I could have called Mr. Park and fixed everything.
Then Jiyeon took the next step. The logical progression, she thought, was that if Mr. Kim was working with the North Koreans, then the reason the NIS illegals have been getting compromised was sitting right in their office this whole time.
Mr. Kim killed Officer 1414 and tried to kill officers 2135 and 6237.
She shivered at the thought that she had been working so closely with a secret agent for North Korea for all these years. No, she thought. She had not been working with a North Korean agent. She had been working with a North Korean illegal. The NIS’s illegal department had an illegal in it. She had an urge to press a rewind button somewhere and go back and change everything. She wanted to go back and save Officer 1414. Officer 2135 and officer 6237 were probably captured or killed by now too, she imagined. Mr. Kim would have known their routes to China.
Now everything else started to come together in her mind. Mr. Park probably went to Washington DC because he had realized something was wrong. She guessed he probably suspected that an illegal had penetrated their group, but did not know whom. He wanted to take a small team and get away from Seoul, away from the mole. He could figure out who it was without the mole figuring it out. Mr. Park also could pull out some of his illegals before the unknown illegal in their group betrayed them further. That’s why Mr. Park himself had given the orders to pull out the officers from DC.
She wondered if this meant that Tom’s mission was probably compromised. Maybe the worst had happened and he had been captured too by now, she thought. She tried to look out the window and see the moon. Maybe he was sitting in a damp corner somewhere looking up at the moon and thinking of her too. She remembered that her kidnappers looked weak compared to Tom. They would not be able to stop him if he came through the door looking for her. Jiyeon paused for a moment and listened for the possible sound of commotion in the house. Maybe Tom would burst into the house any moment, subdue her kidnappers and walk through the door in the far corner with a smile on his face, his hair maybe disheveled slightly. She wanted to go on that weekend trip and find out the secret behind his quiet eyes. What did he want to tell her? She mainly thought about the comfort of his arms. She remembered that it felt like his arms had more muscle than her whole body.
When she had left to go to work at the NIS, she remembered how she wanted to see how the machine worked. She thought about how after a few years the only realization that flowed through her mind was the silliness of it all. The world was that party of schemers. What was the point? Power? Why? Now because of it, she was sitting handcuffed in some corner. She refocused on the moon, one piece of nature that gave light in dark times. She wondered where Tom was.
CHAPTER 39
Captain Kim told his men to stop. They had been walking for some time through the woods. At this point he realized that they had not seen anything since the bush near the road a kilometer or two back. Kim was now questioning whether they had been following anything at all or just their imaginations. He thought back to that wet spot on the beach.
Was that spot really that strange? Maybe it was nothing.
He then thought about that bush they saw by the road. The soldier on the road team said he thought he saw something move. The bush did look disturbed.
Could it have been an animal? We still have not seen a person yet. Are these all coincidences?
And now they have not found anything else for some time. They passed by several other patrols who also said they had not seen anything. Captain Kim also realized that if another team, like the platoon guarding the special facility, had been shooting at someone, not only would he have heard the shooting, but he would have heard something on the radio. At least he hoped that his radio would say something, he thought as he looked at his antique equipment.
Kim grabbed his radio and saw that this time it seemed to be working. He radioed his beach team and asked if they had seen any bubbles coming out of the water. He waited for a response. None came. Kim repeated his question.
Maybe their radio doesn’t work either.
They stood and waited. Finally, after repeating a few more times, he heard a muffled response. The beach team reported no bubbles. Then he had a new idea. Kim radioed the team guarding the special facility and asked them if they had seen anything. Nobody was told that team was guarding a facility. Kim and his men were told the team was to stand guard on a plot of dirt. His men did not seem to question it. But Kim quietly knew what was really there.
It’s silly of our leaders to keep that place so secret.
The dirt plot team reported back that they had not seen anything. Kim now tried to figure out what to do.
Is there really a spy here? Would he really know about that facility? How could they have possibly found out if nobody here knows about it? What will happen to us if there is a spy and he got into that facility?
Kim felt a familiar feeling crawl through his body. As a child in the Democratic People’s Republic, he learned quickly that what he said could get him in trouble. He learned quickly that he was always being watched. His father always told him that some of their closest friends could be informants for the secret police, so it was better not to talk outside at all. He eventually found out why. In class he remembered hearing another student say that his family did not plan to go to the Square to pay their respects for the victory in the Fatherland Liberation War. That boy said the reason was that his father said he had better things to do. That boy was not in school the next day and Kim had never seen him since. One or two of his friends also disappeared in the middle of the night. He soon learned that if he were not careful about what he said, he might disappear one night as well. Soon it led to a process he could not control. Each night his mind became so active he could not sleep. He sat up wondering if he had said anything wrong. He became afraid to go to bed at night. His mind analyzed and re-analyzed everything he had said that day, which by that time had shrunk to only a few words. Eventually his father noticed his plight and tried to console him. He said that even if some things in the Democratic People’s Republic seemed uncomfortable or scary, the higher ups were saying this was the best possible way to manage our society for the people. So he told Kim to take some comfort in that and realize life must be just as hard elsewhere. He said to find a way to show the higher ups you are the most loyal servant they have. Eventually Kim got rid of that feeling. But sometimes he thought that he might have just become used to its constant presence. He thought maybe he found a way to live through each day despite it.
That feeling briefly returned with full strength about a year ago, however. Ever since Kim could remember, his father had been a KPA general. It was always something that had made him proud growing up. His father was still rather young, so Kim expected his father to remain a general. But one year ago, his father had suddenly retired from the KPA. The last time Kim was home, six months ago, he had seen his father in a new state. He seemed jumpy. He asked Captain Kim if he had not been careful when speaking outside. Captain Kim thought about it but was sure he had. He rarely spoke to anyone other than on military counter-intelligence business. It was his mind that he had allowed to run unfettered, not his mouth. That was the last Captain saw of his father. Last week, he received notice that his father had passed away. The letter he received from the higher ups said something more like that his father “died gloriously in service to the Democratic People’s Republic.” Captain Kim was now on his own, and had to make his own way.