The Target

by David Baldacci

  time at the camp. To survive the camp took herculean toughness. But that was not enough. To survive the camp and keep your human spirit, your belly fire, was nearly impossible. She had accomplished the impossible. And to survive the camp one had to think ten moves ahead. She had become adept at that. The same held true for the martial arts. She not only outfought her opponents, she outthought them as well.

  Her department had spent much time and money in developing her ability to attack superior numbers and come away victorious. It was a combination of original tactics, superlative fighting skills, and the ability to assess and take risks, often turning a disadvantage into an advantage. She had shown that when confronted with the administrator and the prison guards. She had turned the strengths of her opponents into weaknesses and she had never stopped moving or fighting. It was as if her mind and her body were a single unit.

  She returned to her apartment tired, but satisfied that her skill level remained undiminished. She was aware that with the upcoming mission she would be pitted against the best security detail in the world. She knew that the U.S. Secret Service was widely regarded as invincible, all agents willing to die to protect whomever they were guarding. But they had lost protectees in the past, so they weren’t infallible. Still, it would probably be her greatest challenge.

  She ate her rice and drank her tea and listened to country music on the iPod that the Supreme Leader had given her. She looked out the window for the man who had been there every day. He was still there. It was as though he didn’t care now if she knew he was there or not. That actually said a lot to her.

  In North Korea it was said that alliances were as fragile as ice on a hot day.

  She left her apartment and got into her car. It was ten years old but still serviceable. And it was hers. Until they took it away, which they could at any time. And depending on how the next mission turned out, that time might soon be coming.

  She drove out of Pyongyang. She checked her rearview mirror and was not surprised to see a black sedan following her. She drove slowly, well under the speed limit. She was in no hurry. She had no intention of losing whoever was back there.

  Her trip would take her roughly seventy miles northeast of the capital into a mountainous part of South Hamgyong province, bisected by the Ipsok River valley.

  The official name of where she was heading was Kwan-li-so Number 15. But most people simply called it Yodok. It was a labor camp or concentration camp or penal colony; Chung-Cha did not care which term was used. It all amounted to the same thing.

  People taking away the freedom of other people.

  For years she had had another name for it: home.

  Like other labor camps, Yodok was comprised of two parts: the total control zone from which prisoners were never released, and the revolutionary zone, where prisoners were punished, reeducated, and eventually released. The camp was about one hundred and fifty square miles in size and had about fifty thousand prisoners. Electric fences and over a thousand guards made sure that no one left of their own volition.

  Chung-Cha did not believe there was corruption at Yodok. The guards there seemed to do their duty with barbaric joy. At least they had when she was there. And she was still the only prisoner from the total control zone ever voluntarily released. But that release had come with a heavy price, perhaps heavier than if she had tried to escape.

  That was why she was here today, to relive this part of her life. Well, that was only partly true. It took special permission to do this, which she had requested and received. Those granting that permission understood her to be coming here to pay homage to those who had allowed her freedom, in exchange for her lifelong commitment to serve her country. At least that had been the original intent. Then she had convinced those more powerful than her that there should be another reason. And that she was the ideal person to implement this plan. She had had no guarantee that permission would be granted, but it had been. The necessary papers documenting this rode in her inner pocket. The august signatures on the papers would brook no opposition.

  She parked near the gate and was met there by two guards and the administrator. Chung-Cha knew this man well. He had been the administrator when she was a prisoner there.

  He bowed to her with respect and she returned the bow. Her gaze never left his face as they each straightened. In his burnt, wrinkled countenance she saw the one man she had dreamt of killing for most of her life. She knew that he knew this. But now he was powerless to harm her anymore. Yet there was the way his lip curled back, exposing one misshapen tooth, that made Chung-Cha understand quite clearly that he would dearly love to have her back here and in his power.

  “It is an honor to have you here, Comrade Yie,” he said.

  “The Supreme Leader sends his best wishes to you, Comrade Doh,” replied Chung-Cha, making the point of exactly where she was at this stage in her life.

  Doh blinked rapidly behind his thick glasses and his smile was as false as his next words. “It does my heart good to see how far you have risen, Comrade Yie.”

  He escorted her through the gate and into the prison compound.

  Although Chung-Cha had been gone from this place for many years now, much of it had not changed at all. The huts where the prisoners lived were still made of mud with straw roofs. As she peered inside one she saw the boards with blankets on them representing a prisoner’s bed. There were forty of them in a room that was only about five hundred square feet in size. The huts were not heated and they were not clean, thus disease was rampant. She had heard the administrator say once when she was here that such widespread fatal epidemics saved them the price of bullets.

  She stopped in front of one hut. She did so for a particular reason. This had been “her” hut, where she had lived for years. She glanced over at Doh and saw that he too remembered this.

