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  Vaz had been wrapping Tiona’s pillowcase around his hand. Though he realized he had no chance, he continued walking slowly toward them. In an Asian accent, one said, “We won’t hurt you. Stop and put your hands behind your back.”

  Having gotten close, Vaz lunged out…

  “Mi-chin-sae-ki! (Crazy asshole!),” Jong heard one of his men shout over the open comm. Then came the sound of Tasers firing and the thumps of bodies falling. “What the hell’s going on?” Jong shouted, stifling the impulse to remind them to speak English.

  “The eh-ja (retard) hit Yun!”

  “You Tased him?”

  “Yes!”

  “Give him the shot and get him out to the van! Go!”

  A moment later Jong heard one of the Americans they’d hired say, “This son’va bitch is heavy!” A few minutes later he felt relief when the door opened and four men came out carrying a heavy bundle. Behind them came two more men carrying something, presumably Yun. One of the men outside the house had already captured the daughter and carried her to the van at the neighboring house.

  “Meet at the ambulance!” Jong shouted needlessly. Everyone knew where to go.

  The vans backed out of the driveways and drove away in two different directions. After a moment Jong pulled out of his spot and drove off in a third direction.

  Four blocks from there, the two vans pulled in next to an ambulance and moved the two Gettnors into it. With the medics keeping a close eye on their passengers, it pulled out and headed for the airport. Jong was already on his way to the airport. He got a call from Cho, “Yun look like he going die.”

  “What?! What happened?” Jong asked.

  “Gettnor hit him in jaw. Face all broken in. Yun look like he choking. We take him hospital.”

  “No!” Jong had liked Yun so he hated saying it, but, “The supreme leader has a personal interest in this project and he doesn’t want there to be any trail. You’ll have to kill him and take his body to the landfill.”

  “Okay,” Cho said actually sounding relieved. There hadn’t been any love lost between Cho and Yun. “These American you hire. They want they money.”

  “Same thing as Yun,” Jong said.

  “Okay,” Cho said. Jong immediately heard the coughing sound that Cho’s silenced gun made. It seemed to fire over and over for a long time, but was probably only a few seconds. “Done,” Cho said. “I go where you say we meet.”

  Jong had always thought Cho was a cold son of a bitch…

  ***

  Tiona tried to turn on her side. She couldn’t because her wrist seemed to be caught on something. She blinked her eyes at blurry lights, trying to get the crud out of them that made it so hard to see. Raising her head she tried to look down and see what was caught on her wrist. It looked like some kind of a metal ring!

  A handcuff.

  Tiona’s head sagged back. She had only a vague recollection of going out the window. She kept blinking while she turned her head side to side. To her left she saw her dad. His eyes were open and he was watching her. On the other side of him sat an Asian man, also staring at Tiona. She seemed to be in some kind of a cylindrical structure.

  An airplane. From the noise it was on its way to somewhere. “Hey Dad,” she said.

  “Hey Tiona,” he responded.

  “Looks like I didn’t get away after all.”

  “No.”

  Tiona looked down and saw that his wrist also had a handcuff on it.

  Crap. She looked at the Asian man, “I have to pee.”

  The guy stared at her for a moment, then said, “Go ahead. You have a catheter in your bladder.”

  Another Asian guy leaned into view, “It’s not uncommon to feel like you have to go when you’ve got a catheter in. Just try to relax.” After a moment he said, “Would you like something to eat?”

  “I’d like my freedom!”

  The first man said, “You’ll have it again, don’t worry. You need to tell us how to build the thrusters first though.”

  ***

  General Cooper said, “What?!”

  “The Gettnors have been kidnapped.”

  “Shit! By who?” He realized with sudden clarity that the Gettnors represented a national resource that he should’ve been protecting.

  “Unknown. They appear to be Asian on the video recordings.”

  “They let you see their faces?!”

  “They cut the power and the internet to the house. Apparently they expected that to fully disable the household AI, however Gettnor had the house on backup power from some new version of his fusion plant. A small one, not made by GE. We asked GE—they didn’t even know that it was possible to make them that small. Anyway, the household AI was fully functional and recorded the whole thing. There were both Asians and Caucasians in the group, but they seemed separate and the Asians seemed to be in charge.”

  “I’m on my way,” Cooper said. “Do we have any idea where they’re taking the Gettnors? Any way to track them?”

  “Wait one… um, one of our linguists says that there’s some swearing in Korean on the audio record. I imagine the accent may prove to be North Korean.” After a brief pause, he continued, “Three vehicles left the scene, all in different directions. None of them with active transponders or hooked into the AI network so we really don’t know where they went.”

  “Dammit,” Cooper said despondently.

  ***

  The flight seemed to take forever and the air ambulance landed twice, apparently to take on fuel.

  When it landed for the third time, their catheters were removed and their handcuffs attached to their waists instead of the stretchers. Ankle cuffs were also applied. As they shuffled off the plane Tiona asked several people where they were. None of them responded, but by the shabby appearance of the airfield she suspected North Korea.

