Thunder in the Morning Calm (3 page)

Although the Chinese had the Marines surrounded, the Marines rallied around their general and began a daring and thunderous advance through enemy lines.

That day, Keith was covering the rear of his advancing platoon. They were moving south, back toward the 38th parallel, and his job was to provide the first line of fire if the Chinese or North Koreans attacked from the rear. He had cocked his M-1 carbine and was moving low and swift just behind his leatherneck comrades. They had just fought through a North Korean platoon when a deafening shot rang out behind his head.

Startled, he pivoted and brought his carbine into firing position.

A Chinese soldier lay dead on the ground from a bullet to the head. Robert was off to one side, pistol in hand, barrel still smoking. That sight would forever be burned in Keith’s memory.

Somehow, the Chinese soldier had slipped into the Marines’ rear guard and was about to shoot Keith in the back of the head at pointblank range when Robert fired, killing him. Robert saved his life.

They left the body on the ground and moved out, trying to catch up with their platoon. But suddenly, out of nowhere, they were surrounded by Chinese soldiers with rifles aimed right at them.

Had the Chinese witnessed Robert shoot their buddy, both Keith and Robert would have been shot. Instead, the Chinese turned the two Americans over to the North Koreans, dooming them to an eternity of hell on earth.

At first, hope lived. Hope of release. Hope of a rescue. Hope of a prisoner exchange.

But as months turned into years, and the years into decades, their hopes and dreams of freedom faded and finally vanished. America, the beacon of light among nations, the hope of freedom on earth, morphed into a faint and distant memory. Images of family frozen in time at first haunted the deep recesses of their minds. Crazed wonderings — whether family was dead or alive, whether a spouse was remarried or still waiting, whether markers had been placed on their empty graves in some lush green war cemetery somewhere back in a place they once called home — had once tortured them. But as the decades passed, their thoughts of ever returning home had dimmed.

Now they had only each other — Keith and Robert and Frank. They had become closer than brothers.

Two quick knocks on the door brought Keith back to the present. The door swung open and a swirl of snow rode in on a gust of cold air. Two guards were standing out in the yard smoking cigarettes. A petite woman, perhaps midthirties, walked in with a large wooden tray that held three bowls of beans and rice and three tin cups of water from the trough. She held out the food and said, “Eat, eat, eat.”

Keith’s eyes met the woman’s, and he said, “
Ahn yang haseo
, Pak.”

“Hello. Hello. You hungry?”

“Very sick.” Keith pointed to Robert, who groaned and rolled over toward the wall, away from the food and the water.

“Oh, sick?” Pak leaned over and touched Robert. She frowned and looked concerned. Pak had been bringing them food for the last few years, and unlike the whipmaster and the other uniformed guards, she often showed kindness to the men, but only when the guards were not looking. “Oh, hot,” she said. “Needs drink.”

“Right,” Keith said. He took a jar of water and put his hand behind Robert’s head. “Can you lean up, buddy?”

Robert’s head shook and bobbed as Keith raised him to a slight angle off the hard pillow. Fighting the burning pain in his own arms, Keith brought the jar of water to Robert’s lips.

“Take a sip,” Keith whispered, tilting the jar up. A small amount, maybe two or three tablespoons, drained into Robert’s mouth. A gulping came from his throat. “That’s good. Drink some more.” He tipped the jar again.

“
Uh-kuh
…
uh-kuh
…” Water poured from the sides of Robert’s mouth. Keith jerked the jar away.

“I think he got some in his lungs,” Frank said. “Easy. It’s gonna be okay.”

Keith eased Robert’s head back down to the pillow.

“
Uh-kuh
…
uh-kuh
…”

Keith rolled Robert on his side and popped him between the shoulder blades a couple of times. More coughing was followed by fast, heavy breathing. “You’re going to be fine.”

“Keith, your foot.” Frank pointed down.

Keith looked down. “Oh, crap.” Blood oozed from the lash mark on the top of his foot. “I must’ve caught it on the edge of that steel bar under the bed.”

“Here, here.” Pak removed her apron, knelt on the floor, and pressed the folded cloth down on the foot.

