Somewhere Inside

by Laura Ling

  Then I heard two distinct knocks on the cell door to the right of me. Euna’s cell was to my left; there were two others to my right. The knocking was followed by a brief silence, and then I heard two more taps, this time coming from within the cell. This went on for a few more moments. I listened closely and heard the guard move on to the next cell down and begin the knocking again. Until this moment, I hadn’t known that other prisoners were being held with Euna and me in the four-unit jail. This eerie knocking ritual between guard and prisoner seemed to be a system the guards used to make sure the inmates were still alive. It was either that or some strange way of inducing sleep deprivation because it continued throughout the night.

  I wanted desperately to communicate with Euna. I decided to test how strict the guards were and to see if I could converse with her from cell to cell. I tapped the metal door and a guard opened the slot.

  “Thank you,” I said respectfully in Korean. Then, a bit louder, I said, “Euna,” hoping she could hear me.

  “Yes? Laura?” she replied.

  “Euna classmate, would you please tell the guard I have a bad stomachache, Euna classmate, and could I please use the toilet, Euna classmate?”

  I was trying to let her know I had stuck to our original story about being students, and I wanted to see if she too had stood by the plan. But other than hearing her translate my request to the guard, who unlocked the door to let me use the bathroom, I couldn’t tell if she had told them we were journalists. Euna and I needed to tell the Korean authorities the truth soon. If we continued to lie, we might be viewed as spies, which was the worst possible scenario.

  I started to wonder what had happened to Mitch and whether he had made it back to our hotel safely. The terrifying events of that morning flashed through my mind, and I kept replaying the image of Mitch vanishing over the mound. I didn’t harbor any anger toward him. Everything on the ice happened so quickly; we were all completely petrified. I thought of Mitch’s wife and two kids and felt relieved that he was not in our situation. I even saw it as a blessing that he got away, because he would be able to contact our families. I desperately hoped he was able to alert them about what had happened.

  LISA

  SOMETIME IN MIDMORNING, I finally got a call from Mitch. He said that immediately after Laura and Euna’s seizure, he had turned himself in to the Chinese authorities with the hope that they would do something to help get the girls back. They interrogated him for about fifteen hours, and he had just been released from custody and allowed to go back to his hotel in Yanji. It was close to midnight where Mitch was, but he and I spent more than an hour on the phone going through the details of exactly what had happened on the river in those early hours.

  Mitch said that Laura, Euna, and he had followed a guide who brought them to the Tumen River. When journalists work overseas in unfamiliar places, we often hire fixers whom we trust to take us where we need to go. In my sister’s case, they did exactly that. They hired a man who had worked with news crews before to take them to see the border between China and North Korea. Mitch told me that the guide led the team across the border into North Korea for no more than a minute before heading straight back to the Chinese side of the river. He and the guide were able to outrun the North Korean border guards once they reached Chinese soil. The guide had also turned himself in to Chinese authorities, but Mitch hadn’t seen him since.

  “Did you definitely cross the border, Mitch?” I probed, even though he had already explained that they had.

  “It was so fast, but yes, we crossed briefly,” Mitch said.

  “Are you sure the girls had reached China when they were seized?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said definitely.

  This was a big deal. Mitch confirmed that the team did cross the border into North Korea for a few moments, but he was also certain the North Korean soldiers entered China’s sovereign territory in order to capture my sister and Euna. This gave me hope that perhaps we could get the Chinese government to intervene and help us.

  Then Mitch said something that struck me.

  “What do you mean, ‘the guide started to make hooting noises’?” I probed.

  “I don’t know why he was doing it,” Mitch responded. “It seemed like he knew what he was doing.”

  I couldn’t stop thinking about this. Why would their guide make any loud noises at all under such delicate circumstances? I wondered whether the team had been led into a trap. I continued to press Mitch about the possibility that the guide might have knowingly led them across the border into North Korea.

  “I just can’t imagine that could have happened,” replied Mitch.

  “Do you think she’s okay?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  We kept going over what had happened again and again, even though it was after 1:00 A.M. in China where Mitch was. I just couldn’t let him off the phone. I kept asking the same questions. I needed every detail. I thought that if I asked in a slightly different way, he might remember something he hadn’t told me. I could tell he was exhausted; he had been up since 4:00 A.M. the day before. At a certain point, I realized that he had nothing more to tell me. After he ran, he lost all contact with Laura and Euna. My sister was still wearing the wireless microphone when she was captured. The last thing Mitch heard her say through his headphones was “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  I had known Mitch for nearly twenty years, and we spent more than five years working together exclusively at Channel One. I had shared some of the most deeply personal moments of my life with him. He was my mentor and friend, and I will always regard him warmly. But I couldn’t stop wondering if things might have been different if he hadn’t left them. I couldn’t focus too much on this. What happened happened. Now we all collectively needed to figure out how we were going to get the girls out. If Mitch hadn’t run, it might have taken days to learn of their capture.

