“What, then?”
Carter turned to Lori. “Old-boy network. Unofficial. Below the radar. I’d like to use the resources at the Det but, just like Lori said, when you don’t know where the leak is, you involve as few people as possible. Can’t tip off any mole.”
Red was still confused. “What do you mean old-boy network? How?”
Carter’s eyes widened. “Don’t be such an idiot. We bluff. Use an unofficial channel to tell Mossad that the CIA has evidence.” He pointed to Lori. “Financial evidence, that implicates them in the attack. Then tell them we want an explanation or else it will get released through official channels. Don’t give them more than an hour to respond. If guilty, they’ll object, but explain. If not, we haven’t lost anything.”
“But Mossad denied involvement earlier. Why would they change now just because we use an unofficial channel?”
Carter opened the door. “Don’t have many friends, do you? Relationship. Trust. None of that exists in official channels. But we get the right two old boys together, and we’ll make progress. You know who I’m talking about, Lori?”
Lori studied to the floor. Why was she hanging her head? “Yeah,” she said. “But I don’t think Dad will agree to it.”
Chapter 8 – Market Beating
Pyongyang, North Korea
Ko Chung Ho’s fingers interlocked with his daughter’s as they ambled through the Tongil farmers’ market. Eun Hee, now fifteen, still allowed him that pleasure. He’d taken leave early in the afternoon, not bothering to change out of uniform, and they’d caught a bus into the city.
The market was strewn with patrons milling about like green draftees in the marshaling area on the first day of training. The display cart rows were bent like crooked twigs. Conscripts walked slouched and erect, long haired and shaved bald, the rich ones still plump. The aisles stretched before them at irritating angles. Couldn’t they just make a straight line? Vendor stands stood sparse, displaying remnants of bok choy and tatsoi and pak choi, shades of green from light to dark, highlighted only by an occasional orange pumpkin, all that remained this late in the season. The structure’s coal-hard concrete floor and high steel roof barely contained the sprawl, like a packed warehouse. But even in winter, the farmers smelled of sweat. Echoes of children’s laughter mingled with chatter and a baby’s cry.
Eun Hee squeezed his hand. “Thanks for taking me, Abeoji. Want some cucumbers?”
Ko lifted an arm and pointed toward an orange awning against the far wall. “Down that way. But they’ve been gone, weeks ago.”
She smiled and tilted her head playfully. “I’ll still try. Maybe someone brought in leftovers.” She skipped off, though Ko knew she didn’t do that anymore. Only in his imagination. Past the ugly-goose stage of adolescence, she now displayed her mother’s DNA in full bloom; her body curved such that even grown men turned their heads as she passed. She swung a blue plastic milk carton by a handle of white rope. The other hand only a rounded nub.
Ko opened his palm and, with his thumb, felt the scar that crossed it. He looked up, as if worried someone could discover his secret.
Six years earlier Eun Hee had cut her hand on a wooden stake in their own vegetable garden. Harmless, they’d thought, but it had grown inflamed and puffy and wept yellow fluid. Red lines had webbed up her wrist.
The nurse, Ko’s friend from elementary school, had pulled him into a separate room. “We have no medicine. The sanctions, you know.” She’d winced. “Her arm, it will have to come off.”
The next day, Ko had held a match to a blade and, crouching behind a jeep in the motor pool, sliced his own hand, careful to not go too deep. The results of the first pass hadn’t been convincing, so with a shaking blade he’d done another. The final cut had looked jagged enough to be accidental. He’d smeared dirt over it and told the medic he’d cut it catching a shovel as it fell. They’d stitched his flesh and given him some pills, which he’d slipped to his nurse friend. She’d said it had saved Eun Hee’s arm, but in the end, not her hand.
The nub had healed well, and through the years she’d learned to compensate. Now the blue basket swung so carefree no one seemed to notice the absence of her other hand.
He pushed a thumb against a pumpkin’s skin. It sank only a bit. He thumped it and it rang a wonderful hollow note. “I’ll take this one.” He held up the orange fruit to the gaunt man behind the stall, who seemed to awaken from a stupor.
