Crystal Coffin

By R. L. Tyler

When the Japanese mafia abducts North Korea's embalmed "Eternal Leader" as ransom for the return of a kidnapped girl, North Korea refuses to trade and threatens to attack Japan. Secret agents Vince and Cat rush to North Korea to rescue the girl, but a betrayal leads them into a trap. The world teeters on the edge of war, and the fate of one girl and a dead Communist leader will tip the scale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wonder Realms Books
• Release date: Dec 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452348339

R. L. Tyler

R.L. Tyler started writing spy stories over a dozen years ago and has a fascination for exotic countries and cultures.

Book preview

The Kumsusan Memorial Palace stood tombstone still in the predawn haze. Daichi's shoes clicked against the gray flagstones in the near-empty courtyard. The small tour group huddled around him, shepherded by their government-appointed guide toward the palace that housed the dead Eternal Leader.

Few tourists entered North Korea, the government allowed just enough for a thin facade of normalcy. Sensible people stayed home. Daichi clenched his teeth and forced his gait to remain smooth and relaxed. Nothing sensible about this. He bit his lip. Tasted blood on his tongue.

North Korea, finally, after waiting so long. His gaze passed over three of the other tourists, his father's men, his brothers in the Ichizoku-kai. A hot breeze sliced through the courtyard and vanished up Pyongyang's near empty streets. Daichi sucked in the bitter industrial fumes. Anger burned inside him. He climbed the stone steps to the palace's forbidding front entrance, steeling his face to hide the contempt he felt for the stiff guards that flanked the door.

Just inside, the guide, a grotesquely thin man in a black suit, instructed them to empty their pockets into small plastic containers. A metal detector crouched on the far side of the entryway, waiting.

Daichi dropped his wallet into the container then slid the gold watch from his wrist and let it clatter in on top. They'd search his wallet, of course, like they did when he landed in Pyongyang the night before. The name on his drivers license matched his passport. Neither showed his true identity.

One of his Ichizoku brothers tried to catch his eye. Daichi turned away. No slipups now. His heart pounded. Thirty years since the North Koreans kidnapped his little sister, Rosuto. No word but their claims she died. Nothing more than a jar of ashes, supposedly her remains. Genetic tests said otherwise.

Daichi slid his hands in his pocket, letting the material wipe the sweat from his palms. Swallowing the bitter taste in his mouth, he moved with the others through the metal detector. It remained silent. No weapons.

Daichi curled his hands into fists and then relaxed them. No metal weapons anyway.

Just past the metal detector, they stepped onto a conveyor that brushed the dirt from the bottom of their shoes. The air grew thick with the scent of sterile death. Silence prevailed as the conveyor carried them down a stone corridor into the heart of the ancient palace. Daichi's blood pounded in his ears. This tomb could become his own. So much at stake. Slim odds of surviving much less succeeding. He hadn't needed to volunteer for this mission when his father came up with it. Everyone knew Daichi would go.

The conveyor stopped in front of a set of tall double doors. Inside, display lights illuminated the walls hung with thousands of documents, celebrating North Korean's Great Leader, Kim Il Sung. A gold-framed diploma from a university in France caught Daichi's eye—a doctorate in physics. That, followed by more diplomas and medals, made Daichi grind his teeth. Lies, all of them. By brutal torture and the murder of hundreds of thousands, Kim Il Sung had made himself a god. He claimed he even caused the sun to rise every morning. Yet somehow the sun still came up the day after his death on July 8, 1994.

Their guide led them from the Room of Lies into another room with a panorama depicting the aftermath of Kim's death. Throngs of North Koreans gathered for his funeral, weeping, and crying out Kim's name. The panorama didn't show the torture and cruel death in the labor camps the people could expect if they didn't show enough grief for the loss of the Great leader.

But death was only the beginning for Kim Il Sung. While millions of North Koreans starved, money that could have gone to save them went to refit this palace into the vast mausoleum that now housed his embalmed body. They proclaimed him Eternal Leader and still signed documents in his name.

Daichi's stomach churned. He scanned the crowded faces in the mural for any sign of Rosuto. Perhaps she'd been at the funeral. Maybe she starved to death like so many others.

No. Daichi wouldn't accept that.

The guide hurried them out of the Room of Tears onto another conveyor. Daichi tore this thoughts away from Rosuto and the mural. He had a job to do. Concentrate. Picture the diagrams of the palace. Review the plan—simple and far too dangerous.

