Bamboo and Blood (14 page)

“What if we came up with a story?”

“We?”

“General, this is important. Think of it as a hinge. A door won’t open without a hinge.” It wasn’t a bad image, considering I had no idea what we were talking about.

“You’re one of O Chang-yun’s grandsons, aren’t you?” If he had hit me on the back of the head, I wouldn’t have been more surprised. It didn’t come out of nowhere, though. We’d never met, he didn’t know I was coming to visit, but somehow he had that piece of information, and he must have been waiting the whole time for the right moment to slip it in.

“Yes,” I said simply. It wouldn’t have done any good to ask him how he knew.

Now it was his turn to remain silent. He stared at me, but I wouldn’t have called it a dumb stare.

It was now or never. “Show me around; we can talk.”

“You inherited his guts, but not his brains. Alright, we’ll walk. You talk, I’ll listen.” He straightened his tunic and patted his pistol. “And I’d better like what I hear.”

We passed through an inner fence line. There wasn’t any guard at the gate, but a soldier stood a few meters away with his back to us, looking out across the fields with binoculars. He didn’t turn around to salute, though he must have heard the crack as I broke the ice that had formed over the puddles on the path. I saw him twist the focus wheel; it was obvious he couldn’t see a thing.

“This is where the simpler components were assembled.” The general had decided that he would do the talking after all. Maybe he’d had time to digest what was in the note. “Most of the important work was done underground, inside those hills”—he waved in the direction of the first line of mountains that rose a few hundred meters away—“but some of it was done above ground, in these buildings. Don’t ask me why. I don’t plan these things. I don’t construct them, either.”

We walked another fifty or sixty meters over broken ground, littered with debris. The general pointed at a building several stories high, with all but a few windows broken. It was hard to imagine how that could happen. Who would break windows on such a secure site? “The place is unseated, and the roof leaks,” he said. “In summer, the humidity drips
from the walls. Anything copper has been stripped out; everything metal is rusting; all the wood has already rotted.” We stepped through a door hanging from one hinge into a huge, dark room. He knocked on the wood. “Is this the sort of door you meant?”

I could smell acid and mold. A control panel sat against one wall—the covers on the gauges were cracked and water had seeped in, though it didn’t much matter because the dials had fallen off. “They’re frozen, as you can see, but there is nothing to worry about. The gauges have nothing to record.” He led the way into a narrow, low-roofed, U-shaped passageway that led into another room, probably fifteen meters high and nearly twice as long, with two half-dismantled storage tanks lying on their sides.

“Is there another way out of this room?” I looked around. Sometimes I get nervous for no reason in dark, unfamiliar places.

“Only through those hatches on the floor.”

“Leading where?”

“These were the waste tanks used for the chemicals that treated certain components. At the bottom of each tank is one of those discharge hatches.”

“Big enough for a person?”

“A person? Not normally, they’re pretty narrow. It would have to be a very skinny person.” He shrugged. “Not normally, but these days, yes.” I hadn’t expected irony from him. “You need to see anything else?”

I followed him outside.

“That pair of buildings, over there.” We had crossed a small field down to a point near the river. “They look interesting. Why are they so close to the water?”

The general shrugged. “Good for discharging chemicals, I guess.”

“What’s in front of the shorter one? From here I’d say it looks like a band saw.”

“It will look the same when you get closer, because that’s what it is.”

“To cut metal?”

“No, to cut wood. You’d be surprised what went into these missiles.”

Missiles, he said. What else did I expect?

We turned a corner and walked down a path lined with shivering, mangy poplars. Most of them were less than two meters tall, and more
than a few of them had been stripped of most of their branches. “This may be the closest thing to a forest in the province. These trees would be gone in a day if I opened the gates. As it is, I have to make sure none of my men accidentally knocks one over. Because after that, they will accidentally sell the wood on the outside.”

We came to another pair of buildings on either side of the path, both four stories high. They were joined by a trestle bridge that looked like it had been used to move small, narrow carts between the upper floors. Scattered on the ground in front of us were rusted steel beams.

