by Rawlin Cash
The two men remained in silence in the dark of the cell. They could both hear each other's breaths, each other's heartbeats. It was cold. Lonely.
"Do you have children?" Hillcock asked, breaking the silence.
"Yes," Raynor responded. "A girl. She's four."
Hillcock smiled. "My girl was four when I was captured. She'd be in her thirties by now. My boy was one. He'd be twenty-something."
"I'm sorry," Raynor said.
"Don't be. If anything, it's the scum bags in Washington. It's the President's fault." Hillcock chuckled. "And you're not the fucking President, right?"
Raynor took a deep breath.
Forty
Kim pulled the truck off the main road and drove another two miles. Pots and rivets made the drive bumpy. The landscape was desolate and covered in snow.
"Wung is just up ahead. It's a small village. The village elder's name is Pak Sun. He's a good man. He supports our cause."
"I don't care about your cause, kid," Hunter said. "I'm here to do one thing and one thing only. Kill Woo and get the President."
"I know."
Hung pulled up to a small, ancient looking wall that surrounded the town. He parked beside a gate and said, "The Liberators headquarters is in a warehouse."
Hunter nodded, got out of the truck, and grabbed his duffel bag. He followed Kim through the dark and quiet town. Hunter could feel the eyes of the villagers watch him as he passed.
"Are there any KPA close by?" Hunter asked.
"Our village is tiny. The KPA does not bother us much."
Hunter didn't like it. He gripped his M4 tightly as he walked through the town. There were no streetlights. It was mostly dark, save for the light of the moon.
"No lights in this village?" Hunter asked.
"Electricity is an expensive commodity here," Kim said. "This village produced poorly last year during the harvest. The government is punishing us for now. No electricity for December."
Hunter shook his head. He'd heard the same happening in Soviet-era Russia. One of the many side-effects of communism. Everything is equal until it isn't, and then you realize it never was.
"Are you warm?" Kim asked Hunter. "It will be a cold night."
Hunter nodded. "I'll be fine."
The cold never bothered him. In fact, he liked the cold. He liked the way it made his skin feel, the way it seemed to make everything around him more clear and hard.
"The garage is just ahead."
"Good," Hunter said.
Kim guided Hunter to a small building that once housed an auto shop. It was graffitied. American slang was written on it in a washed-out black paint. It was of a saying from George Orwell's 1984.
'War is peace.'
Kim knocked on the door and spoke in Korean to a man on the other side. The door opened slowly.
Kim held the door open for Hunter, who walked in and was immediately disappointed.
The Liberators were a bunch of kids playing rebellion. There was a reason they weren't on the KPA's radar. They weren't much of anything. Their operations center looked like a high school computer lab in the 1980s, which was to say that everything was out of date. Old CRT monitors glowed green and black, thick wires splayed across the floor, and loud servers hummed. In between the ancient tech was a young man in a wheelchair. He had thin hair, like that of an octogenarian—someone quadruple his age. Long strands of the hair clumped together, creating sickly bald patches. He had nervous eyes and a moist mouth. His skin was pale and blotchy with dark purple spots. He wasn't well.
"Welcome to the Liberators HQ," Kim said. He walked ahead of Hunter and up to the man in a wheelchair. "This is Yong Min-ho. He's the leader of the Liberator forces. He's the one who made contact with the MI6. He's the reason you're here."
Hunter smirked. "You stretched the truth a bit, didn't you?"
Yong laughed. "I had to."
"The MI6 agent you've been corresponding with believed you were the biggest rebellion in the country. Is that true?"
"I don't know," Yong said. "We're the biggest in this town."
Hunter rubbed his brow. He could feel a headache coming on. He rubbed his head. He was missing the G-12 already.
“Are you okay? Miss Margot said she was sending the best of the best."
"Then she lied to you, too."
Had Yong not be relegated to a wheelchair, he would have been tall, but his length sitting in the wheelchair made him look contorted. He rolled himself toward Hunter.
"What's your name?"
"Jack Hunter."
"Margot said she sending someone who was off the radar.”
"I was CIA."
"You're not anymore?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because the world is controlled by assholes who lie."
Yong giggled. "You're angry."
"I wouldn't have agreed to come to North Korea if I knew my back up was a bunch of kids holding pea shooters."
"We have weapons," Kim said. "We have plenty of AK-47s and enough ammo to last several weeks."
"You're trying to take on an entire army," Hunter said. "I don't like your odds."
"We brought you here because we know we can help," Yong said. "We know where your President is, and we hope our act of diplomacy will help those in the West realize that our people need help."
Hunter sighed. He should have expected this. He should have anticipated that the Liberators were not going to be what Margot thought they were.
"Alright," Hunter said. "Where is he?"
Yong rolled his wheelchair up to Hunter.
The two men were barely three feet apart.
"I don't know."
Hunter clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth. He pulled up his M9 and aimed it at Yong before anyone else in the garage could react.
Yong didn't even flinch, although he did giggle. He noticed that the other Liberators in the room were aiming their weapons at Hunter. "Put your weapons down, you fools," he said to them all in Korean. "We got what we wanted. They sent him. He can help us." They lowered their weapons. He turned to Hunter. "We are a small outfit, but we are capable. I know how to find your President."
