From the Fatherland, with Love, page 10
The captain was looking at the clock: they would be entering South Korean territorial waters in three more hours, Japanese waters in six. From there it was another ninety minutes to Fukuoka, their destination. It was nearly time for the meeting; the rest of the team were waiting below. Afterwards, they would have to inspect their weapons and go over specific details of the operation. “Let’s go,” Han said, and Kim responded with a nod. As they were leaving the pilothouse, the captain and first officer stood at attention and saluted. About the mission Han and his subordinates had been entrusted with, they knew nothing, but respect for the Special Operations Forces was unequivocal, not only in the military but throughout the country. During food crises, the commandos alone were supplied with rice and meat broth. Everyone knew this, but no one complained. Dissatisfaction was focused on corrupt local Party officials and their secretaries, some of whom had been set upon by mobs and burned out of house and home, while others had been purged. The commandos, however, were special. The masses knew of their severe, sometimes even fatal, training, and of the extremely dangerous nature of their missions. There was also general awareness that they were a key factor in upholding the revolutionary cause on which the fate of the Republic hinged.
*
Han Seung Jin and Kim Hak Su descended the steep, narrow stairs. Kim stopped halfway down and lifted one foot to inspect the sole of his shoe. “I have the odd feeling of walking barefoot,” he said. Han was experiencing the same sensation. They weren’t wearing lace-up commando boots but rather rubber-soled cloth shoes made in the South. These were extremely light, the rubber absorbing the impact of their steps on steel stairs and producing scarcely a sound. “I’ve never worn things like this before,” remarked Han. He found himself thinking of the two sons he’d left behind. They were now in primary school and were exactly as he had been in his own childhood: brawny and unmanageable. Their favorite sport was soccer, and every day they came home caked in mud. Their mother was forever scolding them, telling them to settle down or to study, but they rarely listened to her. Now, for a few wistful moments, Han imagined presenting his sons with feather-light footwear like this and seeing the surprise and delight on their faces. He knew, however, that he would never see those faces again. He was prepared to give his life for the Republic, and this mission could very well demand that sacrifice. But even if he were lucky enough to survive, he could never again return to his homeland.
The rumble of the diesel engine reverberated through the cabin; along with the smell of oil came a regular and soothing vibration, its very steadiness an assurance that they were indeed moving toward their destination. Those in the cabin were looking out of the portholes, reading by the dim emergency lights, or sitting on the wall bunks, but when Han and Kim came in, they sprang to their feet, stood at attention, and saluted. Kim automatically returned the salute, but Han quietly ordered them to stand at ease, saying that as the mission had already begun, such formalities were no longer called for. The cabin, measuring just over twelve square meters, consisted of berths on opposite walls with a small wooden table anchored to the floor and a sofa that could accommodate four, though out of deference to Han, who stood next to the table, his subordinates sat down side by side on the narrow bunks. Their faces were all in dead earnest as they waited, legs pressed together, hands on thighs, backs straight, eyes straining forward. To the right were those from the 907th Battalion of the Eighth Corps, to the left those from the State Security Department.
“Talk to each other in Japanese,” said Han, speaking himself in that language. They responded with frowns and confused expressions. To the right nearest him was thirty-two-year-old Choi Hyo Il from Tongchon in Kangwon Province. He was wearing a bright-green T-shirt, a denim jacket, and jeans—an outfit ill-matched to his appearance. On one cheek he had a long, thin knife scar, and his shoulder muscles bulged from long years of gyeoksul training. The denim he was wearing for the first time in his life made him look like a bear in a suit.
Choi raised his hand and asked in imperfect Japanese why they should be speaking that language now. Han could sense that Choi’s grammar was off, but he wasn’t sure just what the problem was or how to correct it. After being assigned to the mission, he had tried to improve his own command of Japanese by reading some contemporary novels lent him by Professor Pak Yong Su of Kim Jong Il Political-Military University. But neither he nor any of the others had been able to brush up their speaking skills. Their compatriots in the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, the Chongryon, had not been included in the undertaking, and there was hardly anyone in the Republic familiar with the vocabulary and speech patterns of younger Japanese. Moreover, concern for absolute secrecy had meant that Han hadn’t been informed about particular details until just before the ship’s departure. At the beginning of their training, he was given the barest outline of their task: to infiltrate a city on the island of Kyushu and take armed control of a particular sector.
