SEVEN
It took Amril and Richard Ammon almost three days to get out of North Korea. Amril had been setting up the operation for more than half a year, but still, there were bribes to be made, supplies to be bought, and passports to purchase; all in cash. In addition, he was one of the few Caucasians in the country, making it impossible to move about without being noticed. He had to work very carefully. He had to be very patient.
For three days, Ammon waited in a small thatched farm hut on a rocky knoll. It consisted of one small room with a blackened brick fireplace and a straw mattress on which to sleep. From its only window Ammon could watch the thin traffic that moved along the highway to P’yongyang. He watched peasant farmers working the soil with sixty-year-old tractors and teams of white oxen. He watched thunderstorms build every afternoon, only to blowout to sea before they could drop their much needed moisture on the dry farmland below. He ate whatever Amril brought him; bowls of thin soup, hot noodles, and spiced cabbage. Some of the meals were unrecognizable mixtures of roots and yellow bamboo, but Ammon never complained. He paced the floor, exercised, watched the highway, and worried about Jesse.
Amril was usually gone, but sent him messages through the peasant who worked the rocky soil around the thatched hut. “Stay tight,” he was told. “Stay inside. Be patient. Things are going well. We will be out of the country very soon.”
Early one morning, Amril shook him awake and led him outside to a waiting truck which had been loaded with small cardboard cartons packed with eggs. Since the eggs were fresh and unrefrigerated, the driver had a permit that would allow him unhindered travel all the way to the Chinese border city of Ch’osan.
Ammon and Amril climbed between the towering cartons. The driver covered them over with boxes of eggs, fired up the ancient truck, and started down the road.
And so began a journey which would take nearly a week. Traveling by truck, airplane, and rail, they made their way across the continent, working their way toward Kiev.
On the fifth day of their journey, Ammon found himself sitting on a train heading west through southern Ukraine, listening to the hypnotic rhythm of the train and watching the dirty towns as they passed by. With every mile that he drew closer to Kiev, Ammon’s heart beat a little bit faster. He became moody and sullen. The memories flooded his mind. This was the home of his boyhood. This was his land. His people. His life.
He pushed himself back in his seat and closed his eyes.
He remembered his mother’s funeral. He was only four. It had rained and rained, from the day she died, until two days after her body had been laid to rest. It was windy. It was cold. Mud and slime were everywhere as he and his father tracked their way to the graveyard, leading the tiny funeral procession up the barren road to the graveyard hill. Clutched in his tiny hands was a small bunch of white daisies. A gift for his mother. The only way he could think of to say good-bye.
He remembered one night with his father, who, as usual, was very drunk. Ammon was trying to make them both some dinner. He was hungry. Pulling out a huge blackened pot, he began to boil some water. “Father, do we have any rubles for cabbage? If you’ll go buy some, I’ll make us some stew.” His father swore and grunted, then heaved himself out of his chair. Pulling on a coat, he slipped out into the night. Ammon didn’t see him again for three days.
Ammon heard his name and opened his eyes. “You seem kind of quiet.” Amril interrupted his thoughts.
“I’m the quiet type,” Ammon said dryly.
“You should be happy to be going home.”
Ammon shrugged and turned back to the window. The train rattled on. The miles slipped by. Ammon slipped further into despair.
It was dark and raining when they finally stepped off the train at a tiny and dilapidated rail station on the outskirts of Kiev. The two crumpled men climbed stiffly down from the train and stood for a moment in silence, waiting under a leaking covered porch as the wind and rain howled around them. The cold drizzle blew through the tall willows that lined both sides of the track and made Ammon shiver.
This was it. He was back. He had indeed come home.
Though he always knew it was possible, he never thought it would actually happen. He never thought he would be back in Kiev. He looked around the tiny station, studying each face in the crowd. Everything seemed vaguely familiar. The weathered clothes. The blushing jowls. The sullen eyes that rarely smiled.
The thick darkness seemed to enfold him, muffling the low voices that ran through the dimly lit terminal. He drew his thin jacket around him and shivered again from the cold. He thought of Jesse, sitting in their California home more than four thousand miles to the west and felt more desperate than he had ever felt in his life.
Before he had a chance to stretch his tired legs, Ammon was shoved into the back of a small sedan and driven to an ancient wood cabin fifty kilometers north of the city. It was near the Dnieper River, deep in a forest of spruce, aspens, and white pines. It was not a luxurious place, even by Ukrainian standards, much more a poor man’s hunting lodge than a rich man’s summer home on the lake. But it was private and extremely secluded.
Here he was told to stay put. He found a moldy bed in one of the tiny bedrooms and immediately fell asleep.
Fourteen hours later, he awoke. It was late afternoon and the sun was sitting low, sending dim sunbeams horizontally through the window. He heard a truck pull up, its tires crunching the wet gravel until it came to a stop, and then men’s voices outside. As he listened, some of the voices faded away, muffled by the thick forest that surrounded the cabin. He listened to the sound of men spreading out through the woods, secluding themselves in the trees as they set up a perimeter security zone. A few of the voices grew louder as they approached the cabin. Ammon sat up in his bed, instantly alert.
After the men entered the cabin, all was quiet. Then the door to the bedroom opened. Amril was standing there, his huge frame filling the doorway, beckoning for Ammon to come.
Ammon followed him into the kitchen. There he found four men sitting around an enormous kitchen table. They appeared to range in age from about forty-five to maybe sixty. All of them were dressed in hunting clothes and covered with mud and muck. He noticed the shotguns stacked against the wall as well as three dead geese that had been stretched out near the kitchen sink. The musky smell of wet fowl filled the air.
The men turned to look at Ammon as he walked into the room. They continued to stare as he approached the table and sat in the only remaining seat. Amril stood near the doorway to the bedroom with his arms clasped behind his back.
For a long time no one spoke. The only sound was the occasional creaking of the old wooden chairs as the men shifted in their seats. Finally the youngest of the men turned to Ammon and spoke in perfect English.
“Do you remember me, Carl?” he asked.
Ammon flinched at the mention of his name. It had been almost twenty years since he had been called anything but Richard Ammon. To be called by his christened name sounded strange and uncomfortable.
Ammon studied the man intently. He was of medium height and stocky. His hands were huge and rough. Short cropped hair spread like stubble across his strangely uneven head. His face was covered by what looked like a week’s worth of graying beard. His eyes were pale and green. Almost yellow. His smile was forced and tight.
Richard Ammon had seen this face only once, and it had been many years before, but still he remembered. After a long pause, he replied in a quiet voice, “Yes, Ivan Morozov, I know who you are.”