Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

British, or some other corrupt Western entity. Your objective is all that I want, and you will tell me.”

“Not in this lifetime,” Lily croaked.

Hyo smiled. He had a gold-capped tooth just behind one incisor. “Perhaps not in mine, but certainly in yours, which, if you fail to cooperate, is going to be tragically short.”

Lily turned her face away and looked across the fuselage to a large oval window. It was late at night, though she had no idea what time, and the twinkling lights of land far below had disappeared. They were either above unpopulated tracts or over the sea.

She’d had some hope when General Kung had ordered her detained because relations between the Chinese and the United Kingdom, of which “Rosalind Stone” was a citizen, were generally positive, and delicate. So, she’d waited it out in a dank cell somewhere in Beijing, insisting she was an innocent sales rep and that the whole thing was some sort of horrible mix-up. She’d cried and whined and fussed in character, hoping that Zeta would drum up some indignant British “ambassador” to come pounding on Chinese government doors.

But apparently Kung’s kindly face belied a wily tactician. He knew the Chinese couldn’t hold her for long without suffering some sort of official British visit, and certainly torturing the truth from her would result in very bad press. However, the North Koreans were another animal altogether. Nothing decent was ever expected of them, so he’d turned her over to Hyo.

Lily heard laughter from the rear of the plane. Six of Colonel Hyo’s officers were relaxing back there, enjoying their luxury—something they rarely experienced—as their own military aircraft were bare bones. Two of them were playing Baduk, the Korean version of Japanese Go. She heard the black and white oval game pieces clicking on the board, then a curse, and another laugh. She closed her eyes as a tremor of terror rolled up her aching spine.

How the bloody hell am I going to get out of this? She hadn’t slept for two days, and the exhaustion was opening a flood of despair. Does Shepard even know where I am?

She was certain that Hyo still had her cell phone in his possession because he clearly wanted its contents, and she’d refused to give him the code. If he hadn’t pulled the battery, then Linc might still be able to track her.

But then what? Bloch couldn’t send Tactical on a mission to North Korea. She’d be in a cold, dark prison for years. Her eyes welled up as she thought about hearing those maddening clicks as her guards played Baduk, over and over while her body withered to sagging flesh and bones.

Her buttocks clenched, and her eyes popped open as she felt Hyo’s fingers gripping her jaw. He snapped her face around as he leaned across the table, his black eyes squinting at hers.

“You are not paying attention, Miss Stone.” He sat back down in his chair. “You should think about what will soon happen.” He looked at his watch, a simple plastic G-Shock. “In approximately one hour, you will be in Pyongyang. It will be your last full view of civilization, as you know it. And then”—he picked up a chopstick and flicked it against his wine glass, where it made a sharp ding—“you will be gone forever.”

Lily cleared her sand-dry throat. “You think my government will just let your dear leader do as he pleases?”

Hyo laughed. “Your government, whoever that is, barely protests his nuclear ambitions. So why would they care about you?”

“I am an innocent civilian. You’ve made a ghastly mistake.”

“We shall see.” Hyo tapped the ivory stick on the face of his watch. “It should not take long to discover. I think we shall start with freezing cold, then unbearable heat, and then some electrics in sensitive places. If you still resist, we shall move on to serious measures, things that will leave you unpleasant to look at.” His lips turned up in a smile, and, as they did, his curving scar turned white.

The airplane shuddered. At first it seemed like a hard shiver of turbulence, but then a strange noise came from the right rear outside, somewhat like a car engine in overdrive. Then came a sharp bang and a declining whine, and the Gulfstream dipped hard to the right.

Lily slid to the right in her chair and her head bounced against the fuselage. She heard the Koreans in the back cursing and the sounds of ceramic play pieces scattering over the floor.

Then the airplane corrected, and she heard urgent voices from the cockpit up forward.

Colonel Hyo pushed himself from his seat and stormed up front. There was no door to the cockpit, and he gripped the open sills on either side, spread his stance for balance, and thrust his head inside. The two Chinese pilots were hunched forward in their seats, chattering in staccato grunts as they flicked switches while stall warning bells went off.

“Zheshizen me huishi?”—What’s going on?—he demanded in Mandarin.

“Wo men buzhidao!”—We don’t know!—the right-seat copilot said without turning around. “We have lost the right engine, and when we took it off autopilot, we still have no control!”

With that, the pilot in the left seat took his hands from where they were gripping the yoke and raised them up in the air. Both yokes, his and the copilot’s, continued to jerk and twist on their own, as if the aircraft were haunted by some ungodly ghost.

“Will it still fly?” Hyo demanded.

“It is flying now,” said the pilot. “But I am not flying it!”

Hyo snapped his head around to the rear and yelled in Korean, “Seat belts!”

Lily had no idea what was going on, but she heard the men behind her hissing in whispers. She looked down at her cuffed hands and tried to twist around to grab her seatbelt, but she couldn’t reach it. The galley’s orderly, a young Chinese man in a white chef’s coat, burst from up forward and threw himself into the empty seat to her