From the Fatherland, with Love, page 14
Ri asked the next question: Was it to be announced from the beginning that they weren’t regular troops from the Republic but rather a rebel army faction? “Of course,” Han replied. “To do otherwise would be to open the Republic to possible attack. We will say that we are fighting against the dictatorial regime of Kim Jong Il, that we desire peace for the Republic, the happiness of the people, and the unification of Korea, and that we are here to advance those demands.” Hearing this, Ri bit her lip and pressed a handkerchief to her eyes, and Kim Hyang Mok put an arm around her shoulders. The others, too, looked solemn. Seeing this, Han rose to his feet and said gently: “Come on now. Buck up.” Looking from face to face, he continued: “In 1853, a peasant named Ha Nil Ga from North Hamgyong Province crossed the Tumen River into Russia. Ha was the first emigrant-pioneer, enduring the harsh Russian climate and many hardships to develop the land. Thanks to his revolutionary efforts, more Koreans followed in large numbers, and eventually the Korean Autonomous Region was created. After that, many patriots made their way there, some voluntarily, others fleeing oppression from the Japanese imperialists. Never losing heart, though accused of being renegades, traitors to the Fatherland, and spies, they remained steadfast in their aims. Those patriots are now wholeheartedly revered in the Republic as forebears of the Revolution. For the sake of bringing peace and security to the Republic, we too must endure the humiliation of being temporarily branded rebels, but let us keep in mind the honor that will accrue to our families. We should have no regrets. Only through loyalty and sacrifice can the nation’s happiness be won. And only through loyalty and sacrifice can ordinary people be transformed into heroes.”
Ri Gwi Hui dabbed at her eyes, nodding, then bowed deeply to Han, who brushed off her emotion by remarking that energy expended on tears and apologies should be refocused on the task at hand. Kim Hak Su thought to himself that as long as they had Han as their leader, their spirits wouldn’t waver. He now asked a question himself about the transceiver channels; and Ri, who had regained her composure, replied as the team’s communications expert. Then Cho Seong Rae wanted to know under what circumstances the rocket-propelled grenades could be used. Han had a ready answer: if the police launched a massive counterattack, or if it became necessary to put on a show of force during the process of securing the stadium.
The sun was lower on the horizon, its slanting rays casting orange patterns on the sea. The townscape of Fukuoka, for all its massive size, had something unreal about it. Even the vehicles on the streets below had the appearance of toys, and the urban scene as a whole resembled a well-constructed model. From the moment they entered the hotel rooms and looked from the windows on the upper floors, they had been dazzled by the sheer scale of it all. And yet within five minutes the wonder had worn off. As Kim Hak Su gazed at the view, he wondered whether he should bring up something that had been on his mind since their encounter with the fruit sellers. It was still troubling him now, though he couldn’t quite define what it was. He was brooding over this at the window when he found Han standing beside him. “What are you thinking about, Comrade Kim?” he said, clapping his second-in-command on the shoulder. “You look worried, and that’s not like you.” Kim shook his head. “I’m not exactly worried,” he said. “It’s just a nagging thought.” Han grinned at him and said, “Well, you’d better get it off your chest now. There won’t be time for discussions once we’ve moved in and are on our transceivers.”
“I was thinking,” Kim said, “about the two fruit sellers. I’m not good with words, so I don’t know if I can explain it, but when Choi poked his fingers in the one man’s eyes, the other one didn’t try to make a run for it. And then when I got angry with that baggage carrier, he reacted like a dog hit on the head with a hammer. He just stood there and apologized.” Han suggested that when people are truly frightened, they become incapable of understanding what’s happening to them, and Kim seemed to accept this explanation. In any case, they had more pressing things to do, such as checking the message Jo Su Ryeon was to broadcast. And yet… the moment Choi punctured the eyes of the young man, something in the father’s body seemed to cave in, leaving him as empty as a straw doll. In the next instant Kim himself had grabbed the father’s shoulder and crushed his jaw with the heel of his hand, and he remembered how little resistance the blow had met with. It wasn’t that the older man’s jaw was fragile, but rather that all the life had gone out of him: he had already accepted death.
