Reload

by David McCaleb

  “They’re going to pump the fish out, right?” Cooley asked.

  “North Korea?” Gae flicked his fingers, miming an explosion. “If the harbor has a pish pump, it no work.”

  Just then the hatch on another tank further astern crashed to the deck. A muffled cry came through the bulkhead. “Hirelings get in tanks and scoop the pish in baskets.” He drew his knife and held it next to his face. “This is where we pind out if captain sold you.”

  The thumbhole in the hatch above went dark; then it swung up.

  None of the team submerged this time, but crouched with eyes above the waterline from the dark corners of the tank. Red squinted to veil whites as cold salt air filled the space, a siren song calling him out of the ship’s cramped, squelching belly.

  The captain’s face appeared in the opening as he knelt over it. Just as quickly, the door shut and the heavy grating of a full fish crate slid overhead, covering any slice of light left from the dull, hazy afternoon.

  Gae pulled himself up to the hatch at the sound of voices. He slowly pushed the steel flap up an inch, eye to the slit, but it hit the bottom of the crate. “One say he arrange tank be pumped out. He’s sending hirelings away.”

  Cooley’s beam again lit the tank to blood red. Richards peeled a cuttlefish off his watch cap. “Good sign.”

  Gae lowered himself back into the liquid swarm. “Or bad. One grenade and we dead.”

  Chapter 22 – Chaoyang Park

  Beijing, China

  Mist hung in the air as mud swirls in water. It clung to Zhāng Dàwe’s mustache, freezing it stiff on the tips. He’d walked a half kilometer since the subway exit, but his knees had started to ache back at the stairs. Despite being in the middle of Beijing, Chaoyang Park rested this late at night, her slumber stirred only by an occasional jogger.

  He wandered past a green triangle and musty spruce drew him back to his boyhood farm. What was it? Seventy years ago now? He rubbed his forehead, as if the scabs were still unhealed. “Eyes up!” Papa had cried. Ignorant of the saying, young Zhāng had turned to watch for something but got a whip of spruce raked across his forehead as a tree fell. It had been a family joke for his entire youth.

  Beyond a long reflecting pool, a shadow walked slowly into a low clump of leafless trees. Hunched over, it was probably another homeless person, as best Zhāng could perceive through thin fog. Two runners exhaled cottony puffs, chugging along a sidewalk across the shallow pond, its fountain silent for the winter. Their frozen vapors floated behind at each heavy breath, like a steam engine chugging along a track. The clouds dissipated, their individuality swallowed by an unyielding city.

  Zhāng reached the bench opposite the fountains, the one where he’d been instructed to wait. He winced at his knees as he lowered himself. The bench curved comfortably beneath his bony legs. Warm from the walk, he welcomed the cold seat’s embrace. He leaned back and pushed his cap forward over his eyes to indicate no one had followed. He always did like he’d been told. Bike. Then taxi. Then subway. He never saw a face more than once.

  * * * *

  “You OK, sir?” someone asked. Zhāng lifted his head. The back of his neck ached. Must’ve dozed off. A man in a gray suit and blue tie sat next to him now, the one who always met him, wearing that same outfit. If he could afford one suit, shouldn’t he have more? If they always changed meeting locations, shouldn’t he change what he wore?

  The man with the blue tie had never given a name. Or who he worked for. None of the employees of state-owned businesses could be trusted. Could be one of them. They were as bad as the communists. Greedy, ignorant, backstabbing, thieving whores.

  “Yes.” Zhāng’s mustache stretched stiffly as he smiled. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  Blue Tie slid down the bench and put his arm around him, rubbing his shoulders. “Not something you want to do in the cold. Might not wake up. There, we look like friends now.”

  Zhāng gazed down the pond to where the homeless man had been. A thin crust of ice floated atop the water, cracks wrinkling its surface. Sidewalk lights shone upon it in an algae green hue.

  “Status?”

  Status of what? Zhāng tried not to smile when the memory came to him. Must be tired, or the cold. “The wire harness is almost complete. I’ve got both pallets of capacitors in place now.”