The conveyor ended at a short walkway that led to a red escalator. Red for death and blood. Too bad Kim Il Sung was already as dead as the millions who had died because of his rule. He could not feel the fear Rosuto must have felt when his spies accosted her, stuffed her into a body bag, and carried her away from her home.

Daichi stepped with the others into an empty hall done in white marble. Their hushed shuffles echoed through the chamber and bounced off the statue of Kim Il Sung that stood at the head, bathed in pastel light.

Their guide formed them into lines four abreast and marched them through the hall to stand at the statue's feet. A low moan escaped from one of the North Korean women in the group. No doubt she'd been assigned to this tour to demonstrate the people's love for Kim Il Sung.

Deep emotion threatened to burst from Daichi as well. Fury, not love. He restrained it. Not yet. Soon.

Their guide hurried them on through a small room where they walked through cold jets of air to remove contaminants from their clothes. Not even a speck of dust could enter the Eternal Leader's inner sanctum.

Daichi stepped into the final room. He noted the four military guards, one at each of the doors. They carried the Korean-made type 68 AK-47s with fancy nickle plating.

A dais stood in the center of the room with a crystal coffin on top. Inside lay Kim Il Sung's embalmed body.

Their guide put them back in formation and led them to the side of the coffin where they all bowed in unison. Heat burned up Daichi's neck to his face. During the bow he locked eyes with his Ichizoku brothers. He flicked his fingers. They nodded.

Custom dictated a bow on each of the four sides of the coffin. Daichi had no intention of giving Kim Il Sung that much honor. As they moved to the head of the coffin, he leaped at the guard by the far wall. A chop to the neck crumpled the soldier, and Daichi grabbed the AK-47 on the man's way down.

Three more bodies hit the ground—the other guards taken out by Daichi's associates.

Daichi clicked the rifle's selector lever to the full-automatic setting and slammed back the charging handle. The sharp sound of the gun readying to fire echoed across the room. Daichi pointed the muzzle at the shocked guide and tour group.

His associates raced to the coffin, broke the lock, and lifted the lid.

Move up against the wall, Daichi barked at the terrified tourists. If he thought it would help, Daichi would have positioned them between himself and the North Korean soldiers sure to race into the room at any moment. But the soldiers would gun down the people to get to Daichi without a second thought.

Daichi stepped over to the crystal coffin. His associates heaved Kim Il Sung's body into a black bag and zipped it up.

Running feet pounded toward the room from the door Daichi had come in.

Daichi crouched behind the coffin and peppered the doorway with bullets. His father's men carried their prize out the thin door at the side of the room.

Answering fire came from the main doorway. Bullets slammed into the coffin, shattering the glass. Daichi shot back, counting each second. Bullets and shards of glass flew around him. On thirty, he slid a small capsule from his sleeve and hurled it at the ground.

Light and smoke exploded from the capsule, filling the room. Daichi dove for the door.

Chapter 2

Vince stood on the mansion's balcony, staring out across the Pacific Ocean. A cold wind rose off the thundering surf, crossed Highway 1, and whipped through his graying hair. He clutched the steel railing—no better than prison bars. The whole world waited across that ocean. But not for him. Not anymore.

He grimaced and his hand went to the switch-blade he carried in his pocket. No more missions. No more killing. No more warm blood oozing between his fingers. He should be happy about that at least. He and his wife, Cat, had retired.

Her idea. Not his.

He sucked in the cold air, sampling the scents from the Japanese garden below him on the mansion grounds, the wild greenery that covered the slope beyond, and the smell of the ocean. He could not tell if the sunlit waves beckoned him or tried to lull him into contentment here at his father-in-law's compound on the California coast.

Vince, Cat called through the bamboo door behind him. She knelt inside on the tatami mat ritually cleaning and laying out each utensil for a Japanese tea ceremony. Come on. I'm almost ready. Her father would be pleased that after all these years she was learning the skill.

Vince grimaced. When they'd married, they'd promised each other they would never take an assignment except together. Vince had never regretted that. Not once, until now.

The tea ceremony was charming, and he'd not resent her sudden interest in her heritage. But he couldn't sit around and drink tea for the rest of his life. Maybe they were too old to rush into the world's political hot spots anymore—too stiff from old wounds. But too young to retire, far too young for that. Vince swore and started for the tearoom.