“Thank you, Pak,” Keith said. “I’m okay.” He reached down and pushed the apron against his foot and looked into her black eyes. “Please, Pak. Robert is sick. Can you get medicine? Please.”

She stood up. Her face flashed a nervous look.

“Please,” Keith pleaded. “Whatever you can bring. We won’t say anything.”

Her eyes shifted to the left and then to the right. “I try,” she whispered, then turned and walked out of the barracks.

“She’s worried about sticking her neck out,” Frank said. “I don’t blame her.”

“Me neither,” Keith said. “Let’s pray she does it, though.” He dabbed cold water from the jar on a towel and laid the cool, wet towel on Robert’s forehead. “I’m worried about him making it through the night, let alone dealing with Sergeant Jack-Thug when he barges in here in the morning.” He pulled the blanket up and covered Robert’s neck, leaving only his head exposed. “Robert’s in no shape to march down to the pig trough, and that guy’s gonna have to back off.”

“Maybe he’ll cool his jets by morning,” Frank said.

“Somehow I doubt it. We’ll see.”

C
olonel Song Kwang-sun, the senior commander and military warden of the prestigious Kim Ying-nam Military Prison Camp, opened his eyes and squinted at the shapely silhouette hovering over him. When his blurry vision sharpened, he saw a smiling Mang Hyo-Sonn leaning up, her chin supported by her hand and her long hair draped over her shoulder. She gazed at him with the look of a teenager in love.

Colonel Song pulled clean white sheets up over their shoulders to break the slight chill in the air. He looked into Mang’s black eyes and gently pushed a lock of brown hair from her face.

As she gazed into his eyes, a slight smile teased the corners of her mouth. “Have I not been enough to keep you warm?” She ran her fingers
across his arm and moved her lips to his. Her kiss, as luscious as the sweetest vial of pure honey, made him feel half his age.

“You are more than enough to keep me warm, my dear, but that is not the question.”

“No?” She toyed with his chin. “Then what is the question?”

“The question is whether I keep
you
warm,” he said, chuckling at himself.

She smiled and whispered, her lips right next to his ear, “Of course my big strong man keeps me warm.”

“This is good to know, but just in case” — he pushed himself up and reached for the clear bottle half full of soju on the small table beside the bed — “have another sip.”

“Thank you, my colonel.” She took a gulp. “You are a most generous commander.”

“Of course I am.” He laughed. “Give me that.” He snatched the bottle from her and brought it to his lips. Delicious, potent soju poured down his throat. He capped the bottle and turned to Mang, his aide and his lover.

“I have a prison to run. We must return to work before someone suspects something.”

“Of course, my colonel,” Mang said, running a soft hand across his forehead.

He sat up on the side of the bed and stuck his legs through his long Army-green uniform trousers. His feet went into his boots. He stood up and put on his Army jacket, buttoning it carefully and adjusting the red pin bearing the photo of Kim Il-sung, the “Eternal President” of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Finally he buckled the shiny belt carrying his holstered pistol.

“Get dressed. I will leave first. Wait ten minutes, then leave. Make sure that no one sees you.”

“Yes, my colonel.”

Song stepped into the hallway and turned right. He headed for the WC to get rid of some of the soju.

P
ak walked into the commander’s office. A silent testament of braggadocio adorned the walls, various photographs of goose-stepping
soldiers, military medals and citations framed in boxes, and pictures of a younger Colonel Song Kwang-sun smiling and shaking hands with dignitaries and accepting whatever awards they gave out to high-ranking Communists of the North Korean Army. His sharp eyes, emanating a steely and evil glare, seemed to follow her from every photograph.

“They are only pictures,” she mumbled softly. “Fear not, for I am with you.”

She glanced at the clock on the wall. Three o’clock
.
She knew the colonel usually was out of his office at this time of the afternoon. Still, she needed to hurry. He was not far away.

The worst-kept secret in all the prison was Colonel Song Kwang-sun’s daily rendezvous with Mang Hyo-Sonn, the twenty-two-year-old North Korean flower half his age. A staff sergeant, Mang had been detailed as a guard in the military prison system. But because there were no female prisoners to guard, Mang served as administrative secretary to Song. She arrived a month ago.

