Black wind

markings of a fax copy across its header.
    “Here we are, details of the vessel. Cable-laying ship Baekje, 445 feet long, gross tonnage of 9,500. Built by the Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Company, Ltd.” Ulsan, South Korea, in 1998. Owned and operated by Kang Shipping Enterprises, Inchon, South Korea, from 1998 to 2000. Since 2000, ship has been under lease to the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, for cable-laying services in and around the Sea of Japan.”
    Setting the folder down, he stared straight into the eyes of Gunn. “NTT’s operating lease expired six months ago, at which time the Baekje sat unutilized in a Yokohama dock. Two months ago, representatives from NTT renegotiated a one-year lease of the ship and took possession of the vessel with their own crew. Port records show she was unaccounted for during a five-week period, then appeared briefly back in Yokohama approximately three weeks ago. She was believed sighted in Osaka, where she apparently tailed the Sea Rover to the East China Sea.”
    “Was the ship seized from NTT?”
    “No. NTT officials were shocked to learn that their name was on a revised lease agreement for the vessel since their fiber-optic cable route had been completed. The NTT corporate representatives that leased the ship were, in fact, impostors who buffaloed the Kang Shipping agents. The Kang people produced the paperwork, everything looked legitimate to them, though one representative thought it odd at the time that the NTT people were providing their own crew, which they had not done in the past. The Kang Shipping people are apparently scrambling to file an insurance claim on the vessel now.”
    “Sounds like there must have been some inside information somewhere. Any known links between the Japanese Red Army and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone?”
    “None that we’ve established yet, but we’re looking into it. NTT’s executives are cooperating fully and seem eager to clear their name from a possible connection. Official corporate sponsorship looks unlikely, so the Japanese authorities are focusing on a possible employee faction somewhere within the company.”
    Gunn shook his head discouragingly. “So we’ve got a four-hundred-foot ship that has vanished into thin air, a U.S. government vessel that has been sunk, and an empty list of suspects. Two of my people have been kidnapped, possibly murdered, and we have no idea where to even look for them.”
    “We’re frustrated, too, Rudi, but we’ll get them eventually. Sometimes, these things just take time.”
    Time, Gunn thought. Just how much time did Dirk and Summer still have, if any at all?
    The hot shower felt delicious. Summer let the steaming water pelt her body for more than twenty minutes before finally willing herself to turn off the shower control knobs and reach for a towel. It had been nearly four days since her last bout with cleanliness, she mentally calculated, rerunning over in her mind the events of the last few days. Stepping from the marble-tiled shower, she dried herself with a fluffy towel, then wrapped the fabric around her body, tucking the loose end under an armpit. Before her stretched an immense marble counter with double sinks and gleaming gold fixtures set beneath an expansive beveled mirror that stretched to the high ceiling. You had to give these unsmiling thugs some credit, she thought. Someone around here has taste.
    After an uncomfortable night’s sleep in the motor yacht, where she and her brother took turns sleeping on the twin bed with their hands cuffed behind their back, a trio of armed guards marched them ashore in the morning. Peering at the massive residence perched on the stone bluff above them, Dirk remarked, “Kind of reminds you of the Berghof, doesn’t it?” The stone structure with the commanding view over the Han River did bear a passing resemblance to Hitler’s vacation lair in the German Alps. The image was made all the more complete with the surrounding array of black shirted henchmen.
    Prodded to the rock-enveloped elevator, they rode up to an interior corridor level beneath the main quarters and were escorted to a pair of guest rooms In rough English, a guard barked, “Prepare for dining with Mr. Kang, two hour.”
    While Summer showered, Dirk surveyed his plushly decorated adjoining room for a potential means of escape. The windowless rooms dug into the face of the cliff, the only entry or exit being the corridor hall, where two armed guards