  “Already? They’ll be suspicious.”

  “I’ve been swapping them off the building coolers. They think they’re faulty, impregnated with moisture.”

  “I don’t like used equipment.”

  “I test each one before I bring it in, and again after I pull it off the coolers. All still good up to 450 volts, one full farad.”

  “And the coil?”

  Zhāng straightened. His buttocks ached. “Still there. A full spool of feed cable, left over from the new electrical drop. I told them to leave it, that I’ll need it to run a failover circuit.”

  “And the core?”

  “Rebar. Or iron pipe. I think...yes, there’s rebar in a stack against the wall. But judging by the bank of capacitors, we won’t need it.” Zhāng rubbed a box beneath his skin, next to his collarbone, his pacemaker, the size of a pack of cigarettes. Come to think of it, he could use a cigarette about now. Warm these cold lungs. He felt in his jacket pocket.

  “You OK?” Blue Tie asked.

  Zhāng nodded. How late was it? Having a hard time keeping hold of his thoughts. “You know this will kill, don’t you? Anyone with a pacemaker, like me. Probably within a couple hundred meters.”

  “The greater good, sir. It will save the lives of many. Plus, I am told the pulse will not go out of the building.”

  Right. Dual 380-volt direct feeds, firing both banks of capacitors. “It will. Even though the building is shielded.”

  Blue Tie slid back down to the far end of the bench. “Maybe. But the electromagnetic pulse will fry any microchip inside. Right?”

  “But they’ve got other sites. Each backs up the others.”

  “Don’t worry. Your efforts won’t be in vain. There won’t be any backups to be found.”

  “When do I get the controller?”

  “Still next week I’m told. It will be dropped as agreed.”

  “I need to test it. Nothing ever works right the first time.”

  “It has been tested. The same controller, using capacitors from the same factory, same batch. As long as your harness is hooked up correctly and the controller has a full, unmetered feed, it will fire. Time and again, once every second, till every piece of data is wiped. It will take years to recover.” Blue Tie’s heavy eyelids curled up with his smile.

  “I want the controller now. To make sure I know how to get it installed. That the timer on it works. I don’t want to be close. I may be old, but I’m not ready to die.”

  A runner across the fountain in an orange exercise suit with reflective stripes slipped and fell flat. Ughhh echoed off several buildings, but no hard smack of a head hitting concrete. Blue Tie stood, but the runner was back up as well, looking behind, then around, as if embarrassed. He continued his jog in a lighter gait, much less graceful, a fawn placing each leg carefully onto a frozen lake top.

  Blue Tie’s voice was a low rumble. “We can’t. It doesn’t get here before next week. And it needs an antenna.”

  What? The Americans couldn’t be that inept. Maybe Blue Tie was an agent for the Ministry of Intelligence after all, trying to root out subversives. Maybe that’s why he never worried to wear something different each meeting. But if he was, the Ministry of Intelligence would have arrested Zhāng already, wouldn’t they? Or maybe the Americans were behind the plan and Blue Tie was just leading everyone along, trying to learn as much as he could before he slit Zhāng’s throat and buried him in the foundation of a state-owned factory.

  This meant he would have to test the controller. Make sure it would fire.
If not, he’d still hit the data center. All he needed was a mechanical circuit controller and a timer. He’d fry their damn computers no matter what. Even if he had to flip the switch himself. Even if it killed him. All this shot through his mind in a nanosecond, now awakened from his slumber.

  Blue Tie pulled his hands from his pockets and sat back down. A polished stainless card case smacked the concrete next to his feet. One of those fancy cases with a spring-loaded lid. It snapped open and business cards fanned out like playing a hand of Pusoy. A green triangle of the Yanje Group logo displayed on each one. Blue Tie swiped them quickly. His hands shook as he shoved them back in their case.

  Zhāng worked for Yanje Group as well. Never anyone else. Why had he never seen Blue Tie? But the company had over ten thousand employees. Or had he dropped the cards on purpose, trying to win Zhāng’s favor? “Ten years ago one of our engineers died outside Baodi. How?”

