The lieutenant had started to relax, breathing out in a long whoosh, when Rhee ordered, “Stop the truck!”
Guk stood on the brake pedal and Rhee bailed out the right-side door, shouting, “Ma, Oh!” He’d seen a flash of color and made a snap decision. As he came around the back of the truck, Rhee saw figures in the field spring up and run toward a distant wood line. Oh and Ma were already vaulting out of the truck and sprinting after them. Rhee called, “No weapons! Take them alive!”
Now behind the truck with a clear view, he could see two adults, towing a child as they ran. The man swung the boy, five or six, up into his arms and their speed increased.
The chase ended halfway across the field, where Ma tackled the slower woman. The husband hesitated, and Oh reached him, pistol drawn. He raised his hands as Ma pulled the woman to her feet. The adults were quickly searched, and their hands were bound behind them with zip ties. Oh got them started back toward the road, with Ma carrying the struggling child.
The adults were both in their late twenties. The man wore a white shirt and tie, and it was the white color in the field that had caught Rhee’s eye. The woman wore a skirt and drab green blouse, and heels, which certainly had not helped her cross-country performance. As the group passed the spot where the family had lay hiding, Oh picked up a cloth bundle.
Rhee could imagine their thoughts. They had been spotted and captured by the army. Their fate was sealed. Both the woman and child were crying, fearful. The husband’s expression shifted from fear to worry to anger and then fierce control.
As they reached the truck, Rhee gestured to Oh and Ma to load them in the back. The civilians’ eyes widened first at the sign of the battered soldier, gagged and bound, and then gasped at the bloodstains on the truck bed. The mother, barely coherent, begged for mercy, while the man offered unspecified valuables if the woman and child were released.
Taking their cue from Rhee, the soldiers said nothing, but were as gentle as they could be getting the civilians into the truck. Rhee got in the back with them and Master Sergeant Oh. He told Ma to ride in front.
In an attempt to lower the noise level, Rhee drew his knife and cut the woman’s bonds, then gestured to Oh to give her the child. The pair clung to each other, still tearful, but silent. Rhee uncapped his canteen and offered it to the woman. With only a moment’s hesitation, she took a sip herself, testing it, then helped her son take a drink, then a longer one, before taking another herself. She passed it back to Rhee with an expression that combined gratitude and fear.
The truck was moving again, and Oh passed their identity documents to Rhee. They were indeed a family, and the husband was a municipal official in Chongju. They lived in town. While Rhee checked their papers, Oh searched the small bundle. He opened it for Rhee’s inspection to reveal a sheaf of North Korean won, some Chinese yuan notes, a few rings, and a GPS device.
The man, silent until now, tried again to bargain with the commissar officer, almost pleading as he tried to explain why they were hiding in the field as the army vehicle passed. Rhee remained silent, and kept his expression unsympathetic. Finally, the child, exhausted, fell asleep.
The major, with his truck full of prisoners, was passed through the next and last checkpoint with a salute, and they headed toward the coast. He’d been expecting to arrive here on foot, and Rhee had to consult the map to find places where they could hide a large vehicle. A farm building a few kilometers from the shore was the most likely spot, so Rhee had Guk drive the truck as close to the shore as possible. After it was unloaded. Guk would take it alone to the chosen location, conceal it, and then come back as fast as he could.
By now it was late afternoon, but there was still time for Guk to make the trip and be back before sundown. The truck stopped and Guk and the others quickly unloaded, while Rhee kept watch and checked the map one last time. Oh and Ma led the prisoners, in single file, down toward the beach, while Rhee handed the map to Guk and said, “I’ll see you soon.”
Guk saluted and smiled, then jumped into the cab and roared off. Rhee hurried to join the fearful but confused captives as they picked their way across the uneven ground. While Ma and Oh watched the prisoners, Rhee kept watch toward the road. There was no traffic, and it soon disappeared from view as they descended into a gully that led to their cache.
While the two enlisted men recovered the swim gear, Rhee studied his captives, sitting on the ground. He imagined the thoughts going through their minds, but derived no pleasure from sustaining the mystery. Until Guk returned, which wouldn’t be soon enough, the prisoners could not know the team’s true identity.
They took turns keeping watch out to sea, as well as landward. It was almost an hour later that Ma, on lookout near the crest of a grass-covered dune, whistled and held up a thumb. Five minutes later, a winded but cheerful Lieutenant Guk tumbled down the slope and saluted, reporting, “Done.”
With a sigh of relief, Rhee drew his knife and cut the ties on the now thoroughly confused prisoners. Dropping to one knee and facing the group, he said, “In spite of these uniforms, my men and I are soldiers from the South. We will be leaving soon,” he pointed out to sea, “on a submarine that will meet us offshore. If you come with us, you will be safe, although you will be questioned.” He didn’t bother mentioning that if they didn’t want to come, they couldn’t be allowed to live. In the corner of his eye, he saw Guk, standing casually with his weapon at rest, but angled toward the prisoners, just in case.
Rhee could see the captives trying to reason it out. The tale sounded fantastic, but their captors were clearly not KPA soldiers. The corporal spoke up first. He’d seen these men kill North Korean troops, so it was easier for him to believe their story. “I want to go to the South.” He was already marked for death, so if this was some sort of elaborate ruse, he had nothing to lose.
The woman stared at the swim gear lying on the sand. “Will this submarine take us all the way to the South?” She said it as if their destination was the moon.
Rhee nodded. “It will take about a day.”
She looked over to Guk, standing nearby, who shrugged and nodded, then to her husband, who looked as befuddled as her, but he also nodded. She started crying again, but weakly, and clinging to the child in her lap. Speaking for both of them, the husband said firmly, “Yes. Please take us with you. What must we do?”
Rhee smiled. “Let’s fit you all with some flotation gear, and then we’ll take a swim.”
Chapter 7 — Maelstrom
The opening logo was the same one the network had used since the beginning of the crisis, a map of the Korean Peninsula with the part above the thirty-eighth parallel in jagged pieces, as if it was shattered glass. They’d modified it earlier that day, though, with the word “Liquidated” angled across the northern part in bright red letters.
The logo shrank and appeared to fall back, landing on the video wall behind CNN’s leading military correspondent, Catherine Donner, sitting at a long desk. The video wall showed a constantly moving mosaic of military hardware in action, buildings on fire, carefully edited sections of the now infamous death scene, and shots of cheering crowds surrounding a tall blonde reporter.
Ms. Donner was neither tall nor blonde. Her mid-length hair was more gray than brown, and a weathered face seemed to exist only to frame her trademark green eyes.
“Welcome to this special extended edition of the War Room. I’m Cat Donner and I’m here with our panel of political experts, and we’re pleased to be joined this hour by Dr. Mark Ulrich from the Nuclear Weapons Disarmament Council. He’s going to tell us about what we know, or more properly, what we don’t know, about the status of North Korea’s nuclear stockpile.