by Jeff Nesbit
“The ambassador, in Japan.”
“Yes, Ambassador Lee. He asked me to call you, to see if you might be able to help.”
“I am under house arrest,” Reza said, his voice calm. “There is very little I can do.”
“My father believes you can help,” Nash said firmly. “He believes that your voice can bring calm to certain people.”
“Yes, but it brings violence to others,” Reza said evenly. “It depends upon the audience.”
Nash forged on. “My father believes that you can help with someone close to Ayatollah Shahidi.”
Razavi laughed. “That would be nice—if it were true. But I am under house arrest under orders directly from the Rev. Shahidi.”
“I understand,” Nash said. “And I’m sure it’s complicated. But there are people he listens to, who might be able to reason with him.”
“Perhaps. But history, so far, would seem otherwise.”
“But we have to try,” Nash said, beginning to think his quest was hopeless. “People will make decisions in the next few hours…”
“Yes, they will. But I am powerless to prevent them.”
“Mr. Razavi, I do not believe that is true,” Nash said with resolve. “There are times when you must simply do the right thing. No matter what. And this is one of those times.”
There was silence on the other end of the line for a few moments.
“And what would you—what would the American government—have me do from inside the walls of my home, where I am imprisoned?” he said finally.
“My father believes the Rev. Ehsan might be in a position to influence the Supreme Leader.”
“Ahura Ehsan?”
“Yes, the Rev. Ehsan.”
“That’s what your father believes? That he might listen to my words?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Do you know why he believes this?”
“No, I don’t, honestly,” Nash said. “But I know that my father always has his reasons, and I trust his judgment. If he believes it will help, then I do too.”
“I see,” Razavi said. “Ahura is a good man. He is close to the Rev. Shahidi. He is no fool. But he is also every bit as conservative as his leader. I’m not sure it would make much difference.”
“But will you try?”
“If I do,” Razavi asked, “what must I say?”
“Please ask him to intervene, right now, on the Shahab 3. Please ask him to give the United States time to act, to organize sanctions against Israel for their strike—”
“The U.S. would sanction Israel?” Razavi asked, surprised. “It has never done that before.”
“My father says it will, now. But only if the Rev. Shahidi is able to forestall the launch in retaliation.”
“And he believes Ahura can help persuade the leader of this course of action?”
“He may be our only hope,” Nash said. “If just one Shahab 3, with a nuclear warhead, should reach Israel, everything will change. We both know that. So, will you make the call? Can you ask him to intervene with the leader and stop the missile launch?”
“Yes, I will,” Razavi said after a few moments of hesitation. “For you are right. It is the right thing to do.”
16
CAMP 16
NEAR CHONGJIN, NORTH KOREA
Kim Grace had heard rumors over the years that her entire family had been moved to various camps. None had ever come to Camp 16, though. Once interned, her life was effectively over. She would never be given a chance to know what had happened to her family—until the day a new political prisoner had arrived with a mobile phone miraculously secured with his personal possessions.
Kim Grace had lost nearly all of her teeth. Her gums had long ago turned black from a diet of just corn and salt. She had been unable to stand straight for the past year and regularly hunched over at the waist as she spent almost fifteen hours each day in the nearby mines. The one set of clothes she’d received when she’d first arrived at Camp 16 had become rags. She no longer had socks.
But she still had hope that, some day, she would see her children again. Despite the desperate odds, she held her children close to her in ceaseless prayer to God. It was the reason she woke up each morning. Her deep Christian faith helped her believe that, one day, she would see the faces of her two daughters and the young son she’d been forced to leave behind when she became a political prisoner at Camp 16.
The world had long ago forgotten about Camp 16, and Kim Grace. They’d once risen up in horror to protest the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet Gulag. Yet literally hundreds of thousands of prisoners had died in the North Korean camps over the years from malnutrition, torture, or execution. No one cared.
There were two nuclear test sites west and southwest of Camp 16 in the mountains near Chongjin. Kim Grace knew that because, once, she’d been a highly trained and valued nuclear engineer. She knew what took place at the nuclear test sites near Camp 16, south of both China and Russia.
But there was very little she could do, or say, about those tests near Camp 16. The proof of the knowledge she’d brought with her to Camp 16 had vanished without a trace from the planet. It was, in fact, why she was at Camp 16 in the first place.
When she’d first arrived at the camp, the guards had promised her that her family would eventually join her there. Others had family members there—top government officials who’d fallen out of favor with the Dear Leader and, then, with his third son, Pak Jong Un, who would soon succeed his father as North Korea’s leader.
But her family members had never arrived at Camp 16, and her hope had waned to next to nothing over the years. She was resigned to her daily fate. But, still, she kept both eyes wide open as each new batch of prisoners arrived at the camp, and her prayers to the God she served never stopped.
She’d been accused by the Bowibu, the country’s national security agency, of passing nuclear secrets to South Korea and the West. The charge was ludicrous, of course. Kim Grace knew virtually no one associated with anyone outside North Korea. She’d devoted her life to helping create North Korea’s civil and military nuclear capability.