  “You have indeed risen far,” he said, his fake smile broadening across his tanned features.

  He was a pureblood, she knew, a member of the very elite core group. His grandfather had been one of Kim Il Sung’s earliest and most ardent supporters. For that he and his family had been forever rewarded greatly. For the grandson it meant he got to play God with the lives of hundreds of thousands of his fellow citizens over the years, determining who got to live and, far more often, who died.

  “I am still the only one,” she said back.

  “Still,” he conceded snidely, “it must have seemed a miracle for you.”

  “For you too,” she shot back.

  He bowed again.

  She waited for him to straighten before adding, “The Supreme Leader believes that this is a shame. He wants to know why more are not capable of being converted.”

  This had been the other reward that Chung-Cha had requested and been given for her part in exposing the treachery of General Pak. The power to come here and make these sorts of inquiries. And she had been granted something else.

  She looked expectantly at Doh, who had obviously not been anticipating this. She saw a vein in his temple begin to throb, and his hand shook as he raised it to his face to adjust his glasses.

  “The Supreme Leader believes?” he said, his voice shaking. The guards with him took a few steps backward, as though to distance themselves from whatever repercussions might befall the man.

  Chung-Cha reached into her pocket and produced the authorizing documents. Doh took them, adjusted his glasses again, and read through them before meekly handing them back.

  “I understand. The Supreme Leader is wise beyond his years. It is an honor to do his bidding.”

  “I’m sure. But let us get down to it. I was in the total control zone. I was not core, or wavering. I was in the hostile class, Comrade Doh. And now I am acknowledged as one of the most valuable assets we have. Perhaps there are other such assets here, but going to waste. The Supreme Leader does not like waste.”

  “No, no, of course not. I…what would you have me do, Comrade Yie? Please, you have but to name it and it shall be done.”

&
nbsp; Chung-Cha looked the man over. He was far smaller and weaker-looking than she remembered. To a little girl whose very life or death depended on the daily mood of this person and his underlings, he might as well have been a giant. Now, though, he was nothing to her.

  “I want to look over some of the hostiles. The girls in particular.”

  “Girls?” he repeated in a bewildered tone that matched his expression.

  “Yes. The Supreme Leader understands quite clearly how useful females can be in certain areas of service. Much more so than males, who are more easily identified and targeted as potential enemies of other countries. Do you understand?”

  He nodded quickly. “Yes, yes, of course, I can see that.”

  Chung-Cha added, “And I want you to show me some of the more interesting prospects.”

  He nodded again. “Yes, yes. I will take you myself.”

  “I’m sure you will,” she said without smiling.

  He did not seem to grasp the significance of what she had said. He was a cruel, cagey, and evil man; that she knew. But he was also petty, vain, and shallow. And such a person could never attain brilliance or even acuity no matter how hard he tried.

  “And I will be sure to communicate your excellent level of cooperation.”

  “Oh, thank you, Comrade Yie. Thank you, you have no idea what that means to me.”

  “On the contrary, I have every idea.”

  He looked a bit put off by this statement but regained his composure and said, “Um, by interesting you mean…?”

  “By that, Comrade, I mean someone like me.”

  Chapter

  50

  SHE HAD EXAMINED OVER A hundred children aged four to fourteen. They all looked alike in many respects: malnourished, filthy, and blank-eyed. She spoke a few words to each of them. Their answers, when they came, were halting, inelegant, and simple. None of this was their fault, she knew.

  She turned to the guard accompanying her. “How many were born here?”

  He looked at her with some insolence, but had no doubt been told to cooperate fully or feel the Supreme Leader’s wrath. He gazed over the ranks of young prisoners with a lazy eye. They might as well have been chickens lined up for slaughter.

  “About half,” he answered in a casual tone and then rubbed a smudge of dirt off his gun. “There were more, but they were unauthorized births, so they were of course killed along with their mothers.”

  Chung-Cha knew that the children’s education, what there was of it, was totally inadequate. They had been raised as simpletons and they would perish as simpletons despite whatever belly fire they might have for something more in life. At some point, no matter the rage that dwelled within, the beatings and starvation and brainwashing that were all prevalent here would douse all hope until there was nothing left inside. She felt if she had stayed one more day in Yodok she never would have left it alive.

  In the distance Chung-Cha saw a group of children laboring along under the weight of either logs or buckets she knew were filled with dung. One child stumbled and fell, dislodging the contents of her bucket. The guard accompanying the group hit her with both a stick and then the butt of his rifle, and then encouraged the other children to attack her, which they did. They had been taught that when one worker failed they would all be punished, directing their anger away from the guards, where it rightfully should be, onto one of their own.