  Later that morning, Richard Holbrooke returned my phone call. He had so much going on with his Afghanistan assignment that I was nervous about bothering him. He told me right away that he had just been with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and that she was calling an emergency meeting to talk about our situation later on that day. He then said something that at the time was very reassuring to me. “Look, Lisa,” he exclaimed, “I’ve seen many examples of government inaction over the years, and this is not one of them.”

  News of Laura and Euna’s detainment broke a full two days after they were arrested; we had managed to keep it quiet until then. A South Korean newspaper was first to report the news, and it was immediately picked up by press the world over. News sites were rife with variations of the same headline: “American Journalists Reportedly Detained by North Korean Border Officials on the Chinese–North Korean Border.”

  The morning after the news came out, I got a call from my boss, Oprah Winfrey. I work on her show as a field correspondent. She asked if she could do anything to help. Reality suddenly struck when it dawned on me that even the most powerful woman in the media couldn’t do much. For that matter, there was little my country—the most powerful in the world—could do either. We were at the mercy of a government that answered to no one but itself.

  My sister was being held inside North Korea at the worst possible time. For weeks, North Korea had been saying it intended to launch what it called a “peaceful” satellite. Much of the rest of the world, however, charged that the North Koreans were trying to reignite their country’s ballistic weapons program. Japan, for instance, had been threatening to shoot down any satellite or weapon that entered its territory. North Korea said it would consider any action by Japan an act of war. Tensions were growing by the day.

  On top of it all, America had a brand-new president and secretary of state, whom pundits and conservative talk show hosts were ardently watching for any signs of weakness. I wondered if having two young American women in captivity would complicate things for the U.S. government. I knew the United States had a policy of not negotiating with ter
rorists for hostages, but what if a government was holding American citizens? The problem was that this was no ordinary government. North Korea is considered one of the most unpredictable regimes on earth.

  Within the first twenty-four hours of Laura and Euna’s absence, both of our families were introduced by phone to Kurt Tong, director for Korean affairs at the State Department. He would be our main point of contact for whatever diplomatic efforts ensued between the United States and North Korea. But our family had no idea how complicated that would be.

  LAURA

  IN THE MORNING, BREAKFAST was brought to our cells. Rather than the previous night’s meager fare, this was a more substantial meal consisting of rice, half a hard-boiled egg, tofu, and kimchi. The guard also let me eat with my cell door slightly cracked open to let in more light. I guessed that the prisoners to my right were not receiving the same type of treatment. The only times I heard the guards open their cell doors was once in the morning and once at night so that they could use the toilet. I wondered if this was a good sign, an indication that they might let us go. Or were we being treated differently because it might be our last meal?

  I was relatively confident that the guard standing watch could not understand English, so I decided to try communicating with Euna again.

  I raised my voice, hoping she would hear me from her cell. “Euna, did you tell the officials that we work for Current?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “I think we need to tell them the truth,” I said. “We need to tell them we work for Current. Otherwise they are going to think we are spies.”

  “Okay,” she replied softly.

  To avoid arousing any suspicion, I asked Euna to tell the guard that my head was hurting and to ask if I could please see a doctor.

  “And, Euna,” I said, “when the officials come, please tell them I would like to be with you when we confess. The other translator does not understand what I am saying, and I am afraid she is misinterpreting what I mean.”

  A doctor arrived shortly after this exchange, and I was taken to a cold, dank room. I asked if Euna could join me, which they allowed. The doctor was an expressionless man. I could smell the strong cigarette odor on his breath and clothes. He proceeded to examine the wound in a very matter-of-fact way. He didn’t seem bothered that his inspection of the cuts was going to cause me pain.

  I squeezed Euna’s hand tightly as he poked at the sensitive areas. My hair was covering the gash, so he had to cut off a patch to better see and clean the lesion. After tossing the blood-encrusted locks onto the concrete floor, he opened the wound to see if there was any infection. My shoulders and brows contracted as he probed the area with a metal tool and used a cotton pad doused in alcohol to sanitize the gash. After wrapping my head with gauze, the doctor asked me if I had any other injuries. Euna translated, and through her I told him I did not have any sensation on the right side of my nose and that my legs were very sore. I rolled my dirt-stained jeans up and saw my legs in the light for the first time. Deep purple welts covered the entire length of both legs. No wonder it had been so painful to walk and bend down. The doctor gave me some ointment to put on the affected areas. He also gave me a raw egg that was still in its shell and told me to rub it over my black eye and nose area to reduce the swelling. The egg was cold simply from being out in the frigid air, and the cool sensation of the shell pressed up against my skin provided some momentary relief. I was grateful for the doctor’s attention and for the chance to be out of the claustrophobic cell. But soon enough, Euna and I were separated and sequestered once again.

  Not long after that, I heard the lock on Euna’s door open. She was being taken to another interrogation session. I waited nervously, knowing she was about to tell them the truth about our jobs. Then my turn came. I was brought into a room where I saw the same two officials who had questioned me the night before. I was relieved to see Euna sitting on the floor.

