by L. J. Martin
“It’s a caste system worse than India, where justice is a joke. If you are suspected of crimes against the state, not only you, but three generations of your family become guests of slave-labor camps. It’s post-revolution Russia...even worse.
“Juche is an ideology of national self-reliance, a creative application of Marxism–Leninism.
“You all know of the Korean War, when Jong-un’s granddaddy tried to re-unify the country. We interfered, and it cost us fifty-five thousand killed, and there are still eight thousand unaccounted for. There was no peace treaty and technically we and the South are still at war with the North. That’s how many we lost…more than three million Koreans and Chinese were killed.”
It’s my turn to interrupt. “Bo, do we really need a history lesson? Can’t we get to the day-to-day so we’ll know a little about what’s going on the country? I mean today—not a couple of hundred years or even a few decades ago.”
He’s looking a little frustrated, and then his tone lowers to a growl. “Reardon, I’m going in-country with you. I’d like to come back out. I could give you a semester on the bastards to the north, and you still wouldn’t know enough. This is just the icing on a ten-layer cake, and I’m going to make damn sure you know it. If your buddy here has to sit on his ass and try to figure out what we’re doing in-country, then he needs to have a basic understanding as well. We can dick around here until midnight, and you’ll still have to hit the obstacle course the instant we’re done. If I were you, I wouldn’t piss Garino and his crew off. They can be a real pain in the ass...and anywhere else you have a nerve located.”
I shrug but keep my mouth shut.
“So, you’re fully aware, NK is the most secretive and isolated country in the world. It’s known as the ‘hermit kingdom.’ They have their health problems, mostly caused by undernourishment. Blindness as a for-instance: ten times the rate of cataracts than other countries. A seven-year-old in the north averages eight inches shorter and twenty-two pounds lighter than one in the south.
“And General, or Marshal, Kim Jong-un, is a fine fellow. Since he took office, he’s killed one hundred and forty of his senior leaders, his uncle, and his half-brother.
“You all know of the demilitarized zone between the north and south. Two point five miles wide, only one million land mines.”
For five hours, he bangs away, without looking at a note.
We walk out with a smattering of every aspect of NK culture: art, music, literature, cuisine—if you can call it cuisine, as since the war. the average height of a North Korean adult is two inches shorter than a South Korean adult, thanks to a meager diet. They starved to death damn near a half million in the famine of the mid 1990s, and their policy of “military first,” or Songun as they call it, didn’t help with money and resources literally going to arms before food.
As usual with my knowledge of a foreign language before I visit a country, I can now request a bathroom or a restaurant but not cover or extra ammo. I’m not sure what I’ve learned is helpful, however....
By the time we finish, I am deeply impressed with Bo’s knowledge and am very happy he’s on our team—not to mention he’s a former SEAL, is as big as I am, is younger by at least five years, and looks like a bad ass. He’s one of those cut assholes whose muscles have muscles. Even so, I’m a little surprised when he suits up in tee shirt and shorts and heads to the obstacle course with us. But when he strips his shirt off, I can see he’s really not a guy to mess with. He’s past the point where blue veins bulge.
Rumor is, though, all SEALs—current or former—are tight lipped, Bo was on the most secretive of the teams, SEAL Team 6, and by the scars I note on his back as he changes, he tangled with lots of tangos in lots of places he won’t, can’t, talk about.
I’m surprised to see Rutgar Paddington, who I met in that hangar at Hughes Helicopter. I had no idea he was coming along. However, he’s in sport coat and slacks and is obviously not coming to do anything but watch, probably hoping to get a laugh.
The same dozen assholes who water-boarded us—we’re now cousins, and I’m wondering what it takes for two old farts, relatively, to become brothers—are awaiting our appearance, and I don’t like the grins they’re wearing.
4
Pieter De Vries reclines in his seventh-floor apartment, which, at first glance, he’d been very happy to receive as his luxury housing. He has a wonderful view and wishes the apartments had decks, so that, when the weather was good, he could sip his evening Vieux, a Dutch brandy that he is surprised to have been supplied with. The bad news is that the elevators operate only sporadically, even though Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea, is blessed with a far more consistent supply of electricity than the rest of the country.