According to the plan now made known to him, up to the time they actually seized the area, they were to act as though they were among the apparently numerous travelers from South Korea. In establishing and maintaining control, however, they would have to be able to issue orders to their hostages in Japanese. Han had learned to read and write Japanese, but it was of the formal variety, complete with honorific expressions. He had no command of the casual speech one needed for conveying one’s message quickly and accurately or for delivering simple but important commands and instructions.
“Very well, then,” he said. “You may speak Korean if you like.” There was something else that had been nagging him ever since the final briefing, an issue that went beyond speaking Japanese, though he didn’t know how to resolve it. He and those under his command had been brought together soon after the mission was authorized and had immediately begun their training. In addition to taking refresher courses in Japanese, they had practiced firing revolvers, rifles, and RPG-7s, honed their gyeoksul skills, and learned how to operate Japanese Self-Defense Force weaponry. They had also pored over detailed maps of Fukuoka City, studied the geography of Kyushu, Shikoku, and western Honshu, rehearsed the speech patterns of Korean tourists from the South, familiarized themselves with Japanese coins and currency and public and mobile telephones, learned how to check into a hotel and to take taxis, buses, and trains, and even practiced manipulating the shorter, lighter chopsticks used by the Japanese. And yet they had not learned how to engage in the joking banter of South Korean tourists. Time had not allowed for that, and such instruction was unavailable in any case. There was no shortage of instructors in the art of killing people or blowing up facilities, but no one in the Republic could teach you how to behave like a traveler from the puppet regime.
“What’s wrong? It doesn’t matter what you talk about, just say something! After all, you’re supposed to be good friends from the South.”
All eight assumed the same perplexed expression. They were already sitting erect, but now they stiffened further, their faces looking even more earnest. There were a few twitching lips and brows as well. This was a serious problem, thought Han. Commandos had no concept of friendship. It wasn’t that they had never experienced it but rather that they’d forgotten what it was like. And so, sitting here now, they were incapable of engaging in casual conversation or banter. In order to pass as tourists from the South, they were wearing fancy sweaters, shirts, and jackets, but they were all experts in the martial arts and tremendously fit, and the clothing couldn’t conceal their physiques. They might be taken for professional athletes, except for the knife or bayonet scars that Kim Hak Su, Choi Hyo Il, and Jang Bong Su bore in various places—the temple, the cheek, the neck—and that sharp, watchful look in their eyes.
Above all, they never smiled. In the three months that he’d trained with them, Han hadn’t seen so much as a quick grin. Though they themselves were unaware of it, all eight conveyed an impression of brute force. You wouldn’t have to be Japanese to be suspicious of a group like this standing around or walking down the street. They might as well be wearing sandwich boards declaring: DEADLY COMMANDOS.
The Great Leader had himself established the tradition that fellow soldiers should not form close attachments. The methods for ensuring this fell into two distinct categories. Firstly, there was the rigor of their training, of a severity unimaginable to the ordinary person; it left them with neither the time nor the psychological leeway for close ties. Secondly, to prevent any sort of attempt at a coup d’état, a system of mutual monitoring was firmly in place. Not knowing who might be an informer, a soldier was naturally loath to confide in anyone. Another influential factor was the ending, as of the early 1990s, of opportunities for study abroad. At the time of Han’s graduation and entry into the Light Infantry Guidance Bureau, the Republic was still sending students to the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc countries. Han had spent a year and a half in the Ukraine, but he was among the last to be granted permission, and with Gorbachev establishing diplomatic relations with the puppet regime and the subsequent demise of the USSR, the door was permanently closed. Experience abroad had facilitated friendships; nowadays perhaps the only way to form strong relations was in juvenile gangs.
