57
Hamgyong-Namdo Province
North Korea
KYONG HADN’T SAID A WORD since the tank had passed, leaving them with lungs full of diesel smoke and a glimmer of hope that they might survive. Admittedly a faint glimmer, but a glimmer nonetheless.
They walked up the overgrown dirt road with Randi and Smith keeping watch on the dense trees encroaching from either side. A startled water deer had caused a brief panic about a half a kilometer back, but since then everything had been quiet.
“That tank will have reached Eichmann and the troop carrier by now,” Randi said. “They’ll know we got off the road somewhere.”
The Korean, a few paces ahead, didn’t acknowledge that he’d heard. He clearly still didn’t fully trust them. And after what they’d seen at that facility, it was hard to blame him.
“The soldiers won’t know about this road,” he said finally. “It hasn’t appeared on a map since many of them were children.”
“Where does it lead?” Randi said.
The Korean’s gait slowed a bit, suggesting that it was a more difficult question than it seemed. “To nowhere.”
She wasn’t willing to leave it at that. “Roads that people go to this much trouble to hide always lead somewhere.”
Kyong picked up his pace and Randi gave Smith a quizzical look. The message was clear—they knew nothing about this man and it was hardly a stretch to think he could be leading them into a trap. But he hadn’t yet and alternatives were limited. On their own, it was unlikely they’d last long.
She frowned at his noncommittal shrug, jamming her hands in the pockets of her jacket and starting to watch the trees again.
It was another fifteen minutes before Kyong came to a stop at the edge of a rolling, open meadow where the road dead-ended. Smith squinted into the sunlight, looking for something that distinguished it from every other rolling, open meadow in the area, but came up empty. He pulled out his satellite phone and looked down at the screen again, confirming that there was still no signal. It was likely that the North Koreans had started jamming and that the text from Fred had skidded in under the wire.
“This was my village,” Kyong said. “I was born here. So were my parents and my grandparents. We were farmers. Very poor like all the workers in my country. Twenty years ago, the complex opened. They paid a little money to people willing to go there. A little bit of food.”
“Go there?” Smith said, noting the interesting turn of phrase. “You mean ‘work there’?”
Kyong shook his head. “The old people went first. They couldn’t farm anymore but they wanted to contribute. My grandmother never returned. My grandfather came back blinded, though there was nothing wrong with his eyes. When the weather turned bad, the crops failed and more of our people went there. I was small then, but I still remember. We were starving.”
“I don’t mean to question you,” Randi said. “But are you sure we’re in the right place?”
It was a valid question. There was no trace of irrigation ditches or crop rows. No paths or home foundations. If Kyong was telling the truth, someone had done a hell of a job of wiping his birthplace off the map.
Their skepticism must have shown because the Korean started east toward the trees. “Come. I’ll show you.”
He crashed into the dense forest with them lagging a bit behind, scanning the shadows for troops and secret police. When they finally caught up, they found Kyong standing in front of a tiny house with the remnants of white paint still clinging to rough-hewn boards. The glass was still intact in the only window, so Smith rubbed the dirt from it and peered into the gloomy interior. It looked like the people had just walked out and never come back. There was a sewing machine with a piece of cloth in it, metal cups on a makeshift table, a small bed left unmade. All that gave away the passage of time was the thick layer of dust and a few empty animal nests.
He stepped back, listening for a moment to the chirp of birds and wind-rustling leaves. The bomb blasts were silent now and Smith wondered if it was over. If the facility was a corpse-ridden pile of rubble.
He turned back to Kyong. “Do you know what Division D was?”
By way of an answer, the Korean started walking again, motioning for them to follow.
It was less than a minute before they came upon the first mounds, their size and shape making it impossible to mistake them for anything but the unmarked graves they were. As they continued, the mounds grew in width: couples buried together. Then they expanded into what looked like whole families. A few of the graves had wooden markers with fading Korean lettering, but most of these people would face eternity in anonymity.
Kyong pulled a flowering vine from one of the markers, looking down at it with a mix of sadness and anger. “I’m the only one left. The only one who remembers.”
“What do you remember?” Randi prompted.
“When the people stopped returning or were brought back to us dead, we no longer volunteered to go. Starvation was better. After that, they just took us. The trucks would come at night. Parents would stay in their homes and send their children to hide in the forest until the soldiers were gone. The worst time was going back to your house. Not knowing if anyone would be there.”
He paused for a moment, lost in the past. “Eventually, I was the only one left. And they came for me too. But I knew the area and I had an ability with languages so I survived—but only if I worked for the people who destroyed everything I ever knew.”
“When you buried the bodies,” Smith said. “Did you look at them? What killed them?”
“Some had shaved heads and scars. Some had little holes in their skull that we didn’t understand. Others had nothing. They were just dead.”
Kyong swept an arm around the improvised graveyard. “This is what you’re looking for, Dr. Smith. This is Division D.”