The Korean Woman

by John Altman

  Force it, then. She drew her hand back as far as possible and hammered up again.

  No give.

  Gently, with a lover’s touch, she tried to find the tongue and slide it from its lock.

  Nothing.

  She pressed her forearm against the trunk’s lid and pushed. And for an instant, the flimsy sheet metal seemed to bend.

  But it held.

  She tried again, to no avail.

  She adjusted her position, a centimeter at a time, trying to get her right elbow against the felt-covered floor for leverage. But the trunk was too deep, her forearm too short.

  She hammered again. And then again. But the lid held. Maybe if she had been at her best, and positioned well, she could have forced it open. But maybe not even then.

  It would be a stupid way to die.

  Locked inside a stuffy car trunk, into which she had delivered herself. Maybe it was all she deserved. Maybe it was a metaphor. She had delivered herself into this entire situation. Not at first, of course. At first, she had been born into a country, into a system, that devoured its best and rewarded its worst. But she had never accepted her lot in life. She had struggled. She had escaped—repeatedly. And then, through a stroke of extraordinary luck, she had been delivered to America. Completely beyond the walls of the Hermit Kingdom.

  And she had found love. And she had started a family. And when the order came from the RGB, she should have gone immediately to the American government and thrown herself on its mercy. At least, there would have been a chance.

  But after a lifetime of keeping secrets, of trusting no one but herself, she had not been able to change course.

  And now here she was.

  She still might call for help. Capture was better than death.

  Her brother would pay the price. Her children.

  She closed her eyes. Concentrated on breathing shallowly. Make the oxygen last.

  Her legs were beginning to cramp. She willed them to relax. Cha-ma. Mind over matter.

  Some switch inside her clicked. She ceased struggling, exhaled lightly, and gave herself over to the hot, stuffy darkness.

  She counted breaths. Up to ten, then again from one.

  And waited.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Her mind replayed obsessively the moment of climbing into the trunk.

  Moving quickly, without overthinking it. A fleeting thought that she might starve, might suffocate. She had climbed in anyway. It had seemed a risk worth taking. She had curled up and pulled the blanket over herself, and then the trunk had closed, the sturdy mechanism snapping shut with deceptive quiet.

  Now she was back on the coal train. Her brother curled into the hollow of her body. Tons of coal above them, pressing down. Lungs itching. Breath like hot liquid. They would get away with this, she had told herself. They had dug deep enough that the guards would miss them. Yet she could feel the unbearable tickle coming. One cough was all it would take. Anyone caught trying to escape will be shot immediately. This was the way it ended. Her heartbeat accelerating with panic …

  Cha-ma. Calm.

  But beneath the smothering coal, she had not been able to regain her calm. She had tried in vain to find her breath. But it had come ragged and too fast. At last, she had pulled her brother close. Pressed her ear against his chest. And used his breath to find her own. Focusing on the tick-tock of his respiration. Slowing her mind. Drinking deep his calm and taking it for herself.

  One, two, three. A dry, hard lump sat in the middle of her throat. It was hard to swallow. Four, five, six. What was her family doing right now? Sunday morning. Mark had probably dumped them in front of a screen. Chase was on the case.

  Seven, eight, nine. Her brow was dewed with sweat along the hairline. Her mind turned to the Lipton onion soup mix. She had put the pan into the dishwasher and run it. But that caramelized chemical powder left a residue, even after a pots-and-pans cycle. When Mark emptied the dishwasher, he would notice. He would know what she had done. It is the beating of his hideous heart!

  She had lost count. Damn it.

  She swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to move her right hand. The hand paid no attention. It had fallen asleep. The entire arm was numb.

  With her other arm, she managed to shift her position slightly, taking pressure off her right side. Her face ended up pressed into the tangle of jumper cables. The sharp metal clips threatened to abrade her cheek.

  For a terrible timeless stretch, she couldn’t change position. Then her feet kicked out in a spasm, pushing her into a new configuration. Her face disengaged from the jumper cables without losing any skin or getting any acid burn. She racked in a breath of hot, stale air.

  She lay still, aspirating weakly. Fighting panic. Panic meant hyperventilation, and unconsciousness would soon follow.

  How long would the Crown Victoria sit in this garage?

  She tried to reconstruct her glimpse of the car’s interior, to find a hint of the owner’s identity. A parking pass inside the windshield, a tag hanging from the rearview mirror, an Uber decal on the window. Was it a gypsy cab? A limo? A private car? If she knew, she might hazard a guess how long it could sit here unattended. But she remembered only that feeling of having nowhere to go, no other option. The cops coming down the street. Thinking she would never get away with it. Moving before she could second-guess herself.

  She might be trapped here overnight. Or all week. Or all month. By the time someone found her, she might be a desiccated skeleton. A fun-house Halloween prop. A mummy. Mommy. Mummy.

