by Terry Toler
“I don’t know anything about a bag,” her mom said.
“Ka-bang,” he shouted, grabbing her mom’s hair.
“Dowa juda,” her mom cried. Her cry of please didn’t faze them. “Dowa juda,” she said again with even more urgency. Her mother was crying for help.
Bae crawled back to her room. The men wanted her satchel. She’d give it to them.
She grabbed it off the desk. It made her pause. The papers from the satchel had been thrown in the trash can. They were long gone. The flash drive was still in it, along with her computer. She started to unzip the bag to take out the laptop.
Before she could, she heard her dad’s voice. He was shouting at the men.
An explosion of sound ripped through the house.
A crack like a firecracker went off, echoing off the ceiling of the hallway and into Bae’s room. She let out a muted yell as she tried to scream but couldn’t force the air out of her lungs.
“Mom!” she said under her breath, not wanting to give away her position.
Bae ran out the door of her bedroom to the railing and peered over it again, this time from a standing position. She saw her mom lying on the ground. Her body contorted in an unnatural position. Blood was in a pool coming from her head.
A sudden rush of air-filled Bae’s lungs in the form of a gasp. The urge to let it all out at once in a scream was so intense that Bae had to put her hand over her mouth to prevent it. The sight of her mother laying on the floor motionless, caused tears to fill her eyes so quickly, her vision blurred.
A pain shot through her heart like she’d been stabbed with a knife. Grief, fear, and anger were all at once competing for dominance. Grief was winning to the point that she was paralyzed and unable to move.
Her dad’s scream brought her back to reality. The men were down the hallway out of her sight. They were shouting at her father. He was shouting back. A scuffle ensued. She could hear what she thought was her father being thrown to the ground. He was no match for the two huge men.
She had the satchel in her hand. The realization hit her that it wouldn’t make any difference. They were there to kill them all and take the satchel.
Dad.
She heard him beg for his life.
Indecision came over her. She carefully sneaked down two stairs and leaned over the rail so she could see what was happening.
Her dad lay on the ground. The men stood over him. Their eyes met. Bae tried to block out the image of her dead mother from the scene and focus her eyes on her dad.
“Ka-bang,” the man said to her dad roughly.
Her dad began to sob. He pleaded with the men to not harm his daughter. But they didn’t understand him, and he didn’t know what they were saying. She turned her head away, not able to bear to look at the scene unfolding before her.
This was a nightmare. She wished she were dreaming.
If Bae took the bag down there, they would all die. Maybe she could use it as a trade. That was foolish. They’d overpower her in a second. The only way to stay alive was to leave there with the bag.
“Geoeol,” one of the men said roughly to her dad. “Girl,” he was saying. He wanted her dad to tell him where she was. How did they know about me? Somehow, they knew she’d stolen the satchel.
“Bae! Run for your life,” her dad shouted catching her eye again.
One of the men raised his hand above his head and brought it down violently against her dad’s face.
Bae scurried back up the stairs. She didn’t see the blow but heard her dad cry out in pain.
“Geoeol! Ka-bang! Geoeol! Ka-bang!” The man kept shouting the words, alternating between girl and bag. Bae knew what he wanted. The impulse was to run down there and give it to them, but her dad’s next words stopped her.
“Save yourself, Bae. Run. Take my bike.”
Bae ran back to her room and closed the door. The shouting downstairs intensified. She clutched the satchel in her hand, unable to fathom that the bag had caused so much pain and destruction to her family. Anger flooded into her like a tsunami.
I will not give it to them.
She put the satchel on her back, went to the closet, and slipped on her shoes. The window was still open, and she was through it and down the side of the two-story house in seconds. She’d done it many times, sneaking out at night to steal backpacks.
A muffled sound came from the house. It sounded like the branch of a tree snapping.
Was it a gunshot?
The men were no longer shouting at her dad. She strained to hear her dad’s voice.
Nothing.
A sudden eerie silence.
The reality hit her with the force of a truck slamming into her at full speed. Her dad was dead. He had to be. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in her room. A man stuck half his body out of the window and looked around. She hid behind a bush.
The man went back inside as Bae let out a slight yelp and used the opportunity to run around to the front of the house to the driveway where both of the motorbikes still sat. Her dad told her to take his. She’d only ridden it once. Hers was more familiar, but not as fast. Her dad was right. His bike would get her away from the house faster.
His helmet wouldn’t fit so she had the presence of mind to grab hers and slip it over her head before mounting his bike. She tried to straddle it but was in the wrong position. It was too heavy for her. Maybe it had been a mistake to take his bike.
The second time was easier. Bae reached over and grabbed the right handle with her right hand. With her knees bent slightly to gain more leverage, she kicked her right leg high over the side, until she was in the right position on the unfamiliar bike. It almost fell over as she struggled to hold the added weight upright. It would’ve if not for the kickstand.
Her legs barely reached the ground. Leaving the kickstand in place, she was able to steady the bike while she started it.
