From the Fatherland, with Love, page 31
Checkpoint D was also just off Yokatopia Avenue, on the road that ran between the Hawks Town shopping mall and a school for children with disabilities. Twenty meters before it was a stop line, and Yokogawa’s driver slowed to a halt. A machine gun protruded through a gap in the sandbags ahead, and two soldiers stepped out in front of the car and leveled weapons at them. One was a sub-machine gun and the other a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Well, no one would ignore an order to stop from these guys, thought Yokogawa. It was the first time his driver had been to the camp, and he was extremely nervous. “They don’t shoot people by mistake, do they?” he asked in a tense voice as he fiddled with his glasses. “They haven’t fired a single shot since they got here,” Yokogawa reassured him. “Relax. These guys are pros. They don’t shoot needlessly.” The real danger would be if the driver freaked out and tried to speed away.
The soldier signaled to them to move forward slowly. Having a gun aimed right at you caused a fear that was like something wriggling in the pit of your stomach. The driver was rigid with tension, and somehow his foot slipped and tapped the accelerator. The car jumped forward, the driver screeched and stepped hard on the brake, and Yokogawa bumped his head against the upholstered ceiling. One of the soldiers ran toward them, his sub-machine gun still poised at the hip. The other raised his Kalashnikov to his shoulder and pressed the stock against his cheek. Left foot in front, both knees slightly bent, he leaned forward, prepared to fire. The driver was close to panicking. He was holding the frame of his glasses with both hands, his face quivering. Trust me to pick this guy, thought Yokogawa as he opened the car window and called out loudly in Korean, “I’m sorry, there’s a problem with our car.”
The soldier running toward them looked at Yokogawa incredulously: had he really spoken in Korean? Another man came out of the checkpoint and slowly approached them. “Who are you? Name, please!” he said in halting Japanese. This soldier was not wearing green camouflage fatigues, but a bluish uniform of denim-type fabric and a cap with a hard visor like those worn by the police, with a badge reading “Guard” in Hangul. Yokogawa gave his name and affiliation, asked the driver for his license, and handed it together with his own ID through the window. The guard took them, told them to wait, and slowly walked back to the checkpoint. “It’s all right, don’t worry. Calm down and take deep breaths,” Yokogawa urged the driver, who kept apologizing in an unnaturally high-pitched voice and was on the verge of tears. Several soldiers were in and around a small shed behind the sandbags. The guard who had taken their ID went inside it, and after a while returned. He had an almost boyish face. “I am Tak Cheol Hwan of the KEF Special Police. Mr. Yokogawa, come this way, please. Your driver can wait in the car park.” Yokogawa was uneasy about leaving this spineless driver alone in the camp, and asked in Korean if he could send him back to the newspaper and have him pick him up later. “That’s fine,” Tak replied.
Two mobile armored vehicles belonging to Fukuoka prefectural police were parked right next to the checkpoint. The MAVs had a flattened shape, as if designed to slink over the terrain, but sported wheels with big, heavy-duty tires rather than caterpillar tracks. They were apparently American armored personnel carriers that had been converted by a Japanese automobile manufacturer, with the machine-gun emplacements removed. In the four sides of the turret were armored shields and gun ports designed to fire tear gas and rubber bullets for use in riot control. Right next to the front gun port was a loudspeaker and a wide-beam searchlight. Inside, the driver’s cab was separated from the passenger compartment by a thick steel plate, with a small hatch for access. An officer from the prefectural police was already in the driver’s seat, and riding shotgun was a KEF soldier wearing the same bluish uniform as the soldier named Tak Cheol Hwan. Tak had said that he was from the KEF Special Police. Perhaps it was their equivalent of the military police. As they climbed into the passenger seats of the first vehicle, Yokogawa tried asking Tak whether this was the case. He replied almost apologetically that he didn’t have his superior’s permission to answer questions about military matters.
