Chung-Cha nodded slowly and rose. “I will be back here in one week. You will be ready to go.”
“Why one week?”
Chung-Cha was surprised by this question. “These things take time. There are arrangements, paperwork.”
Min looked doubtfully at her.
“I will be back.”
“But I may not be alive.”
Chung-Cha cocked her head. “Why?”
“They will know what you are going to do.”
“And?”
“And they will not let me go.”
“I come with the highest authority. The guards will not harm you.”
“There are accidents. And it’s not just the guards.”
Chung-Cha nodded thoughtfully. “The other prisoners?”
“They do not care about the highest authority. And what do they have to lose?”
“Their lives?”
Min screwed up her face. “Why would they care? That would be a good thing for them.”
Chung-Cha knew that she was absolutely right about this.
“Then we will leave here today.”
For the first time probably in her life, Min smiled.
Chapter
51
CHUNG-CHA HAD PATIENTLY FILLED out the paperwork necessary for Min’s release into her custody. They had driven back to Pyongyang in the Sungri with the windows down. Chung-Cha did not tell Min that she was doing this because she did not want to smell the girl’s stench for the next seventy miles. Instead, she told her it was good to breathe free air.
And Min seemed to suck in each breath with delight.
She had been reluctant at first to get into the Sungri. Chung-Cha knew immediately why. The girl had never ridden in a car before. She had probably never even seen a car, just the old trucks used at the camp.
However, when Chung-Cha had told Min that it was the fastest way to get away from the camp, she had climbed in immediately. After she sat down her hand reached out and touched all the dials and other items of interest.
That was good, thought Chung-Cha. She still had her curiosity. Her wonderment. It meant that the child’s mind was intact.
As they drove away, Chung-Cha looked twice in the rearview mirror at the camp. She had seen prisoners staring at them through the fence, perhaps wondering why they could not also be free.
When she looked over at Min the girl’s gaze was pointed straight ahead. She did not look back once.
Chung-Cha had done the exact same thing when she had left the camp. She had been afraid that if she looked behind her, they would take her back. Or, more likely, that she would awaken from her dream and return to her nightmare.
They had arrived back in Pyongyang very late at night. Chung-Cha had parked her car and led Min up to her apartment. The girl had stared at everything as they had driven along. From asphalt streets to tall buildings, to something as simple as a traffic light, or a neon sign, or a bus, or someone walking along the sidewalk, she looked at it all in complete amazement. It was like she was just now being born, ten years late.
When Min looked up at the apartment building she wanted to know what this place was.
“It’s where I live,” answered Chung-Cha.
“How many people live with you?”
“I live alone. Well, I did. Now you live with me.”
“This is allowed?” asked Min.
“It is allowed everywhere except in the camps,” Chung-Cha answered.
The first order of business had been to prepare Min some food. Not too much and not too rich—not that Chung-Cha possessed any rich food. But even too much white rice could make Min sick. Chung-Cha knew all of this because it was what those who had freed her had done. So the meals would be simple and small, to start.
The next order of business was a shower, a very long, hot shower with plenty of soap and elbow grease.
Chung-Cha did not let Min do this alone, because the girl did not know how to properly clean herself, so Chung-Cha had scrubbed her down. The filth that poured from her skin, hair, and orifices would have made most people sick. It did not faze Chung-Cha. She had been expecting it. And Min exhibited no shame as she watched the dirty water going down the drain. She knew no better. She just wanted to know where the water went.
“Into the river,” answered Chung-Cha, because that response, she knew, would suffice for now. It would take many more cleanings for the girl to be truly free from her years of filth.
She laid out sheets and a pillow on the small sofa, which would be where Min would sleep for now. Chung-Cha had already purchased clothes and shoes for her, correctly assuming that a camp girl would be smallish. They fit very well, far better than the rags she had come here in. Those went into the trash.
Chung-Cha showed Min how to brush her teeth, cautioning her against swallowing the paste. Then she cleaned her nails, which were caked with years’ worth of grime and crud. Next, she combed out Min’s long hair, untangling knots and trimming errant strands with scissors. Min sat patiently while this was done, staring the whole time in the mirror Chung-Cha had seated her in front of in the small bathroom.