Ko strode toward the orange canopy and spied his daughter, her back to him. A man in a green army uniform stood next to her, squeezing oranges. Couldn’t tell what rank from this far off, but he was young. It was well past noon; many soldiers stopped at the market before heading home. The man’s head turned. So, he was talking with Eun Hee. Ko frowned and stepped faster.
As he approached lightly, Eun Hee’s high cheeks rose, almost in a sneer. Or maybe fear? “What?” she gasped.
The man grinned at her. “I’ll bet you taste as sweet as this fruit. Would you—”
The pumpkin dropped to the concrete and split. Ko grabbed the young man’s shoulder. For a split second he looked surprised, till Ko’s knuckle met his forehead. He fell back, his skull striking a man’s calves before thumping hollowly on the floor.
* * * *
“He’s coming awake,” a captain said.
Ko glared down, then snapped back to attention. Damn it. Was he blind? How could he have missed a captain standing in the next booth? He’d tried to explain, but the officer had only held up a hand and said, “Best you don’t say anything now, Sangsa.”
The corporal rolled to his side on the concrete. He blinked hard, two red dots growing on his forehead where Ko’s knuckles had crashed down. The captain grasped the corporal’s forearm and lifted him, then handed Ko a baton. “Has the corporal been adequately punished, Sangsa?”
Ko gripped the hard wooden shaft. He could pummel the man’s chest and shoulders without breaking bone. Hindquarters, too. His years as a guard at Hwasong had taught him choice spots for lasting pain without permanent damage. He squared up to the corporal and raised the stick. Eun Hee covered her face and turned away.
Ko dropped his arm. “Yes, sir. I’m done with him.”
The captain pointed to the corporal, then an open doorway. “Visit the clinic before you go home.”
The corporal rendered a salute and bounded off. The captain looked Ko in the eye, then leaned to his ear and whispered. Ko returned the baton, took a step back, gave a salute, and then grabbed Eun Hee’s arm and hurried to the bus.
They didn’t speak on the drive out of the city. But once the road turned narrow and bumpy, Eun Hee seemed to find her courage. “Are you in trouble, Abeoji? What did the officer say?”
Ko allowed himself a snicker. A couple with gray hair and wrinkled skin, holding brown bags with greens spilling from their tops, sat across the aisle and stared at him. Several other passengers seemed to be doing the same. Had they all seen what happened?
He brushed Eun Hee’s thick, silk-black hair from her ear and leaned in. “He said he didn’t know what the corporal had done, but he was disappointed in me. I should have beat him.”
Chapter 9 – Death of a Snake
February 1964, Suncunzhen, China
Zhāng Dàwe pedaled his faded baby-blue bike along Fumin Road, the cloudy night sky offering only dim light, barely enough for him to discern rutted earthen trail from drainage ditch. He ignored the ache in his legs as he reviewed his plan of violence, simple though it was. The rusty wire basket hanging from the handlebars squeaked loudly as he smacked through potholes. Another few minutes and he zipped by low wooden houses lining the path, his legs whirling in effort. Though past midnight, a lantern glowed in the window of almost every home. Occasionally laughter sounded around him, as families continued their gatherings, celebrating the New Year.
Twenty minutes ago he’d left his own family
party at his eldest brother Tabor’s hut. Only four of seven siblings remained, and each year they enjoyed a reunion meal of rice and porridge. One setting had remained empty for ancestors as always, but Zhāng had set a second tonight just for Papa.
The day had been spent mowing the ditch bank with Tabor while his aunts cleaned the house to ensure good luck. The ditch cuttings would be used for goat bedding. His mouth watered at the thought of the garlic-marinated meat from the afternoon’s slaughter, set aside for tomorrow’s festivities. Now, at nineteen years of age, his body had filled out, but he still craved protein. He’d been surprised how quickly he’d cleared his ditch, while his older brother had to stop every few minutes to catch his breath.
He slowed his pace, then stood on the pedals and coasted between two huts. The acrid stench of pig urine burned his nose as he walked the bike to the rear of the home. A community sty squatted in back, stretching the length of houses. Tabor’s pigpen at home gave off the same stink, but the fresh air on the open road to town had cleared his senses. Now the pungent odor accosted them afresh. Leaning the bike against spongy wood siding, he lifted a small sickle from the basket. Sand grated between palm and wooden handle.