They entered the passenger compartment through double doors at the back. There was no step or handhold, so Yokogawa put one foot on the floor of the compartment, about seventy centimeters off the ground, grabbed hold of the door hinge, and tried unsuccessfully to pull himself up. Not only was it too high but the hinge was difficult to get a grip on, and he just couldn’t manage it. After watching him try a few times, Tak helped push him up from behind. Then, in the time it took Yokogawa to thank him in Korean, Tak placed one foot inside the compartment, leaned forward, and lightly kicked off from the ground to step aboard. Yokogawa was impressed.
The interior of the MAV was surprisingly big, with a row of narrow seats along either side, facing each other. It was rather like one of those old buses you used to get in rural areas, and looked as if it could seat up to twenty people at a squeeze. In the center were a few steps leading up to the turret. Eventually five uniformed officers from the prefectural police arrived and helped each other up into the compartment. They were all in their early thirties or so, probably the best age in terms of fitness and experience—accompanying the North Koreans on the round of arrests was going to be no easy task. Yokogawa greeted them cheerily, but they merely glanced at him without replying or even nodding an acknowledgment. What a rude lot, he thought, but then realized that they were probably just rather cowed by the KEF. Aside from the seats and the leather straps that hung down above them, the interior was completely bare. There were horizontal slits in the walls—gun ports, about three centimeters wide—but no windows. The small steel seats were hard and cold, with just a thin cloth covering, and the steel interior wall of the vehicle was the only backrest. It’d be tough if you suffered from piles or lumbago. Through the gun slits Yokogawa saw an NHK cameraman and reporter rush past.
A tall figure appeared outside the rear door. Silhouetted against the light, he was not clearly visible but appeared to be an officer. Tak was now visibly tense. The officer leaped nimbly into the MAV, and looked around at everyone seated there. Seeing his eyes for the first time in the dim interior, Yokogawa was seized with an irrational urge to get the hell out of there. His skin crawled, as if bugs were making their way up his lower body. The man’s shoulders bulged with muscles, and there was a long, thin scar on his cheek. But it wasn’t because of these that Yokogawa felt afraid. The officer took a seat directly facing him, and asked Tak whether everybody was there. Just as Tak replied that one newspaper reporter hadn’t yet arrived, the Asahi Shinbun’s Ito poked his head through the back door and said, “Sorry I’m late!” Four-thirty had come and gone a couple of minutes ago. He was about to climb in, but the tall officer told him in Japanese, “We will not permit your lateness.” The man’s phrasing was a bit odd, but his pronunciation was spot on. Ito apologized again, saying that it had taken a while to check his documents, probably because his address was in Tokyo. “We will not allow it,” the officer said again and stared at him, expressionless. Ito stood frozen for a moment, then swallowed hard and said, “I see.” The officer reached out to pull the metal doors shut, right in Ito’s face, and in a voice that seemed to rattle the steel walls, ordered the driver to “Go!” What a set of pipes, thought Yokogawa—he makes my tenor sound like a choirboy’s.
The MAV rode high off the ground, and it was a rough ride. Yokogawa sat opposite the officer, with the steps up to the gun turret between them. As soon as they set off, the man unsmilingly introduced himself: “I am Choi Hyo Il, captain of the Special Police.” The prefectural police officers also introduced themselves by name, company, and rank, but Yokogawa didn’t take any of it in, being aware only of the Korean, who sat with his legs spread wide, hands on knees, back straight, now and then clearing his throat. Yokogawa had come across many distinctive characters in his ten or so years on the city-news desk before being transferred to Seoul. He had been in close contact with right-wingers and left-wingers, violent thugs, hoodlums, racketeers, politicians, and detectives, but he had never encountered anyone like Choi Hyo Il before. He’d once gone to interview a gangster whose daughter had just been sent to juvenile prison, and when he asked about this he’d been threatened with a sword. “So a kid follows in her father’s footsteps—what the fuck’s it got to do with you?” the thug had roared, before stripping off his shirt to reveal his tattoos, whipping out a razor-sharp antique sword, and lunging at him. Thinking he was about to die, Yokogawa had pissed himself. But the fear this Choi instilled in him was something else altogether.