“These were the assembly buildings. The one on the right is a complete wreck. When I got here last year, it was already in this state.”

“And the other one?”

“Only a partial wreck.”

“Does anything still function here?”

“That’s not my concern. If it’s inside the fence line, I guard it.”

“I suppose the vegetables are worth something.” I walked over to a small plot that showed signs of having been cultivated a few months ago. The rows were uneven and the soil was rocky. “I don’t think they got much of a harvest, though.”

“Did you need to see anything else? Or have we exhausted your curiosity?” The general stopped to retrieve something from under one of the steel bars. He held it up for me to see. “Cigarette butt.”

“I recognize the species.”

“My men don’t smoke these.”

“Cigarettes?”

“Not these.” He sniffed it. “French. Agitates.”

“If you say so. I never smoked a French cigarette, so I’ll take your word for it.” I’d also never run across a cigarette butt that still smelled after sitting most of the winter in the snow, but there was no use pointing that out to a general. Besides, what a French cigarette was doing in his compound was his business.

He put the cigarette butt in his pocket and then reached for his pistol. “I’m going to escort you back to the hut, Inspector. It will look better if we don’t seem to have become fast friends.”

“Have we?”

“Put it this way: When you finally walk out of here, my men should not see you again.”

Back in the hut, the general pulled off his gloves and threw them on the table. The last portion of food was gone.

“This is my headquarters. That is my headquarters staff.” He pointed at the two guards who had moved from the gate to stand by the door. “After the incident with that corps on the east coast—” He stopped suddenly. “You know what I’m referring to?”

“I try not to pay attention to military matters, especially those outside the capital. It overloads my circuits.”

“Someone in the Fifth Corps went crazy, or maybe they came to their senses. Anyway, it looked like the beginning of a rolling coup.” He watched my eyes. “Don’t pretend you hadn’t heard. It was crushed, and the rest of us had to readjust to fill in the blank spots. My division has twice the area to cover and half the staff. I am to guard these facilities and a few others close by. They moan to each other at night across the emptiness. That’s all they do.”

“I’m still puzzled about the glass.” That, and why I was out here in the first place.

“The glass? It’s a mystery, isn’t it? You’re a policeman, why don’t you find it for me?”

“Can’t you replace it? At least board up the empty panes.”

The general looked over as his adjutant shuffled out of the back room. He shut the door before I could see what sort of dog was in there. Not too many guard dogs are put up in staff headquarters, even if they’re only huts. “The inspector thinks we should board up the windows, Major.”

The major coughed weakly and sat down on a chair against the wall. “Are you the one who brought the food?” He coughed again. “Did you bring any cigarettes?”

The general turned back to me. “Fixing the windows will protect the overturned and rusted machinery, the rotted floors, and the corroded pipes from … from what?”

“Forget I mentioned it.” The major needed cigarettes like Pyongyang needed one-way streets.

“No, please,” the general said in a suddenly solicitous tone, “it is instructive to hear from Pyongyang. Always good ideas.”

“To tell you the truth, General, I’m not here to comment on your facility.”

“A relief to learn that, isn’t it, Major?”

I didn’t remember sarcasm as a strong point of military service. Maybe the times had brought it out. “My apologies. No one is in a good mood these days, and I should have been more careful.”

The general nodded at a chair. “Sit down if you want.”

“You said this was a component assembly point.”

The major stirred slightly, and the general frowned. “It was what it was; it is now something entirely different. Let’s call it a symbol and leave it at that.”

“Whatever you call it, I’m authorized to bring a visitor here.”

“This should prove interesting because I have no authorization to receive anyone.”

“You received me.”

“No, at the moment you’re still under guard.” He patted his pistol.

I took out the document Pak had given me and unfolded it carefully. “This is a special situation.”

The general stared at the paper. “More notes. Are you mocking me, Inspector?”

The major coughed and put his head against the wall.