When hired, he presumed he’d go directly to work in what he was told was NK’s domestic nuclear electric production program, but, in fact, is teaching at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, with three classes of bright young students a day and an attractive twenty-five-year-old interpreter, who, he presumes, is also paid to spy on him. Particularly after she afforded him the privilege of her body and, after two months of him being in-country, moved in with him. He is intrigued by Su-mi—“Sumi,” he calls her—and her exotic looks, and he thinks that, under different circumstances, he might love her. But it seems to him a little like loving something beautiful, like a coral snake or sleek wolf. Beautiful, but deadly.
She always smells of jasmine, and tastes like butterscotch, with skin as smooth as melted butter and eyes a very unusual color for a Korean—a deep emerald green, deeper than the finest jade.
He is seldom out of her sight as she interprets in class and lives with him, but more than once he’s set her up by leaving a small piece of paper or string in the hinge of his Apple laptop or clamped in a drawer of his desk, or in the door to the second bedroom that he uses as a study, when he knows she’d be alone in the apartment. He often takes his exercise climbing the building’s stairs at a run, and she can’t keep up, so she stays behind in the apartment.
She never lets him down, and all his personal spaces are searched each time he is away. But he cares little. She satisfies his sexual appetite and is an excellent cook.
His in-country contact is a cook at the university cafeteria. “Duri” is the only name he knows him by, a Korean who’d gone to culinary school in Santa Barbara, California, and who speaks excellent English and is, like Pieter, in the employ of the CIA.
He has three other classes each week. One, when military officers, who he presumes work in NK’s nuclear weapons program, attend a class and fire questions at him…questions he knows pertain to the military applications of his knowledge. The second is as a student, where he studies the Korean language and, in addition, where the instructor indoctrinates him in Korean lore and—this amuses him—in the bullshit surrounding the ruling Kim family. And the third is also as a student. He is learning to cook, and the only University employee qualified to teach him and who can speak English is his CIA contact, Duri. As he can’t risk having a SATphone or two-way-radio, messages must be passed mouth-to-ear or hand-to-hand if written…but that is seldom, as it’s so risky.
Just the questions asked by the military give him, and the CIA, great insight into what is underway, and most of it pertains to miniaturizing a nuclear bomb.
In addition to his salary from the Koreans, he is banking ten grand a month tax free from the CIA and has an escrow account that will convey title to the Boreal 52 when he completes two years in service. And at that time, he will no longer be in the employ of NK or the CIA. And he is looking forward to that time.
If he lives that long.
He’s only been in the presence of Kim Jong-un one time in the year he’s been in-country, and that was at a banquet celebrating the Day of the Shining Star, Kim Jong-il’s birthday, the current Dear Leader Marshal Kim’s father.
Pieter is surprised to have found the man fairly charming, with excellent English, who acts as if Pi
eter is as welcome as a sunny Spring day. Of course, he is aware of Pieter’s knowledge of nuclear fission and that he is helping with the country’s effort to become not only the fourth-largest army in the world but a nuclear power.
He is surprised and concerned when Duri informs him that he is to be in his apartment, which overlooks the Potong and, coincidentally, the Pueblo, on a given few days. He is to be home, sick, with binoculars.
He is beginning to wonder if he’ll ever man the wheel of the beautiful Boreal 52-footer.
And I thought I was in shape.
I go to the gym three to four times a week when not on an op. I do reps of ten, three times, pressing 250 pounds and the same with 400 pounds with the legs. Plus, lots of curls and other muscle-teasing exercises.
However, at the moment, I’m feeling a bit like a real pussy, as one of the SEALs lets us watch while he runs the part of the course we can see. I’m feeling like I should have been doing more aerobics. Way, way, way more aerobics.
