Devil's Fork

CHAPTER 33

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT/ THURSDAY MORNING

  Seoul, South Korea

  Jiyeon was walking home from the office. It was late, so the streets were quiet. The occasional car passed by. The city’s bright lights made the darkness less frightening. Her apartment building was just two blocks away.

  She had stayed in the office until she started to feel her eyelids become heavy. Good, she thought, maybe she can go home and actually fall asleep.

  Most of the street front stores and shops were shut. A few 24-hour bodegas illuminated the dark street around them. Jiyeon increased her pace. She wanted to get home sooner. There were not many others walking this late. Up ahead an old lady was slowly maneuvering her way through the block. A couple of drunk men were sitting in the nook of the building at the corner of the street.

  Jiyeon had started to get spooked sitting in the office all alone. She had given up on the idea of receiving a call about Tom. She had thought it would be better to go home and fall asleep. By the time she woke up the next morning, it would probably be all over, she thought. Maybe Tom would be waiting for her at Yongsan Garrison, sitting with coffee and breakfast and peacefully watching something on TV. She wanted to see the small smile he made when she had come into her living room that morning. If she had blinked, she would have missed it.

  She thought about how she had left the office. It almost made her laugh on the street thinking about it. When she had stood up to go, her mind was still walking through Tom’s mission and her heart was still recovering from the scare she got from Mr. Kim. Suddenly as she had started walking down the hall, Mr. Kim’s phone had started ringing. It had pierced the silence of the office and made Jiyeon jump. She had gained control of herself and had listened to it ring, wondering who could be calling Mr. Kim in the middle of the night. Then again, she had thought, given that Mr. Kim was always in the office, other people probably assumed that they could always reach him at an unreasonable hour. After six or seven rings, the phone forwarded the call to Mr. Kim’s cell phone. All of the analysts in Jiyeon’s group had their work phones set up this way. They could always be reached.

  Jiyeon was now crossing the street to get to the block her apartment building was on. The old lady was only a few feet in front of her now. She looked like she was struggling. She was walking with a cane and trying to hold a couple bags. Jiyeon sometimes felt a tear when she saw old people struggling to walk by themselves on the street. They never seemed to complain or ask for any help – they were just trying to get through their day.

  When she caught up to the old lady, Jiyeon turned to look at her. She could not see her face, as the lady was hunched over and staring straight at the ground. Suddenly, Jiyeon saw that the lady’s glasses fell on the ground in front of her. Jiyeon watched as the old lady stopped, tried to steady her cane, and started thinking about how best to deal with her bags before trying to bend down to pick up her glasses. Jiyeon stopped. She felt that tear forming. She decided to help the old lady.

  “Here, I’ll help you, miss,” Jiyeon said as she approached.

  Jiyeon bent down to grab the glasses.

  When she got them, the lady grabbed her hand. Immediately she slapped a handcuff onto Jiyeon’s wrist, then quickly grabbed her other hand and connected the other side of the handcuff. As Jiyeon looked up at her in shock, she saw the old lady’s face. But no old lady was looking down at her. The girl who slapped the handcuffs on Jiyeon looked less than 30 years old. Before she had time to process anything, she felt a hand behind her grab her mouth and a set of strong hands grab her feet. Soon she was not on the ground anymore, but being carried by four hands somewhere. She tried screaming but could not – the hand covering her mouth was also making breathing difficult. She was more concerned with sucking in enough air through her nose to stay conscious.

  She was pushed into the back door of a car and could feel others get inside after she had been thrown in. It looked like an SUV. The hand was still on her mouth. A man who was sitting in the trunk space reached over and stuck a needle into her neck. She felt a painful pinch while she was struggling. She tried kicking and wiggling but everyone was pressing their arms on her body and she felt like she was lying under a rock.

  She could feel the car start to move. Soon she became dizzy and could not wiggle anymore. She looked up. A young girl in an old lady’s outfit was staring down at her. A man with eerily calm eyes had his hand on her mouth. She had seen him sitting drunk in a corner moments ago. Jiyeon’s eyes closed.