Jake Navarone was soaking wet, but never even noticed; his entire attention was focused on the industrial buildings which lay beyond the fence line in their own private compound.
Navarone, Devine and Liu were nestled in the trees which bordered the camp, just a hundred yards away from the curious compound. He could see that one of the structures had a huge chimney, which belched smoke up into the cloudy sky.
It was daytime, although the sun was struggling to break through the storm clouds above, and the valley remained dark and grey. But Navarone was now able to see more of the eastern side of the camp, especially from his new vantage point.
The rest of his men, under the leadership of Frank Jaffett, would be taking detailed notes on the rest of the complex, drawing up plans of the buildings, establishing timings of guard changes, camp routine, how many prisoners they could see and what they were doing, the list was endless.
But Navarone wanted to find out what was going on in these outbuildings. Why was there a group of buildings fenced off from the rest of the camp? What purpose did they serve?
A claxon sounded then, and Navarone recoiled in surprise; but it was just used to summon the prisoners to the camp square for roll-call, and Navarone watched in wonder as they began to stream out of the four barracks blocks, each person dressed in grey fatigues, heads down.
Navarone had estimated that each barrack building could hold about one hundred prisoners, and yet still they poured forth, spilling out of the concrete dormitories in huge numbers until the square was completely covered.
He couldn’t perform an exact count from his current position, as he was now too far away and there were simply too many to count; but he could see that it wasn’t just men who were imprisoned here, there were women and children too, some barely able to walk. Navarone clenched his fists in anger. What kind of political crimes could children be guilty of?
‘Are you seeing this, boss?’ Jaffett asked over the radio.
‘You can’t miss it,’ Navarone whispered with gritted teeth.
‘They’ve got kids here, man,’ Jaffett breathed in disgust.
‘I know. Can you see on your side how many prisoners in total?’
‘Best we can make out is about eight-fifty, nine hundred per block.’
Navarone breathed out in disbelief. That was nearly four thousand people cooped up in a space for four hundred. They must have been sleeping one on top of the other in there. Heaven only knew what sort of diseases were running through the place.
‘Okay, hold tight and carry on with the recon,’ Navarone said, and Jaffett gave him a double-click on the radio to confirm.
Navarone continued to watch through his high-powered binoculars as North Korean soldiers followed the prisoners out, shouting orders to the ones at the rear.
These prisoners returned reluctantly to the barracks, picking up the wheelbarrows which rested by the doors as they went. Several minutes elapsed before Navarone saw them reappear, pushing the wheelbarrows which now contained what appeared to be dead bodies.
Navarone felt Devine’s fingers grip his forearm. ‘Dammit Jake,’ he whispered, ‘they’ve got kids on those fuckin’ wheelbarrows! What the fuck kind of place is this?’
Navarone’s jaw was clenched as he saw the same thing; two of the dead bodies were those of children, what appeared to be a boy of about six, and a girl who might have been in her teens.
He remained silent as he watched the prisoners wheel the dead bodies past their comrades, who kept their heads down, eyes staring at the floor beneath them. Soldiers at the western edge of the compound moved to the heavy steel gates there and pulled them open, and Navarone watched as the wheelbarrows were pushed across the open ground, headed for the very area that he and his men were watching.
The gates of the secondary compound were opened, and the prisoners wheeled their dead colleagues through, heading for the building with the chimney; and it was then that Navarone’s fears were confirmed, and he knew what the building was. It was a crematorium, just like the Nazis had used at their death camps back in the worst days of World War II.
Navarone watched in horror as the bodies were wheeled inside, the prisoners appearing with empty wheelbarrows just moments later and starting their sickening journey back towards the main camp.
Navarone was sure that the smoke turned darker then, thicker and more intense. It could have been his imagination, but he could have sworn he smelt the burning of human flesh.
It was probably from disease, or else starvation and weakness from being worked too hard; there were probably deaths in the barracks every night.
Roll-call was going on all the while, and Navarone noticed for the first time the major he’d seen the night before. He was standing with a clipboard on a raised dais, gesturing to various prisoners as their names were called out, guards pulling them off to one side.
At the end of roll-call, there was a group of a dozen men and women gathered near the major’s dais, and Navarone could see the major talking to another man — obviously a senior rank, although Navarone couldn’t make it out from here. This second man then barked at the guards and pointed to the industrial compound.
Panic broke out in the dozen prisoners then, and Navarone could hear the screams and cries from where he lay in the soft undergrowth. A woman tried to break free, kicking out at the guards and running for the open gate.
A shot rang out, and the women fell down face first, blood pumping out onto the dirt floor from the gaping exit wound in her chest, a 7.62mm rifle round from one of the guards having entered her upper back at over a thousand feet per second.
The body was hauled to one side, the major pointed at another prisoner from the assembly to join the others in the dead woman’s place, and the dozen prisoners — now silent, accepting whatever horrific fate awaited them — were led out of the main camp to the mysterious buildings which lay under Navarone’s position.
‘Shit boss,’ Devine whispered. ‘What are we going to do?’
Navarone shook his head, wondering exactly the same thing. ‘I don’t know,’ he said truthfully, remembering that his orders were strictly to observe and report back. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
3
Abd al-Aziz Quraishi looked at the man across the table from him, trying to hide his distaste.
He had first met Jeb Richards at West Point back when they were both young men. He hadn’t known then, of course, that the American would rise to such prominence in his government, but had identified him early on as someone who could potentially be used in the future.
It wasn’t that Quraishi had expected Richards to ideologically support his cause; far from it in fact, as Richards was a patriot first and foremost. He had left West Point and gone on to serve with distinction in the US Army’s 37th Armor Regiment before pursuing a career in politics. But underneath the public persona of typical southern bluster, Quraishi had perceived something else; a ruthless streak that meant he could easily be manipulated into compromising his principled façade if it furthered his own agenda in some way.
And so Richards was just one of the people he had met during his time in the United States with whom he had developed long-term friendships, and he had been surprised yet delighted when Richards’ political career took off in later years. In fact, the man’s position as Secretary of Homeland Security dovetailed beautifully with Quraishi’s own role within the Ministry of Interior.
Quraishi’s distaste for the man stemmed in part from his physical appearance; he was slovenly and quite overweight, indications of poor self-discipline, and qualities which Quraishi simply could not abide. It offended his religious ideals of physical restraint and the resistance of the temptations of gluttony and laziness.