Thunder in the Morning Calm (29 page)

“I am sorry we had to do that. I tried not to make the straps too tight. I hope you could breathe okay.”

“Yes, I could,” Pak said.

The nurse examined her mouth. “What really happened here? Did the dog hit you with a pistol?”

“How did you know?”

“And let me also guess. You never said a word about the great Dear Leader, but the dog made that up as a story to give to the lady sergeant.”

Pak was not sure what to think. “How do you know these things?”

“What is your name, my dear?”

“Pak. I am Pak.”

“Well, Pak, I know how they operate. If they want to strike you, they make up a reason. If they want to cut you, they invent an accusation against you. If they want to torture you or shoot you, then they make up stories that you have slandered Dear Leader. That way, they have a range of options, all the way up to murdering you, if that is what they wish to do. Now then, is there anything you want to ask me?”

Pak hesitated. “What did you mean a moment ago when you described both the doctor who works here and the pharmacist as ‘one of us’?”

The nurse flashed a beatific smile and then rubbed Pak’s hair. “What do you think I meant?”

“Perhaps … perhaps you are suggesting that we share a … a common philosophy?” Pak asked.

“Communism is a philosophy,” the nurse said. “Would you like a glass of water?”

“Yes, please. Thank you.”

The nurse walked over to a sink and ran water from the faucet into a glass. “Let me help you sit up. There. Lean forward and I will put pillows behind your back.”

Pak leaned forward, and the nurse fluffed three pillows and slid them under her back. The pillows felt so soothing. She sipped the water.

“No,” the nurse said, “a philosophy is something shared by the likes of the animals who burned your neck and tried breaking your teeth by hitting you with a pistol. Philosophies come from man. What we share is not a common philosophy, but rather a common relationship with one who is living, who makes us sisters.”

Their eyes met. Pak said, “A relationship with one who was and who is and who is to come.”

The nurse smiled. “A relationship with the one who lived, and died, and rose again, and lives forevermore.” She reached over and opened her arms. They hugged and tears flooded Pak’s eyes. The nurse squeezed her tight in her arms. “It is all right, Pak. We will protect you. The doctor will declare that you are insane and unable to stand trial. Whatever it takes, we will do.”

Zodiac boat
nearing North Korean coastline

I
n an earlier life, before he left the private sector to return to the Navy, Lieutenant Commander Gunner McCormick worked as a commodities analyst in the mammoth building of the New York Mercantile Exchange located in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district, on the bank of the Hudson River. He worked nights and monitored the prices of overseas commodities coming from foreign markets. The job paid him considerably more than his Navy job — not that he needed the money. But the hours were bad. He worked the midnight shift, from just before twelve to eight and sometimes nine in the morning. After work he would go home to his posh Manhattan flat, sleep most of the day, get up in the afternoon, have breakfast, and then do it all over again.

The night shifts were lonely, and oftentimes, between the reports streaming in from overseas markets, Gunner would grab a cup of black coffee, wander over to the large windows overlooking the Hudson River and, from his tenth-floor office, gaze out in the black of night at the river, at the occasional boat passing by, and at all the lights shining on the Jersey shore across the way.

The few lights he was now seeing on the other side of the narrowing band of black water that separated the Zodiac from the world’s most oppressive Communist regime provided a stark visual contrast. He thought back to the myriad of blinking lights and colors reflecting on the water of the Hudson, a symbol of a powerful economic life, a
bustling capitalistic democracy. As they moved closer to shore, Gunner could see only two or three solitary lights on land. There was no loom of city lights anywhere onshore. There was no reflection of lights on the black water. There was only darkness, a darkness that was the end result of a government taking, and taking, and taking some more. In the end, lifelessness.

Finally, Gunner could see a dim outline of the land that somehow, some way, had taken his grandfather. Somewhere beyond the dark and desolate shoreline and the mountains rising behind it, in this land of mystery and evil, were the answers to his questions.

Their gasoline was almost gone. They had two options: they could remain at sea and die or go ashore and fight to survive. And maybe solve the mystery of the missing Americans that had gone on for so many years.

“Let’s hold up for a minute and get organized,” Jackrabbit said. “GPS says we’re one mile from the shoreline.”

