by Mike Ramon
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kusong, North Korea
June 8 -- 10:51 UTC/7:51 pm local time
In truth Greg Toland didn’t understand why the North Koreans had taken such pains to bring him to them. They already knew how to make their weapons, and they had already made at least a couple dozen from what he understood. The only thing he could figure is that they needed him in case they decided to modify the weapon, and therefore had a need for a change in its design, but even then he did not think he was the man they really needed. Perhaps, he thought, he would never fully understand any of what happened.
His days consisted of waking at the crack of dawn, not because he was naturally an early riser, but because that was when the guards would start banging on the steel door of not only his cell, but all of the others. It was the day after he had arrived that he came to realize that he was not the only prisoner being kept at the facility. There were others--other physicists, engineers, manual laborers. They had all been brought there for a reason, and they all had a purpose.
The manual laborers (who Greg had come to think of as the “worker bees”) were mostly native North Koreans, peasants who had been lured away from their hometowns with the promise of work, only to be taken prisoner and kept alive on a starvation ration of cold rice, stale bread and cloudy water.
As for the VIPs (as Toland had come to think of himself and the other educated men who had been brought to that place for reasons other than brute labor), there were no North Koreans; this group was comprise primarily of men from South Korea, China and Japan, along with one Frenchman who didn’t talk much. Toland was the only American. This lot was spoiled when it came to food. They were given the same cold rice, stale bread and cloudy water; they just got more of it.
The weapons--which their captors referred to as Fireblossoms--were constructed with great care in a large, factory-sized sealed room that had its own air supply. When not at work the prisoners were sent back to their rooms to while away the lonely, quiet hours. The exception was an hour-long period every evening when they were allowed to gather together in a cramped common hall. Greg wasn’t sure why they were allowed this small concession; he thought perhaps their captors fancied themselves merciful.
When they gathered in the hall the worker bees and the VIPs generally stayed apart, huddling together on different sides of the room. This was not something that was enforced by the guards, but just a natural segregation that had been in place since long before Greg Toland had shown up. At times the North Korean laborers seemed a little frightened of most of the foreigners, and downright hostile to the South Koreans.
Now, with just few minutes left of one of these daily gatherings, Greg listened as two of the South Koreans spoke to each other in their own tongue; they appeared to be caught up in a conversation of some import, though Greg didn’t understand a word of it.
Wong, a Chinese national, sidled up to Greg.
“I would do anything for a cigarette,” Wong said. “How about you? Do you smoke?”
“No; never have.”
“I started smoking when I was fourteen. I’m not picky; I would smoke just about any brand if they would just give it to me. I know they have cigarettes; I can smell it coming in under my door at night when the guards smoke in the halls. I think they may smoke near my door purposely, just to torture me.”
“I don’t know about that,” Greg said. “I don’t think they care enough about any of us to go out of their way to mess with our heads.”
“Perhaps you are right.”
The South Koreans finished their conversation as one of them walked away from the other, obviously displeased with the outcome of their talk. On the other side of the room several of the worker bees erupted into a fit of laughter at something one of them had said. Laughter wasn’t something one heard often in this place.
This was how it usually was for Greg. He didn’t talk much with the others, but he relished the feeling of having others around him, their voices joining together. He liked listening to the conversations and the jokes, even when he didn’t understand any of it. It was much more preferable than the quiet hours behind a steel door, or the hours of work, when conversation among the prisoners was frowned upon if not forbidden outright.
Wong scratched his neck.
“I think I have a rash,” he said. “Can you tell me if my neck looks red?”
Greg took a look at the man’s neck.
“Nope,” he said. “No rash that I can see.”
“It feels like a rash,” Wong insisted, scratching the same spot again.
There was no clock, and Greg had no watch, but he felt that their little group would soon be broken up, the prisoners taken back to their cells in twos and threes. Then there would be the silence, the wait for the lights to be turned off by some unseen hand, and fitful sleep.
“I was friends with you predecessor, you know,” Wong said.
The man had spoken the words quietly, as if he were afraid of being overheard.
“What do you mean?” Greg asked, also keeping his voice low.
“The man who had your place here before you,” Wong said. “He was a good man. A brilliant man.”
“What happened to him?”
“He did not adjust well to captivity. It was very hard for him. He got depressed, and it kept getting worse. Eventually he refused to work, to eat, everything. Even beatings could not get him to comply, even to feed himself. One day they took him away, and we never saw him again. I believe he is dead.”
Greg said nothing. He knew the man was right. He felt sorry for this man, his predecessor, who he didn’t even know.
“I overheard one of the guards saying that Viper will be visiting in a few days,” Wong said conspiratorially.
“Who is Viper?”
“I’m not certain, but when he has visited before, Adder has always treated him like he is some sort of big shot. You know what I think?”
Here Wong looked around to see if any of the guards were watching or listening.
“I think he might by the big boss,” Wong finished.
The guards started shouting. Greg didn’t understand the language, but knew from experience that the prisoners were being told that time was up and they had to return to their cells.
“What was his name?” Greg asked quietly as two guards rounded up a few of the North Korean worker bees and headed away with them.
“Who?” Wong asked.
“That man you call my predecessor.”
“His name was Shen Dao,” Wong replied. “But we called him Father Dragon.”
But Toland was barely listening to the reply. One thought resounded in his head: in a few days a man called Viper was going to be there. And this man, just maybe, was the leader of the group that had kidnapped him.