Kim had previously killed two people using gyeoksul. The first was a political criminal in a concentration camp. The second was a caged special-forces infiltrator from the South, already half-dead after torture and interrogation. Yet neither of the victims had simply given in. The last one, in fact, had resisted like a frenzied animal. To Kim, the death of the fruit seller was mystifying.
“Esteemed ladies and gentlemen,” Jo Su Ryeon had written, in stiff but polite Japanese. “To everyone gathered here in Fukuoka Dome, a very good day to you. My name is Han Seung Jin, commander of the rebel army faction of the Special Operations Forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea…” Choi pointed out that “day” should be changed to “evening”; Jo agreed and started over. Everyone enjoyed listening to him read. Kim, though fluent in Japanese, had no gift for words and so continued to stare out the window. The sun was setting, and a golden haze now enveloped the hills. As a boy, he had thought that every evening when the sun went down, it was extinguished, and that what rose the next morning was a new sun, born in the night. It was in this endless dying and renewal, he thought, that the notion of constancy must originate. Almost as constant, back in the Republic, was the image of the Japanese as complete monsters. But was that, in fact, the case? When he hit the fruit seller, it didn’t even feel as if he’d punched the jaw of a living being. That lack of any sort of resistance continued to puzzle him.
“This way for guests heading to Fukuoka Dome to see the season’s opening game between the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks and the Chiba Lotte Marines…” A female staff member stood at the entrance of a passage next to the hotel reception counter repeating this message. As the nine walked past her, with Han Seung Jin in the lead, she smiled and bowed deeply to them. Kim Hak Su had hanging from his shoulder the fishing-rod case containing the RPG. In his backpack was an Uzi sub-machine gun, hand grenades, and anti-tank rockets; a pistol was hidden under his windbreaker. He was the last to enter the passageway, both sides of which were lined with shops selling clothing, souvenirs, and shoulder bags. Groups heading toward the stadium were walking briskly. Many of the people were wearing caps and windbreakers emblazoned with a cartoon-hawk emblem. One group began to sing what sounded like a fight song and looked over at Han and his companions, as though urging them to join in. Han smiled at them, nodding with feigned enthusiasm.
Emerging from the passage, they saw Fukuoka Dome stretching out before them, like an immense spaceship in a piece of science fiction. The game had already begun; from beyond the soaring steel wall came the roar of the fans. Breaking into their four teams, they headed for their assigned entrances. Choi Hyo Il, Cho Seong Rae, and Pak Myeong followed the wall to the left; the others went right. Kim Hak Su and Ri Gwi Hui had the farthest to go and so quickened their pace, Kim striding off and Ri trotting in his wake.
The distinctive, awe-inspiring form of the Dome, gleaming silver in the reflection of streetlamps and car headlights, seemed to bear down upon them. We don’t have any buildings like this in the Republic, thought Kim. Pyongyang’s Arch of Triumph and the bronze statue of the Great Leader were certainly imposing, but they weren’t modern like this and had a very different feeling. Pairs of spectators called to each other to hurry up as they trotted toward the entrance. The local baseball team, the Hawks, seemed to have quite a following, with tickets for the opening game being difficult to procure. Without being informed of their purpose, a collaborator in Japan had been asked to buy them, along with mobile phones, transceivers, and maps, but had failed to get any tickets. Since their weaponry wouldn’t pass unnoticed through the metal detectors at the gates anyway, however, Operations Command had concluded that it wouldn’t matter if they had tickets or not.