But a coworker who knew of her growing unease at the way in which her civil nuclear engineering work was converted to military purposes—and who also had an irrational hatred of her Christian beliefs—had turned her in to the Bowibu. The trial had been quick, and absurd. She’d been sentenced to one hundred years of hard labor at the camps—which the North Korean government consistently denied even existed.
In her “interview” before coming to Camp 16, she’d had both legs and her right arm broken. Two hammer blows had broken the teeth on the right side of her face. All of her fingernails had been removed. She’d lost a toe on one of her feet. She’d weighed just seventy pounds when she’d been allowed to leave her interviews. After six months—and after she’d already been convicted of high treason for passing nuclear secrets to the West—Kim Grace had finally admitted to being a spy.
When the young man had arrived at Camp 16, Kim Grace had paid no attention to him. She made very few friends at camp. The days were much too hard for that. You had to meet your work quota or face reduced corn rations. If you consistently failed to meet your work quota, you were sent to the prison within a prison, and there was no returning from that second prison alive.
So Kim Grace made certain she met her work quota each day, no matter what. She rarely talked to anyone throughout the day and was much too tired to speak to anyone at night. Sleep was too precious to waste even a moment on idle chatter. It was all she could do to spend time on a Bible verse, and a prayer, at the end of each day.
But the young man who’d arrived at Camp 16 several months earlier was hard to ignore. He worked with energy and always had time toward the end of the day—once he’d reached his quota—to talk to his fellow prisoners on breaks.
At first the guards had paid close attention to the young man, who was in his midtwenties. But, over time, as the young man went about his daily
routine with energy and purpose, they’d turned their attention elsewhere. The young man was a model prisoner and never caused any trouble. He helped others do their work, always smiled at the guards, and generally made life better for everyone at Camp 16. It was hard not to like him.
Kim Grace had been unable to muster enough energy to talk to him initially. When she did talk to him at last, the knowledge of who he was and what he had been simply stunned her.
You Moon was a boyhood friend of Pak Jong Un—the young man about to become the new Dear Leader in Pyongyang. He’d grown up playing Nintendo fighting games with the leader-to-be. They’d played basketball together. Pak Jong Un had always worn a replica Chicago Bulls jersey when they’d played on the glittering basketball court built at the southern end of the Dear Leader’s palace complex northeast of Pyongyang. You Moon claimed to have spent time with the soon-to-be Dear Leader at all seventeen of their different palaces and residences over the years, including a private resort near Baekdu Mountain and a lodge along the sea at Wonsan.
You Moon also said that he’d regularly beaten Pak Jong Un on the basketball court and in Nintendo games. But, officially, the young man about to become North Korea’s Dear Leader always won his games 15-0 and had set every world record imaginable for each Nintendo game they’d played.
In fact, the official biography of his friend stated unequivocally that he’d first learned how to master computer science through his Nintendo gaming and had later translated that passion and love into the ability to direct the nation’s most sophisticated high technology systems run by the National Defense Commission. His biography said that he was now the world’s most gifted, proficient, and skilled master of high technology anywhere in the world.
It also said that he’d once made 8,776 free throws in a row, shattering the previous world record of 5,221 set in 1996. Unable to confirm the report, the Guinness Book of World Records did not recognize Pak Jong Un’s free-throw record.
You Moon had lost touch for a couple of years when his friend went overseas to a private school in Switzerland. They’d stayed in touch via text messages and through mVillage. Most of their talk was about the Chicago Bulls, or the NBA, or some celebrity in the West who’d done something stupid or ridiculous. They never talked about politics, the government, world events, or his father.
When Pak Jong Un had returned from Switzerland, everything changed. He began to spend considerably more time away from the various palaces and residences. He attended many, many official meetings with his father. Eventually, You Moon only saw his friend during private, arranged vacations. His friend was quite clearly being groomed to take over for his father. Any fool—and You Moon was no fool—could see that.
As they’d entered adulthood, his friend had helped You Moon secure a job as a mid-level bureaucrat with the General Staff of the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces. You Moon had no real knowledge of how the highest executive organization in North Korea’s military affairs actually functioned. All he knew was that he made plenty of money, by North Korea’s standards, which left him plenty of time to do almost anything he wanted to do in Pyongyang.
When his friend became the supreme commander of the People’s Armed Forces and the chairman of the Military Committee, it was obvious to You Moon that Pak Jong Un had assumed overall command of the North Korean military apparatus. The generals all reported to his friend.
But You Moon was also smart enough to see that it was mostly an exercise in shadow authority. The generals did what they wanted. His friend may have been the Supreme Commander—and his father may have been grooming him to become North Korea’s next leader—but the generals clearly told the Supreme Commander where to go, what to say, and how to act in public.
You Moon knew this because his friend would occasionally complain, privately, about the noose around his neck when they were together on a vacation. His friend did so very discreetly and swore You Moon to secrecy. But it was obvious that his friend had quite a distance to travel before he could assume his father’s mantle as Dear Leader. Perhaps time would change this. But, for now, Pak Jong Un was a puppet as his father’s health failed.