He stepped upon a log and placed his hand on the rear doorknob. A celebration of fireworks exploded somewhere down the street as sows in the pen squealed at the sound. He pushed the door inward so the grate of hinges would be masked by the explosions and screeching of swine. The floor sagged beneath his feet. If he stomped, he’d probably break through. He waited for another round of explosions from a few houses down, then shut the door as pigs shrieked.
His uncle, the snake, would be sleeping by now. The old man was seldom sober past six o’clock, Zhāng had been told. He rubbed his thumb against the sickle’s worn handle. Would he be able to do this? Was it even right? Papa had admonished his older brother long ago not to seek revenge. But so much had happened since.
The communists had stolen the rest of what little land they had left Zhāng’s family. Then they couldn’t even grow sufficient food to support themselves. He and his brothers had to hire their bodies out as labor to families who used to be their renters. Abuse was gladly heaped upon this insult. Three years later his father, unable to supply even meager sustenance to the family, dove headfirst from atop their barn. His only remaining contribution was to remove one mouth to feed.
Zhāng smiled and tightened his grip. The old renters had been paid back, though. The communists had, of course, ended up taking everything from them, too. Tears of joy from new landowners who no longer had to pay rent soon turned to tears of fear as the tax rates climbed and payment was demanded by the government. Then they endured their own struggle meetings. In the end, Mao Zedong had enslaved the simple peasant farmers who had carried him to power.
But Zhāng had been shrewd. Too young to be under suspicion of having ties to the old regime, he’d befriended every party leader assigned to their school, using lies for his own gain, pretending to be a loyal communist so convincingly even his own brothers closed their mouths around him. And tomorrow, after the New Year, he would head to Beijing with the party’s blessing, to study as an electrician’s apprentice. A privilege for which several other boys with better grades had passed over. But none of his peers had been so shrewd.
Zhāng steadied himself against the kitchen wall and slowly leaned out to peer into a dark bedroom, the only other space in the dwelling. Funny, he couldn’t hear snoring. The floor seemed to bounce as he stepped in and slid across, hand outstretched and low, feeling for the mattress and the snake that slept upon it.
When his fingertips bumped something that gave way, he froze. A loud clatter and something crashed onto the floor. He must’ve knocked over an extinguished candle. But still no breathing. Maybe Uncle Snake had heard him come in and was hiding? No, surely he was passed out, sodden with sake. Of all nights to enjoy a drink, tonight would be it.
Zhāng’s fingers rustled against bedding hay. He felt farther in, patting a woolen blanket. No uncle.
Suddenly the door burst open and lantern light spilled into the kitchen. “Who’s there?” came a gruff voice, but the words ended on a quavering elderly pitch.
Zhāng straightened. “Me, Uncle. Zhāng Dàwe. Your nephew.”
“Zhāng?”
He took a step toward the door, holding the sickle behind his leg, out of sight. “Yes.”
“What are you doing in my house?”
Another step. “It’s the eve of New Year. I came to—”
“To harass an old man.”
Another step, this one around the bedroom doorway, into the kitchen. His uncle stood there, paper lantern in one hand, a short walking stick in the other. He’d seen him from across a street hobbling along sometime last year, though they’d never spoken. The old man’s black pants were torn at the hem of one leg, but were surprisingly clean. New-looking closed-toe sandals protected his feet. He didn’t sway or slur. He was...sober.
“No, to just visit,” Zhāng added. “You look well. Have you been celebrating?”
Uncle pointed the club across the kitchen. “Yes, but not at the bar. Neighbors invited me.” He lifted the lantern next to his face, lips drawing into a toothless smile. “Your uncle hasn’t had a drink for years.” His head tilted. He tapped the stick against Zhāng’s arm, the one tucked behind him. “You bring me a gift for the new year?”
“Yes, I did.” Zhāng relaxed his arm, and the sickle hung to his side.
Uncle’s eyes narrowed as he studied the instrument; then his mouth dropped open. He stepped back. His leg shivered. “Why did you come?”
“You know why.” Zhāng turned the blade in his hand. “For Papa.”