"Fuck," Hunter said.
“Did you bring the satellite transponder? The one I requested.”
Hunter nodded. He went to his duffel bag and pulled it out. He handed it to Yong.
“Our village is close to a mountain called Chum Chak. There's a KPA communication station at the top of the hill. If you get me inside, I can find out where your President is. I can tell you everything you need to know. We'll have access to the entire KPA network.”
Hunter wanted to laugh. It was clear now. Yong was a smart kid. He'd effectively played an international agency like a fiddle, and he'd got them to send a CIA officer to help with nary a question.
"Alright," Hunter said. "How do we get to the mountain?"
Forty-One
Yong knew confronting Hunter would be a risk, but one he knew he'd have to make. It was stressful but necessary. A ploy to manipulate a game that he knew was never going to be in his favor.
He had to at least give his side a fighting chance if it all worked out in the end. If he had access to the central KPA network, he could undermine the army by transmitting the truth about the Supreme Leader to every household in North Korea.
All he needed was Hunter.
He needed someone capable, someone, who knew what they were doing when it came to combat.
"There is no Plan B," Yong said. "If we fail. I cannot find your President."
"Then let's not fail," Hunter said.
"I am a computer hacker," Yong said. "My body is a mess, incapable of doing anything important. I can't run, I can't shoot, and I can't fight. I am reserved in fighting combat of the mind. Everything that I am good at concerns numbers and algorithms—lines of code that result in computer functions. I am nothing without that. Nothing." He wheezed. The acknowledgment of his weakness made him feel weaker than he actually was.
"If you get me inside, and I can do anything you want."
Hunter turned to Kim. "This is who you put all your stock into?"
Kim snarled. "He's a genius. He got in contact with MI6. He brought you here. He's going to make Korea one country again. He's going to unify our nation."
"And then what?" Hunter asked.
Yong laughed. "We will create a democratic country that is free... unlike North Korea and unlike the United States."
"Good luck, kid," Hunter said. "Every rebel group I've helped liberate has said the same thing."
"So what? We should just be okay with the status-quo?" Yong asked. "The people in North Korea are suffering. I'm trying to help. I'm doing what I can."
"Just tell me where the mountain is. How do we get to the communication tower?"
Yong rolled his wheelchair over to his workstation. Unlike the other computers in the derelict garage, it at least looked relatively modern. His computer set up involved three flat-screen LCD monitors and one large tower. Hunter followed Yong. Kim stayed close to Hunter—warily keeping an eye on the CIA assassin.
Yong pulled up his computer monitor.
"We need to go here." Yong pointed to a point on a map on his screen. “Kim can drive us. It’s heavily protected. It will take us at least a day of travel.”
“They’re going to kill the President in three days. That gives me only two days to do what I need to do.”
“Then you have two days. If we don’t go there, we won’t know where he is.”
“Fine,” Hunter grunted.
Kim walked to the entrance of the garage. He looked out a small slip in the door. “Oh shit,” he said.
“What is it?” Yong responded.
“It’s the KPA.”
“What?” Yong responded.
They were speaking Korean, so Hunter didn’t know exactly what they were talking about, but it was obvious enough to him that it wasn’t good.
He lifted up his M4 and got ready.
So far, his time in North Korea had been a complete fucking shit show.
Forty-Two
Shots rang out. They were warning shots. Fired into the air to get the town into a panic. A flurry of footsteps and heavy breaths were heard outside.
"What the hell is going on?" Kim yelled out to Yong.
Yong clicked furiously away at his computer. He was checking radio channels nearby.
"Shit," he said.
Kim walked up to Yong. "What is it? What's going on?"
"They've sent a surveillance team to the village."
"I thought they weren't supposed to arrive for a couple days."
"Well, they're here."
Hunter peeked over the lip of a window in the garage. Outside, the snow had picked up. A light frosting covered the frozen ground, covering the footsteps both he and Kim had etched within the dirt.
"What does a surveillance team do?" Hunter shouted.
Kim ran up to him. "They go from building to building and check papers. It's old school."
"I've spotted at least fifteen men," Hunter said. "Get the Liberators ready. We're going to have to take them all out if they knock on our door."
"I've got eyes on them," Yong said. He pulled up security software he'd installed on his computer. Days ago, he'd had Yong and the rest of the Liberators install security cameras around the village.
"Eyes?" Hunter said.
"Yes," Kim said. "We have security cameras."
Hunter walked to Yong and checked his computer. "I thought you guys were smart," he said.
"What do you mean?" Yong responded.
"I mean that they're going to spot those security cameras."
"I..."
Sure enough, one of the security cameras spotted exactly what Hunter was worried about. A KPA soldier was looking up at the recently installed cameras.
"That's going to make them extra suspicious," Hunter growled.
"I'm sorry," Yong said.
The KPA spotted several other security cameras.
Hunter turned to Kim. "Get your men ready."
Yong quickly rotated between cameras, shouting out the movements of the KPA in both Korean and English. The KPA soldiers were making their way toward the direction of the garage.
