by Glen Robins
His deportment improved somewhat as our conversation went on, as I had hoped it would. However, no useful information came, no clues, no big picture sketch during any of his diatribes. Each question was answered with more of the same berating of our culture and lifestyle, but without the answers I needed. He didn’t know how to defuse the bomb. He didn’t even know where or how or if his partner had succeeded in stowing it on the plane. That much I believed. But when I questioned him about the other operatives and where they were and what roles they played, he got cagey. When I asked about who the mastermind was, his eyes darted almost imperceptibly. When I demanded answers about how to find those who might know, he repeated that he knew nothing more.
I didn’t believe those parts. Maybe he didn’t know everything I wanted to know, but he knew more than he was telling me. With each non-answer and with each phony line, I grew more impatient. The vision of those two eight-year-olds with their innocent smiles and playful laughs haunted me. I was letting them down and this man was sentencing them to destruction.
I leapt to my feet and approached the bars, grabbing two of them and glaring at Mr. Lee.
Lewis and Robinson had left us alone, ostensibly because they couldn’t understand the conversation. I suspected they were monitoring things through the tiny camera in the upper corner of the room. My suspicions were confirmed when they barged into the room. Lewis walked straight toward me. I let go of the bars and took a step back.
“Mr. Lee,” Robinson announced. “You are free to go.”
I protested, the anger rising to new levels. Lewis stared down at me as he positioned himself to box me into the corner.
“We don’t have sufficient evidence to hold him any longer. I’m sorry.”
“But what about—”
Robinson shot me a look that froze me. It was the look a wolf gives one of his packmates as he takes his position in the enclosing circle.
The two MP’s entered the room and unlocked Mr. Lee’s cell and escorted him out of the room. Lewis, with his intimidating glare, gave me the willies, even though I knew what was going on. I didn’t really have to act. My nervousness was genuine. Once the MPs had opened the cell and marched Mr. Lee out of there, Lewis cracked a fiendish smile and winked at me. His demeanor up to that point was convincing. I acted like I wanted to fight through his blockade to get to Mr. Lee, but Lewis’ meaty paw held me in place. Lee shot me a contemptuous, gloating look of victory as he practically bounced out of the room. The MPs escorted him to his car and waited for him to get in and start the engine. A Humvee blocked him from being able to turn right and head north, back into the US, then followed him as he turned south toward the border crossing station.
I was exhausted and irritated that I couldn’t get him to speak, that we had to resort to this kind of trickery. It wasn’t foolproof. None of us knew whether this ruse would work as we hoped. “How long till they pull him out, do you think? That guy is our only link to finding a way to save those passengers.”
Robinson and Lewis exchanged a glance, then Robinson spoke. “Your guy is being very resistant with you. I bet he won’t be so tough after an hour or two in there.” He pointed over his shoulder toward the Mexican side of Tecate.
“Just watch,” Lewis said. “His whole attitude will be different when we get him back here.” His deep baritone voice and his in-control manner soothed my rankled nerves and made me feel like less of a failure.
The three of us navigated through the hallways until we stood near the glass entrance doors of the station and watched Mr. Lee’s taillights as he reached the front of the line, which was now much shorter.
In the twilight, it was difficult to make out what was happening. Lewis held a miniature pair of binoculars to his eyes, pinching them between his long forefinger and thumb like a toddler holding a piece of candy. He called out the play-by-play.
“He’s handing over his documents now. The guard is leafing through the passport, handing it back. OK, he’s through.”
I could just make out the gray car sliding past the guard station. As soon as Mr. Lee rolled onto Mexican soil, two motorcycle cops pulled out in formation, lights ablaze. One whizzed around to the front of Mr. Lee’s Ford Focus and the other stayed in the rear. Halfway down the block, two more joined the convoy, taking up positions on either side of the small gray sedan.
The three of us watched as he got out of the car, hands waving in exasperation. He yelled in protest, but that only got him a gun pointed at his face and some rough handling as he was body-slammed against the hood of the car and cuffed.
Lewis handed me the binoculars. It was a pitiful sight, really. Nothing, it seemed, would go right for Mr. Lee that day and his expression showed how mystified he was.
“Let’s see how Mr. Lee likes Mexican prisons,” said Lewis. “Chances are, he’ll be begging to take your deal and spill his guts. Give it an hour or two.”
My reaction was one I wish I didn’t relish so much. It’s deplorable to wish atrocities upon another human. But that man was a major conspirator in a plot to kill hundreds of my countrymen, including my young students, and disrupt the delicate balance of power in an already tenuous region of the world. Who knew what would happen on the world stage if that plane blew up? He had brought what was coming upon himself.
“He’ll be in that Tecate prison just long enough to get a taste for what his new life would be like.” Robinson was matter of fact about it. “Sergeant Lewis’ Mexican counterpart promised to keep an eye on things once Mr. Lee is in his custody to make sure he is primed but not seriously injured. Then, we’ll go in and give him another chance to cooperate, dangling the carrot of extradition to the United States with the possibility of a reduced sentence for good behavior. What do you think about that?”