“What’s wrong?” asked Han by way of provoking a reaction. “You can’t even talk to each other?” Sitting at the far end to his right, Pak Myeong exhaled heavily. The twenty-nine-year-old was from Pyonggang in Kangwon Province. Appropriately for one whose family belonged to the Party elite, he had distinguished himself at Kim Il Sung University. His talent for languages having been recognized, he was sent after graduation to Kim Jong Il Political-Military University, where he studied Japanese and English in addition to the full spectrum of sabotage and subversion strategy. At present he was wearing a brown-green sweater and cream-colored cotton slacks. His entire outfit, including the shirt and brown duck-bill shoes, was made in Japan. Pak had an appealing face, with a broad forehead and large eyes, and the expensive clothes suited him. Yet perspiration was trickling down that same forehead. Jo Su Ryeon, sitting next to him, was likewise breathing hard, with beads of sweat forming on the bridge of his nose. The air was in fact warmer, as the ship was moving southward at a steady forty knots and would soon be entering waters claimed by the puppet regime. But it wasn’t the temperature that was making them uncomfortable.
Thirty-three-year-old Jo was a native of Pyongyang. His father was a renowned professor of languages and literature at Kim Il Sung University, his mother a leading journalist for the Central News Agency. He had joined the SOF Eighth Corps on graduating from the Writers’ Academy, but after three years of basic training he had gone as a cadet to the Kim Hyong Jik University of Education, named after the Great Leader’s father. From there, having demonstrated extraordinary talent, he was enrolled in Kim Jong Il Political-Military University, where he excelled in languages and sharpshooting, along with poetry and novel writing. Han remembered having thought when he first met Jo Su Ryeon that the man would have been a sensation as a people’s actor. He was tall and slim with a deep, resonant voice and eyes with extended slits that curved upward at the outer corners.
Word had it that when Jo walked through the halls of the university, there were audible sighs from the women he passed. In the gray jacket and jeans he was now wearing, no Japanese would have dreamed that he was from the Republic. And yet though his looks might inspire admiring murmurs from women, this didn’t make him any less an SOF officer. His three years of basic training and his graduation from the Political-Military University meant that he’d mastered the full range of sabotage techniques and martial-art skills. Of course, that was true of his comrades as well; all were capable of ripping into the intestines of an enemy with their bare hands.
“If there’s anything you want to say, speak up,” said Han softly, glancing around the room at each of them. Pak Myeong and Jo Su Ryeon were not the only ones who were ill at ease. To Han’s surprise, even Jang Bong Su’s forehead was damp. Jang had been the youngest person ever admitted to Kim Jong Il Political-Military University. He had a flair for sabotage operations, as though he’d been born to the task. A narrow nose, thin lips, and a calm and steady gaze went with a personality that wasn’t so much cool as cold-blooded. He’d led many a clandestine operation against would-be defectors and brought back a number of political criminals who had fled across the border to Jilin. Among escapees he was known for carrying out the cruelest of orders without hesitation, sparing neither the very young nor the very old. And yet this same man, thought Han, was now sitting here stiff-backed with tension.
The only exceptions appeared to be the two women, Kim Hyang Mok and Ri Gwi Hui, who sat nearest the far wall on the left. Kim came from a village near Ranam in North Hamgyong Province; Ri from Chongjin in the same province. Their faces were as intense and serious as the men’s, but they occasionally exchanged glances and seemed to be generally more relaxed. There was an air of innocence about them. Kim, who’d just turned twenty-seven, had worked in the Railway Security and the Capital Air Defense Corps before entering Kim Jong Il Political-Military University. From there she’d gone to the State Security Department’s reconnaissance division. At university she had studied Japanese and English, as well as finance and business, while also undergoing the usual combat training. She had a small build, with sloping shoulders and large, round eyes. She wore her hair in bangs and was winsome enough to have been in the drum-and-fife corps of the Revolutionary Opera Company. She could move with surprising speed and agility. Having grown up in a harsh mountainous region, where she had trapped rabbits, hunted deer, and dug holes in the ice to catch catfish, Kim had certain advantages over city dwellers. Indeed, when it came to training for mountain warfare, in treetops or in the snow, she was more than a match for any male soldier.
