Flower Girl: A Burton Family Mystery (18 page)

I continued back across the river to World Cup Stadium, then back to the hotel. It was a run of contrasts of old and new architecture, bustling traffic, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, lorries, and people rushing in and out of subway stations to get to work. A typical work day in Seoul. I estimated the run at eight kilometers out and five kilometers back totaling thirteen kilometers or about nine miles. Near the end of my run, across the six lanes of traffic near the entrance to Songong underground market, I spotted another black motorcycle parked at the curb with a dog guarding it. Why was this image sticking with me?

Refreshed by a long shower after my run through Seoul, I changed into a frilly blue and white dress that was slightly loose so as to hide my figure, draped a dark blue silk shawl over my bare shoulders, and preened a moment in the hotel room mirror. I slipped on an expensive diamond cluster ring and a matching wedding band that Hamish had loaned me for the occasion. Okay, I said to myself, as I added a dash of jasmine perfume and adjusted the leather strap of an authentic Gucci handbag over my left shoulder, you now look like a wealthy respectable bride and mother-to-be. I heard the hotel room door lock behind me as I headed for the elevators and the lobby entrance to meet Hamish and Reddy who were already in the lobby.

 "You do make a stout but well groomed chauffeur and body guard," I said with a grin as Hamish held open the rear door of the Benz limousine in the circular drive at the front entrance to the hotel.

"Mrs. Bendix, you are looking lovely. Your limousine awaits." Hamish gestured for me to sit in the right rear of the vehicle, then closed the door and circled behind to enter the driver's door. Hamish drove Reddy and me to the Parks' Clinic. As we arrived, he said, "The appointment with Junior will be a test of your acting skills as a prospective mother."

"A test of my nerves is more likely," I replied.

After thirty minutes of ten miles per hour bumper to bumper driving through a mix of pedestrian crosswalks, cars, mini-buses, a peloton of bicycles, motorbikes, and lorries, we arrived at Park's OB/GYN Clinic.

"Don't forget that most of the Park's OB/GYN Clinic's legitimate clientele are wealthy Korean and foreign women," Hamish said. "Check out the Benz limousine across the street with the chauffeur leaning against it, and three more limos in the parking area. One of them has a Russian ambassadorial flag."

I caught a glimpse of Reddy in the rear mirror as he literally bailed out of the front of the limo and vanished into the vast market area across the street from the clinic.

Hamish repeated the Benz door opening routine, holding the door open for me as if I were royalty. He walked me to the front door of Park's Clinic, again holding open the door. Hamish sure dressed and acted the part. Doffing his black flight cap with a flourish and carrying it under his arm, he said to the clinic receptionist, "Mrs. Caroline Bendix to see Doctor Evel Park Junior."

The receptionist pushed a button and a door to her left opened. "Please be seated in the lounge. The doctor will be with you shortly." The lounge was quite posh with lots of rich dark brown leather upholstered furniture and mocha colored velvet wall paper. We were immediately served tea.

Within five minutes, Junior entered, still changing from his scrubs to a suit coat and adjusting his necktie. The dude was a slick dresser. Damn, I thought, he was the reincarnation of his father. I tried not to gag. Hamish, at attention a few feet to my left, did not take a seat, and instead offered me a hand as I rose to meet the doctor.

"Mrs. Bendix, it is a pleasure to meet you," Dr. Park said, without extending a hand.

"Kamsamnida, Dr. Park. I will be needing your services in a few months and wish to speak with you and see your facilities."

"We could schedule an examination for whenever it is convenient for you, Mrs. Bendix," Dr. Park replied. "Miss Kim, our receptionist, handles all appointments and my assistant, Dr. Chang, will be delighted to give you a tour of the facilities."

Hamish said, "Mrs. Bendix would prefer to keep the number of people who know of her condition as small as possible. Could you please lead the tour and answer her questions?"

Junior looked slightly miffed as he pressed a button on the wall next to the door we had entered through. "Miss Kim, inform Dr. Chang that his services will not be needed and clear my schedule for twenty minutes so that I may accompany Mrs. Bendix on a tour of the clinic," Dr. Park said, without a please or a kamsamnida. Treats her like a servant, not an employee, I thought.