  ***

  Landon looked up when the others did as Dante entered the room. He opened his mouth to speak, but then saw the pale, stunned expression on Dante’s face. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  Dante said, “My sister and father… they’ve been… kidnapped.”

  “Oh my God! For ransom?”

  “No. No ransom demands. They think it might be a foreign country, probably North Korea.”

  Rachel asked, “They? You mean the police? How did they come to that conclusion?”

  “National security people. Apparently the government’s a lot more interested in this than I would have imagined. We’ve had military security, FBI, and all kinds of other spooky type people poking around.”

  “Oh, man!” Gary said, “The kidnappers are after the technology?”

  “We don’t know, but that’s what the FBI thinks.”

  Rachel said, “Surely North Korea doesn’t think they can compete with the US in commercializing this stuff?!”

  “Weapons,” Gary said. “Those sons of bitches are looking at the military applications and trying to get the jump on everyone else.”

  Rachel’s eyes widened, “Military applications?”

  Gary gave her a look suggesting he couldn’t believe how naïve she was. “Dropping asteroids on other countries. Heavy military transport. Stable airborne weapons platforms. Taking out the other guy’s satellites. The list goes on and on.”

  Landon got up and embraced his friend, “Dante, we’re all so sorry! What can we do?”

  Hoarsely, Dante said, “I don’t know… I just don’t know…” He gave them a wan look. “I hope you think of something, because I don’t want to just sit around waiting for someone else to rescue them… but so far I haven’t had any brilliant ideas.”

  ***

  Tiona walked around the facility they’d been placed in. Prison, she thought. Her handcuffs and her ankle chains were gone and she’d been assigned a fellow she thought of as her “keeper.” Jiao was an anxiously-eager, chronically-underfed young Asian man who spoke English of a sort. She had a distinct feeling that his English was all book learning and audio repetition with little in
volvement of any actual native English speaking teachers.

  “So, what else you need for build flying car?” the young man asked.

  “Freedom,” Tiona said, wondering, despite herself, what they actually would need to be able to build thrusters here. The building had concrete walls, barred windows, and multiple small rooms which all looked like they’d been outfitted for research back in the 1970s. Outside the windows she could see a barren concrete yard and high walls topped with razor wire. Though they called it a “lab” there was very little equipment. She’d seen a fume hood, some Bunsen burners, a random supply of laboratory glassware, an ancient gas chromatograph, and some shelves that had old electronic equipment such as power supplies, soldering irons, and transformers. Tiona would have bet that someone had recently swept this place out, then gone to a warehouse where the North Koreans stored out of date scientific equipment to load up a couple of trucks with gear.

  “Yes, yes, freedom,” the young man said eagerly. “You have freedom soon. First you mus’ build thrusters.” He looked around the room they were in, “You need more equipment, you let me know. I get.”

  “Where’s my father?”

  “He come soon. You tell me equipment. When he come, you be all ready—build flying car.”

  Tiona wondered whether there was any chance they’d let her and her dad go home if she did actually teach them how to build thrusters.

  ***

  Cooper said, “AI, call Dante Gettnor.”

  A couple of minutes later, Cooper heard Dante’s voice, “Hello General, I hope you’ve got good news?”

  Cooper sighed, “Not much in the way of good news, I’m afraid. Our linguists tell us that, by their accents, the men who captured them were almost certainly from North Korea...”

  Dante interrupted, “I thought there were some Americans in the group too?”

  “Yes,” Cooper said heavily, “and we found their bodies in a landfill on the north side of Raleigh. One of the Koreans was there also…” He paused a moment then continued reluctantly, “All shot in the head from close range.”

  “It sounds like these are… pretty rough people,” Dante said hesitantly.

  “Yeah,” Cooper said, wanting to soften the blow, but having decided before he called not to sugarcoat the ominous nature of his report.

  “Do you know where they’ve taken them?”

  “They flew them to Vancouver in an air ambulance.”

  Sounding astonished, Dante asked, “They were able to bring an air ambulance from Korea to North Carolina?”

  “Oh, no, they rented one from an American company. These things are really expensive and come with a flight crew and nursing personnel. We suspect they were keeping your father and sister in a heavily sedated condition and wanted the ICU equipment on the ambulance to keep them safe.”

  “Nurses would be willing to keep healthy people heavily sedated? That sounds like it would be at least unethical, if not against regulations.”

  “We think they killed the nurses shortly after they got on board and the pilots when they got to Vancouver. In any event, when the plane left Vancouver, the tower said it had new pilots with Asian accents. No one’s heard from the original pilots or the nurses.”

  “Oh my God, these people are… I don’t know what to call them! They have no respect for human life… and now they’ve got Tiona and my dad?”

  “Try to focus on how many people you’ve got working on your side to try to get your sister and father back. Remember, they almost certainly want to know how to make thrusters and fusors. They won’t want to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs.”

  “At least not until they’ve extracted the golden eggs anyway,” Dante said, sounding depressed. “Are you able to tell where they’re being held in North Korea?”

  “Not yet, but we have some very good people working on it.”

  Dante sighed, “Not much chance the United States is going to invade a sovereign country to rescue two people though, is there?”