“Not at all,” I said. “I’m serious.”

“If I had a telephone that worked, I’d call the chief of staff,” the general said. The major lifted his head. “Or perhaps not,” the general continued. “Why not the first vice marshal?” He looked at the two soldiers. “Get me the first vice marshal on the double.” Neither of the guards budged, though the major groaned softly. “No, wait. We ate the last dispatch pigeon a week ago, didn’t we?” The soldiers smiled slyly.

The general took the paper, read it quickly, and tore it into small pieces. “Wonderful to see you, Inspector. Nice to break the monotony. Now get out of here.” He put his pistol on the table. “Drive back to wherever you came from. Tell them that all is calm in the countryside, and that they can safely let us continue to sink into the earth.”

The game wasn’t over, and we both knew it. “There are several sacks of rice in the trunk of my car, General. I put them there for traction in case the road was icy, but it’s clear, so I won’t need the extra weight on the drive back. The lock on the trunk is broken.”

No one moved a muscle.

“I need to be back in Pyongyang by sunset, so I’ll have to drive fast.”

The general nodded; the two soldiers disappeared. After a minute or two, I heard the trunk of my car slam shut.

“I hope to see you again, General.”

“Have a safe trip,” he said, but he didn’t walk me to my car.

Going back, the roads were no better than they had been coming. There was no reason they should be, since most of them were one lane.

When I drove into Pyongyang, it was past dinnertime. I went straight to the Koryo. Jenö was pacing around the lobby. As soon as they saw me, the hotel security men disappeared behind the pillars and went for something to eat.

“Where have you been?” Jenö pounced. “I thought you’d be here hours ago. Do you have any idea how many times the electricity went off while I was waiting?”

I was hungry and tired from the drive. “Next time bring a flashlight if it bothers you.”

“Did you get permission?”

“Can I at least have time to sit down before you start on me?” I went over to the doorman’s chair and sat. “Hard to tell what we got. The military says no instinctively. In this case, it may have been less than categorical. The fellow on the scene is interesting, that much I can say with confidence.”

“Now what? Do we go or don’t we? Without seeing the place I’m not prepared to proceed.”

“Proceed? With what?” He started to reply, but I stopped him. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know. That’s your business, and you can have it. Give me a day to think over what comes next. It will take me some time to fill up again, anyway.”

“With gasoline?”

“No, rice. This will cost you.”

The next morning, Pak was writing furiously. He always wrote furiously. Before they stopped making requisition forms, he put in a request every month for a chalkboard. “I want to beat the hell out of something when I write answers to these idiots,” he would say. “Chalk is good. A chalkboard is perfect. You can pound on it for hours, and then when you’re done, you erase the whole damned thing.”

He stopped and crumpled the piece of paper that had borne the brunt of his pen. Then he cursed, smoothed it out, and started writing furiously again. He didn’t look up when I knocked on his open door. “Get packed,” he said simply. He read over what he had written. “Damned craziness.” He put the crumpled paper in a file folder with a black band around it. “Well.” He finally raised his head. “Are you packed?”

“For what?” I hadn’t gone back to the office that night after seeing Jenö It was late, I was cold and tired, and the tale of my conversation with the general could wait until morning. Nothing, I figured, would happen in the meantime.

Pak pointed at the folder. “For this.” Apparently, I had been wrong. Apparently, a gear somewhere had become unstuck overnight.

I looked at the folder. There obviously wasn’t much in it. It must have been only a small gear. “I don’t know what it says.”

“Of course you don’t. It’s a secret, very closely held in the Ministry. I am even instructed to keep it from you. Can you believe that?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You are ordered to New York effective immediately.”

“What?” My mouth doesn’t generally drop open, but for this it did.

“You have an aisle seat on Saturday’s plane to Beijing. There you wait for a visa, which may or may not be forthcoming from the Americans, and then onward as soon as possible to New York. ‘Onward as soon as possible.’ I sound like a dispatch cable.”