  Park shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Come with us,” Jean Luc said. “You’re divorced now, right? They probably don’t let their spies have kids. Nothing is keeping you here.”

  “A North Korean spy in your world?” Park Dae Lun scoffed, “Your government would lock me away.”

  “No, they won’t. They need what you know. I’ll tell my government you’re valuable. You’re valuable… to me.” He said, staring into her eyes.

  His eyes lowered to her lips and then back up to her eyes, letting her know he wanted to kiss her. She looked at his lips and then back to his eyes, returning the suggestion. Still chained to the massive jet engine, he leaned forward, but he stopped barely an inch away from her lips. She would have to come to him, to let herself abandon her country and her old life. For a moment, he could feel her hesitation as her breath against his lips. Then, she smashed her lips against his. With her lips, she pushed his lips slightly apart.

  She pulled a ring of keys out of a pocket. “Can you fly a plane?” She asked.

  * * *

  Could Jean Luc fly a plane? That was a pretty good question. Could he fly one on the simulator? Sure. Could he fly an American-made C-130? Yes. Could he fly an experimental North Korean cargo plane? They were going to find out. It was also worth wondering if an experimental North Korean cargo plane could fly. Innovators didn’t exactly go to North Korea for its wealth of manufacturing expertise.

  A few minutes later, Sydney, Juliette Verlay, and Juliette’s two bodyguards ran across the asphalt and up the cargo ramp at the back of the plane.

  Park approached Jean Luc and with a quick twist of her wrist opened a butterfly knife she concealed in her sleeve and cut the ties binding his hand and then his ankles. They ran to the back of the plane to join the group crouched on the cargo deck of the experimental cargo plane. They held North Korean AK-47s from the guards overtaken by Park. Jean Luc couldn’t help but wonder how it was done. They all looked pretty battered but it seemed none of them cracked. Nobody got it as bad as Jean Luc for which he was grateful. Peering out the open cargo door, the escapees watched behind the plane to see if they were being pursued.

  Jean Luc ran to the cockpit of the plane and started the engines. By luck, not design, he found the switch to close the cargo door. Working the controls more by muscle memory from his training than his ability to read the various labeled controls.

  Park was high-ranking enough that she could tell the guards she needed the prisoners elsewhere. They had not questioned her request. A bullet to the head of the two men that accompanied the prisoners stopped them from seeing her end game. But her deception would be discovered soon enough when the guards failed to return. The only question was when.

  The answer to the question came sooner than she hoped. Two black SUVs burst onto the runway behind the plane. As the plane accelerated for takeoff, so did the SUVs. They opened fire on the plane before the loading ramp closed.

  Sydney, standing against t
he sidewall of the plane near the open tail, sprayed a blast of gunfire at the SUV on the left. She hit the windshield, and the bullets pinged off harmlessly.

  “They’re armored,” she shouted.

  Juliette’s bodyguard, the bald one, shot at their tires but missed. Juliette sprayed a shower of gunfire at the ground in front of the cars. The bullets pinged, whizzed, and hissed. Smoke snaked out of the hood of the SUV and it slowly puttered to a halt.

  “Trick I learned in Morocco,” she said.

  Sydney tried it on the other SUV. It worked even better. The bullets bounced off the ground and shredded through hoses and cylinders in the engine. The swerving of the car confirmed the ricocheting bullets went through the firewall and struck the driver. The nose of the plane started to tilt upwards as they were beginning to take off.

  Sydney scurried over to a large red button by the cargo door. “Clear the door,” she shouted and slammed her palm against the button. The ramp groaned and moaned as it closed.

  The air being sucked from the gap in the door slowly calmed as it thudded shut just in time for the plane to show the force of full throttle and they all were slung to the back of the cargo area. Jean Luc didn’t dare enter South Korean airspace for fear of immediately being shot down. So, he headed east.

