Electric Love {Minsung}

Chapter 43: The Eagles Arrive in Peru

PART SIX

"I hate boats," Park said, wiping his forehead with a gold-monogrammed handkerchief. The boat he hated was a superyacht with all the luxuries befitting a $450 million vessel: a helipad, two current-jetted swimming pools, and an art gallery that included two van Goghs, three Escher lithographs, and a Rembrandt (the chairman had a penchant for Dutch artists). In addition, there were luxury suites for eighteen and a complete dining room with crystal chandeliers and scarlet wool carpet interwoven with twenty-four-karat gold thread. The yacht featured some less luxuriant but attractive add-ons, including radar, sonar, and surface-to-air missiles.

Park was prone to seasickness, and although he understood the necessity of moving the Elgen corporate headquarters to international waters, he would have preferred the ship to remain docked in some hidden bay off the coast of Africa or the Philippines. Instead, the two electric teens in the waiting room looked at him sympathetically.

"Would you like me to help?" Minchul said, tapping his temple. "I could make you feel better."

Park shook his head. "No. I've got to keep my wits about me. I'm sensing trouble."

Minchul had traveled with Park and the rest of the kids from Seoul to Rome, where they left the others behind, helicoptering to the Elgen's yacht a hundred miles north of Sicily—in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The other teen, Wonyoung, had joined them in Rome. Wonyoung had spent the last nineteen months on assignment in Peru and, at Hatch's command, had flown directly to Italy.

Minchul knew Wonyoung—all the Elgen teens were familiar with one another—but he hadn't seen her in a long time, and she had changed. Her skin was darker from the South American sun, and her hair was long, almost reaching her waist. Her personality had changed as well. Something about her frightened him.

"How long will we be here?" Wonyoung asked, her hand extended toward the hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium built into the wall in front of them. Her once delicate voice that Minchul remembered had changed to something he no longer could recognize as the Wonyoung he once knew.

"Only as long as we need to be," Park said.

"Stop it!" Minchul said.

"Stop what?" Wonyoung asked, grinning.

"You know what. You killed the fish."

Wonyoung had boiled the water in the aquarium from fifteen feet away. Two exotic angelfish were now floating on top of the water.

"They're just fish," Wonyoung said. "Same thing you ate last night."

"Actually," Park said. "They were rare peppermint angelfish, found only in the waters of Rarotonga, in the South Pacific. I gave them to the chairman as a gift last year. They run about twenty-five thousand dollars apiece."

Wonyoung frowned. "Sorry, sir."

"Ask next time."

"Yes, sir."

Park looked at her coolly, then asked, "How long did it take you?"

"About forty seconds."

"Good. I want you to get it down to twenty."

"Yes, sir."

"Then ten."

"Yes, sir."

Park nodded. "At ten, you'll be unstoppable."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Park went back to his e-reader. He'd been reading a book on mind control written in the late fifties by William Sargant, a British psychiatrist. He had already read the book several times. He was fascinated with the subject and had studied all aspects of mind control, from hypnosis to suicide cults.