The motorcycle had a start button which she fumbled to find. Bae’s hands were shaking so hard she had to force them to steady. Finding the button, the bike roared to life as soon as she pushed it. Her right wrist twisted to rev the engine to warm it.
With her left foot she steadied the bike leaning it slightly while she kicked up the stand with her right foot. At the same time, she pulled the clutch lever, pressed the shifter down to first gear, and released the clutch slowly while gently twisting the throttle, careful not to stall the engine.
Even though the bike was started didn’t mean she could keep it upright. So many things could go wrong. The bike could topple over from the weight. She could stall the engine. Giving it too much power could cause her to veer out of control.
The men inside, no doubt, heard the sound of the bike starting and would be out of the house in no time. There was no time for her to go to her bike.
Making her dad’s bike work was her only option.
Bae twisted her wrist, giving the motorcycle gas. The bike started to move. This was the critical time as a motorcycle doesn’t start out in a straight line. She had to get the speed up fast enough to where counter steering would keep the machine upright. Immediately the machine’s added power reverberated through her hands as the machine responded to the commands of her right hand that controlled the throttle.
Even over the sound of the roar of the engine, she could hear the shouts behind her along with several popping sounds. That caused her to let out a squeal muted by the helmet.
They were shooting at her!
A bullet clanged off what sounded like the back fender. Several whizzed past, making a strange sound like a wasp buzzing around her head. Rocks and dirt skipped up off the ground. She hit the throttle harder, and the bike responded to her command, immediately giving her more speed. So much that she almost didn’t make the first curve.
The back wheel slid to her left and it took all her strength to hold the steering into the slide. She came precariously close to the ditch, but the bike straightened at just the last moment before she would’ve crashed
. The next section was straight, so she gunned it even though she was going downhill. The forest alongside the road was like a blur out of the side of her helmet as it flashed by.
At the next steep curve, Bae slowed considerably to make sure she maneuvered it safely. Over the next two miles, she skillfully steered the bike down the mountain, avoiding the potholes, taking the corners with more speed as she became more comfortable.
Her eyes were filled with tears. So much so that it blurred her vision again which was the biggest problem she suddenly faced. Bae didn’t dare take her hand off the wheel to lift her visor to wipe them off.
So, she tried to fight them back.
At the bottom of the mountain, she reached the T in the road. The same spot she’d seen the two men earlier. She should’ve told her dad everything at the ice cream shop. Maybe he could’ve protected them.
Too late now.
Bae looked in both directions. Not for other cars, but unsure which way to go. A turn to the right led her out into the country, away from the city. There were many places to hide. But the roads weren’t maintained properly, and there were no people around.
She remembered the mistake she made with the man at the restaurant. Going up on the mountain rather than staying down around the shops. When she made that decision, she was alone with him. There was no help around. Had she stayed on the boardwalk, she may have been able to get someone to help her. The man wouldn’t have wielded a gun with other people around.
So, she turned to the left. Back toward the city. The roads were better. There were people there who could help her. She could go to the police.
Could she?
“Never trust the police,” her dad’s words echoed in her ear.
It created confusion in her. She’d just seen her parents murdered in cold blood. But she stole the satchel. The men would get arrested but so would she. The police might even blame her for her parent’s death.
It was risky.
Still, she was sure she made the right decision. Going back toward the city was the safest thing to do. The men might not be able to find her in the maze of streets. Hopefully, she had enough of a head start to where they could never find her.
Where would she go? What would she do? Who would help her? Her mom’s family?
All of that would have to be sorted out later.
She gunned the motorcycle and sped away from the intersection. Just as she did, the two men pulled up to the same intersection. A few seconds later and she would’ve been out of their line of sight.
They turned left. In the same direction.
Bae let out a scream. She twisted the throttle and the motorcycle jumped. The front tire came off the ground slightly.
She looked down at the speedometer.
70. 80. 90.
Too fast. She looked in her rearview mirror.
Not fast enough. The men were still gaining on her.
17
The longer the chase went on, the more comfortable Bae felt on the bike. Even to the point that she began trying evasive moves to lose the men. A couple times, she almost did lose them.
Something her dad said when they were having ice cream came back in her mind. Motorcycles can go places that cars can’t.
Wonsan had many places a bike could go that a car couldn’t. The streets of Wonsan scrolled through her mind like a movie as she tried to picture the many curves and turns and figure out which one would be best. The boardwalk was the obvious one, but there were too many people around. Theoretically, the men in the car could drive on the boardwalk. They seemed desperate enough to follow her anywhere.
Seconds before, she took them down a one-way street, and they didn’t hesitate to follow her. There weren’t any cars coming, and they navigated the road safely only having to dodge one car. That was part of the problem. There was little to no traffic on the streets. She recently read on the internet that there were only 300,000 cars in all of North Korea. Most were owned by the government. The police force had some cars as did the army. About ten percent were owned by civilians. The elite mostly. Her family had one car and two bikes which was more than most.