  Almost an hour after takeoff the North Korean Air Force scrambled three Soviet-era MiGs to chase the cargo plane. Sydney’s bullets hit their mark. The limited personnel at the hidden base failed to report the theft of the plane. Park confirmed that reporting the missing plane was a death warrant for everyone on the base. As the cargo plane roared through the sky at full throttle the screaming engines of their pursuers, their Chinese trained pilots covered the distance between them in an amazingly few minutes. They shot across the sky three times as fast as the cargo jet. Thankfully, the secret hangar where they were held was only a few miles from the east coast. The cargo plane and its passengers covered the six hundred some miles to Japan in what would be just enough time to escape the jets.

  As they entered Japanese airspace, he used his fake Belgian credentials to prevent them from being shot down. The Japanese told them to clear their airspace immediately. That was fine; that was the plan.

  The North Korean MiGs couldn’t leave international airspace due to the tension with Japan. Such a violation was strictly prohibited by Pyongyang. That gave Jean Luc and his crew a headstart of a few hundred miles as the North Koreans flew around Japan. Jean Luc flew right over it. He gunned the engines and raced for the Northern Mariana Islands. The MiGs chased them across 1,400 miles of open ocean. They kept their distance. Park was baffled as to why they didn’t fire on the stolen plane. After several hours of nerve-wracking cat and mouse, they reached the Northern Mariana Islands: U.S. airspace. The North Korean fighter jets turned for home.

  The Guam Air National Guard and two Navy F-15C Eagles were scrambled to intercept Jean Luc and company. They flew threateningly close, fully prepared to shoot down this mystery North Korean plane. Jean Luc used an American cover story. He landed the plane at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Jean Luc Sejour was Logan Connor again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Titus Crow met them in Guam not long after they’d landed. He jumped on the first transport flying straight to Guam. Fortunately, he held military credentials that got him on a military transport flying out later the same day.

  Logan only slept a few hours in a small dorm on the base. The bed was lumpy, flat, and smelled of sweat. The bedsprings creaked, and his feet hung off the end of the short twin bed. It felt like his college dorm all over again. Sleep was a fleeting thing for Logan. Since Titus recruited him, he never slept more than a few hours a night.

  He put on a hoodie and a pair of running shorts and standard-issue running shoes that one of the airmen left for him. Walking out of his room in a US Air Force hoodie, running shorts, and issued shoes, he looked like a young Air Force officer and not an international spy. Sydney was in a women’s dorm on a different floor of the dormitory. Juliette Verlay possessed no American credentials. She carried authentic French and Belgian credentials. She also held some forgeries that the French government gave her for different Francophone countries, but nothing for the US. It probably wouldn’t have checked out anyway. That’s why most spies didn’t try false US credentials.

  Park carried no credentials on her at all beyond a North Korean ID. She was in a holding cell, waiting for an attorney to arrive in Guam. The attorney specialized in North Korean defectors. Logan was headed to her holding cell.

  When he got to her cell, she was dressed in a pair of sweatpants with no drawstring, soft shoes without laces, and a loose gray sweatshirt with no hood. There was nothing that she could easily hang herself with. The room wasn’t a prison cell so much, as it was a large metal box with a bulletproof Plexiglass wall drilled with holes. In her cell, there was a bed, a sink, and a small bookshelf. The thing that distinguished it from a jail cell was a curtain she could pull around the toilet. Prisoners weren’t granted protection of their dignity.

  She visibly brightened when Logan walked up. She walked up to the Plexiglass wall. She stuck her fingers through one of the holes. Logan laced his fingers in hers and held her hand like that.

  In French, she said, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “I told you that you are valuable to me,” he replied.

  She smiled. “But men will say anything to get in your plane.”

  Logan chuckled.

  They talked like that for a little while, holding hands with their fingers intertwined. He learned a little bit about her as well. She was born in Chongjin. Her father was a steelworker, and her mother worked in some kind of clothing factory. When she came of age, she got on a train in Chongjin and rode it all the way to the capital, Pyongyang. She joined the Air Force and worked for the state ever since. Her marriage to the man who beat Logan was arranged by the Korean People’s Aviation Company. The company was a front for an air-based spy agency. She explained it as an Air Force for spies. Logan thought it was a pretty brilliant idea, and he would recommend the Agency consider something similar.