Glancing at Pax, I can see he’s a little apprehensive as well. Saving my ass while I wandered a dirt track in Fallujah, in la la land because of a near rocket strike, Pax lost a little over an inch out of his leg and wears a lift in a shoe, thanks to an AK47. Don’t get me wrong: there’s no one I’d rather have at my back, but it is an impediment. He’s already pissed at these guys, due to their little initiation with the water buckets, and I know he won’t hesitate going for a throat if they rag him. He ain’t your normal computer geek. I’ll stick close to him, not so much as to embarrass him by outrunning him, but to keep him from starting a battle with six or sixteen hard-ass, battle-hardened kids ten years or more our juniors.
Garino strides over and gives us a nod. “You guys ever hear of BoneFrog?”
“Nope,” we both say. Then I add, “I know Bull-Frog, one of you flipper assholes with the longest time in service.”
“Not this one. Some out-of-service guys started a private company to host obstacle-course events and improved on our Coronado course…change of elevation, water and vegetation, and more. We’ve taken a page out of their book for this course. Don’t get in too big a hurry—you’ve got the better part of five hours ahead.”
“Your guy just took a few minutes—” I say, but he laughs me out.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet, sunshine. You got a long row of stumps to root up.”
“Bring it on,” Pax says, and I can see his jaw knotting.
I risk letting Pax beg off. “Hey, man, you’re going to be popping bon bons on board the home ship, so there’s no reason—”
“Fuck you,” he says and glares at me like a cobra at a mongoose, and I know it’s fist city if I press it.
Bo, our classroom instructor, sidles up beside us. “You Vegas hotshots mind if I come along for the ride?”
“We’ll hang back and make sure you’re okay,” Pax says, and I roll my eyes.
“Do that,” Bo says and flashes a grin that says something like, “Don’t hold your breath as you watch me disappear.” But he doesn’t say it; he merely chuckles.
“Let’s get her done,” I say to Garino.
“You going in those cargo pants and hikers?”
“Why not?” I say.
He digs in his pocket and pulls out a stopwatch. Before yelling “Go!” and punching it, he snaps at Bo: “You got your phone in case we need a rescue chopper?”
“Fuck, no. I’ll just bury Chee and Chong out on the course like we did the last half -dozen jarheads.”
Fifty yards away is a cargo net climb at least forty feet tall, and before we get to it, there’s a six-foot-tall log wall, and behind it a twenty-five-foot spread of water with a half-dozen logs you can use to cross—six-inch diameter logs that won’t be easy to navigate.
“Go!” Garino yells, and the other five SEALs who’ve come to chide us yell their encouragement, in the form of insults, as the three of us head for the log wall, low enough that we can reach the top and damn near vault it. I’m even with Bo as we land and both start across the water hazard on logs. I make it ten feet before I do a header into the three-foot-deep pool and hear Pax grunt behind me and his splash. By the time I’m out, Bo has a twenty-yard lead; he hits the cargo net and goes up like a chimpanzee. Glancing back, I see Pax clambering out of the pool, and, when I reach the net, I yell at him.
“A fifteen-foot fall can kill you. Fuck winning. Let’s finish in one piece.”
I’m six feet up the forty when he starts. Pax is a strong dude and can out-lift me in the gym—probably overcompensating up for the gimpy leg—and he has no trouble going up the cargo net. By the time I’m at the top and throw a leg over, he’s even with me, but Bo is on the ground. I can see him glancing back and get the feeling he’s not doing his best but, in fact, is looking out for the old guys.
We hit a series of three-foot diameter pipes, at least fifty feet of tunnel, with six inches of mud in the bottom—harder to navigate than it might sound due to the clinging mud.
As soon as we’re out there are six rope bridges, at least fifty feet across a trench, with its bottom more than six feet below; a single rope is strung up to two hand ropes on the sides. It, too, is no easy crossing…particularly when you’re gasping for breath.
There’s a two-inch-thick rope that you have to hang like a sloth from and hand-and-feet work your way across more water. Then there is a series of ropes that you use to swing over more wide trenches, and the last one is too wide to swing across and you swing out as far as possible and drop into mud at least a foot or more deep.