Raising her hand, Ri Gwi Hui asked in Japanese for permission to speak. Ri was twenty-eight. On graduating from secondary school in Chongjin, she’d been assigned to the Ministry of People’s Security. There she had done so well that she too was sent to Kim Jong Il Political-Military University, where she studied Japanese and Chinese, together with electronic communications and all there was to know about sabotage and subversion. After that, like Kim Hyang Mok, she’d joined the Agency for State Security and Reconnaissance. Ri was of medium height, lithe and athletic, her even features suggesting intelligence. Her task was of major importance: gaining access to the Basic Resident-Register Network in order to gather, sort, and analyze demographic data for the Fukuoka area.
“Yes? What is it? You needn’t raise your hand.”
“Even if told to say what one wants to say, it can be hard to think of anything.”
Ri had risen and was standing at attention as she spoke. Han was of two minds. On reflection, he realized the absurdity of ordering members of the SOF to speak freely, when it had been relentlessly instilled in them—not verbally but rather in the way that salt and pepper are worked into raw chicken—that they were to have neither their own will nor any personal feelings. Absolute submission to orders was all that mattered. For no other reason, new recruits were tied to posts and whipped for hours on end with cow intestines lined with copper wire. Their senior comrades would punch them, sometimes wearing boxing gloves, sometimes not. There was also the practice of stretching a strip of inner-tube rubber with a sort of giant slingshot, then releasing it right in a recruit’s face.
All recruits were subjected to two particular forms of hazing. The Motorcycle required them to stand with legs apart, knees bent, and arms raised, as though they were straddling a motorbike. They had to remain motionless, sitting on invisible saddles, for as long as an hour, even though within five minutes the strain on legs and loins caused the muscles to scream. The order would finally come—“Go!”—whereupon they had to run full tilt into a cement wall. If they were thought to have cushioned the impact in any way, they were forced to repeat the action. With the Helicopter, recruits were obliged to maintain a rigid posture, arms outstretched, as they were swung horizontally around. Once sufficiently dizzy, they were released and dropped onto the concrete floor. No bending of the body was permitted.
After being transferred from the Guidance Bureau to an active SOF unit, Han had been repeatedly subjected to the Helicopter. He had suffered a broken nose, cracked teeth, and numerous concussions. Sometimes the pain had been so intense he’d considered pretending to be unconscious; but to test this, recruits would have ice-cold water poured over them or have their eyelids pricked with pins, and if found to be faking they were hazed all the more brutally. The effectiveness of all this was unrivaled in terms of suppressing individual volition and emotion. Numerous methods had been developed in the Republic to control human behavior through pain, humiliation, and fear, and they were used on everyone, from the elite SOF down to the common criminals, ideological offenders, and counter-revolutionary elements who languished in concentration camps, no better off than farm animals.
Han now recognized that it had been a mistake to ask his subordinates to open up. Though able to endure extreme duress, they were quite incapable of ordinary chitchat among acquaintances. Besides, friendship was more than a simple exchange of views, surely. He tried to remember what he’d talked about with childhood friends and how he’d managed to get on good terms with Russians and Hungarians at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. From his primary-school days in the small town of Tanchon, South Hamgyong Province, he had been known as a confirmed ruffian. After school he and his pals would gather to discuss, for example, which antagonist of theirs needed a thrashing. Boxing was particularly popular in those days. Han and some of the others idolized Choi Cheol Su, the Olympic flyweight gold-medal winner, and had begun training at the town’s only gym. On their way home they used to talk endlessly about Choi.
When he thought of Kiev, his first memory had to do with a singer. Having kept up his boxing, Han often sparred with an Angolan student, who one day asked him whether he knew anything about Madonna. Yes, it was a popular subject in Western paintings, he’d replied. The Angolan had doubled up with laughter and then shown him a magazine photo of the blonde American pop star. The story got around to other foreign students, giving Han a sort of identity among them and allowing him, little by little, to make friends. What friendship required was simply a common topic of interest. A boxer, an American singer, who to beat up next—it didn’t really matter what the topic was.