A shock raced down his neck, and his stomach clenched. The hair on his arms and neck stood on end as his sixth sense triggered a warning of coming danger. He staggered against the bamboo door, pushing it open.

What's wrong? Cat stood, her cream and emerald kimono glistening in the sunlight, tight around her fit body. Her long black hair framing a face he hardly recognized—a gift from the plastic surgeon who had repaired it after a bullet tore a chunk of it away during their last mission.

They'd been sent into Afghanistan to stop the flow of heroin from Kabul. But when they'd exposed the drug baron who ran the operation, the police found a file that framed the U.S. president for taking bribe money to keep the baron in business. The warlord Abdul Ahmadzai had planted the file to create political confusion which would cover his bid to seize power, using enough sarin nerve agent to kill millions.

Their way out of that tangled mess had left Cat shot in the head and Vince near death twice: once when the drug baron injected him with a deadly dose of heroin, and again when Vince discovered the sarin.

Vince shuddered and forced himself to straighten. I'm all right. He stared at the raised hairs on his arm.

Cat saw them, frowned, and turned back to her tea ceremony.

"But something is wrong, Vince said. I haven't had a warning like that since. . . ." His sixth sense, which had carried them through decades of missions, had been silent since his near-deadly encounter with the sarin.

I'm sure it's nothing, Cat said, lifting the green ceramic teapot that had been passed down in her family for generations.

No. It's not nothing. Vince's voice came out harsher than he would have liked. Something has happened. Someone is in danger.

Cat held a fragile teacup out to him. You really need to get over this superhero complex.

I need? I need! He grabbed the teacup from her, sloshing hot tea over his hand. You used to love my superhero complex. Cat, you've changed. The doctors had warned him that might happen. Personality change often accompanied head trauma cases like hers.

Her hand jerked to the side of her face, hurt showing in her dark eyes.

I don't mean your face, Cat. I mean inside. Before Afghanistan, you would have been out in the garden practicing your shot right now, not wasting time making tea. She'd been a daredevil, adrenalin junky, not feeling alive unless she walked a hairbreadth from death.

At the age of eighteen, she'd used Vince to blackmail her way into the ultra-clandestine President's Special Forces. The only hitch in her plan was falling in love with him along the way. She'd captured his heart in the process, and they'd formed a partnership that had never failed an assignment.

Cat's right hand spasmed, and she slid it behind her back. The bullet blow to her head had damaged part of her brain, crippling the last two fingers of her right hand and destroying her senses of smell and taste.

Guilt ripped through Vince. She needed his support right now, not his accusations. But the back of his neck continued to tingle. Something had happened. Something he needed to fix.

Cat knelt and poured herself some tea, her muscles tense beneath the tight kimono.

Vince opened his mouth, but no comforting words came out. Years of marriage. All that time working as a single unbeatable unit. But Afghanistan had driven a wedge between them that pushed in deeper, widening the gap in their relationship, every time he tried to pull the two of them back together.

He took a sip of the thick tea. The silence said more about their failing marriage than he wanted to hear.

Cat stared at her teacup, her face grim.

Vince swallowed and put a hand on her shoulder.

She set the teacup down and touched his fingers. Then she exploded into action, locking his wrist and twisting his arm to throw him to the ground.

He rolled with it and lay still. Another inch and she'd break his arm. He knew a number of moves out of the hold but Cat had drawn the Kel-Tec P32 she kept in a special holster between her breasts. The little palm-sized pistol pressed up against his forehead promising a swift death.

I am not a cripple. I don't want your pity, she said in a cutting whisper. Sweat trickled down her forehead and cheeks. I'll always be more woman than you can handle.

Vince sucked in a careful breath. He'd lost count long ago of the number of people she'd killed. Cat, I'm sorry. I'm trying to understand.

No you're not. You're trying to find a way out of here. You can't accept that I'm done getting shot at, risking capture and death. Her breasts rose and fell as she took several deep breaths. The Kel-Tec's warm muzzle rested against his skin. She held it in her right hand, her two useless fingers dangling beside the grip.

Fine. She straightened and pulled the gun away from his face. You want to go back out there? Get a new partner. Forget our promise. Go get yourself killed. I'm staying right here.

Vince got to his feet, fumbling for something to say that would ease the pain in his chest. Before he could get anything out, a crash sounded from the living room downstairs.

