Eve - Iris Johansen [98]
“That must have been—I’d think that you’d have avoided that place like the plague.”
“It wasn’t easy. The North Koreans had become even more belligerent, and I was on their most wanted list. I was in a cold sweat most of the time I was there.” He paused. “But I found the ledger and I took it to Tokyo and had it translated.”
She tilted her head. “No nuclear secrets?”
“Drugs and stolen ancient artifacts. General Tai Sen was a joint partner with Queen. He received the merchandise and saw that it was sent to Tokyo to Queen for distribution and sale. The ledger belonged to the general and listed all the transactions in detail, naming names. The most prominent of which were Queen and Jacobs. The general was trying to cut them out of the business and threatening to send the ledger to their superiors if they caused any trouble.”
“So they had to have the ledger.”
“And didn’t mind throwing me into a hellhole and killing two of my buddies to get it.” His hand tightened on his cup. “You might say I was a little angry. If I’d found out a year earlier, I would have set up a prison like the one I called home for all those years and done a few experiments on Queen. Maybe I would have hired a North Korean to help. They know the way it’s done.”
There was such savagery in his face that Eve inhaled sharply. “But you didn’t do it. Why not?”
“I found out Queen’s connection to Paul Black.”
She stiffened. “What?”
“For years, Paul Black has been engaged as an assassin by Queen. When I left the hospital in Tokyo, they hired Black to follow me and to terminate me at the earliest opportunity.” He looked down into his cup. “He must have been following me when I came that day to see you and Bonnie. It had to have been obvious as hell what I was feeling when I was staring at Bonnie and you. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life. From what I’ve learned about him, Black appears to be very thorough and takes his time. Evidently, he didn’t find the right time and place to kill me while I was in Atlanta.”
“Bonnie,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Queen sent me to Pakistan, and Black followed me. He attacked at the same time I was dealing with the terrorists Queen had assigned me to get. I didn’t even realize that Black wasn’t one of them.” He smiled tightly. “He didn’t find me an easy target. As I told you, I was really crazy during those days. He went after me with a knife, and I took it away from him and stabbed him in the belly. At the time I thought he was dead, but he crawled away.”
“To recover and go after Bonnie,” she said dully.
“Do you think I haven’t thought about that every day since I found out Bonnie had been murdered?” he said harshly. “I’d found after searching through his pockets after I stabbed him that he had a U.S. passport under the name of Paul Black. I was lucky he wasn’t traveling under an assumed name. I found out later that was common with him. He was so arrogant he thought no one could touch him. But that was all I knew about him. Nothing more. Maybe I should have tried to find out something else, but it didn’t seem to matter to me at the time. Hell, I didn’t realize that it would concern anyone but me, and most of the time I didn’t give a damn whether I lived or died. I didn’t know what a monster the son of a bitch was.”
“And when did you find that out?” Eve asked jerkily.
“Drink your coffee,” Gallo said. “You’re too pale.”
“I shouldn’t be. I’ve dealt with monsters before.” She took a sip of coffee. It was hot and strong and braced her a little. “But it never does any good. Not when I think about those monsters with Bonnie.”
“The time Bonnie was taken was too shortly after I came to Atlanta. Just one month. I tried to see if I could find any connection. God knows I didn’t want to find one.”
“But you did.”
“I was already suspecting Queen of trying to kill me. That led me back to Paul Black. Hired by Queen? Maybe. But what connection to Bonnie’s kidnapping? I started