  Blue Tie sighed, frozen steam enshrouding the card holder in his hands. He slipped it into his pocket. “Lim Chang. His apprentice said he didn’t follow protocol before swapping out a breaker.” He shook his head. “I never believed him. Lim formed our safety team. If anyone followed protocol, it was he. His wife was crazy, with family ties to Triad. Rumor says he found out something Triad didn’t like and his wife paid the apprentice to fry her husband.”

  Good answer. “This antenna—you know the building is shielded. An antenna will be impotent. A limp dick.”

  “It’s only a three-meter wire. Needs to be outside. Hung vertically.”

  Zhāng shrugged. “And how am I supposed to do that?”

  “You’re an excellent engineer. You’ve wired a hundred of these buildings.”

  Zhāng warmed at the compliment. Blue Tie was the only person who had ever expressed appreciation for his work.

  “You can figure it out. They’ve got you running a failover circuit, right? Install the antenna then, where the wire comes into the building. This thing needs to fire. The antenna needs to work. They’ll pay you, in addition to moving you out of the country.”

  Zhāng spat on the sidewalk. The edges of the spittle froze instantly. “Tell them they can keep their money. I’d do it for free. I’ll have their damn antenna hung, from the west wall.” He caught Blue Tie’s gaze. “Tell them that—from the west wall. If it’s not the way they want it, they can figure it out themselves.” His shoulder ached. The pacemaker drew in a chill. Had to get moving. He stood and rolled his shoulders. “You never told me when it’s going to go off.”

  Blue Tie’s face was unreadable. “You don’t need to know. The less you know, the safer you are. The controller will be programmed already. I suspect the antenna has something to do with that. When it does, you’ll be on a container ship headed east.”

  Blue Tie stood and bowed. “Shī péi le.” He turned and walked away, next to the long, silent fountain, passing where the homeless man had slumped off the path. A grim figure rose from the black ground among the trees, hands extended toward Blue Tie, begging. He walked past without lifting his head, then disappeared into the mass of fog.

  Chapter 23 – Return to Hwasong

  Hwasong, North Korea

  A single-engine spotter plane buzzed overhead as the troop transport ambled down Myŏnggan Highway. Ko Chung Ho stooped his neck and leaned toward the windshield of the truck to gain a better vantage point. Must be near Kuktong Airfield, so only a few kilometers until the town of Hwasong.

  A wheel slammed into a pothole and fine yellow dust floated up through a crack in the floorboard, settling on the cuff of Ko’s woolen green uniform pants. The jolt racked his neck, which was already sore. Worry, he reasoned, rubbing his nape.

  An enormous pile of white tailings from a fluorite mine, active at his last station, had grown a week-old beard of brown scrub brush. Fields, formerly lush with rice, now lay littered with dead brown leaves, unkempt after the fall potato harvest. Farmers across the homeland had been angered by an empty promise from the government, that they could keep thirty percent of their harvest. The government had obviously hoped the incentive would increase production, but the infrastructure of the Public Distribution System hadn’t changed and their entire harvest had been demanded as usual. Surely next year the fields of those despondent farmers would yield poorly, no matter what quotas were levied. Having hungered through the last famine, Ko would start stockpiling food now.

  On his last drive to Hwasong prison camp, he’d ridden in the back of a transport, huddled with other guards and families. Now a sangsa, he rode up front and would be the third-ranking enlisted in the area, in charge of all guards at the camp.

  “Your exemplary performance has gained you this high honor,” his commander had said.

  But behind his smile of pride he’d hidden bitter memories of shame. Prison camp was no honor. Would he lose himself again? All too quickly he had forgotten his father’s instruction: “All creatures deserve respect,” he had said, sticky silver scales from a trout clinging to his bloody hands. “Even this one.” And then he’d chopped off its head.

  Ko could start fresh, lay down new expectations of conduct upon his guards. Punish those who raped prisoners, passing around a girl all night, burying her battered body before morning. But the shopkeeper had warned him to give no reason to doubt his loyalty. Would pressure to overlook cruelty come from above? He’d still be required to torture.

