She was smart enough to know that in order for the Eighth Army brass to release me, and to risk having an American soldier enter communist North Korea, they had to have an incentive. That’s what the ancient manuscript was all about. It had supposedly been written in the fifteenth century under the reign of Sejong Daewang, the Great King Sejong. It told the story of a chase for a man who had been considered dangerous by the authorities at the time. This “wild man” was extremely resourceful and managed to elude his pursuers on horseback by entering a network of caves in the Kwangju Mountains. Upon entering the caves, the officials discovered a network of tunnels that took them much farther than they imagined, beneath what in modern times is known as the Korean DMZ. Some scholars thought the manuscript was a myth. Now, by hiring a merchant sailor to contact me in the port city of Pusan and place a wrinkled fragment of the ancient parchment in my hands, Doc Yong had offered physical proof, confirmed by experts, that the narrative actually did exist. All this was lovely from a historian’s perspective, but to the military, the manuscript had a much greater importance. Specifically, it offered a ready-made pathway beneath the Demilitarized Zone. The honchos at Eighth Army had swallowed the bait whole. And since Doc Yong had further insisted, through the merchant marine who relayed her instructions, that I was the only messenger she would trust, I was selected for the mission. In order to provide the remainder of the manuscript and the information it provided, Doc Yong wanted something in return. What that was, we weren’t quite sure yet, but Eighth Army seemed ready to pay a very high price.
“There’s not much time,” Major Bulward told me. “When the rice paddies freeze, the terrain near the DMZ will become solid and therefore passable for the North Korean armored battalions. Tanks, personnel carriers, self-propelled guns-they’ll find traction on the ice and won’t have to worry about getting bogged down in mud. This winter, after the snows come, that’s when the North Koreans will attack.”
Kim Il-sung had publicly and repeatedly vowed to reunify Korea before he retired. Eighth Army believed him. The time for that to happen was now. This winter.
Here in Nampo, the leaves were off the trees. Cold winds were already blowing out of Manchuria. Soon, Old Man Winter would rouse himself from his snowy home in Siberia, lumber across the Asian landmass, and find his way into the long-suffering peninsula known as Frozen Chosun. He’d bring with him ice and snow and, it was believed, war.
I was still doubled over from the butt of the AK-47 that had been rammed into my gut. Commander Koh still puffed on his cigarette, studying me as if I were some sort of vermin that had to be stomped into submission. But even he seemed startled by the roar that emanated from the man in a brown felt army uniform who stood at the edge of the plaza. What he said was incomprehensible, but he left no doubt that he was enraged. The man was enormous for a Korean. He stormed across the plaza, shoving armed soldiers out of the way, and within seconds he stood toe-to-toe with Commander Koh.
“Weikurei!” he bellowed. What the hell are you doing?
The voice was as deep and as full-throated as any voice I’d ever heard. His bulging cheeks turned red and shook as he spoke, spittle erupting from moist lips. He leaned so close to Commander Koh that their noses touched.
Like Commander Koh, the enraged man wore a cap with a gold-backed red star in the center, but his was a soft cap, the cap of a workingman. He also wore the ubiquitous broach with a picture of the smiling face of the Great Leader pinned to his chest. Something dangled from a lanyard around the big man’s neck, flickering in the light of nervous torches: a photograph, apparently of this man, standing next to and shaking the hand of the Great Leader, Kim Il-sung himself. It was the type of photo that in the West we’d have tacked to the wall of our office.
Commander Koh held his own. He squinted up at the taller man, pointing at me, hollering back that I had escaped from the Port of Nampo and therefore I was his prisoner.
The bigger man’s eyes bulged, and, like a great torrent unleashed, words rushed out of his mouth, washing away any argument Commander Koh was trying to make. The big man pointed at me, waggling his forefinger. He was shouting that it was ludicrous beyond belief that Command Koh should think that he in any way had any jurisdiction here, outside of the port, or any reason in the great wide world to be arresting a man who was clearly the responsibility of the People’s Police of the City of Nampo.
Or at least that’s what I thought he said. The words came out so fast and furious, tumbling over one another; they were like a crowd in a burning theater rushing for the exits.
Commander Koh protested.
The big man leaned into him until their foreheads touched, shoving the rattled Commander backward even further, screaming at the top of his lungs. He would brook no argument. I don’t believe I’d ever seen a person so outraged. In America, we would’ve long since been exchanging blows, or gunshots.
Koreans believe that throwing a punch reflects poorly on the person who throws it. The person who does such an uncouth thing reveals himself to be an uneducated oaf and his victim wins the argument, at least in the public mind, by default. The greatest fear, much greater than the fear of physical harm, was the fear of losing face.
Gradually, the big man’s argument concerning jurisdiction seemed to be gaining traction. Between shouts, Commander Koh looked pensive, probably calculating the cost of defying this man-whoever he was-and comparing it to the cost of backing down and returning to his little fiefdom at the Port of Nampo.
The bigger man sensed Koh’s wavering and pressed his advantage, shouting louder than ever, waving his arms, his face turning so beet red that I expected him at any moment to keel over. But the big man maintained his footing and Commander Koh turned his face, now staring at me kneeling on the ground, then staring at his men, who, still clutching their automatic weapons, shuffled their feet nervously across the cobbled stones.
Finally, Commander Koh threw up his arms.
“Kurom,” he said. So be it. “If that’s the way you want it, take him. Take him! He’s your problem now. Just, whatever you do, don’t return him to us.” Commander Koh waved his hand in front of the big man’s face. “We don’t want him.”
For once, the big man remained passive.
Commander Koh swiveled and bellowed at his men. “What are you doing? Have you no military discipline? Form your ranks! Stand straight like soldiers. Let’s go! Get moving!”
Commander Koh, his back to the bigger man, maintained an air of scholarly dignity. Without looking back, he followed his troops into one of the larger alleys. In seconds, their footsteps faded in muddy lanes.
The big man, still breathing heavily, stood with his arms akimbo, the redness in his face ebbing. I dared not move. Finally, he turned and looked at me.
“Iro-nah!” he said. Get up!
I did.
“Follow me.” He turned and strode away, but after a few steps he turned back, noticing that my hands were still tied behind my back. He stopped and reached into a coat pocket, pulling out a knife. The blade flashed open. As he approached, I held my breath, standing stock-still. Roughly, he grabbed me by the shoulder and twisted me around. He was only a few inches shorter than I, huge for a Korean, since I stand six foot four. He must’ve weighed two hundred pounds easy. From the wisps of gray in his hair and the slightly loose texture of his jowls, I estimated that he was older than I by a couple of decades, in his early- to mid-forties, but he was still strong and quick. With a deft slash, he cut the wire cord and the loose ends fell away. I rubbed my wrists. He stared up at me, subdued now after such an unseemly public display of emotion.