“We train for everything,” Campbell replied. “No, seriously, that’s not just a line,” he said, hearing me sigh. “To you, Lieutenant Larsen seems like an unreasonable hardass, or whatever, because you’re not a SEAL. You don’t know how we operate or what we do. What he said about our objectives… that’s totally correct. We have a mission, and we’re going to carry it out. Getting distracted by some weird event isn’t going to help us accomplish that. Unless this person attacks again, we’re not going to focus on anything except getting the submarine to shore. Because that’s the best way to fulfill our objectives.”
“Campbell, I’m getting a little tired of being treated like I’m an idiot. Larsen’s not being focused. He’s being bizarre. It doesn’t add up.”
“What? What do you mean?” He was blushing again, trying hard to establish eye contact with the wall behind me.
“I mean I understand the importance of concentrating on the task at hand. I understand that, above all else, the Dragon needs to be in a dock in U.S. waters. OK? I get all that. But it’s fucking ridiculous to pretend that the disappearance of two of your men is just another bump in the road.
Larsen’s keeping something from me. So are you.”
I was leaning on the table now, trying to force him to hear the truth of what I was saying.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he replied, his voice neutral, eyes still avoiding my face. “But it’s not going to help us, at this point, to worry about what’s going on with Miller and Martin. So just let it go. Shouldn’t you focus on the evidence here, anyway? Try to put together another theory?”
Slumping back in the bench seat, I shook my head.
“Let it go? Fine. Whatever.”
I made a show of grabbing some of the evidence off the table and holding it up to the light. But my mind was infected with anger. Not really at Campbell. At Larsen, who I was sure had ordered his men to keep quiet about whatever had happened. There always was a bigger picture, always-and the missing SEALs were part of it. In this closed system, the mistake of ignoring any event would be magnified.
Folding my hands in my lap, I closed my eyes and counted to ten. When I opened them, Campbell was staring at me, his freckled brow wrinkled in consternation.
He cleared his throat. “So…”
“Do I come here often? No. And yes, I’m single; I don’t even have any pets. There, now we’ve gotten that out of the way. How about doing a little work?”
I pushed the evidence between us to one side. “Here,” I said, thumping Lee’s book into the clear space on the table. “Read me what’s on the pages where we found the folded-up piece of paper.”
He kept his eyes on me as he reached out and grabbed its leather spine.
“Make sure not to lose the place,” I added. I put a fresh tape in my recorder, set it in front of Campbell and started it. Grabbing a pen and notepad, I sat, eyebrows raised, and watched him open the book.
“Are you sure you’re-”
“Dammit, Campbell,” I said, interrupting him. “I’m over the missing SEALs. I’m happy and smiling. See? Not worried at all. Now, this book, this is evidence. It’s in Korean. You can read Korean. So read the evidence and help us all out.”
About four expressions flashed across his face. I could tell he was wrestling with whether to be angry, hurt, embarrassed or agreeable. In the end, a combination of all emerged.
“OK, I’ll read it. Noooooo problem.” He cleared his throat. “By the way, there are page numbers along the top here. I’m looking at page seventy-nine now, just for future reference. Let’s see… The page starts in midsentence.”
“Can you look for the beginning of the passage, please?” I said, jotting down “Pg. 79” in the notebook.
He flipped back, ran his finger down the page, and started speaking again, each word separated by a pause as his mind re-formed the characters into English.
“Uh… ‘27 April, 2007. We… have been submerged for… for longer than any of… ’ uh… ‘the officers can remember. Even with the… smaller crew, the Dragon's walls seem… ’ um, ‘seem… to press against our minds and bodies. Is there a world outside our ship’s’-sorry, I don’t know this word-‘world of sunshine and… stars? Such a… reality seems far… taken,’ no, that’s not right… ‘far… removed from ours.’” Campbell halted. “This guy’s quite the philosopher, huh? The Korean Socrates.”
I said nothing, just nodded as I scribbled notes.
“Anyway. ‘Removed from ours. And the worries of my… duty, my mission… press down on me as well.’” Campbell stopped again. “This might be kind of rough, OK? I just wanted you to know that. I’m better at understanding Korean than speaking it, so if he gets really complicated or fancy, it’s going to sound odd.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, looking up and smiling. The expression was genuine, and had the effect I wanted: he smiled back, and I could see his posture relax. “We’re lucky you went to language school.”
“We’d be luckier if I had stuck with it,” he said. “I got bored after six months, and it was only a sixty-three-week program. Same thing that happened with college-it just stopped being interesting.”
“So you found something harder to do?”
“You got it. BUD/S training, SEAL qualification.”
“And you’re not bored yet?” I could tell he got the joke.
“Look at all the exotic places I get to go. Seriously, I don’t have any regrets. I grew up in Oklahoma City-ever been there? It’s no place special. If I weren’t here, I’d be there. I mean, I like what I do because it takes serious effort and thought to prepare for a job like this and even more to do it. With something like languages, which were always kind of easy for me, I just quit trying, I guess. Now if I quit trying, I let down seventeen other guys whose lives are depending on me. It’s a purpose.” Campbell took a deep breath, then shrugged as he ran out of words.
“I can tell you for a fact that if you weren’t here we’d probably all be out of luck. You’re doing great.”
“Good,” he said, then continued translating. “‘It is a great… duty that I have been given. An important one. A… vital one. But if it comes time to… carry it out, will I do my… commanders justice? Has… their trust been out of place?’ Wait, I think that’s ‘misplaced’ instead of ‘out of place.’ OK, ‘has their trust been misplaced? I would like to… ’ ah, ‘imagine that I am strong enough to… prevail and overcome the great… obstacle that may come. But to my comrades it will seem like the most… low, shameful sort of… betrayal.’”
He stopped reading and waited until I had finished writing.
“Sounds like he’s planning something,” Campbell said.
“Maybe. He could just be referring to the defection. Keep going.”
“‘I try to… imagine the… serpent being loose in the world-even in a place as… powerful as America-and it makes me… shudder. That, and only that, will give me the strength… to condemn the Dragon and her men to the sea’s… depths.
“‘Still, the… knowledge of what I… must do if that happens appalls me. The nearer we get to America, the more… certain my,’ uh, ‘heart becomes that it will… come to pass. And I cannot allow that.’” Campbell tapped the page with his finger. “OK, now, that sounds pretty clear. He can’t allow the sub to arrive in Norfolk.” He didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “‘So the mission’s… importance can overcome my…’ damn, this is tough… ‘personal… shortcomings. I think it will force me to be strong and… dutiful.
“‘My burden also is… lowered by knowing someone else shares it. Captain Yoon, too, knows what I — what we-must do. He has told me that he will make sure the serpent does not leave this… submarine. That his… soul, like mine, is… heavy with this… responsibility gives me strength.