She well knew why the girl was studying herself so closely. She had never been in front of a mirror before. Thus she had no idea what she looked like. Chung-Cha could remember herself slipping out of bed at night and going to the bathroom, not because she had to relieve herself but because she wanted to see what she looked like again.
She fed Min another small meal and then attended to her multiple cuts and scabs with peroxide, salve, and bandages. Then she put Min in her makeshift bed under her clean sheets and wearing a new pair of shorts and a top. Even though she had tended to the girl’s many injuries, healing cuts and scabbed-over old wounds as best she could, Chung-Cha had scheduled a visit to a doctor the next day. She wanted all of these seen to. Infections were rife in the camps and had killed many prisoners. She had not freed Min to watch her die. And ordinarily before prisoners were released from the camps they had to show that they were free from infection or disease. Since this was nearly impossible they almost never achieved their liberty. Chung-Cha had thus pledged in her signed paperwork to have a doctor thoroughly examine and treat Min within one day of leaving the camp.
After settling Min on the sofa, Chung-Cha turned the light off.
She heard Min gasp and then say, “Can you make it light again, Chung-Cha?”
She turned the light switch back on, then went over to Min, perching on the edge of the sofa.
“Does the darkness cause you fear?” She knew that the prison huts had no electricity, and that while Min had probably seen electric lights, she was not accustomed to them.
Min said, “I am not afraid.”
“Then why do you want the light on?”
“So I can see where I live now.”
Chung-Cha left the light on and went into her bedroom. She kept the door partly open and told Min if she needed anything to come wake her.
Chung-Cha got into bed but did not go to sleep. Not much scared her anymore; it simply wasn’t possible after all she had experienced. But what she had just done frightened her more than beatings or fear of death possibly could. Her whole life had been spent alone, and now she had assumed responsibility for another human being.
She listened to Min’s even breathing, which, because of the tiny size of the apartment, was happening only a few feet away. She wondered if the girl was sleeping, or was simply gazing around at a world that she could not believe even existed and, for her, had not existed until a few hours ago.
Chung-Cha knew exactly how she felt. She had gone through the same emotional spectrum. But her release and what happened to her afterward were far different from Min’s situation.
The guards had come for her one morning. At first she thought they were coming to punish her because of a snitch. But that was not the reason. She had met with the prison administrator, Doh, the same man she had seen today. They had an offer for her. It came from high up in the government.
She had no idea what had been the catalyst for it.
Would she like to be free? That’s what they had asked her.
At first she had not understood what they meant. She instinctively thought it was a trick of some kind and was unable to answer, fearing she would say something that would lead to even more pain or perhaps her death.
But she was led into another room where there was a group of men and, startlingly enough, a woman who was not a prisoner. Chung-Cha had never seen a woman who was not a prisoner. The woman told Chung-Cha she was with the government and that the leadership was looking for offspring of wrongdoers who wanted to serve their country. They would have to prove their loyalty first, she said. And if they did that, they would be taken to another place, fed, clothed, and educated. They would then be trained, over many years, to serve North Korea.
Would Chung-Cha want that? the woman had asked.
Chung-Cha could still remember gazing around at the men in the room staring at her. They had on uniforms, not of the prison, but of something else. They had shiny things on their chests, all sorts of colors.
She had been dumbstruck, paralyzed, unable to answer.
One of the men who had more shiny things than anyone else finally said, “Get us another and take this bitch back to where she came from. And however hard you are working her, triple it. And cut her food too. She has wasted our time.”
Hands had reached for Chung-Cha, but then she suddenly found her voice.
“What do I have to do?” she screamed out so loudly that one of the guards reached for his weapon, perhaps afraid she was going berserk and would attack them.
A minute of silence passed as all in the room looked at her. The man who had called her a bitch was scrutinizing her in a different way now.
He said, “You have been described as a tough little bitch. How tough are you?”
He backhanded her across the face, knocking her to the floor. Chung-Cha, all of ten years old, quickly got back on her feet and wiped the blood away from her mouth.