Jung-Hoon let up on the throttle. The boat eased along at idle speed.

“Okay,” Jackrabbit said, “let’s review the first phase of our landing plan. We hit the beach right straight ahead of us, about ten miles northeast of the town of Sinch’ang. There’s a road snaking along the coastline.” He stopped and took hold of his left upper arm, took a deep breath, and continued with, “We’re sixty miles from the Hamhung area. So we’ve got sixty miles to cover to see if the camps really are there.

“When we hit the beach, we need to keep moving as far as we can and as fast as we can while it’s still dark. I figure if we don’t have to stop for anything, we can move about five miles in an hour and a half. Doing the math, that’s about ten miles in three hours … if we’re on foot.

“Right now, it’s twenty-thirty-hundred hours local time. We hit the beach in thirty minutes, assuming we don’t run into any Koreans who distract us with target practice. We change clothes, deflate the raft, and bury it in the sand along with the motor. Then we move inland and head southwest along the road. We need to take advantage of the night and move as far as we can toward Hongwon.

“By oh-four-hundred, we move up into the mountains, establish base camp, and stand alternating watches while the others get shut-eye. Jung-Hoon will go into town to collect intel. When he gets back, he hits the rack.

“Remember. The night is our friend. We move quickly, rapidly, silently.” He paused for a moment and again pulled his left upper arm against his body.

The wind had died down some, and the boat floated in toward shore, the outboard at idle speed. They could hear the soft rhythmic murmur of the waves breaking against the shoreline.

“Questions?” Jackrabbit said.

“I’ve got one,” Gunner said.

“Fire away, Commander.”

“What’s wrong with your arm?”

“Nothing’s wrong with my arm,” Jackrabbit snapped.

“Nothing wrong with your arm? Then why do you keep holding it? Sure looks like something’s wrong.”

“Like I said,” Jackrabbit snapped again, “nothing’s wrong with it. We’ve gotta get moving. No time to mess with anybody’s arm.”

Gunner quickly ran his finger down Jackrabbit’s upper arm and felt a tear in the wetsuit. “You’ve been hit.”

“Nothing to it,” Jackrabbit insisted. “Not the first time I’ve had a little ole bullet graze me. I’ve been splashing it with some cold saltwater. Keeps the bleeding down. It’s nothing.”

It struck Gunner that with all the hasty planning to get the mission started, one thing had been left out. Antibiotics. In fact, they had no first-aid supplies. Nothing.

“Jung-Hoon, when we get to a town, a store, take some money and find some first-aid stuff, especially some antibiotics to get on that wound.”

“That isn’t necessary.” Jackrabbit snorted. “That’s a waste of valuable time and resources. You aren’t a real man unless you’ve taken at least one bullet in your lifetime. Flesh wound. It’ll be all right.”

“You heard me, Jung-Hoon.”

“Got it, boss. In fact, one of the underground contacts that Reverend Lee gave us is a pharmacist.”

“Great,” Gunner said, “let’s get this boat moving again.”

Jung-Hoon revved the outboard and steered the Zodiac back toward the northwest. The roar of the outboard blended harmonically with the s
wish, swish, swish
as the Zodiac cut a path across the swells.

Gunner forced his mind to rest. The next fifteen minutes might be
his last chance to relax before he either escaped North Korea or died there. He stared straight ahead. There. The dark mass of land, outlined dimly against the sky, seemed to rise higher as they came in closer to shore. Above the dark expanse of land, an army of stars spread out. The sharp black division between the darkness rising from the sea and the field of stars clearly showed the tops of the great mountains that dominate the country. He remembered the words of an American colonel serving in the Korean War who, in describing the Korean landscape, said, “Behind every mountain, there was another mountain.”

Jung-Hoon shut off the outboard.

“Okay, we’re about two hundred yards from shore,” Jackrabbit said. “Jung-Hoon and I paddle in the rest of the way. No noise. When I give you the cue, Commander, you get out of the boat and pull us in. No more talking until we hit the beach. If anybody’s out there, well … put it this way … they don’t need to know we’re here. We’ve wasted enough valuable ammunition already this evening.”