Their daily midafternoon dalliance had started two weeks ago. They would slip into the small sleeping room down the hall, ostensibly on their lunch hour. Sometimes he would return in an hour. Sometimes he would not.

Everyone knew. Even the colonel’s wife knew, they said.

The only secret was what Mang Hyo-Sonn didn’t know. When the colonel grew tired of her, and he would, she would be shipped off to another facility — if she was lucky. One of his four mistresses wound up a few miles from the prison with a bullet in her head.

Pak prayed that Mang Hyo-Sonn would be especially distracting today.

She walked across the outer office, through another door, and into the office of the colonel-warden himself. More photographs on the wall showed the colonel in Pyongyang. Several showed the colonel standing between the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, and his son the madman heir apparent, Kim Jong-un. Others showed Kim’s father, the “Eternal President” of North Korea, Kim Il-sung.

With a feather brush in hand, Pak dusted the colonel’s desk, then his chair, and then along the inside of the barred windows looking out onto the courtyard. Finally she darted into the small bathroom next to the office and pushed the door closed behind her. After turning on the
faucet to muffle the sound, she pulled open the door to the medicine cabinet.

The colonel normally kept several bottles of aspirin on the bottom shelf. But the bottom shelf was empty.

She reached up and felt on the second shelf. A razor. Another razor. A bar of soap. “Please, Lord Jesus, help me find something,” she whispered. Her hand moved to the top shelf. She felt two plastic bottles. She took the bottles off the shelf and examined them. Aspirin. Penicillin.

She heard the sound of boots walking in the outer office. A door closed.

Cold panic rushed through her body. She had planned to take just a few pills. No chance of that now. She put the aspirin back on the shelf and stashed the penicillin bottle in her pants. She turned off the running water in the sink.

What could she do? Climb through the window into the courtyard? That is crazy, she thought. One of the guards would see me. Or the colonel would come in here. She muttered a fast prayer, put her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and opened the door.

“Colonel!”

He stood there in the office, an angry look on his face. Fear gripped her at the sight of him. She noticed his vein-bulged neck, his drab-green officer’s uniform resplendent with all his medals pinned upon his chest. His look was cold, his glare menacing. “You are still here?” he asked.

“Yes, Colonel. I was cleaning in your bathroom.”

“You always clean this late?” He pressed his hand against his forehead.

“I was just finishing, Colonel.”

“Very well,” he snapped.

“I must attend to other duties,” she said. “Please excuse me.” Without awaiting his permission to be excused, she walked past him, past the large desk in the outer office, and out into the hallway.

Her heart was pounding like a battering ram. She quickened her pace down the long hallway, praying that she would not hear his footsteps behind her. The empty offices along the hallway were closed and dark in this antiquated facility that now had more guards than prisoners.

A door on her left creaked open.

Pak saw the young woman in the drab brownish-green North Korean uniform step out into the hallway.

The colonel’s mistress eyed Pak as she walked by. But Pak ignored Mang and, pretending not to see her, kept looking straight ahead and walked briskly toward the door at the end of the building. A moment later, she pushed open the door. The air temperature had dropped since the morning. Swirls of snow greeted her as she stepped outside. She walked down the four concrete steps, then glanced behind to see if she had been followed.

Nobody was there.

Thank God.

She headed up the hill toward the concrete barracks that housed the prisoners. The front door would be unlocked this time of day. Everyone knew the old men in the barracks could not get through the fence surrounding the compound even if they wanted to.

Three armed guards in long greenish-brown trench coats stood in a circle about a hundred feet from the barracks, smoking cigarettes and laughing and chatting. A fourth stood a few feet away, smoking on his own.

She prayed again as she approached the door of the prisoners’ barracks, then she stepped into the barracks and closed the door behind her.

The old prisoner named Keith was sitting on a wooden chair at the bedside of his sick friend. He was holding a wet towel to his friend’s forehead. The other prisoner, Frank, was lying on his cot, watching Keith sponge Robert’s head.

“Pak.” Keith stood up.

“
Shhhhhhhhhh!
I bring medicine,” she said. She pulled the bottle from her pocket and thrust it into Keith’s hand. “Penicillin.”

He looked at the bottle. His old eyes gazed into her face. “God bless you, Pak.”