Cat's father, Faita Tatsujin was the only one with them in the fenced compound. He'd gained his fortune in Japan as a businessman and fame as a martial arts master. After he moved to the United States, the PSF recruited him to train their operatives in hand-to-hand fighting. Age had withered his body, and working with the PSF might have gained him deadly enemies.

Cat sprinted from the tearoom and down the stairs with Vince close behind her.

Chapter 3

Cat headed down the stairs, switching the Kel-Tec to her left hand. Vince was right. She should have practiced shooting left-handed. Anyone capable of getting past the compound's security system would not have come unprepared. The formal Japanese kimono hampered her movement. She cursed under her breath. She wanted to be safe here, needed a place where she didn't have to always watch her back.

Vince had his knife out right behind her. He stayed back, giving her room to stop at the base of the stairs and glance around the corner before barreling into danger.

Her father stood in the center of the living room, staring at the large-screen TV. His teacup lay in pieces against the far wall amid the splintered remains of the large decorative mirror that once hung there. No sign of anyone.

She motioned to Vince, and he slid around her, vanishing into the kitchen to check the rest of the house while Cat guarded her father. Vince returned a moment later, shaking his head and pocketing his knife. He stepped into the living room. The television caught his attention, and he went rigid.

Cat switched her attention to the TV. The announcer's excited voice filled the room. It seems impossible, but the North Koreans claim that a Japanese mafia group has abducted the body of Kim Il Sung, the revered dead Korean president. They are holding it, um, him ransom in exchange for the return of a Japanese girl kidnapped from Japan almost thirty years ago. North Korea threatens war with Japan if they don't return the body immediately.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cat saw Vince rub the hair on his arms and back of his neck. Cat swore. His sixth sense. He'd known something happened. But that didn't explain her father's behavior.

Age had shrunken Faita and bleached his hair white, but even the wrinkles couldn't erase the aura of menace that hung around him. He swore at the TV, speaking a mix of Japanese and English. He did it. I can't believe it. Even though I told him not to. Shukun, you fool. There's more at stake here than one girl's life. How could you be so blind?

The news broadcast showed an angry North Korean general shaking his fist. Japan will pay for this outrage.

Cat slid her gun back into its holster. She'd seldom seen her father so angry.

Vince took a tentative step toward him. Who is Shukun?

Her father spun, dropping into a fighting stance, fire in his eyes.

Vince stepped back behind the black leather couch and bowed in submission.

Her father blinked then straightened. Don't sneak up on me like that, he barked.

Forgive me, Master. Vince bowed again and edged away, putting more space between himself and her father. We heard a crash and thought you might like some help.

Faita frowned. Do I look that old to you?

No, sir.

Cat rolled her eyes and stepped into the room. What's going on, Father? She nodded toward the television.

Faita stiffened. Nothing. Forget it. Just . . . just clean up that mess. He waved toward the mirror.

I'll take care of it. Vince headed for the kitchen and returned with a broom and dustpan.

Good, Cat thought. You take care of it. Something had upset her father, and she had to know what.

Faita turned his back on her and glared at the television.

A soft chime sounded, and Cat's heart sank.

Someone's at the front gate, Vince said. They both knew who it would be. Sunshine, their PSF contact, the woman who had recruited Vince at the age of twelve after his parents died. Trouble between Japan and North Korea. Of course they'd call on Cat and Vince to go even though Cat had told them she wanted to retire.

Vince disappeared into the security office that housed the compound's monitors and returned a moment later. It's Sunshine, Vince said for Faita's sake. I'll buzz her through. Vince retreated from the tension-filled room.

As soon as Vince left, Faita crossed the room with surprising speed and gripped Cat's arm. Maria Catherine, you can't go to Japan.

He refused to call her by her PSF name, though she'd given up her birth name at her own funeral when she'd joined the PSF. To everyone who knew her before, Maria Catherine was dead. Everyone except her father.

Why? Cat kept her voice soft and soothing.

Because I know who's done this.

Isn't that better? Vince can get the body back quickly and stop a war before it starts. Just the assignment Vince had been waiting for. He could go without her. Better that way.

Faita shook his head. It would destroy the yakuza.

"The yakuza?" Cat's head pounded, throbbing on the left side where the bullet had hit her. She'd never imagined her father involved with the mafia. Most members of those organizations flaunted elaborate tattoos that covered much of their upper bodies—a sign of power and position feared by most Japanese. Faita carried no such signs, just a small black dragon on the back of his right shoulder. If he was a member of a yakuza