  “I’ve told them that we work for Current, and that we were producing a report about the border region,” Euna explained. “They want to ask you some questions.”

  I was glad Euna was translating. This way I could be sure our responses were aligned and that my words would not be misconstrued.

  The officials asked me about my job as a reporter for Current TV. I refrained from letting them know I was the head of the journalism department, to minimize my culpability. I explained that as a reporter, I had covered many different types of stories all over the world. I told them that Mitch was the producer on this story and that he was essentially directing Euna and me throughout the project.

  “Have you ever had any contact with the CIA or anyone from the CIA?” one of them asked.

  I remembered a segment I had worked on almost a decade earlier inside the CIA’s headquarters, and the public information officer, Chase Brandon, with whom I had become friends. Were they asking this because they knew about my past work or were they trying to make sure we were not connected with the U.S. government?

  “No,” I responded. “I’ve never done anything with the CIA. We’re journalists. Not spies.”

  I exhaled in relief when they didn’t press me on that again. Compared with last night’s grilling, this question session was much more restrained. It helped that we could answer many of their questions with relative ease. Thankfully, they seemed more interested in our backgrounds than in the actual story we were reporting, because we still hadn’t told them any specifics about the interviews we had conducted with the North Koreans who had escaped the dire conditions in their homeland. Finally, they asked both of us to write a confession statement admitting we were journalists and that we had crossed into North Korea illegally.

  Back in the darkness of my cell, I wondered how long we would be kept there. I shuddered to think that we could be sent to one of North Korea’s notorious gulags. The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates that approximately two hundred thousand people are imprisoned in North Korea’s brutal labor camps, and that four hundred thousand have perished due to torture, starvation, disease, and execution. I considered myself lucky that I was in this dingy, claustrophobic jail and not in a hard labor facility.

  The next morning one of the officials told us that the U.S. government had been informed that we were being held in North Korea. We also learned that the authorities in Pyongyang were arranging for us to be transferred to the capital. My emotions were mixed when hearing this news. I was glad to hear that our government was aware of our situation, in part because it meant that our families most likely knew as well. The idea that we had simply disappeared, leaving them no way of knowing if we were even alive, was gut-wrenching. But the thought of being moved to Pyongyang made me uneasy. It seemed that any chance of getting released back to Chinese authorities was now gone.

  To begin the process of turning us over to officials in the capital, we were brought into a small office that had a computer and telephone. This was the first time I had seen working technology. We were asked to sign and fingerprint our confession statements. We pressed our right thumbs into the red ink and rolled them onto the bottom of the documents.

  “Euna, please tell them I was the reporter on this project, and I bear the responsibility for our actions. If anyone is punished it should be me, not you.”

  “No,” Euna cried. “I will not translate that. It’s okay, Laura.”

  “Please, Euna,” I continued, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  “No,” she said firmly.

  “What is going on?” asked the officer.

  “Nothing,” replied Euna in Korean. “Everything is fine.” We embraced each other, not knowing what was going to happen to us.

  As we were being escorted back to our cells, I suggested that Euna ask if we could stay together in one cell. Surprisingly, they granted this request. I had sensed a palpable softening of these officials’ attitude. They seemed to feel that since we would soon be in the hands of authorities in Pyongyang, their work was pretty much over.

>   Being together in one cell was an amazing gift. We were still careful to watch what we said, especially because Euna thought one of the guards could understand a little bit of English. We tried to comfort each other as best we could. We believed there was a very good chance we’d be separated again once we got to Pyongyang, so I asked Euna to teach me some basic Korean words and phrases, such as “Good morning,” “Good evening,” “My head hurts,” “My stomach hurts,” “I don’t speak Korean,” “Sorry,” and “toilet.”

  I had been practicing yoga for several years, and even in this cramped space, I was able to show her a few yoga stretches. We breathed in deeply, stretched, and exhaled. With each breath, I prayed that something was being done back home to help us get out of this nightmare. Euna and I took turns giving each other massages to help ease some of the discomfort we had been feeling in our muscles and bones. We talked about how much we missed our husbands. I tried to hold back tears when Euna spoke about how much she longed for her little daughter. Though we had known each other for years, this was the most personal conversation we’d ever had together. We were both trying to stay positive, but it was hard to keep our minds from wandering and thinking that the worst might happen to us.

  I noticed some Korean characters that were lightly etched into the wall. It was a kind of Korean prison graffiti.

  “What does that say?” I whispered.

  “I miss my mom,” she translated.

  I tried to imagine who had been in this cell before us, as well as who was being held in the nearby cells. Unlike us, they were not allowed to use the toilet whenever they asked, nor were they given special meals and allowed to talk to each other. But like all people who are isolated from society, we all missed our mothers.

  Euna and I talked about what we should say when we got to Pyongyang. In the capital city there would be access to technology and they would know more about us. We knew we’d have to be as honest as possible. We were determined not to compromise any of our sources or interview subjects.