“I have never wanted something so devious to work in my favor more than this.” We were in unchartered territory, looking to solve a major homicide before it happened using the one and only piece of evidence we had time to collect. We were using dubious means to reach the only acceptable outcome.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have time to wait until later tonight, when things promise to get really interesting,” Lewis said. “But I would imagine that he’ll get a pretty good idea how bad it can get during his brief stay.”
A prisoner transport van arrived moments later, and we watched poor Mr. Lee get hauled off by the Mexican cops.
Robinson’s phone rang in this pocket. As he listened, his facial features hardened, and his eyes squinted. “That’s not good,” he said. “I can’t believe a man like that wasn’t stopped and questioned.” He listened for a moment. “That’s true…but still.” Another pause to listen. “Talk to everyone. Every ticket counter agent in that terminal and at every gate. Ask every security guard, TSA agent, baggage handler, shopkeeper, hell, question every janitor on staff. Someone must have seen this guy. We have to know where he went.”
“What’s going on?” I said.
“The bigger guy you beat up—there’s a glimpse of him on one of the cameras in the baggage loading area. He’s hobbling, dragging a bag that appears to be really heavy, just like you said, one arm tied or taped to his body.” His face was contorted in disbelief.
“What’s wrong?”
“This guy with the busted arm is nosing around near the landing gear and no one stopped him because he’s shining a flashlight and is wearing a grounds crew uniform. Then he disappears and so does his bag. He’s gone. Just like that.”
“What do you mean, he’s gone?”
“I mean, he disappeared. Or, more accurately, two minutes’ worth of recording disappears. Yeah, a two-minute gap. Enough to climb up into the wheel well with the bag. And nobody saw anything. Unbelievable.”
“What’s the time stamp on the video?”
“1:17 p.m. Then it jumps to 1:19, just like that.” Robinson snapped his fingers, still shaking his head.
“What time did flight 134 actually take off?” I asked.
Robinson tappe
d his screen several times in rapid succession. “1:44. Almost two hours behind schedule.” He tapped some more and put the phone to his ear and turned away for a moment. When he finished the call, a ding on his phone announced an incoming message. “OK,” said Robinson as he opened the picture. “Here it is. Do you recognize this guy?”
He turned his phone to me and played a short video clip. I saw, clear as day, the big guy’s face, twisted with pain as he shuffled along, dragging the same weighty black bag I had seen earlier. I had to tip my cap to their notion of bravery and loyalty. It far exceeded that of the common man. “Holy cow. That’s him. This is unbelievable. I shattered this guy’s elbow and destroyed his solar plexus. How is he able to even move?”
Robinson, a grim expression shadowing his face, answered. “Good question. This is all we have. These thirteen seconds.”
I turned back to where Mr. Lee had been arrested. The van was just pulling away from the curb. I had maybe two hours to prepare myself to make the most of my next meeting with him. Those two hours would be like an eternity knowing what hung in the balance.
Chapter 27
Procuraduria General de la Republica, Tecate, Mexico
June 5, 9:51 p.m.
The sharp report of a club banging against the metal bars erupted, pulling Yong Byun back into the moment. Voices barked out commands. The kicking stopped. The men around him froze. Keys jangled and the bars of the jail cell rattled as the door slid open. Angry shouts of authoritative voices echoed against the cinder block walls and the concrete floor, just inches from his ear.
The startling noises were the sounds of salvation.
“Get back. Let me through.” There were several voices, each calling out similar orders. “Get back, I say. Make room.”
A strong hand pulled on his shoulder, rolling him onto his back. Yong Byun opened his eyes to see the concerned face of a uniformed officer who knelt over him, checking his eyes as he held Yong Byun’s jaw. Three other officers pushed the crowd away. A sea of demonic, grungy faces peered at him through squinted eyes.
A wave of relief flooded Yong Byun’s mind and body as the man said, “Come on, hurry. Get up. You’re coming with us.”
Yong Byun didn’t care who this new officer was or where he was taking him. He just wanted out of this hellhole. Things had not gone well during his short stay in the Tecate prison, and he knew they would have gotten much worse had these guards not shown up.
Two of the officers pulled him to his feet and steadied him while the others continued to hold back the angry mob. The evil intent in these men’s eyes gave him the shivers. His imagination was conjuring up increasingly frightening scenarios, one after another. Hard as it was to envision, he felt it was only a matter of time before he was forced into far worse punishment than what he had just received. Staggering, he gladly obeyed the man who had pulled him out of the crowd. The cell door clanged shut behind him as one officer led the way, and another pushed him from behind.
The shouting continued. His cellmates complaining and the guards rebuking. Yong Byun’s head felt like it was full of rice, heavy and thick and discombobulated. A coppery taste stung the insides of his mouth. He coughed out his own blood onto the sleeve of his shirt, which was already wet. The stink of it made him queasy.
Jeers and catcalls abounded as he was led away. Every derisive and foul Spanish insult Yong Byun knew assailed him. He guessed that the words he didn’t know were equally as abusive.