Kim Grace and You Moon became friends over time. For the first time in her miserable existence at Camp 16, she actually looked forward to the end of the day. She found that she could sit and listen to You Moon for hours. He was like the son she’d never had a chance to know.
When she’d finally worked up the courage to ask You Moon how he’d managed to come to Camp 16, a dark shadow fell across his face. That was rare, because he was usually so full of energy and enthusiasm—even here in this place that God and the world had seemingly forgotten. The sudden change in his demeanor was unmistakable. There was real sadness in his voice as he told the story.
You Moon had made a mistake. It had been an understandable one, made by many young men. But, in You Moon’s case, it had been catastrophic.
A young woman You Moon had been dating had joined them for a private, four-day weekend at Wonson a year or so after Pak Jong Un had taken the helm of the defense commission. She also worked at the General Staff of the military armed forces. You Moon felt blessed to date her. Bright, funny, and stunningly attractive, she was—almost—enough to convince him to stop visiting other places in Pyongyang in the evenings.
The three had enjoyed jet skiing, drinks at night, long talks on the beach, and gorgeous sunrises. In just two days Pak Jong Un had grown infatuated with the young woman. It was hard not to be drawn to her. She was a blazing light in the heavens.
On their third day at the seaside residence, Pak Jong Un had kissed the young woman as they were sitting on a veranda overlooking the sea. You Moon had seen it from a distance. Later that evening, he’d confronted his friend. The conversation had grown heated, and You Moon had shoved his friend in anger. It was their first real fight—and their last.
You Moon was arrested that night. His friend, in the heat of anger, had ordered him detained. He was tried for treason against the state the very next morning and shipped off to Camp 16 immediately. It had all happened so abruptly that You Moon had been unable to tell his family, or anyone, about the incident.
He’d been a trusted friend of the young man waiting in the wings to become the nation’s next Dear Leader one moment, and a political prisoner and enemy of the state the next—all because he’d objected to his friend’s advances toward his girlfriend, the type of dispute that young men had been involved in for ages.
But these were no ordinary young men, and their friendship was more than just a little unbalanced in the great equation of life. You Moon knew that now, but it was too late to correct his mistake. He wondered if his friend would, one day, show some sort of mercy and bring him back from the purgatory of Camp 16. He doubted it, but hope was all that he had now.
Because the entire incident had happened so quickly—and because Pak Jong Un had ordered his friend banished immediately—You Moon had only managed to leave with the possessions with him at the seaside resort. All but one of those possessions had been taken from him as he’d arrived at Camp 16. The one possession he’d managed to hide from the guards was a slim Nokia mobile phone and two spare batteries that he taped to his body and managed to sneak in undetected.
The phone, thankfully, had been fully charged when he’d arrived at Camp 16. He’d carefully monitored the power on the phone and only checked world events and messages on mVillage occasionally, late at night. The phone’s power was now about three-quarters diminished. Even with the spare batteries, it would be completely drained, and worthless to him, in less than a year at the rate he was using it.
You Moon told no one about his phone after his arrival at Camp 16. He knew one slip would mean that his phone would be taken from him. So he told no one—until, late one evening, when he’d finally decided to tell Kim Grace about it.
You Moon instinctively trusted Kim Grace. She had no reason to turn him in at Camp 16. Her life was over, save for her last, flickering hope of seeing
members of her family one day. He knew, in his heart, that she would not violate his trust.
She’d told him everything she knew and believed and, over time, he’d reciprocated. That included the knowledge of the secret cell phone, the first lifeline to the outside world that had ever managed to make its way into Camp 16.
As Kim Grace and You Moon learned of each other’s lives and work, they slowly realized that they had something in common—a bonded knowledge and a path to the outside world that the North Korean government would have stopped at all costs, had they known about it.
In fact, they both came to realize that they shared secret knowledge that no one outside of North Korea grasped—knowledge that the world likely should know about. But there was no one to tell, and they were both effectively gone from the face of the earth. They could tell their stories to each other, but to no one else. And they were not certain anyone would care, even if they could reach outside the forbidding walls of Camp 16.
Because of her former work as a civil and military nuclear scientist, and her knowledge of what was really being tested at the two nuclear sites near Camp 16, Kim Grace had a fairly clear idea of what North Korea was capable of with weapons of mass destruction. She knew the world would be surprised to know North Korea’s true intent.
Because of his privileged status as one of Pak Jong Un’s closest childhood friends, You Moon had been granted access to the most secret workings of the General Staff and also knew what the North Korean military considered important. What’s more, he and his friend had quietly talked about some of the tests during late-night Nintendo sessions. His friend had been guarded, but You Moon was astute enough to grasp what he was hearing.
In fact, You Moon’s friend had boasted about how stupid the West was with their seismic monitoring of the first four tests at sites near Camp 16. The United States had sent their modified Boeing jet, the Constant Phoenix, near the tests to monitor the seismic levels.