Tak sat toward the front, while Choi was next to the rear door. Choi wore an armband with “Police” written on it in Japanese, but instead of the blue of the Special Police his uniform was the dark green of the army, with a field cap of the same color. Maybe the uniform was different because he was a captain, or perhaps since he was unusually tall for a Korean there hadn’t been a police uniform to fit him. A Kalashnikov hung from his shoulder, an exceptionally small sub-machine gun was in a holder at his hip, and a number of hand grenades hung from his belt. Yokogawa had never heard of police carrying hand grenades. The difference between the battle-ready Choi and the prefectural police, armed with just revolvers and batons, was stark. There were six Japanese cops in this vehicle, including the driver, and three KEF people. Assuming the same was true of the MAV following them, that meant twelve Japanese cops in all. The ones seated alongside Choi seemed to have gone beyond nervous, to emotional shutdown. Choi, Tak, and the North Korean up front didn’t talk to each other; they simply stared absently at the floor or walls, letting their bodies move loosely with the bouncing and swaying. This was the second outing to make arrests, and the Japanese police were probably working in shifts. It was clearly the first time the five in the passenger compartment with Yokogawa had come in contact with the KEF.
A printout of a memo about the person to be arrested was passed around. His name was Maezono Yoshio, of Daimyo 1-Chome in Chuo Ward. Yokogawa plucked up the courage to say to Choi in Korean, “May I ask you something?” The Japanese police looked at him dully, as if to warn him not to make unnecessary trouble. Choi held his eye for a while before answering—gazing at him so steadily and directly that it made his stomach hurt. “What is it?” said Choi in Japanese. Though his voice was slightly hoarse, it carried well, and his speech was polite enough—but that in itself was slightly unnerving. “Do you have an arrest warrant for this Maezono?” asked Yokogawa. “Yes,” replied Choi shortly, still staring him in the face. “Who issued the warrant? From which organization? Under which law?” Choi shook his head. “I cannot give details. Please ask the propaganda and guidance section.” When Yokogawa replied, “All right,” his voice felt unnaturally loud. And he noticed that his armpits were damp, though it wasn’t at all hot in there.
Without any windows, it was impossible to see what was going on outside. Yokogawa couldn’t even make out the usual city landmarks through the gun slits. From Checkpoint D to Daimyo 1-Chome usually took about ten minutes, but they were taking side roads in order to avoid the blockaded highways. Choi stood up and climbed the turret steps. Tak was looking at Yokogawa curiously, but when their eyes met he looked away. The object of his interest was the Canon digital camera hanging around Yokogawa’s neck. Come to think of it, he hadn’t yet taken a single photo. Conscious of the guy in the turret, he quietly asked Tak if he could take his picture. Tak shook his head regretfully. “No photo. Special Police,” he said in broken Japanese. “I understand,” said Yokogawa, wondering how old the kid was. He might even still be in his teens, but there was something about him that was mature beyond his years. His face was young, but his eyes were intense, and though he seemed simple and unaffected, there was nothing placid about him. Tak now got up and looked into the driver’s cab. The MAV was slowing down. Choi was still standing in the turret, his legs right in Yokogawa’s line of sight. The bottom of his trouser leg was slightly hitched up, allowing a glimpse of a large combat knife sheathed in a case on his ankle. Cord was wound tightly around the knife’s handle, and the dully gleaming case was made not of leather but of metal.
He wasn’t sure the mayor had really been suggesting he inform the KEF about the SAT units, but in any case there was no way he could leak the information to these guys. If he tried, he might find himself hauled in for interrogation. The thought of having to face a man like Choi alone terrified him. Besides, he didn’t want to pass anything on to the very intruders who were trampling all over his town and depriving people of their freedom. Confronted with aggressors capable of great violence, it was tempting to cozy up to them. Feeling constantly on edge was exhausting, and it was easy to give in to wishful thinking—“Maybe the KEF aren’t so bad after all.” The prefectural cops were still sitting there looking completely out of their element. They’d been ordered to take part in this procedure because there was no question of not complying with the KEF; effectively the whole city was being held hostage and had no choice but to obey them. But these police officers were performing the job with their faculties of thought and judgment on hold. Too scared to think about the circumstances in which they found themselves, they had become like lifeless puppets. Yokogawa wanted somehow to preserve his awareness of people like Tak and Choi as violent invaders. And whatever the mayor wanted, there was no way he personally was going to play along with people who had robbed him of his own freedom.
