by Martin Limon
After the dinner plates had been removed, the half-dozen older women brought out glass bottles, about the size of American pop bottles, filled with a clear fluid. They plopped three bottles in the center of each table. The label said Red Star Soju, in both Korean and English. Immediately, the sailors started squabbling over the bottles. The Korean women shook their heads in disgust. The custom is to pour for your comrades first and then one of your comrades pours for you. Mergim, who’d been here before, offered to pour some of the clear rice liquor into my tin cup. I refused. I’d stick with barley tea.
“You don’t want to get drunk?” he asked.
I nodded toward Food Worker Pei. She stood in the foyer, flirting with one of the guards.
“Ah, that first.” Mergim tapped the side of his head. “Smart.”
The Albanian sailors were tossing back huge shots of the fierce rice liquor, and some of them had already called for more. Once they laid Hong Kong dollars on the table, the old women delivered.
A shrill voice erupted from ancient speakers. Static screeched but the voice kept on, unperturbed, extolling the glories of the Great Leader and the paradise that was the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The strident message was delivered first in Korean, then in English. None of the Albanian sailors paid any attention; they were more interested in guzzling soju. But then the voice stopped and strains of martial music erupted out of the old speakers like an ancient brass band. A side door opened and a troupe of men and women wearing the brown-wool, high-necked uniforms of the Korean People’s Army marched in. The men wore round caps lidded like ancient jars, the women soft caps with short brims, both emblazoned with huge red stars. They goose-stepped toward the front of the hall, swinging their fists as they marched. Soon they were posing before us, raising the red-star flag of North Korea, singing, striking new poses, and finally engaging in something that could loosely be called a dance. It was more like a series of poses that they switched to on cue, creating a tableaux that illustrated events narrated by the lyrics. When one song stopped, another started without pause. As best I could gather, they were telling the tale of the Korean people’s epic struggle against colonial forces—the Japanese, who had occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945; and then, to hear the North Koreans tell it, the United States from 1945 onward, in the southern portion of the country. The twentieth century had been a constant struggle for them, a series of tribulations they saw as ongoing.
The sailors glanced occasionally at the entertainment but mostly ignored it. The men in the troupe were all baby-faced and slender, their movements nothing less than effeminate. The women were strong, determined, and assertive, and their cheeks glowed crimson when they belted out tunes praising the Great Leader. Since they were fully clothed in heavy wool uniforms, including thick tunics, long skirts, and black combat boots, the sailors didn’t have much to look at.
It was an hour before the performers took a break, promising to be back for more. Finally, the scratchy speakers subsided into silence.
“I want to go back to Hong Kong,” Mergim said, slugging down another shot of soju.
I’d noticed some movement in the front hallway. “I’ll be back,” I told him, then stood up and strode past drunken and arguing Albanian sailors.
The truth was that I didn’t plan to return at all, not if I could help it. I hoped Mergim would be all right. He’d been a good friend to me, and even though he’d been well paid for his efforts, I’d grown fond of him and respected the tough life he’d led. My handlers in Seoul had assured me that the Communist Albanian government would look after him. I prayed they had been telling the truth.
The guard talking to Food Worker Pei noticed my approach and turned and sauntered away. Without looking at me, she stepped into a hallway that led toward the back of the building.
I followed.
It was dark back there, but I saw her a few yards ahead, moonlight filtering though a smoke-smudged window. She was slipping something on over her right hand, something that creaked and flapped like thick rubber. Not supple like the synthetic materials made in the West. More like a flipper.