  She remembered the free-floating anxiety of the first pregnancy. Puttering endlessly; checking stocks of diapers and formula; checking emergency contact numbers, thermometers, night nurse availability. Babyproofing cabinets, drawers, corners, closets, toilet seats, for a child who wouldn’t even be able to crawl for another half a year. Packing her hospital bag and adding outfits for this creature who did not yet exist outside her body. She remembered the night before her water broke. Standing in the doorway of the nursery, which was ready to receive its charge. She had felt as if she were peering in at some exotic foreign terrain: a desert, a tundra, a moonscape. In that instant, the feeling of an audience watching from beyond footlights had returned with more force than ever before. And she had wanted nothing more than to flee. This was more than she had bargained for. She had gotten in over her head. She had not signed up for this. Every man for himself. Her brother would survive, or not, on his own.

  And then her water had burst. And Dex was born. Placed in her arms. Cooing and burbling, looking up at his mommy with wise, ageless eyes. And all at once, she had felt more comfortable, more at home inside her own skin, more truly herself than ever before.

  Watching Mark feed their baby—Good job, Dexy! Mmm! Nummy! Open up again for Daddy! Here comes the choo-choo train! Choo, choo, open up! Chug-chug-chug-chug choo choo!—she had felt deep, profound bodily peace.

  By the time Jia came along, Song had rolled with it. She knew now how she would get through: one day at a time. It would work itself out. On some level, she was meant to be a mother.

  All in the past now.

  She moaned softly, low in her throat.

  On top of everything else, she needed to pee.

  She tried again to move her right hand and was rewarded by tingling starbursts of nerves.

  She struggled to think straight, despite the stifling heat and the encroaching panic and the stifling air—was the air really thinning, or was it just her imagination?

  Her earlier efforts to escape the trunk—trying to force the latch, trying to bend the body metal—had been driven by emotion. She must stay calm. She must approach the problem rationally.

  She had not searched thoroughly enough for an interior release mechanism. Once her arm was awake, she would methodically check the entire seam where the trunk lid met the body.

&nb
sp; She counted to ten.

  Then ten again.

  And again.

  When she tried to move her right arm again, it obeyed.

  So.

  She maneuvered, running her fingers along the nearest part of the seam. Searching for a toggle, a button, a handle, a cord. She readjusted. The ice scraper poked rudely into her thigh.

  Her palms were sweating. So, too, her brow, armpits, chest, soles, crotch.

  She checked the farther part of the seam to the best of her ability. She found nothing.

  Okay.

  She might still force her way out, but not using her bare hands.

  Using tools.

  The ice scraper. The jumper cables. What other tools were back here?

  Her bag. The gun inside. But then she might as well scream her lungs out. She might as well shoot up a signal flare. Here I am! Come and get me!

  Maybe the spare tire was hidden just beneath her.

  She felt stupid for not having thought of it earlier. That was where her Volvo stored its spare, under a felt-topped false bottom. And not just the spare but also a jack, a lug wrench. Either of which she could use to force the lock.

  But she could not get out of her own way enough to find the false bottom, if there was one. She could not even get her fingers around to the edges of the trunk’s interior, to feel for a lip.

  Her sweaty hair stuck to her cheek, irritating her eye. She hissed in frustration. Pulse accelerating again. It is the beating of his hideous heart!

  Calm. Think. Calm.

  Outside the trunk, keys jangled.

  She froze.

  The trunk wasn’t opening.

  The jangling moved away. Someone walking past.

  Call for help. Her hands balled into fists. Do it.

  But her brother. Her children. And she herself. She would spend the rest of her life inside another prison.

  She’d rather die.

  The sound of a key pushed into a lock seemed only feet away. She seemed to hear each individual tumbler falling into place as it turned. A door opened and clunked shut.

  An engine turned over. A car moved. The sound receded.

  She let out a ragged breath.

  So.

  Think rationally.

  Maybe the ice scraper could force the lock. Or maybe the clips on the ends of the jumper cables.

  Again she shifted position. She touched the handle of the scraper. It slipped away from sweat-slick fingers. She tried again and succeeded only in pushing it farther from her grip. Wriggling, she tried again. The hellish irony of it was that she could extend herself in this direction; she could push her legs against the rear of the backseat and exert leverage …

  In her Volvo, the backseat folded down to increase cargo space.

  Yes.

  She repositioned again, not daring to hope. She placed her feet against what must be the rear of the back seat. Not in the center; that would be solid. But on one side, either side.

  She set her legs. Grunting, she pushed as hard as she could.

  Solid resistance.

  The pungent smell of her own fearful sweat filled her nose. She folded her legs at the knees and then pistoned them out, not pushing now but kicking. Again. The backseat held. Again. Again. Anyone walking by would hear. Fuck it. Again. A sound erupted from her throat—an animal cry of aggression mingled with despair. Again, again, again …

  Fresh air flooded the trunk.

  She gasped, thrusting her feet all the way into the interior of the car. Following them with her hands, she pulled herself forward.

  To freedom.