Even in his darkest imagination, Yong Byun had never pictured spending time in a place so horrific and so full of the depraved. The smell alone had almost been enough to make him vomit. And the body cavity search conducted by the jailhouse staff as he was booked on charges he didn’t understand was a level of humiliation he had never before endured.
His first experience being arrested was a new low for him. But things only went downhill from there. An hour in lock-up with a cross section of humanity he didn’t know existed had shaken him to his very core. His sense of security in the world had been ground to dust.
He had no clue what would happen next. And he didn’t care, so long has he didn’t have to return to pit from which he had just been rescued.
“The Attorney General fears you won’t survive the night,” said Lieutenant Hector Suarez, after introducing himself. He and the other three officers and Yong Byun had entered a corridor that was sealed off by solid doors that unlocked as they approached and locked as soon as they closed behind the group. The seven-meter-long corridor was dark, illuminated by a single low-wattage bulb shrouded in a steel cage fifteen feet over head. He spoke English slowly and clearly so Yong Byun could understand.
Yong Byun, whose eyes were as large as saucers and whose face was bloodied and bruised, simply acknowledged the comment by saying, “OK.”
The grungy walls with their dark stains streaking down from the ceiling seemed to absorb every ounce of light and hope in the area. They entered a chamber with sealed doors on all four sides. Suarez snapped steel handcuffs around Yong Byun’s wrists as he pulled his arms one at a time behind his back, then pushed a button. A second later, a latch clicked, and Suarez opened the door in front of him.
“You are being transferred to protective custody at the Attorney General’s Office,” Suarez continued as they moved through the next set of locked steel doors. Each passage brought them to a slightly less dank and gloomy hallway where the population looked less animal-like and marginally more civilized. Nonetheless, hoots and taunts and whistles assaulted his already-over-wrought senses. The nausea still threatened as he stumbled forward on unsteady legs.
At long last, they ascended a steel staircase tucked into a corner and entered a room that was fully lit and that had windows. Yong Byun caught his reflection against one of the panes of glass. An Asian man who, underneath the emerging bruises, looked white as a ghost stared back at him. He faltered as two new officers appeared from behind a closed door to his right. It opened to the outside. Each grabbed one of his elbows, muttered to the men who had escorted him, and half-dragged him out of the building and into a waiting panel van with police insignia stamped on the side. The two back doors yawed open, waiting for him. Suarez followed and closed the back doors once Yong Byun was secured to a steel bench along one side of the van. The two beefy officers sat facing him on the opposite side.
The process was reversed a few minutes later, after a bumpy ride full of twists and turns. Suarez swung the rear doors wide, hopped down to the ground, surveyed his surroundings, and motioned for the others to follow. He watched with curiosity as Yong Byun was man-handled out of the vehicle, up four steps and into a stucco building freshly painted the color of creamed coffee.
Once inside the building, Suarez switched to Spanish since Yong Byun had indicated he could speak his language, but he kept it simple and slow as he addressed another uniformed officer at the counter behind the small square of bullet-proof glass halfway up the wall. Suarez glanced occasionally at Yong Byun as he spoke through the speaker in the window. “The Americans will be here shortly. There is some confusion regarding this man’s arrest warrant. They say the charges pending in their country are far more serious than the ones in this country,” Suarez said with a shrug to the officer on watch, an employee of the court rather than the police department. “They believe they have first right of conviction. We’ll see if that is the case. I’m turning him over to you for processing. He is not to be released until the Attorney General authorizes it. Understood? The Americans will be here to question him in just a few minutes, they said.”
Kim Yong Byun understood most of what was said, enough to know that it was possible he could return to the United States. While this provided him little comfort, he was glad, nonetheless. The brutality he had endured over the past hour was enough for an entire lifetime.
Suarez led him into a small room. Behind a set of bars, a simple mattress with a clean sheet, a steel toilet, and a steel sink looked inviting in comparison to where he had been.
Unfathomable as it may have been to him even hours prior, Yong Byun was happy to be locked away safely in this new cell.
Chapter 28
Ministry of National Defense, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea
June 6, 1:58 p.m.; June 5, 9:58 p.m. California Time
General Noh Tae Seong stood in front of a plate glass window in his office, overlooking the rows of cherry blossom trees that lined the perimeter wall of the National Defense Ministry’s compound. The splendor of their blooms long gone, their spectacular annual apogee nothing more than a memory. The locals, as well as tourists from around the world, gathered each Spring to celebrate the vibrant colors and sweet fragrance that only lasted a few days.
Similarly, General Noh had experienced a glorious Spring, polling higher than any other potential candidate and garnering public support for his sustainable peace plan. His campaign would tout maintaining peak military readiness while building a strong economy to bring continued prosperity for every South Korean. That message resonated with the majority of voters. Recent tensions with the North had rattled many. General Noh had been the official spokesperson for the military during the crisis, assuring the public that their troops were well trained, equipped with the latest military technology, and perfectly positioned to thwart the enemy, should they attack. Aided by video clips from the recent joint military exercises with U.S. troops, his popularity and public image were at an all-time high, a perfect backdrop to announce one’s candidacy.