My mission was to avoid another war between North and South Korea. Or at least that’s what Major Bulward, the executive officer of the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion, told me. I didn’t really believe him. The military of both the North and the South had been longing for war ever since the ceasefire had been signed in June of 1953, more than twenty years ago. The Korean War had settled nothing, despite the death of two or three million people—depending on whom you asked. Korea, a four-thousand-year-old society, was still divided. Families were unable to communicate, either by phone or by letter, and people who were separated by the Demilitarized Zone that slashed through the center of the country couldn’t even be sure if their loved ones were dead or alive. And the U.S. military, despite all its talk of peace, was aching to become involved in another conventional conflict. Now that the Vietnam War was all but wound down, the American brass was sick of guerilla warfare. They wanted a good old-fashioned head butt: major armies, tank battalions, naval armadas, squadrons of jet fighters—the fun stuff—all slugging it out in a defined field of conflict. So when Major Bulward told me that my mission would help us avoid war, I knew it was bull. I also knew that if I were successful, the information I sought might actually ignite a war, by encouraging the South Koreans to go north. I hoped not, but I knew it was possible.
My mission—my real mission—was to find an ancient manuscript that contained a description of a vast network of caverns and underground waterways that led from an area in North Korea near Mount Osong to an area in South Korea near Mount Daesong. In other words, a secret passageway beneath the DMZ. The existence of such a manuscript had been rumored amongst scholars for centuries, but I’d come into possession of physical proof that it actually existed, a fragment that had been confirmed to be genuine by experts.
Despite its name, the Korean Demilitarized Zone—or DMZ—is the most heavily militarized border in the world. An estimated 700,000 heavily armed Communist soldiers guard the northern side and an estimated 450,000 ROK soldiers guard the southern side, assisted by 30,000 American GIs of the United States Army’s Second Infantry Division.
For years, the North Koreans had been diligently tunneling beneath the DMZ. Two of the tunnels had been discovered by Southern forces. They were impressive constructions, high enough for a grown man to walk through. Down the center of one of the tunnels, railroad track had been laid. Military intelligence estimated that with the help of rolling transport, a battalion of armed North Korean infantry could be smuggled beneath the DMZ to the southern side within two hours, an entire division in one night. According to aerial reconnaissance, the scope of the North Korean drilling effort on their side of the DMZ indicated that there were at least a dozen more tunnels that had yet to be intercepted. In addition to the threat of the tunnels, Major Bulward told me, the entire logistical effort of the North Korean military in the last few months had been moving steadily south.
“Kim Il-sung, the Great Leader, has reached huangap,” Major Bulward told me, “the age of sixty, when a Korean man traditionally retires. He’s appointed his son as a full-fledged member of the Workers’ Party’s Central Committee, and he’s vowed to unite the country before he turns over power. We believe they plan to do that now, while the American public is still wallowing in self-pity over the failure of political will in Vietnam.”
The failure of political will. That’s the U.S. Army’s way of blaming somebody other than itself. Saigon hadn’t fallen yet but we were mostly out of it already. Nobody expected the ARVN, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, to hold on much longer.
Major Bulward went on to imply that if South Korea didn’t find a way to tunnel north and insert our own infantry behind enemy lines, the North Korean armored assault across the DMZ might prove so overwhelming that we’d be forced to use nuclear weapons.
“We don’t want to do that,” Bulward assured me, “but we might have to.”
Food Worker Pei’s pretty, round face was sullen. Pouty. She pointed toward my crotch. “I touch,” she said in Korean. “You no touch.” She gestured toward her breasts.
Dumbly, I nodded.
She held out her left hand, the one without the glove. “Money,” she said in English. A word I figured even Albanian sailors understood.
I reached beneath my leather belt into a cloth pouch. I pulled out one large silver coin and held it up to the light. Food Worker Pei smiled. As she stepped forward, I shoved her rubber-gloved hand out of the way.
“I want to trade this,” I said in English, “for ginseng. Red ginseng.”
The most prized type of wild ginseng is the red ginseng, sometimes called royal ginseng, that is found only in the remotest areas of Hamgyong Province, in the mountains of North Korea. In Hong Kong, wild red ginseng could be sold to wealthy old men for a small fortune. Ten to twenty thousand dollars was not unheard of as a purchase price for one of the gnarled crimson roots.