  He pulled off a glove and pressed that hand against the frozen windshield, thawing a patch of frost to peer through. The driver did the same, leaning so close to the glass his chin rested on the steering wheel. The dirty town cowered ahead below a gray-brown sky. Stalks of smoke curled from several chimneys, vanishing in the low clouds. It would snow again soon.

  The truck turned north on Gulag 16 Road, past the soccer field where they’d exercise each morning. The same one where he’d given his senior NCO a concussion when they’d both tried to head the same ball. A shiver shot through his neck as he rolled down the window at the guard shack.

  The thin man studied his papers, then straightened and passed them back to Ko with a smile, pointing up the valley. “Please proceed, Sangsa.” As the truck rolled forward he glanced up a ridge, trying to spy the next guard tower, but it was hidden behind thick evergreens. There were twenty towers around the perimeter, with a three-meter electrified fence topped with concertina wire running between them.

  He’d been told Hwasong camp was the largest in the homeland, over five hundred square kilometers. Though it held only twenty thousand prisoners, the facilities had never been designed to support even half that many. The far northwest corner was where the nuclear warheads had been tested. He had spent an entire year there directing labor, digging tunnels for equipment, though only a few small yellow metal boxes connected with cables were all he’d seen put inside.

  After several miles of potholed road they stopped outside headquarters. The yellow block building with a sagging brown tile roof squatted in front of six rows of houses in a similar state of decomposition. Those housed teachers, factory supervisors, and higher-ranking military with family. Conditions looked even worse than last time. Most of the wooden fences separating backyards were missing or lying deep beneath snow. He’d have to erect one again, to keep deer from eating the vegetables. Anyone with a home filled every centimeter of backyard with whatever produce they could raise. Chwinamul, bok choy, and tatsoi grew best in the poor, stony soil and cold weather. Guards in dorms were allowed to tend gardens in common areas set aside just for them.

  Ko jumped down from the cab and glanced across from headquarters to the security fence surrounding the detention block. That was where he’d spent most of his time last station. Problem prisoners were kept there in solitary confinement till their sins had been adequately cleansed, though the Great Leader had said it took three generations to cleanse family blood. Was Ko condemning future grandchildren to be tortured just because he wanted to help
his sister? Was he being too reckless?

  Burrowed into a rising hill was a concrete entrance to an underground facility where they’d torture anyone caught plotting an escape, stealing, or breaking any of the more serious camp rules. Once he’d hung a child by the ankles and wrists over a fire after he’d ratted out his mother who was planning an escape. Ko had been told to ensure the kid didn’t know of any other conspirators. The child had lived, though it took four months for his wounds to heal.

  Eun Hee’s legs dangled from the truck’s tailgate. He held out his arms, but she shook her head and jumped down with a thump onto the packed snow. Only her eyes were visible between a black scarf and hood. She turned around once; then the bridge of her nose wrinkled. “Abeoji, does it always smell like this?” Small white clouds puffed through the scarf.

  A chŏnsa passed down a wooden crate, then another. All their clothes and worldly possessions in two chests.

  “Yes,” he told her. “It gets worse in summer.” But would they be here till then? How long till he was contacted—tomorrow? Next month, next year? Could he locate his sister before that without raising suspicion? Twenty thousand prisoners spread over five main compounds and dozens of villages. It would not be easy.

  “Give them no reason to doubt your loyalty,” the shopkeeper had said.

  He intended not to.

  * * * *

  Ko paused in the lee of an icy wooden snow fence to warm his face in the bright sun after inspecting a guardhouse outside the prison camp’s garment factory.

  “Don’t turn around. To save your sister, bend down and tie your boot,” growled a guttural voice from behind the barrier.

  He twisted to see who it was, but the fence blocked his view.

  The voice snapped, “Idiot! Tie your damn boot!”

  He dropped to a knee and fumbled with perfectly tied laces. The voice was raspy, as if spoken through gloved hands. It sounded almost...female. “Detention block, cage confinement, number thirteen. You know this area?”