The MAV came to a halt. Choi opened the rear door and motioned to the Japanese police to get out first. As Yokogawa was getting up from his seat, the vehicle lurched forward and he almost fell. Tak caught his arm and helped support him. “I must be getting old!” said Yokogawa wryly, nodding his thanks before jumping out. They were a few hundred meters up a side street heading from Taisho Avenue toward Tenjin. He was shocked to see a few dozen onlookers gathered on the street. The KEF hadn’t announced who they were going to arrest, so how had they known where to come? Practically all of them were young men. Some were on bicycles. A few were talking on cellphones, and others were surreptitiously taking photographs. A load clack came from somewhere near the turret and the searchlight came on, lighting up the front entrance of a large estate between two towering apartment blocks. The NHK cameraman and reporter he’d seen earlier had arrived as well. Yokogawa knew the reporter by sight and asked him about the crowd. “Someone must have spotted the armored vehicles and followed them, spreading the word by cellphone,” came the reply.
Dawn was just breaking. An officer from the prefectural police said Maezono’s name into an intercom at the gate, and ordered him to come out. It was a grand gate with a roof, like those you often saw in period dramas on TV. To its left was what looked like a small service entrance, while beneath the main gate a security camera moved up and down and side to side, apparently operated by remote control from inside the house. A dog was barking on the other side of the gate—a big dog by the sound of it. Ten uniformed police fanned out haphazardly around the one in charge of the intercom, while the six KEF men formed three neat pairs, one in front of the gate and one at either end of the fan. All held their guns at the ready, with one of each pair in a low crouch and the other standing. The pair in the middle, one of whom was young Tak Cheol Hwan, had their guns trained on the gate, while the other two pairs covered the road and the apartment blocks on either side. Choi was on the road to the right.
The onlookers stood at a distance of about thirty or forty meters, quietly watching the proceedings. It seemed their numbers were gradually growing. Nobody bothered to tell them to go away. The prefectural police were far too preoccupied to do anything about them, and the KEF people merely ignored them. Yokogawa stood with the NHK cameraman outside the cordon of police, taking pictures without the flash. Tak made no objection. Apparently it was okay to take photos as long as he didn’t zoom in on any faces. He had the strange sensation of being shielded from the scene by some kind of transparent film. It didn’t feel real. At first he thought perhaps it was because of the searchlight that turned the gate and its immediate surroundings as bright as day. Apart from the dog barking, the setting was unnaturally quiet. The police officer at the gate kept repeating into the intercom, “Maezono Yoshio, open up,” while the others stood in silence. None of the onlookers said anything either. Even the NHK reporter, who had just whispered for the audience of his live broadcast that he was outside the house of Maezono Yoshio, said nothing more. Yokogawa felt as though he were stuck in a paused video.
The house was a traditional single-story Japanese residence, in grounds occupying perhaps a thousand square meters. People stood on the balconies of the surrounding condos, looking down nervously at what was happening. The NHK camera was alternately filming the police officer speaking into the intercom, the three pairs of Special Police, and people watching, and the images were being sent out live on their satellite and Internet channels. “Please wait a moment,” came a voice through the intercom, followed by the sound of footsteps on the other side of the gate. A buzz ran through the onlookers. The NHK cameraman tried to get close, but Tak held up his hands to stop him. Behind the gate a voice said, “Quiet!” and the dog stopped barking. The gate creaked open and a small man appeared, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the dazzling light. His long hair was slicked back, and he wore tight-fitting trousers and a sweater with a loud pattern. He also had a light-green scarf wrapped around his neck, and when Yokogawa saw this he remembered who the man was. The scarf was something of a trademark. Maezono had twice been arrested on suspicion of forcing Chinese women into prostitution—charges that didn’t stick—and he’d been wearing a similar scarf both times.