Pei frowned. She didn’t understand a word I’d said. She thought I was bargaining for something other than ginseng. She slipped off her rubber glove and let it fall to the ground. Stepping closer, she upped the stakes and unbuttoned the collar of her dress. I didn’t have time to continue trying to communicate with hand signals and her rudimentary English, so I said the words in Korean, the words that had been relayed to me in the middle of the night in a secluded spot on the edge of the Port of Pusan.
“The Nampo Southern Section People’s Grain Warehouse,” I said. “I must go there.”
Her mouthed gaped open. She’d probably never heard a merchant marine speak Korean before.
“Bali,” I said. Hurry. “Na insam sago sippo.” I want to buy ginseng. Still speaking Korean, I asked her how I could get outside of the fence surrounding us so I could make my way to the grain warehouse.
Pei’s mouth closed. She stared at the silver coin, rebut-toning the collar of her dress. She seemed frightened, confused. I needed to reassure her, so I slipped the coin into her open palm. The flesh was rough and calloused. She gazed up at me, thinking it over. Her brow wrinkled.
“No one will know,” I said in Korean. “A friend told me you’ve done deals before. I’ll be careful.”
Finally she nodded. Her fingers closed around the coin.
Quietly, we stepped farther down the dark hall. She opened a door that led outside, turned, and motioned for me to wait. A few yards away, a guard stood at a side gate. He seemed bored as he stared into the mist-soaked darkness. As Food Worker Pei approached, he turned, clutching his rifle. She bowed and stepped closer to him. When she was almost touching him, she spoke.
If she wanted to betray me, now was the time.
The guard whispered a few questions. Pei answered. Finally, the guard glanced around, ensuring that no one was watching, and took a couple of steps away from the gate. Pei motioned for me to come forward. I did. The gate guard couldn’t have been much more than a teenager. He stared up at me, insolent.
“Tambei,” he said, silently snapping his fingers.
I pretended I didn’t understand. Food Worker Pei mimicked the act of smoking.
I didn’t smoke, but I knew that one of the best ways to inspire cooperation was to always have cigarettes on hand. The ones I pulled out of my pocket were British-made, purchased in Hong Kong. The guard stared at them greedily. I slipped one out of the pack and handed it to him.
Like a magic trick, the cigarette disappeared into the pocket of his jacket. Then he snapped his fingers and said, “Dok.” Again.
I hesitated. Food Worker Pei nodded. I took two more cigarettes out of the pack, handed them to him and, with an air of finality, stuck the remainder of the pack deep into the recesses of my peacoat.
The guard seemed pleased. He glanced around, pulled something from another pocket and handed it to Food Worker Pei. He sauntered off, not looking back. As his footsteps faded, Food Worker Pei bent toward the gate and fiddled with a lock. Metal clinked on metal. She stepped toward me and asked me in Korean, “Odi inji allayo?” Do you know where it is?
I nodded.
This shocked her, the full realization finally hitting her that I was not only a foreigner who spoke Korean but one who knew where the People’s Grain Warehouse was located. The fingers of her left hand rose to her lips, as if the full import of what she was doing was finally coming clear to her. I grabbed her shoulders and spoke to her urgently.
“Kokchong hajima,” I said. Don’t worry. “There’s another silver coin for you when I return. Tell that guard to expect me after one hour. I have more cigarettes. Don’t betray me. If I’m caught, both you and he will be punished.”
She gazed at me in terror. “One hour?” she asked.
I nodded. “One hour. Maybe a little more.”
Then I turned and pushed through the gate, closing it behind me.
I watched as Food Worker Pei scurried forward and snapped shut the lock, feeling guilty about getting her into so much trouble. I had no intention of returning to the People’s Hall of International Friendship. At least not voluntarily.
I had long since memorized the path to the grain warehouse. Eighth Army’s aerial reconnaissance of North Korea is state-of-the-art and covers every square foot of this poor, targeted country. The North Koreans have a small air force but no capacity to stop the U.S. overflights of supersonic aircraft, and certainly no capacity to stop our satellite surveillance. The zoomies tell me that they purposely make sonic booms over the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to remind the Great Leader that we can take him out whenever the spirit moves us.