Matte told me later that I was reinforcing my hate for Junior, building up a case for revenge.

The clinic had the sterile and antiseptic odor that seemed to be universal to all medical facilities, I thought as we entered. I needed to suggest to Dalisay that her clinic find a way to reduce or eliminate the medicinal and antiseptic tang. Perhaps eucalyptus would be better.

The operating rooms captured my attention, equipped with what looked to be the latest and most expensive equipment. Mostly, I watched Junior's every move and burned his image into my memory.

At 5' 4", Dr. Evel Park Junior was of medium to stout build. When he shifted his weight to start walking or change direction, he was always balanced, carried himself like someone well trained in tae kwon do and hwarang-do fighting skills. His slicked back black hair was showing some grey at the temples, and he rarely looked me in the eyes when speaking to me. While I had not seen him since I was twelve and he was sixteen years old, I had seen his father Dr. Evel Park, Sr. many times before my rescue. Junior was his spitting image, right down to the few occasions when I caught a glimpse of the flecks of yellow and red in his eyes. I recalled how the girls all commented on his evil eyes.

I asked Ms. Kim if Dr. Sincere Park or Dr. Park Junior would be my primary physician. She replied that Dr. Sincere Park was out of town on business in the Middle East for the next few weeks. I made a follow-up appointment with Miss Kim that we would be canceling later, citing my mother-in-law's insistence that I give birth to our first child in Hawaii, my husband's home.

We finished our visit to the clinic in twenty minutes as advertised and said our goodbyes, but not until we had learned that Dr. Park Junior would be visiting the Cheju-do Home for Girls on the morning of the 31st of May.

 Reddy met us ten minutes later at Hamish's office in the hotel bar. "He has the same evil look as his father."

"Yes, he does, the same devil's eyes. He's kind of scary," I replied. "Junior meets Reddy's Rule # 1 on appearance alone. And speaking of Rules, the second target is out of country for several weeks."

Reddy replied, "Sincere can wait for another day. Besides, you and I will be too busy for a twofer."

"Where were you all this time, hiding in the markets and watching us with your scope?" I asked a bit too sharply, as I began to tear up, releasing some tension. I was misty eyed for nearly a minute as my thoughts returned to a memory that had so recently been retold to me. I have no real memories of my mother; however, the visit to the place where she died while giving birth to me left me feeling the pain of her demise more intensely than ever before. I wondered how I would feel if I ever got to visit her grave.

"We find ourselves once again investigating a case involving the Park's family business," Reddy said to Hamish as we lounged in the hotel bar for refreshments before driving to Incheon Airport to catch our flight back to Cheju-do. "Sometimes I think we'll never be free of these bastards. Shannon and I are taking care of some family business as well as Zubaida's case while in Cheju-do. Give me a call on my cell when Junior departs for the island."

So, I thought, Hamish is in on the Zubaida case. It figured that he was all along.

Standing in line on the domestic side of Incheon airport, waiting for the same flight Reddy and I are scheduled to take back to Cheju-do, was a familiar looking slender athletic woman.

"Might you folks be in need of a Pilatus PC12 qualified co-pilot for a return flight to the USA?" she asked nonchalantly. It was a rhetorical question; however, I answered with a rare hug. Reddy nodded knowingly. Rhyly said, "You tell me when you're ready to fly back to the States. Don't forget, you promised me a three day stopover on Kamchatka to do my research on the Ainu. Meanwhile, I'll keep out of the way and out of sight. Secrets are my specialty."

Hamish said goodbye to the three of us at the domestic departure gate at Incheon, and in an hour we were flying back to Cheju-do to what we hoped would be a successful mission.