They passed Gate 4 and came to Gate 3. Han’s team would be entering here, but there was no time to wait and see if they arrived safely. Jang Bong Su and Kim Hyang Mok were presumably already inside the stadium, and the absence of gunfire, explosions, or any hue and cry suggested that they hadn’t met with resistance. They had been authorized to open fire if necessary; if initial warning shots went unheeded, they were to aim at arms and legs. To the left was a children’s recreation room. According to the building plan that had been drummed into their heads, Gate 2 should soon be in view, and now there it was, marked in huge letters. A sole ticket-taker, wearing an orange windbreaker with the team logo on the back, was leaning against a pillar next to the entrance. Kim had Ri go ahead. She gestured to indicate that her companion had the tickets, but before the man in orange could say anything, Kim had a pistol pointed at his forehead: “Not a word. Keep your mouth shut. We are Special Operations Forces from North Korea.” The man just looked at him, dumbfounded. Kim lowered his pistol. “Do you understand? Don’t move,” he said, and walked on.
“Wait!” the man cried in a quavering voice. “Wait a minute!”
Kim turned back to see him standing motionless, his face sheet-white. “That’s not allowed!” He didn’t seem to know how to react, as if unsure whether “North Korea” and the pointed pistol were for real or just a prank. Kim feared things were going to end as they had on the island with the fruit sellers. When he ignored him and pressed on, the man shouted after him, “Stop!” Up ahead at the metal detector, Ri Gwi Hui was pointing her pistol at a security guard. The man was dressed in a navy-blue uniform and armed only with a nightstick. Next to him was a female guard. Ri, gripping her pistol with both hands, kept it right at the man’s nose, but to her consternation he reacted with no more than a faint smile of embarrassment, intermittently glancing at his female colleague, as though nervously trying to communicate something to her. If they lost any more time, Han’s announcement might begin before they were in position. Stepping ahead of Ri, Kim took the guard’s shoulder with his left hand, pushed him down, and smashed his right knee into his chest. The man fell to his knees with a rasping groan, holding himself and writhing in pain, while the woman covered her mouth with her hands and gave a muffled scream.
“Tallyeora!” Kim barked at Ri, and the two began running. Now inside the stadium, they sprinted down a long corridor, passing another security guard. “No running, please,” was all he said, but suddenly two more guards were coming toward them from the opposite direction. With the other teams presumably already in the stadium, they must have been alerted that there were intruders. Kim and Ri turned left and ran up a flight of stairs leading toward the stands and then into a tunnel-like corridor, where three female ushers asked to see their tickets. Brushing past them, they ran on until they came out into the open air.
The sight that met Kim’s eyes was overwhelming: a field of dazzling green artificial grass and a lofty gray ceiling composed of a massive steel framework in complex patterns. He had never seen such a huge sports arena. Nor, for that matter, had he ever seen a baseball game. The whoops and shouts of the spectators shook the air. He was astonished most of all by the gigantic electronic scoreboard directly in front of him. The sheer scale of it prevented him at first from grasping what it was, and for a moment he just stood staring at it. A cartoon hawk was running across a display that had to be a thousand times larger than any movie screen in the Republic. The entire stadium reverberated with the sound it emitted, as colorful swashes of light pulsated and swirled. Ri ran up one of the flights of concrete steps that divided the spectator seats into various sections, and Kim followed. They needed to get to the top so as to have the whole array of infield seats before them and the wall at their backs. With every step Kim took, the RPG banged against the inside of the fishing-rod case. Now he heard the shrill sound of a whistle and looked back to see three guards pointing at him and ordering him to stop. Ahead of him, Ri was still bounding up the steps. The security service would have already notified the police. Han’s announcement had to be made before they surrounded the stadium.