“You...you were so young. You only know one side of the story.”
His chest drew tight. “I was there when you beat him. In the crowd.”
The snake’s voice quivered. “The cadre. The communists made us do it! It was an act. If we didn’t, they’d—”
“That’s not the way our family works.” He slapped the rusty blade against his thigh.
“I was foolish. I drank so much back then. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“You never even apologized to Papa.”
Confusion spread across Uncle Snake’s face. “I did! I tried to speak with him. He wouldn’t listen.”
Zhāng jerked his head up. “Lies.”
Moisture glistened on Uncle Snake’s cheek in the lantern’s fallow light. He raised the stick above his head, quivering. A pitiful threat. Zhāng rushed forward and plunged the sickle through the man’s gut, then jerked it up through his chest. Blood, bile, and water gushed upon the floor. The stench of copper and excrement filled the room. Hot fluids drenched his grip, but the sand on the handle and years of working the tool enabled him to hold fast. His uncle dropped the lantern and club. One hand landed upon Zhāng’s shoulder like a claw. He pulled the snake closer, staring into the dying man’s eyes.
“I forgive you,” the elderly man whispered.
Zhāng muttered through clenched teeth, “Don’t expect the same from me.” He spat in one yellowed eye, then shoved the limp body out the door. Mud sucked at Zhāng’s sandals as he lifted and flung the corpse into a pine pig trough, splashing filthy water over the sides. He waited for a loud crackle of more fireworks, then clapped his cupped hands three times, the call for the swine to dine. Instantly, at least twenty animals trotted over, squealing with delight, grunting in joy as they relished their generous New Year’s meal.
Zhāng picked the sickle back up and slipped it into the rusty bike basket. A quick washing in ditch water on the way home and the blood would be gone. A day or two would pass before anyone would notice the snake was missing. By then, if anything was left, there’d be no telling how he’d been killed. And Zhāng would already be in Beijing, starting a new life.
He propped a foot upon a worn bolt shaft wher
e a rubber bike pedal had once been mounted, then glanced back at the pigpen. A new wave of heated bitterness crawled up his back. But why? He’d accomplished a goal thirteen years in the planning. He’d loosed an arrow and pierced a rabbit’s hide. What else would he have to do to cleanse himself of this eternal, burning anger?
You cannot fight evil with hatred, or you will become a demon yourself.
The nature of a demon is to destroy itself. Just like the communists were doing, slowly. He’d begin plans on how best to strike at them once he arrived in Beijing.
Zhāng swung his leg over the seat, facing a breeze. A surprisingly cold one—it must’ve been to his back on the way into town. Now it froze his bare shins and blasted through the thin cloth on his chest, making it billow like a sail. But he pedaled all the more feverishly. He’d upheld family law. Justice had been executed. I did well, he reassured himself, and will become no demon.
The sickle rattled in the basket as he bounced across a rut.
Chapter 10 – Old-Boy Network
A long-haired brunette escort was halfway down Senator Moses’ starched white Brooks Brothers oxford, unbuttoning it with her tongue. His belly stretched the seams of the tailored shirt, making progress slow. He’d have to cut back on the white breads like his physician had been telling him the last few checkups. He tried to keep reasonably fit, but age continued to mock him and the days of six-pack abs when he’d been a linebacker for the Colts was long past. His phone vibrated in his jacket pocket, the suit sprawled on the hotel bed next to him. The ringtone was some female country singer he didn’t recognize. Wife? Aide? No, that’s right, Lori. His jaw clenched.
He fumbled in the cloth till his fingers brushed the metal device. He winked at the woman. What was her name again? Elaine? Loraine? “I’ve got to take this one. Only be a minute. Why don’t you get yourself ready?” She smiled, and the button popped from her lips, a moist circle of cloth around it. He grabbed for her ass as she slipped off the bed and flipped curly brown hair over bony shoulders. Sure, skinny was the fashion, but someone needed to introduce the woman to a cheeseburger. Maybe she was a drug addict. She stepped inside a frosted glass door to the bathroom and it clicked shut. He sat up on the shiny green duvet, and two cylindrical pillows rolled to the floor.
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