Zubaida's Case: Enacting the Rescue Plan

 "Okay, here's the plan," Reddy said. "I'll handle the breakout at the Parks' Home for Girls. You take up position on the mountain on Udo Island. Securing the girl is step one. This has to be synched with a distraction. Your first assignment is to provide this distraction, drawing the guards to the front of the compound away from the girls' dorm while I make a break for the Zodiac with the girl. Step two is getting the girl to the PC12 and off the island quickly, before all hell breaks loose and the airfield is shut-down by the police."

Reddy calculated that if the PC12 was fueled the night before, already had a flight plan, and was wheels up within twenty minutes of his departing the Park's compound with the girl, then we just might pull this rescue off. He broke his no partners rule and solicited Rhyly as pilot for this part of the plan. Somehow I knew all along she was going to get involved.

Step three of our plan is for Rhyly to drop the girl off in Hakodate where she'll be picked up by Ms. Betty-Sue Curfew's Bombardier jet and flown to Bahrain on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia to be reunited with Princess Zubaida and Zinni.

I thought back to Reddy's referring to his magic, thinking we would need some magic to pull this off, but I didn't push it.

Critical to our plan was getting the timing right on the two separate but simultaneous activities: first, Reddy's breaking Zubaida's granddaughter out of the compound and second, my providing the distraction by completing my first assignment.

If we were to make a successful exit from the island before the authorities could track us, especially if our tourist cover didn't hold up, we would need to move fast, immediately after both parts of the job were done. To be honest, before Rhyly reappeared and volunteered to be our co-pilot for the return flight, I wasn't sure that Reddy had a getaway plan.

Reddy turned to me. "You can handle the distraction by yourself. Check the computer results and get the hell out of there for my place. Rhyly will have the PC12 refueled and waiting with engines running and a call in to Jeju Tower for clearance for take-off. I briefed Rhyly and she knows the timing and will file a flight plan first thing in the morning, then hang around the aircraft as if she's checking or repairing something, refueling and all that. Rhyly has corralled a few local kids to join her in the hangar area, to deflect attention from me when I arrive with Zinni's daughter. By the way, thanks for purchasing a couple of changes of clothes for the girl. I want to change her appearance as soon as possible after I snatch her.

 "You need to complete your assignment as soon as Junior arrives. I will take my cue from the frantic activity at the front gate of the Park's compound and move in with the Zodiac from the seaside entrance. Then I'll make the extraction, reverse my route, abandon the Zodiac a kilometer or so south on the beach, and drive over to the airport to meet Rhyly at the PC12 with our cargo. Then I'll join you at home and we'll continue playing tourist for a few days."

"So this is what you really meant by a twofer," I replied with a smile.

"I reckon so," Reddy answered. "It is not always a matter of two shooters and two targets. Actually, Sincere did us a favor by being out of country. It's an issue of coordination that means extra risks as multiple partners and multiple targets are involved. Besides, breaking my rule about no partners is flexible when it comes to having a competent family partner as a shooter and a crazy female professor as a co-pilot."

Reddy often finds humor in the riskiest of circumstances. I found myself smiling, not at what I was about to do, but at the trust Reddy was extending to me for a difficult task.

Once again Professor Marshall Hunt's quote came to me, "No plan is worth spit, if it cannot be properly implemented." The timing and coordination challenges were not the only unexpected implementation issues Reddy and I would encounter during the rescue and escape from the compound and the distraction.

I don't think the Parks and their guards ever recognized that their sea route to the offshore Texas tower was a weakness to their security system, a way to transport girls both in and out of the compound.

Reddy had noticed during his reconnoitering of the compound and the Texas tower owned by Russo-Grey Enterprises that similar Zodiacs were used by the Parks to transport four or five people or small cargoes back and forth to the tower. He chose the same model Zodiac and painted a number on the side, Parks' Clinic # 7, to make it appear that the craft was one of theirs, at least if one did not look closely.

In spite of Reddy's careful plans, he was not able to establish the pattern followed by the single external guard that patrolled the beach on the west side of the compound with a guard dog. Another guard and dog was stationed on the east side of the compound, and a third at the front gate. All the guards carried Israeli mini Uzi machine guns. Reddy decided to carry a tranquilizer gun in case he should run into one of these beautiful beasts.