Devil's Fork

by Spencer Adams

CHAPTER 47

  EARLY THURSDAY

  Northeast Coast, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea

  Captain Kim and his men stopped. They had been walking for some time through the ridge. Kim looked around. He did not know what he was looking for. He observed the trees around him. He searched the ground for any strange patterns of leaves or twigs. He looked for broken branches. He had come this far, he knew, mainly on hunches and weak clues. What he had seen might have signified something or it could have meant nothing. Besides he thought, the men at the beach still had not seen any bubbles coming out of the water. He saw that his men were looking at him.

  “Didn’t that Lieutenant say that another patrol was supposed to be passing through here?” Kim asked them.

  “Yes, tongmu Captain,” they replied in unison.

  “Have any of you seen anyone else?”

  “No, tongmu Captain.”

  Kim looked behind them. He searched left and right. He observed that the ridge was wide, but was also narrow enough so that one of his men would have seen a flashlight or movement somewhere. He felt the same strange feeling he had felt as a boy unable to sleep at night. It resembled a beacon constantly flashing a signal somewhere in his gut.

  “Let’s move slowly. Keep your eyes and ears open,” he ordered his men.

  “Yes, tongmu.”

  The team started walking forward again. Kim wondered what the American spy they thought they were chasing looked like. He had never seen one growing up. He saw many illustrations that made him feel nauseous. But he never actually laid eyes upon one until he was a student in Beijing. He saw several American students at the university as well. He had gathered that they were there to study Chinese too. Looking at them made his stomach churn. He never dared to speak to them. He was not just afraid that he would have been in trouble with the State officers who were watching him. He was afraid the Americans might try to do something to him. He did not know what he had thought they would do, but he did not want to experiment. Besides, if being around them made him queasy, he would probably have felt his blood boil while speaking to them. But he observed them from a distance. He found it strange that they behaved – normally. He kept waiting for them to do something bad – he was not sure what he sought, but he at least expected them to live up to their reputation. He was told that they had tied up and killed women and children during the Fatherland Liberation War. But these students’ behavior was not different from the Chinese students. He noticed that the American boys were a bit more forward with girls at the university. But that was it. He wondered what was wrong. Was he not seeing the right Americans? Or were his leaders –. He did not let himself go down that line of thought.

  As they walked he heard a hawk scream overhead somewhere in the treetops. He wondered if the American spy they were searching for was not unlike a rabbit that a hawk might chase. The rabbit was not trying to irritate the hawk. It was doing what it was destined to do - to find food, eat, and find a mate. The rabbit had no issues to resolve with the hawk. But the hawk was looking to kill it. He wondered why. Was this spy like that rabbit, just trying to do what he was supposed to do after being dropped in a foreign land? He did not blame America for wanting to know more about his country. He had heard when he was a student in China that little was known about his country. He realized his mind was drifting and tried to focus back on the mission.

  He looked around. He thought it was extremely dark. He could barely make out anything around him. A bit of moon curved in the sky above them, but it did not help too much. He tried to spot some kind of tracks on the ground. He had heard American Indians could track American cowboys somehow by looking at disturbances on the ground. He would have loved to learn how to do that now, he thought. They started to walk down a small hill. Ahead of him on the left was a large rock. They kept walking. He heard another hawk scream. He looked up and wondered why so many hawks were shouting so loudly in this part of the forest. He could see something against the black sky. A few dark birds were flying in circles. Strange, he thought. He had never seen something like that before. Then one of his men to his left turned on a flashlight. The man to Kim’s right then said something that sent a shockwave up his spine.

  “Tongmu Captain, those are vultures above us.”

  “So – that means what exactly?”

  Then suddenly the man to Kim’s left shouted and pointed.

  “Tongmu Captain, look.”

  The line of men froze in place. Lying in a ditch in front of them were five soldiers from another patrol. They were motionless and covered in blood.

  These soldiers were shot.