Ballistic Force. Don Pendleton
and Lhe-Kan, the two women pulled their hands apart. U-Pol struggled to regain her composure, but as the prisoners resumed their march back to camp, the image of the mass grave continued to haunt her. She wept quietly, biting her knuckle each time another anguished sob swelled in her throat.
As the procession reached the camp and wound its way around the periphery fence, U-Pol and Lhe-Kan found themselves horrified anew as they were led past a spot where a young male prisoner had just made an unsuccessful escape attempt. He’d apparently made it as far as the top of the innermost fence before sentries in one of the nearby lookout towers had gunned him down, and though he’d been killed, his shirt and one of his pant legs had snagged on the thick coils of barbed wire topping the fence and he hung suspended, arms and legs pinned at an angle that made it look as if he were still alive and dancing in midair. A pair of guards had just reached the body, one carrying a ladder and bolt cutters, the other tugging at a leash to keep a full-size Rottweiler from sniffing at the pool of blood collecting on the ground directly beneath the bullet-riddled corpse.
“The third one this week!” a guard walking alongside U-Pol and Lhe-Kan said with a snicker. “You’d think they would know better by now!”
U-Pol tore her gaze from the grisly sight, blinking away a fresh flow of tears. She could hear Lhe-Kan weeping directly ahead of her, as well, but moments later the other woman’s sobbing stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and soon U-Pol saw the reason why. As they were herded through a side gate into the prison yard, she saw Lhe-Kan’s son, Rha-Tyr, standing bare-chested amid a handful of other young men who’d been given sledgehammers with which to pound away at some of the larger rocks that had just been brought down from the mines.
Rha-Tyr spotted the women in midswing and offered them a faint smile before he brought the hammer crashing down. He glanced around him, making sure that none of the guards was watching him, then gestured faintly over his shoulder. U-Pol looked past him to the side of the mountain overlooking the camp and saw the openings to several mine shafts.
“Seung-Whan and Pho-Hwa must be in the mines,” U-Pol whispered to her friend. Now that they were within the confines of the camp, the guards had moved away, leaving them free to talk.
Lhe-Kan nodded hopefully. “I told you they’d be all right,” she said.
“I don’t see my daughter anywhere,” U-Pol murmured, scanning the grounds for her daughter. Na-Li , however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe she’s already in the barracks,” Lhe-Kan suggested, indicating the flimsy structures they were heading toward.
But U-Pol had her doubts, and a quick glance inside the barracks confirmed her fears. While the others began to collapse onto the wood-planked floor, eager to escape into the clutches of sleep, she and Lhe-Kan left the barracks and continued to search the grounds. Finally, U-Pol looked past the far perimeter of the camp and saw a small bungalow resting on a knoll surrounded by trees. Judging from the condition of the structure and the surrounding landscape, U-Pol guessed it had to be the headquarters for those who ran the camp. Again she recalled the way the commandant had looked at her daughter and she began to shudder. Lhe-Kan put an arm around her and the two women dropped slowly to their knees without taking their eyes off the bungalow.
“No,” U-Pol sniffed. “Please, not my daughter…”
WHEN NA-LI awoke, hours later, the clothes she had worn to the concentration camp were missing. In their place, a pair of crude sandals lay atop a coarse muslin frock that had been placed haphazardly at the foot of the bed. As she fingered the material, she felt the urge to cry yet again, but this time the tears wouldn’t come. She dressed slowly, her body still aching.
She was slipping her feet into the sandals when the door opened. Na-Li let out an involuntary gasp and recoiled as Yulim entered the bedroom, followed by one of the guards, who was carrying two overnight bags. Na-Li recognized the bags. One belonged to her, the other to her father. The bags, along with those belonging to her mother and the Ji family, had been confiscated from the family yacht and tossed into the front cab of the truck that had brought her and the others to Changchon. She’d doubted she would ever again see her tote or the belongings it contained, and yet here they were.
“Did you sleep well?” Yulim casually asked Na-Li as he took her bag from the guard and set it on the bed.
Na-Li stared at the man, incredulous. After what he’d done to her, how could he stand there and speak to her as if he were some loving uncle checking up on a favorite niece who’d come visiting the for weekend? She tried to muster some righteous indignation, but, as with her stifled tears, she found herself unable to act on her emotions.
Yulim nudged Na-Li’s bag closer to her and zipped it open.
“Go ahead,” he encouraged her. “Everything’s there, more or less. See for yourself.”
Na-Li stared at the bag, then glanced up at Yulim.
“Why?”
Yulim smiled benevolently. “I thought there might be something you’d like to take back with you to the barracks,” he said. “You can take one item. Anything you want.”
Na-Li remained on her guard as she tentatively opened the bag and inspected its contents. Her wallet had been confiscated along with her CD player, her music and a sharp-handled comb, but otherwise, as Yulim had assured her, everything else she’d packed for the fishing trip was still there. A few days ago, if told to pick one item from the bag, she, without question, would have taken her makeup kit. In light of everything that had happened, however, the last thing she wanted was to make herself look more attractive. So, instead, she selected her charm bracelet, a cheap piece of jewelry to which, over the years, she’d attached a handful of small knick-knacks, each one reminding her of a special time in her life.
“That would have been my guess,” Yulim told her. “It has sentimental value, yes?”
Na-Li’s first instinct was to scream at the man and tell him to quit trying to be so nice to her. She wanted to damn him for the way he’d abused her and let him know that she’d overheard him conspiring with the other officer. She wanted to tell him that if was the last thing she did, she’d find a way to use that information to make him pay for what he’d done to her. Instead, however, she merely nodded demurely and closed her fingers around the bracelet.
“I can go, then?” she asked.
“Of course,” Yulim told her. He indicated the guard and said, “He’ll take you back to your family. In a moment. First we need to reach a little understanding.”
Abruptly the smile left the lieutenant corporal’s face. He reached forward and grasped Na-Li by the jaw, tilting her head upward so that she had no choice but to stare into his eyes.
“You’ll be back,” he advised her, his voice cold with menace, “and no one is to know about what goes on in this room. Is that clear?”
Na-Li’s eyes widened with fear. The way Yulim was holding her jaw, it was impossible for her to speak. All she could do was nod.
“If you talk—to anyone—I swear I’ll kill your mother and father, right in front of you,” Yulim warned. “And they’ll die slowly and they will be in great pain. Do you want that?”
Na-Li shook her head as best she could. Yulim glared at her a moment longer, then slowly removed his hand from her jaw. The smile returned to his face.
“I’m glad we understand each other,” he said. “And I look forward to our next visit.”
Na-Li felt a sickening knot in her stomach. Yulim stepped back and gestured to the guard, who, in turn, snapped his fingers and motioned for Na-Li to come with him. Trembling, the young woman followed the guard from the bedroom and through the bungalow to the front door.
Outside, the late-afternoon sun shone brightly and Na-Li had to squint as she took the first few steps down the walk leading to the camp barracks. Once her eyes had adjusted to the light, she noticed the activity in the work yard. Rha-Tyr’s back was turned to her as he hammered away at the rock pile.