  Logan told her about himself too. He told her about his biological father dying in a car crash and him being put up for adoption. He didn’t tell her anything about Titus Crow, though. She might have been a defector with nothing left to lose, but he was still an American agent.

  The phone the Air Force issued him buzzed in the pocket of his shorts. It buzzed once and stopped. Titus had arrived.

  “I should go,” he told Park. “My supervisor is here.”

  “I will be here. Where else can I go?”

  He responded, “Your lawyer should be here soon. I am surprised no one on this base speaks Korean.”

  She leaned in closer and for a moment, Logan thought she was going to try to kiss him. It wouldn’t have worked because of the plexiglass between them. She whispered in Korean, “We were informed about you and your team. You were betrayed.”

  Logan held his face steady and tried not to react. There were cameras in the cell, and he didn’t know who might be watching.

  He pulled back a little bit and loudly enough for any audio recording devices, he said, “I care about you, too, Park.”

  He squeezed her fingers and mouthed “thank you” in Korean. Then, he turned and made his way to the flight line, where Titus would be getting off the plane.

  Massive, gray cargo planes sat like whales all over the flight line, and Blackhawk helicopters were lined up like cars in a parking lot. An F-16 fighter jet taxied off the runway and down the taxiway towards its parking spot. So, Titus didn’t get on a military transport. He took an F-16! It’s good to be the man in charge.

  Sydney met Logan on the flight line as they waited for the F-16 to find its parking spot and for Titus to climb out. She was dressed the same as he was: Air Force hoodie, Air Force shorts, standard-issue running shoes.

  With the sound of jets spooling their engines and propellers blasting the runway, the
y needed to shout to be heard even standing right next to each other.

  “We didn’t screw up,” Logan said.

  “Huh?” She shouted back.

  “In North Korea, we didn’t screw up. Somebody burned us. Park told me.”

  Sydney responded, “And you trust her?”

  Logan shook his head. “She has no reason to lie.”

  Sydney nodded and said, “Okay, so we know it wasn’t me or you. Then who?”

  “Who knew about the op? Me, you, Titus, Juliette, her guards maybe. Some of the people at the Agency would have known bits but not enough to burn us.”

  Sydney responded, “Juliette. She wouldn’t pick guards she couldn’t trust. Must be her.”

  Logan responded, “I think so, too, but we’ll be smart about it. We’ll run it like any other spy-catching operation.”

  Sydney smiled. “Let’s hunt us a spy.”

  At that moment, Titus Crow came marching towards them in a fighter pilot flight suit with his helmet under his arm. He smiled and waved. “I was on an aircraft carrier not too far from here. They let me borrow the keys. How the hell are you two?”

  Sydney shook his hand. He pulled Logan in for a hug.

  Logan responded mid-embrace, “Well, some goon beat the hell out of me. So, I stole his wife.”

  They all laughed as they walked away from the flight line.

  * * *

  In the dining facility, Sydney, Logan, and Titus sat by themselves in the corner. Sydney and Logan ate as if they were captured, starved, and walked across Asia in a dangerous escape. Titus only drank coffee.

  Titus sipped his coffee and said, “I knew I couldn’t trust the damn French. They said this Verlay woman was their best.”

  Sydney chewed her chicken cordon bleu. “I just don’t know how they made us. We must have done something sloppy.”

  Titus scoffed. “‘We? It was the Frenchwoman. You two haven’t worked with the French as much as I have. Sloppy is the French word for ‘covert operation’.”

  Logan studied Titus’s reaction. Sydney was doing a pretty good job. They both suspected Juliette Verlay was the one who sold them out, but if they were going to be good spies, they needed to keep their options open. Neither of them took seriously the idea that Titus betrayed them. Why spend all the time and energy training them to then get them killed? They needed to run the operation, though.