“That is nothing,” said the man. “Do not think that makes you tough, because it does not.”
Chung-Cha gathered her courage and stared back at him. “Tell me what it is I have to do to be free of this place, and I will do it.”
The general looked back at her with amusement, and then his features went cold. “I do not discuss things with filth. Others will tell you. If you fail, you will never leave this place. I will instruct them to keep you just barely alive so that you will have many more decades here. Do you understand?”
Chung-Cha kept staring at the man, her mind as clear as it had ever been. It was as though a life of darkness had just been suddenly filled with light. She knew this was the only chance she would ever have to leave here. And she meant to seize it.
“If you will not discuss it with filth like me, then who here will tell me what I have to do to be free of this place?” she said firmly.
The man seemed surprised by her audacity. He turned to the woman and said, “She will.”
Then he turned and left.
And that was the first and last time that Chung-Cha had personally laid eyes on General Pak.
Chung-Cha was stirred from her musings by her door slowly swinging open. Min stood in the doorway.
Chung-Cha sat up in her bed and looked at her. The two females did not say anything. Chung-Cha motioned with her hand and Min hurried over and climbed into bed with her.
She lay back and immediately went to sleep.
But Chung-Cha did not go to sleep. She just lay there looking at Min and thinking about events from what seemed like another life.
But it truly had once been hers.
Chapter
52
SHE’S BACK HOME AND SAFE,” Robie pointed out.
He and Reel were sitting outside at a café in D.C. having an early breakfast.
“By a miracle, Robie.”
“Miracles happen by chance. This didn’t.”
She put her coffee down and stared at him. “You know what I mean. You know how many things could have gone wrong. Any one of them could have cratered the mission and Julie would be dead.”
“But she’s not dead.”
Reel put her shades on, sat back, and stared off.
“And Earl?” he said.
She smiled grimly. “Back on death row and talking to himself. They don’t expect him to last a week.”
Robie’s phone buzzed. He looked at it and then sat up straighter.
“Blue Man.”
“At least it’s not Evan Tucker. I couldn’t take him, not today.”
“He wants us to come in.”
“Something up, you think?”
“He doesn’t usually call to chitchat.”
Reel rose and threw her cup of coffee into a trash can. “Then let’s not keep the man waiting.”
“Rumblings,” said Blue Man. “But distinct ones.”
They were seated in Blue Man’s office at Langley. The skies had darkened on the ride over and rain was starting to fall.
Reel and Robie glanced at each other.
Reel said, “Distinct how?”
“We have numerous contacts in South Korea, China, and Taiwan. These contacts in turn have a smaller number of resources planted in North Korea, mostly in Pyongyang.”
“And adding them all up, what do these rumblings say?” asked Robie.
“That the North Koreans are planning something.”
“Retaliation, you mean,” said Reel.
“I doubt it’s anything else,” said Blue Man. “The North Koreans are not known for either their tact or their compassion.”
“But they can keep secrets,” Robie pointed out. “Do we have any clue what form this retaliation might take?”
“It seems clear that they have discovered the level of Pak’s actions. And now his family has disappeared.”
“I didn’t think he had any family,” said Reel.
“So they’ve either been killed or sent to the labor camps,” said Robie with a resigned sigh.
Blue Man nodded. “Appears to be the case.”
Robie added, “If so, they’re beyond help.”
“I would have to agree with that. Any attempt to free them would create an international incident that we cannot afford at present.”
“He said to protect his family,” observed Reel quietly. “Well, we failed him on that.”
“We were talking retaliation?” said Robie quickly, noting Reel’s depressed look.
Blue Man nodded and opened a file on his desk. “It’s why I called you two in really. Now the DCI—”
“Is he still in denial?” Reel interrupted.
“Apparently so. Head in the sand, hoping the other shoe does not drop.”
“Great plan,” said Reel with disgust.
“Perhaps. But options are limited.”
“Surely we can take some defensive measures,” said Robie.
“We can and are,” replied Blue Man. “We feel that since our target was at the highest level in North Korea, any retaliatory action on their part will be aimed at the same level here.”
Robie looked doubtful. “The president? They have to realize they