Back in Seoul, I’d spent hours studying black-and-white blowups of photographs of the Port of Nampo and the surrounding area. I trotted now through cold, narrow alleys, mud sloshing beneath my feet, with few lights to guide me. Only at major intersections did the occasional yellow street lamp stand guard. I avoided these, sticking to the shadows.
The sailor who’d brought me the message back in the safety of the Port of Pusan had specifically said that I must contact a man called Hero Kang at the People’s Grain Warehouse in the southern section of Nampo. It was only a few hundred yards from the People’s Hall of International Friendship and other sailors had gone there to transact black-market deals. Who Hero Kang was or what he looked like, I had no idea. The only thing I was told was to use the code word “orphan.” In Korean, ko-ah. Child of bitterness.
The People’s Grain Warehouse was right where the recon boys told me it would be. Luckily, North Koreans retire early, and on the way I’d seen only a few people from a distance: laborers trudging their way home, an occasional man pushing a wooden cart. I’d managed to avoid them.
The rotted wood door at the back of the warehouse was open. I stepped inside carefully, prepared for anything. Inside, a candle flickered on a low wooden table. The odor of fermenting grain was overpowering. Dust floated in the air. Not dust, I realized, probably minute particles from the husks of rice.
The candle still burning indicated that someone was working late. Hero Kang, I hoped. He couldn’t have known which ship I’d be arriving on—we’d had no communication since the initial message—but certainly he’d be here any night a foreign ship pulled into port, which was only, according to the intelligence boys in Seoul, two or three dozen times a year. A desk sat in a corner and in front of it were square wooden slots, an old-fashioned filing system with yellowed paper rolled and stuffed into various pigeonholes.
I didn’t want to say hello—what if Hero Kang wa
sn’t alone? What if he’d been joined by a surprise visitor and had led the visitor away, hoping I wouldn’t barge in at the wrong time? I decided to find a hiding place and wait. Before I did, I couldn’t resist peeking through a double wooden door. Stepping gingerly on the creaking wood, I pushed the door open slightly and peered into the vast darkness of a high-ceilinged storage area. Something flitted amongst rafters. Bats. I was about to retreat and find a hiding place in the outside alleyway when the soles of my shoes slid on something rough, like tiny pebbles. Grain—millet, I thought—had been strewn purposefully along the floor. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized that the grain had been dropped to form the shape of a crooked arrow, an arrow that pointed deeper into the warehouse. Quietly, I scattered the grain with my shoe and followed.
Moonbeams streamed through a skylight. I passed ancient wooden pallets piled high with sacks of rice. North Korea was a fecund country, rich soil in the lowlands, profitable minerals in the mountains. Begrudgingly, some of my briefers in Seoul had admitted that the standard of living in communist North Korea—as judged by the per capita annual caloric intake—was higher than that in democratic South Korea. But they were quick to add that the Soviet bloc was spending millions subsidizing the North Korean lifestyle, and South Korea was gaining on them rapidly.
At the far end of the warehouse, another tiny candle wavered. It sat on the floor in the center of a short hallway. The door at the end of the hallway had been propped open by a stone. Near the flame, more grain had been scattered. I knelt to examine it, this time expecting a message. It formed two words. The first was a Chinese character. Three lines, the outer two angling in on the straight line in the middle. It took me a second and then it came to me. Su. Water. The second word was in shadow. I lifted the flaming plate of oil. It was in English. Then I realized what it said.
Run.
2
A narrow pathway ran along the edge of the Taedong River. I slipped on the muddy precipice and almost plunged into the roiling water below, at the last minute grabbing shrubbery, steadying myself, and moving forward. Besides the three-quarter moon, the only visibility was provided by the glare of the floodlights of the port behind me. I was heading north, not sure if this was the right way but knowing that I didn’t want to return south toward the port. If anyone were following me, they’d be coming from that direction. The message written on the floor of the grain warehouse had been clear. Head for water and run.