It’s amazing how much slogging through deep mud takes out of you.
And it goes on and on, with some repeat obstacles, some new ones, but each more and more a torture. As our part of the island is fairly flat, they’ve created forty-foot-high hillocks with a steep side either front or back. Thickets of clinging shrubs higher than our heads, with no discernible path, add interest and difficulty. We’re more than an hour into the course with at least four-mile-or-more runs between sets of obstacles. When we reach the sea, it’s nearly dark, and the floating platform three hundred yards past the low surf is lighted, so we have a target. Bo is perched on the edge of the float, his legs dangling in the water, looking like he’s at the pool at the Ritz waiting for the waiter to bring him a drink with an umbrella.
There’s a Polaris MRZR, a four-seater, off-road, UTV-type contraption parked nearby, with a 50 cal mounted on top, and four of the six SEALs who’ve been dogging us are leaning against it. Obviously, they’ve had it topped with a six-man rubber boat, an IBS, as its surf side. I guess they are there to rescue us if we don’t make the swim.
As there’s been lots of running, I must wait for Pax. The SEALs give me a condescending wave, and I salute them with the middle finger as I’m catching my breath.
Pax arrives, puffing as he laughs at me, a strained laugh but a laugh. “You resting, fat boy?”
“Yep. How’s your breast stroke?” I ask.
“I’d rather be back at the Italian Club stroking the breast of that blonde.”
“We ain’t gonna finish unless we start.” We’re both puffing pretty good.
“A hundred mile…journey begins…with the first step,” Pax gasps, and I turn and hit the surf.
As dry as my throat is, it’s salt water, and a drink is out of the question, but washing out the mouth without swallowing helps…for a short while.
It’s September, and the weather is mild, not overly hot or cold, but the Yellow Sea racks me, chilling to the bone. So I stroke with purpose, stopping only to glance over my shoulder a couple of times. My body's so hot from the run I feel like I should be steaming.
Pax is better in the water than on terra firma and damn near beats me to the raft. Neither of us are setting any records, swimming with light-but-cumbersome hiking boots and cargo pants. Thanks to the mild weather, we’re wearing muscle-fuck tee shirts, mine a “Molan Labe” 2nd Amendment promotion and Pax’s stenciled with “You make me wish I had more middle fin
gers”—a sentiment that’s applicable at the moment.
The one advantage is the water wipes away the inch of mud that’s built up on shirtfront, pants, and hikers…not to speak of face and hair.
Bo is still perched on the side, dangling his legs. “Outswam the sharks, did you,” he says and laughs.
“So far,” I offer.
“Fuck the sharks,” Pax says, but he’s puffing pretty good, his voice raspy.
“Let’s take a blow,” Bo suggests, and I know it’s on our account, as he’s been resting.
“Too friggin’ cold,” I say. “We’re okay…right, Pax man?”
“I’d rather be beating the water than having my teeth rattle.”
I turn to Bo. “In case we beat you back, which way?”
“Not likely, but we reverse the course and go back the way we came. It’s equal fun both ways.”
“Lead the way, leatherneck,” I say to Pax, and he hits the water and strokes out.
The SEALs have turned on the lights of the MRZR so we have a beacon, as the sun’s well down.
It seems a hell of a lot farther going back than it did coming, and it seemed a hell of a long way coming.
Garino is waiting in a lawn chair under a mercury lamp, a can of Coke in hand—I’m sure just to add insult to injury. Bo has stayed with us all the way back, and we finish side by side. The last mile run was more of a trot, but we made it.
Both of us now have our hands on our knees, and I don’t know about Pax, but I’m nearly puking.
“Five hours. Not bad for civilians,” Garino says. Then he adds, “Chow?”
“Fucking A,” Pax says, but his tone is not as sassy as his words. “I can…eat the ass…out of a skunk.”
All I can think about is the sack, but I’m not about to tell these guys that. And I learned a long time ago that, when you’re under pressure, you need to hydrate and calorie up when possible.