The KPA found positions of cover and then opened fire on the garage all at once. It'd become evident that if there was a threat in the town, it was located in the one building without any cameras. Yong might as well have put a target on the whole place.
As bullets sparked off the metal front door, Hunter yelled at Kim in English, "Get two men on either side. We will hide behind these crates." He gestured with his head toward two large steel crates. They'd been set up as makeshift tables for computer monitors, but for now, they'd have to serve as shields.
Kim yelled to the men to follow Hunter's directions and then turned to Hunter. The two men were close to each other. "What the hell are we going to do?"
"Follow my lead," Hunter said. "Make sure your men don't fire until I tell them to."
Up until that point, none of the Liberators had fired back at the attacking force. They knew their numbers were small, and they knew their chances of survival were even smaller if they were reckless.
Kim shouted commands at the three other Liberators. Yong kept typing away at his computer. He was scanning the security footage. He relayed information about the movements to Hunter and Kim.
"Tell your boss to get into cover!" Hunter shouted at Kim.
Kim turned to Yong and told him to get into cover.
Yong looked at him and then looked back at his computer.
Hunter snarled. He needed that asshole alive. He ran up to Yong and grabbed hold of the handles of his wheelchair.
"If you don't do what I tell you to do, you're going to die."
"I was scanning the cameras," Yong said. "And I am setting up the contingency plan. Just let me hit enter."
"The cameras that guided them to the garage? Grow up. Do you want this whole village to burn?"
Yong shook his head. He slammed the enter key on his keyboard and turned to Hunter. "I know I've been too aggressive. Take me away. We should be alright."
Hunter pulled the kid in the wheelchair to cover.
The attackers outside escalated the attack. A giant explosion blasted a six-foot-wide hole in the wall of the garage. It was caused by a grenade.
With Yong secured, Hunter ran back to Kim. "Have they breached the walls?" he asked.
"No," Kim said.
"As soon as you see them, I want all your men to fire at once. We need to conceal our numbers. We need to throw them off."
"I'll tell the men."
"Good."
Hunter pulled up his M4 and checked that it was ready to fire. He lifted it up and aimed down the scope. He waited.
As the smoke from the explosion began to clear and the sounds of gunfire dwindled down, he gripped his rifle. Voices crept in through the hole.
They were getting ready to make their way inside.
Hunter turned to Kim. "Are your men good shots?"
Kim turned to Hunter. There was no point in lying. "The liberators are made up of farmers and laymen. Not soldiers."
"Fucking hell," Hunter said. "Over before it began."
The voices outside grew silent.
The KPA soldiers were about to make their move.
Hunter aimed down his scope. He took a deep breath and slowed his heart rate. He couldn't risk missing one shot. He'd have to be perfect.
He heard something unexpected.
Laughter.
It was Yong.
"What the hell?" Hunter whispered to Kim. "What's his problem?"
"I don't know," Kim said.
As soon as Kim answered, Hunter realized the cause for levity. Outside the garage, the sounds of heavy gunfire rang out through the dark and quiet night. The sounds of screaming men echoed into the garage. Hunter turned back to the hole.
One of the attackers climbed inside the garage.
&nb
sp; He wasn't trying to breach the walls, though. He was trying to find shelter. Something was attacking the force outside—something hostile—deadly.
A soldier stumbled over the shards of exploded metal around the frame of the hole that he and his man had created. He hobbled into the garage. His face was covered in blood, and his clothes were bleeding.
Hunter lifted up his rifle and stood up. As he kept his aim squarely on the soldier who'd climbed into the garage, he commanded Kim, "Tell this asshole to drop his weapon."
Kim shouted at the soldier in Korean. "Put your weapon down!"
Outside, the screams died down, but the sounds of gunfire didn't. What the hell was going on, Hunter thought.
He approached the soldier who had yet to put his rifle down.
"Tell him that I'll put him down if he doesn't drop the rifle," Hunter said to Kim.
Kim repeated the command again.
The soldier didn't listen. Instead, he stared into Hunter's eyes with the rage of a religious zealot. He lifted up his rifle, but before he could take aim at Hunter, Hunter put him down.
Four bullets; one in the collarbone, three in the chest.
The young soldier's body dropped to the garage's cement floor and painted it red with splatters of blood. It resembled a Jackson Pollock painting. It was gruesome and horrific.
Hunter lifted up his rifle and continued to walk toward the hole. He peeked through. The shooting had finally stopped.
As he poked his head out of the hole, he saw the scale of the damage. Bodies were everywhere, as was an exploded truck.
"What the hell was that?" Hunter asked.
"I'd installed a machine gun on the roof," Yong revealed, rolling himself from cover. "Like I said, I'm good with computers."
Hunter leaned his head out into the cold. He heard the frantic footsteps of soldiers fleeing. He turned to Kim and Yong.
"There are soldiers who are fleeing. They're going to getaway. We won't be able to find them. Once word gets out that Wung is a safe haven for rebel forces, your little group will have the army on its backs."
"Then we need to move quickly," Kim said. "The sooner we get to the communication station, the better."
Hunter shook his head.