“Got it,” Gunner said. “Mum ‘til we hit the beach.”

Jung-Hoon and Jackrabbit each grabbed one of the two small paddles.

This was their last push in to shore. The sound of the breakers crashing on the beach was now much louder. This was the same sound that Gunner had heard over and over, thousands of times, during summer vacations at Nags Head and Cape Hatteras.

The moment had arrived.

Gunner turned around and saw Jackrabbit give a thumbs-up. He waited for the next breaker to shove the boat a bit farther along. Then, in the respite between waves, with the Zodiac still moving toward shore, he put his right leg over the side of the boat and waited for the next wave to shove them in closer to shore.

Even the thermal suit could not totally block the cold of the frigid water. A second later, his foot touched bottom, and he remembered Neil Armstrong making that “one small step for man.” On the moon, there was no evil. But the land on which he would soon stand was a land full of evil, from the DMZ to the Chinese border, from the East Sea to the West Sea. “Deliver us from evil,” Gunner whispered as he slid out of the Zodiac, landing with both feet on the bottom.

He stood on the sand of North Korea, waist deep in water. He held
his thumb up to the two men in the boat. Jackrabbit slipped over the left side of the boat. With Gunner stabilizing the boat on one side and Jackrabbit on the other, another thumbs-up signal brought Jung-Hoon out of the boat at the back. He had already tilted up the outboard to keep it from dragging on the bottom.

The three men each grabbed a handle on the boat and pulled it along through the surf and up onto the beach.

Jackrabbit leaned over and whispered to Gunner, “Get your NVDs, your night visions, Commander. Screw the silencer on your M-16. Stay here and guard the boat. Jung-Hoon and I will check out the beach. Make sure the coast is clear.”

Gunner nodded.

“Let’s get moving.”

Gunner pulled out his night-vision goggles and strapped them on his head. The dark world was suddenly lit in a ghastly green. A ledge of rocks, perhaps ten feet high, rose just beyond the wide expanse of beach. And beyond that, mountains. The beach looked empty. Jung-Hoon and Jackrabbit were jogging in opposite directions to survey the situation.

Gunner reached for his M-16, popped in a thirty-round magazine, and screwed the silencer on the end of the barrel. He mounted the night-vision scope on his rifle and twisted the thumb screw to lock it in place.

Gunner fixed his eyes on the natural rocky ledge. Until now, Jackrabbit had done all the killing on this mission. But if someone crossed that ledge, with both Jackrabbit and Jung-Hoon out of range, the responsibility for killing would fall on his shoulders.

In the solitude of the moment, with the swishing of the waves peacefully lapping the dark beach behind him, he felt, for the first time, a tinge of loneliness. He had resolved that he might have to take a life, maybe more than one, during the course of this mission. But what if a teenager traversed the rocks? Or a young couple looking for a place to make out? Or an old man trying to make it down to the surf to do a little night fishing? What if he had to take an innocent life to protect the secrecy of the mission?

More waves washed up on the beach, now in increasing frequency with the rising tide, each time reaching closer to the boat. Gunner had read about the rapid tide changes in the Yellow Sea, which made MacArthur’s
heroic landing at Inchon that much more risky. He was less sure about tide fluctuations in the Sea of Japan. He wished now that he had put more time into advance planning. They had forgotten about antibiotics. First-aid supplies. Now he was dealing with the uncertainty on the timing and level of the tide.

The water seemed to be rising at an alarming rate, running up closer with each cycle. Or was it his imagination? … No, not his imagination.

Gunner decided to pull the boat up farther before the tide took it back out to sea. Crouching low, he dragged it across the sand to the base of the rock barrier. The scraping sound of rubber against sand blended with the crashing waves of the surf. He dragged the stern of the Zodiac around so the boat was now resting against the rocks, as snug against the rock wall as he could get it.

Thump.

What was that?

The noise came from above his head, from on the rock ledge. His heart pounded.

He pressed his body against the base of the rock wall and froze. The only sound was from the wind and the surf.

Two beams of light flashed on above his head and pointed out to sea.

Headlights.

Gunner pressed harder against the jagged rocks and looked up. The light beams disappeared. Then, voices!