As they passed a young drinks vendor with an ice chest suspended from a strap around his neck, the kid caught sight of the pistols, as did some of the spectators. They heard voices behind them saying things like, What’s going on? Was that a gun? Looking back, Kim saw people staring at him with looks of disbelief. At this stage, the spectators could still have left the stadium easily enough, and yet none of them had done so even after seeing two figures dash up the steps with pistols drawn. Again Kim felt the same dread premonition, but he couldn’t let it distract him from the task at hand. At the top of the stairs, he handed his backpack and fishing-rod case to Ri. Still holding his pistol, he stood guard, scanning the crowd below while Ri unzipped the various pouches and removed the two Uzi sub-machine guns. She handed one to Kim, together with a spare magazine, and strapped the other to her shoulder. Next came the eight hand grenades, four to hang on Kim’s belt, the other four for herself. Finally, having removed the RPG from the rod case, she again slipped the backpack on, leaving one of the pouches half-open so as to have immediate access to the rockets. A few spectators nearby began to raise a fuss—What are they doing? Is this for real? Are they filming a movie or something?—but no one was attempting to escape.
There was a lull in the game, while the batters and fielders switched over. A commercial for beer appeared on the giant scoreboard, accompanied by an ear-splitting jingle. The crowd around Kim were showing signs of agitation, and members of the cheering section below were looking up this way with puzzled expressions. The cheering section was split into three contingents of about a hundred people each, gathered in three separate spots along the third-base line. The members stood out because of their headbands and strange white getup, not to mention the huge banner bearing the hawk emblem that each contingent was gathered around. Some had painted their faces like primitive savages. Six minutes had gone by, and still the announcement had not begun. The guards assembled at the foot of the stairs all had wireless handsets to their ears, no doubt waiting for instructions. “Team One, Team One. Colonel Han. Comrade Jo Su Ryeon. This is Team Two. Can you hear me?” Ri got no response from the broadcasting booth, but Jang Bong Su of Team Three and Cho Seong Rae of Team Four checked in to ask if she had heard from their commander. “Not yet,” she replied and they reported the same. The situation was similar for all three teams: the crowds around them were growing restless and the guards were closing in.
A video advertisement for Toyota now flashed on the enormous screen, and Kim found himself irresistibly drawn in by the size and brilliance of the images. A dark-purple car driving on a seaside road was suddenly seen soaring into the air, the next instant racing through a red desert, then plunging into the sand, and finally barreling around a caldera lake that looked quite like the summit of Mount Paektu. Ri nudged him in the side: there were six more guards by the gate, pointing in their direction, talking into their transceivers, and attempting to calm the spectators. Standing at the top of the stairs, Kim kept his eyes to the right while Ri looked left. One of the spectators nearby, a man in his thirties with two primary-school-age children in tow, spoke to them: “Excuse me.” Kim glared at him. “Can we go to the restroom?” When the man repeated the question, Kim motioned with his chin for them to go. The man thanked him, got up, and, together with the children, slowly walked down to the end of the stairs, where the guards called him over for questioning, their eyes still on the intruders.
A woman sitting to the left of Ri said to her, “Where are you from?” just as a transmission came in from Team One. “This is Jo Su Ryeon. Can all of you hear me?” Ri replied: “This is Team Two, over.” The sound emanating from the billboard and the din of the spectators’ voices drowned out Jo’s voice. Ri pressed the receiver tightly to her ear and repeated his message for Kim: “The broadcasting booth has been secured. Light resistance. No casualties. Our message will be read in one minute. Over.” Ri responded: “Team Two reporting. Our position is secure. No resistance; no casualties. Over.” The transmission ended with Jang Bong Su and Cho Seong Rae providing much the same information. Ri had spoken loudly, in a clear voice, and now people in the crowd nearby were saying, Hangul! They’re speaking Hangul! The clock on the scoreboard read 19:13. In two minutes the Airborne Squadron would be taking off with the four companies of the 907th Battalion on board. Kim was concerned about the situation in the broadcasting booth but told himself that with a man like Han Seung Jin in command, there would be no indecision, no confusion, and no mistakes in judgment. Han had covered for Kim when he went AWOL from the 907th Battalion to attend his mother’s funeral, as a result of which his superiors had subjected Han to a brutal punishment involving a blowtorch, which left a keloidal clump where his ear had been. In tears, Kim had gone down on his knees to apologize to his benefactor, who laughed it off, saying that it only meant he’d not be able to wear reading glasses when old age caught up with him.
