Guo Fenghui nodded thoughtfully. “I’m confident you will, sir. As for production, we can utilize captured equipment for now since production in the camps is only starting to come online―”
Suddenly the briefing room went dark. But it wasn’t only the lights that had gone out. Every laptop in the room was also dead. Shortly after came the sound of a thunderous explosion. A breathless major charged into the conference room, flashlight in hand, telling them a transport plane coming in to land had just fallen from the sky. He kept mumbling about the blinding flash he’d seen on the horizon right as the electrical equipment had shorted.
General Wei Liang didn’t need to hear any more to understand what was going on. The far-fetched American plan Phoenix had warned them about, the very one they’d tried to thwart by pushing up their attack on Oak Ridge, had somehow succeeded and the war raging in the Pacific was the least of his worries.
Chapter 9
A ragged line of American slave laborers trudged from the farmers’ fields that lay adjacent to the North Korean concentration camp near Jonesboro. Guards, their AKs fixed with bayonets and at the ready, kept a watchful eye as the column made its way back to the razor-wire fence line.
Once they arrived, the metal gates would be opened, allowing them to enter. If anyone tried to run, they’d be shot dead, something Brandon had seen with his own eyes. A mother and her young daughter had tried to sprint for the drainage ditches that cut through each field like trenches on a First World War battlefield. In theory, once the slave labor force made its way back into the camp, the two would follow those ditches until they reached the St. Francis forest nearby.
One of the North Korean guards, a pug-faced man wearing a dark green uniform and a flat-topped cap, had leveled his AK and fired without a single warning. Two shots had broken the late-afternoon silence. Neither the woman nor the little girl had made a sound as they tumbled to the ground.
The pug-faced guard shouted something in Korean Brandon didn’t understand, but the proud smile on his face said enough. He was bragging to his guard friends about his marksmanship and the sight made Brandon long for an AK of his own so he could put one into that ugly face.
That had happened days ago. Brandon couldn’t say how many, since there was no real way to keep track. Once they’d began the back-breaking work they’d been sent here to perform―in this case cultivating crops for the North Korean and Chinese forces―hours, days and weeks began to lose their meaning. But after the murder of that woman and her daughter, Brandon had seen a host of similar atrocities, many too vile to mention. Without a doubt, his dreams would be haunted for years to come. If, that was, he ever managed to leave this place.
Those were the discordant thoughts flitting through Brandon’s head when a flash of blinding light in the sky caught his attention. Many of the prisoners and guards stopped and watched it for a moment, many shielding their eyes. It seemed to hang there forever before gradually fading. What could that have been? Had Knoxville been hit with a nuke?
Another thing which tended to dull in this place was one’s cardinal sense. It wasn’t until he’d made himself a rudimentary sun compass that he’d realized home was in a completely different direction.
The process had been simple enough. First one planted an eighteen-inch stick in the ground. Then every ten to fifteen minutes, smaller sticks would mark the top of the shadow from the larger one as the sun slowly traversed the sky. After recording three or four points, a distinct east-west line would begin to appear. With the knowledge that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, it then became simple to get a rough sense of each compass point. Since then, he’d understood that beyond the St. Francis forest lay his family and home.
Next to Brandon as they stumbled back toward camp was an exhausted and even thinner-looking Gregory.
Shortly after arriving, they’d been processed by a series of rough camp guards, stripped of their clothing and given sturdy brown trousers and a matching tunic. They slept in long prisoner barracks filled with bunk beds stacked four high and maybe a hundred deep. No one bothered to count. When they did eat, it was generally a watery broth with cabbage leaves and rice. They ate everything they were given, no matter how vile, as well as the few dwindling plants Brandon managed to forage here and there when the guards weren’t looking. With the labor they were doing on a daily basis, they weren’t getting nearly enough calories. A few among them had already died from starvation. Others’ skeletal forms struggled against the heavy fabric of the prison uniforms they wore. These, Brandon figured, must have been part of the first group sent to the camp when it was being built.
Like a funeral procession, they made their way through the gate and into the central courtyard, where they lined up for a head count. The North Koreans wanted to make sure no one escaped this place and Brandon was left to wonder what they feared more, losing manpower or word of their atrocities getting out.
The work group Brandon and Gregory were a part of consisted of five hundred prisoners who were all lined up in tight formation. Soon, other work groups joined them until the courtyard was full. Whatever this was about, it was big.
Before them was the camp commandant, Jang Yong-ho, short and round. It seemed as though the higher your rank in the North Korean army, the bigger your belly. He spoke in broken English to an American named Ellis Stone, a former small-town sheriff turned collaborator and perhaps the most hated man in the camps.
Even to Brandon, the idea of American prisoners guarding one another seemed especially cruel. Perhaps it had something to do with the language barrier or perhaps it was a lack of able-bodied guards. No one could say, but he remembered reading that the Nazis had done the same to the Jews in the concentration camps of Europe during World War II, so the sight, wretched as it was, wasn’t entirely shocking.
Once Jang had finished, Ellis began to speak.
“Each and every one of you knows that the penalty for attempting to escape is death,” he said. His silver hair was tucked beneath his green North Korean guard cap. Ellis and his deputies wore a prison uniform just like everyone else, except theirs had yellow stars drawn on their chests. “We’ve recently learned of a large-scale escape plan. The ringleaders were arrested and tried this morning and will shortly be executed.”
Gregory and Brandon shared a frightened look. Could they be talking about the escape Dixon and his fellow soldiers had been planning? Brandon searched the crowd without finding his friend’s face.
Within minutes, a group of twenty prisoners were led before Jang, black sacks pulled over their heads, their hands lashed behind their backs. The camp commandant spoke to Ellis, who passed on the message.
“Before you stand the accused. Eighteen men and two women.”
Then one by one, a North Korean guard went before them and thrust his bayonet into their bellies. Their shrieks of pain filled Brandon’s heart with horror. One of those men was Dixon, he was sure of it.
Once they were done, Ellis and his deputies began clearing away the bodies.
Another twenty were led out and suffered a similar fate. Gregory had watched the first group, unable to look away, but now his eyes were fixed on the ground, his fingers in his ears so he wouldn’t have to listen to the sound they made as they were gutted like pigs. Brandon wanted to do the same, but the thought of losing Dixon kept him focused on the faceless prisoners. He was searching each of them for any kind of sign that would identify one of them as his friend.