Most people took public transportation, which left the streets mostly bare.
She muttered her frustration to herself. Had there been more cars on the road, she could have weaved in and out of traffic and lost them in the maze of vehicles. The best scenario would be a traffic jam. A motorcycle could maneuver between the line of stopped cars and leave the men behind.
Bae tried several things to shake them, even driving on the sidewalk at one point, but the men matched her every move. The lights were an opportunity to make an evasive move, but the rare times one was red, the men followed her through without hesitation.
The satchel was still on her back. Bae considered throwing it to the ground. But something of tremendous value was in that bag. Her parents had died for what was in there. She wouldn’t give it up easily. In fact, she was ready to throw caution to the wind. What did she have to lose? With her parents gone, what was there to live for? She would become a slave of the state, forced into child labor camps by the regime. A fate worse than death.
With her mother dead, she’d lose her status with the regime. She’d never get into spy school now. The only thing willing her to live was revenge. These men would pay. She didn’t know how. But she had something valuable in the bag that they wanted, and she was determined to keep it from them.
So, the cat and mouse would continue a little longer.
It would be over when she said it was over. On her terms. They might catch her. Probably would. But she wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
***
The ride from the North Korean cyber lab to Wonsan was a good two hours. Over rough and hilly roads. My back hurt from the uncomfortable position I was forced to lay in. The guards at the cyber lab had thrown me into the back of a van with my hands cuffed behind me. My pleas for them to cuff my hands from the front fell on deaf ears. I knew the ride would be uncomfortable.
I’d seen many action movie heroes in a similar situation. The depictions were unrealistic. In a movie, the CIA operative would open the back door, jump out the back of the van, and roll on the ground. Then take off running without even a scratch from the fall.
That didn’t happen in real life. If I went flying out of the van, even at a low speed of thirty miles an hour, landing on the hard surface of the road would be painful and debilitating if I weren’t killed outright. I was crazy enough to do it, but wise enough to know that my MSO was just slightly above zero. And we weren’t traveling thirty miles an hour. We were doing at least sixty. I wished they’d slow down. The bumpy road was infuriating me by the minute.
The second option in movie escape scenes was even more unrealistic. In the same position, James Bond, or some other notable spy would commandeer a weapon from one of the guards in the back seat and then shoot the driver. I had no doubt that I could do that very thing. I could free my hands, surprise the three guards in the back, who were totally clueless, take one of their weapons, aim and fire, and the driver’s brains would be splattered on the windshield.
A scenario I’d seen many times in the movie and could picture in my mind.
Then what?
The van would veer out of control and crash with no one driving it, but I didn’t have a seat belt on. What were my chances of survival from slamming into a tree, an embankment, or another car? If we rolled over, I’d be flung around the inside of the van like a crash dummy. If I survived the crash, so would one or more of the guards. The weapons would be thrown around the van. Who knew which one of us would retrieve a weapon the soonest?
The best solution was to wait until the van stopped and I was safely out and on solid ground. Not that my options were that much better. If the men were unarmed, beating them up and disarming them would be much easier. Taking out five without one of them getting off a shot was highly unlikely. They were each carrying assault weapons which could shoot thirty rounds in a cou
ple seconds.
While a movie star can be shot at a thousand times and never be hit once, it didn’t work that way in real life. Even an idiot firing an assault rifle will hit something if only by sheer numbers.
At least, thinking about those options was making the tedious ride go faster. And it took my mind off the utter failure of my mission. Pok had gotten the best of me. He tricked me from the beginning. I don’t know why I fell for it. The first thing I was going to do when I got rid of the guards, was go back to the lab and set things right. Pok would pay with his life.
Even more importantly, I had to figure out a way to disarm the computer before they could infiltrate the CIA system. Thirty-six hours was about how much time I figured I had.
City lights suddenly came into view.
Another option formed in my mind.
We were approaching Wonsan. Almost certainly, I was being taken to a local police station. From my memory, it would be a small hole in the wall, a makeshift house with one, maybe two, cells at the most. Being the weekend, if I were lucky, there’d only be one guard. With a handgun strapped to his side. Poorly trained.
That’s where everyone was initially processed. Even political prisoners. People arrested didn’t stay there long. The next day, the secret police would come and take me away for interrogation. Maybe on Monday since it was the weekend, although North Koreans didn’t observe the Sabbath. Most were atheist. Sunday was like any other day, but some still took it as their day off.
After a lengthy and painful interrogation, a judge would find me guilty of espionage, and I’d be sent to one of the notorious prison camps which were numbered. Camp 22 or 25 would be most likely. They held the “enemies of the state.” More than 50,000 people were housed in those camps. Very few were foreigners. Who, besides me, was stupid enough to conduct an espionage operation in North Korea? Most of the prisons were filled with locals who made some kind of misstep.
Truthfully, I didn’t know where they’d send me. No American spies that I knew of were ever captured. Until now. Something I wasn’t proud to admit.