  “Nooo,” Cooper said, dragging the word out. “But, some kind of covert extraction might be possible, depending on where they’re being held.” He paused for a second, then continued onto ground he really didn’t want to cover, “Sorry to ask you this, but it’s important for national security. Can GSI build more thrusters without your sister and father?”

  A long silence followed during which Cooper wondered if he’d overstepped the bounds. Instead, Dante was realizing that he’d been so distraught over the kidnapping he hadn’t considered the effect it would have on their new company. GSI wouldn’t amount to much if the intellectual property holders never returned. He’d been feeling like their loss was an emotional tragedy without considering the consequences for his company. Somehow, he’d felt like GSI knew how to build thrusters, which in a sense it did, but only because Tiona and Vaz were part of GSI. With dawning horror, he realized that they were the only ones who knew how to build thrusters, and if they never returned… Hesitantly, Dante said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t give this any thought until you just asked me. We actually might not have anyone who knows how to build the thrusters. Maybe…” there was a long pause as he considered options, “Maybe Nolan Marlowe could figure out how to make the thrusters since it involves a modification of the graphene precipitation process that he discovered. Powering the thrusters though, that could be a real problem if it’s not in their notes. I remember Tiona saying that the electrical current which works has a weird frequency and something else which is kinda counterintuitive…”

  When it became evident that Dante wasn’t going to say anything more, Cooper replied, “Well, they’re both trained scientists, surely their notes are good enough to figure it out.”

  Dante said, “You’re probably right… there might still be a problem though. Dad encrypted his computer and always encrypted mine for me too. He probably encrypted Tiona’s as well.”

  Cooper felt relieved, “Well, if you can’t figure out the passwords, remember I can ask the NSA to decrypt their computers. Those guys eat encryption for breakfast.”

  Hesitantly, Dante replied, “My dad, he doesn’t use commercial products, he programs his own encryption.” Anxiously, he said, “I hope the NSA can still figure it out.”

  Cooper gave a little chuckle, “I’m sure the spooks will find it a lot easier than taking down commercial programs.”

  “I don’t know…” Dante said, doubtfully.

  ***

  Tiona was sitting, staring off into space when the guards opened the door and brought her dad in. She leapt to her feet and ran to him, throwing her arms around him, “Dad! Are you okay?”

  Vaz gave her a typically clumsy hug, patting her back with a hand that thumped a little too hard. Nonetheless, it felt wonderful to be reunited. He said only, “I’m fine.”

  He didn’t ask how she felt and she couldn’t help but suspect that was because he could tell she was physically okay and didn’t want to hear about her emotional state.

  Looking down, Tiona noticed that large patches of hair were missing from her father’s arm. Presumably, he’d been pulling it out in response to stress. She thought sadly about how he’d been doing so well recently. She didn’t mention his trichotillomania, instead asking, “Have they hurt you?”

  “No. They’ve stuck me with a few needles. But those didn’t hurt.”

  “Have they told you what they want?”

  “They want us to build thrusters for them.”

  She leaned back to look at his face, saying quietly, “I don’t think we should, do you?”

  “If we don’t, they’ll hurt you.” His expression didn’t change. He looked as if he had about as much emotional involvement in that statement as most people would in the weather. But then he shrugged, “So we have to.”

  In that simple statement Tiona felt her father’s love as powerfully as anyone had ever felt the love of a parent. From years of experience, she felt it even though others might have doubted it. Others would have wanted more e
motion. Some hugging, perhaps some weeping, possibly a choked statement. Though Vaz had displayed none of the expected expressions of his feelings, his simple statement, “So we have to,” said it all to Tiona. He’d been confronted with a dilemma and made an absolute decision based on what mattered to him—and his decision said that Tiona mattered. She hugged him tightly again, squeezing so hard that she couldn’t help noticing the hard ridges of his muscular definition.

  Not at all put off by how uncomfortable he was to be hugging her back, the thought went through her mind that she was hugging him for her comfort, not his. Speaking into his neck, she said in a muffled tone, “Dad, they may kill us anyway, once we tell them what they want to know.”

  He lowered his face until his lips touched her ear. Then, “We’ll just have to kill them first,” he whispered, sounding just as unemotional about that statement as he did about almost anything else. She realized with some surprise that she’d never heard her father whisper before.

  Shocked, Tiona clung to him a moment longer, then drew back to look him in the eye again. His expression remained completely flat, at least in appearance. She pulled him close again and spoke quietly near his ear, “How?!”

  He said, “Remember what I told that general when he came to our house? We’ll do some of that.”

  Tiona’s mind raced through her memories of the day Cooper had visited, vaguely remembering her dad saying something about how “almost anything could be a weapon,” or something to that effect. “Um,” she said quietly, “I remember, but I’m not sure I know how to do those things.”

  “I can do them. Just… go along… don’t ask too many questions.”

  Tiona wondered what he meant, then realized that normally, when she saw him working on a new project, she asked him questions about it, trying to figure out what it was. If they were supposedly building thrusters, something she was supposed to know about, but Vaz was building a weapon instead… it could be a huge problem if she asked him what he was doing.