  Chung-Cha watched the beating until it stopped. She made no move to halt the attack herself. Even with the authority of the Supreme Leader riding in her pocket, she could never do such a thing and hope to avoid punishment. The rules of the camps were inviolate and certainly no one like her could intervene and break them without consequences.

  But she had no desire to stop the beating. She wanted to see the result of it, because even from this distance she had noticed something that intrigued her.

  The beaten child rose, wiped the blood off her face, grabbed the bucket off the ground, scooped the dung into the bucket with her bare hands, and marched past the guard and the other children who had beaten her. Her head was held high and her gaze was fixed determinedly ahead.

  “Who is that prisoner?” Chung-Cha asked the guard.

  He squinted in the distance and then blanched. “Her name is Min.”

  “How old is she?”

  The guard shrugged. “Maybe ten. Maybe younger. She is trouble.”

  “Why?”

  He turned and grinned at her. “She is a tough little bitch. She gets beaten and then gets up and walks off like she won a great victory. She is stupid.”

  “You will bring her to me.”

  The guard’s grin faded and he glanced at his watch. “She still has six hours of work to perform.”

  “You will bring her to me,” said Chung-Cha again, more firmly, her gaze never leaving the man’s face.

  “We heard about you here. What you did at Bukchang.” The guard said this in a surly manner, but Chung-Cha, who could sense fear from almost anyone, could see that the man was afraid of her.

  “About my killing the corrupt men? Yes, I did. I killed them all. The Supreme Leader was most grateful. He gave me an electric rice cooker in reward.”

  The guard gazed at her in astonishment, as though she had just informed him that a mountain of gold had been delivered to her door.

  “Is that why you are here?” he asked. “They suspect corruption?”

  “Is there corruption here?” asked Chung-Cha aggressively.

  “No, no. None. I promise it.”

  “A promise is a strong thing, Comrade. I will hold you to it. Now bring me Min.”

  He bowed quickly and hurriedly set off to fetch the child.

  Twenty minutes later Chung-Cha sat in a small room with two chairs and one table. She stared over at the little girl. She had asked Min to sit down but Min had refused, preferring, she said, to stand.

  And stand she did, with her hands balled into fists as she stared back at Chung-Cha with open defiance. With that look Chung-Cha knew it was a miracle the girl was even still alive at this place.

  “My name is Yie Chung-Cha,” she said. “I have been told that your name is Min. What is your other name?”

  Min said nothing.

  “Do you have family here?”

  Min said nothing.

  Chung-Cha looked over the girl’s arms and legs. They were scarred and dirty and heavily bruised. There were open, festering wounds. Everything about the child was an open, festering wound. But in the eyes, yes, in the eyes Chung-Cha saw a fire that she did not believe any beatings or disease could extinguish.

  “I ate rats,” said Chung-Cha. “As many as I could. The meat, it staves off the sickness that others here get. It is the protein that does it. I did not know that when I was here. I only learned of it later. I was lucky in that way.”

  She watched as Min’s fists uncurled. Yet Min still looked wary. Chung-Cha could understand this. The official first rule of the camp might be, You must not escape. But the unofficial and far more important first rule for any prisoner was, You must trust no one.

  “I lived in the first hut by the path to the left of the inner gate,” said Chung-Cha. “This was some years ago.”

  “You were a hostile, then,” Min blurted out. “So why are you no longer here?” she asked, anger and resentment pronounced in each of the words.

  “Because I was useful to others outside this place.”

  “How?” demanded Min, now forgetting her caution.

  In that question Chung-Cha could see what she had hoped to see. The girl wanted out, when so many prisoners, even younger than she, were totally resigned to living here forever. The fire in their lives, and with it their courage, was gone. It was sad, but it was a fact. They were lost.

  “I was a tough little bitch,” replied Chung-Cha.

  “I am a tough little bitch too.”

  “I could see that. It’s the only reason you’re here talking to me.”

  Min blinked and relaxed just a
bit more. “How can I be useful to you?”

  Defiance yes, but intelligence, and its first cousin cleverness, thought Chung-Cha. Well, after all, in Korean that’s what Min meant: cleverness and intelligence.

  “How do you think you can be?” asked Chung-Cha, turning the query around and flinging it back at her.

  Min pondered this for a few moments. Chung-Cha could almost see the mental churnings going on inside the girl’s head.

  “How were you useful to others?” asked Min. “That allowed you to leave here?”

  Chung-Cha managed to hide her smile, and her satisfaction. Min was proving to be up to the challenge.

  “I was trained to do a specific job.”

  “Then I can too,” said Min.

  “Even though you don’t know what the job is?”

  “I can do anything,” declared Min. “I will do anything to leave here.”

  “And your family?”

  “I have no family.”

  “They’re dead?”

  “I have no family,” repeated Min.