  She climbed into the front seat, bag still looped around one shoulder.

  She was inside a parking garage. No one in sight. But she could hear people, not far off. A child whined. Someone replied sharply.

  Her eyes moved to the juncture of wheel and steering column. Beneath that seam, she would find the starter solenoid. She could hot-wire the car. But the theft might be reported immediately.

  She wanted to be out of this goddamned car, anyway.

  She unlocked the door and stepped out into cool shadow.

  Light drew her. She moved past ramps and rubber-lined railings, past fat arrows painted on concrete floors. An office glowed. A short queue of people held tickets, waiting for their cars. Here was the child who had whined. Wearing a PAW Patrol shirt. Her heart caught. She kept moving. Past a rack of keys. Past a sign reading stop here, honk horn, leave keys in vehicle, wait for attendant.

  Out into sunshine: brilliant, warm against her skin, prickling her dilated eyes. She had the sensation of coming out of a long sleep only to discover, bafflingly, that it was still daytime.

  She chose a direction at random. Cantonese restaurants quickly ceded to pizza places, small traditional pharmacies to chain drugstores, packed sidewalks to wide, clean avenues and expensive stonework. In Manhattan, a single block could make a universe of difference. She came to a stop. Sluggishly aware, despite her disorientation, that she was exposed. Too exposed. She had been safer back in Chinatown. She turned …

  “Mi!”

  A woman was waving exaggeratedly. Standing with a man, by the next storefront. Song had almost walked into them. “Earth to Mi! Come in, Mi!”

  The man was a stranger.

  The woman was Nina Brooks.

  Langley, VA

  “Again,” Dalia said.

  On-screen, the footage restarted. Dalia watched, frowning critically.

  “Is it the angle?” Sam clicked, clicked, and clicked again. “Better?”

  She shook her head. “Something about the shadows …”

  He grimaced and hunkered back down to his work.

  McConnell circled the conference table. For a moment, he watched Sam tinker with the images on-screen. His skepticism was palpable. “Run me through this again,” he said.

  “She loves those kids more than anything,” Dalia said. “A meowing cat can’t catch mice. But the right piece of cheese, the right mousetrap …”

  “You give her too much credit,” McConnell said.

  “We’ll see.”

  Sam ran the video again. A Volvo Cross Country pulled over on a nighttime city street corner. The license plate, the same as Song’s, was clearly visible in center screen. Song Sun Young herself sat behind the wheel, looking strained and tense. A heavily bearded young man in black fleece and a watch cap emerged from a doorway and slid into the passenger seat, then turned to inspect the back seat of the car. For an instant, the gun in the young man’s hand was clearly visible. The car pulled away. The video ended.

  The young man was an agency whiteboard jockey named Dafiq Farid. He had been videoed inside the Langley parking garage, entering a Volvo of the same make, model, and color as Song’s. Sam had combined the footage with video of another Volvo, driven by one of DeArmond’s agents on the streets of New York, and with ARGUS-captured images of the woman and her license plate. After considerable digital smoothing of edges, the illusion was seamless.

  “Yes?” Sam asked hopefully.

  Dalia nodded, satisfied. She turned to McConnell. “Shall we?”

  On their way out, McConnell snagged a poppy-seed bagel from the tray. Bach and DeArmond were doing something on Bach’s phone. When Bach realized they were leaving, he couldn’t keep the disapproval from his face. But he had agreed to let Dalia try. He said only, “Stay in touch.”

  They took McConnell’s Range Rover. Out of the parking lot, past Langley’s children’s center, onto Dolley Madison Boulevard and then George Washington Memorial Highway. Seas of windblown trees caught the morning sun like sparkling waves. Dalia never ceased to marvel at America’s vastness. In Israel, they had the untamed Galilee and the immense Negev. And yet, the entire Jewish homeland was barely larger than New Jersey—the fifth-smallest US state.


  The trees glimmered. Her eyes closed.

  She dreamed of forest. Thundering hoofbeats, a frantic retreat. Snowy tangled roots tripping up men and horses. On every side they fell, slipping, grunting, cursing, whinnying.

  Leaving the frozen forest, gaining a frozen pond. Fleeing in wild disarray. Rolling white eyes, laid-back ears, curling upper lips. Cuirassiers mixed with skirmishers, artillery with dragoons. They abandoned cannon as they went, dropping swords and muskets and carbines, leaving trails of gore. Dalia slipped on bloody ice. She regained her feet, slithering and sliding, and stumbled on.

  A man had lost a leg. Still he pressed on, half crawling, half dragging himself. Passing him, Dalia turned her head to look back. The man was James McConnell. His sweater vest was streaked with wine-dark blood. Bifocals hung crooked from his left ear, one lens shattered. He reached toward her imploringly …

  She ran faster, but she could not outrun the feeling of dread. She was missing something dangerous. Something right underfoot, something all around. The horses, the thundering hooves.

  The ice.

  Distant thunder. More hoofbeats …

  No. Artillery now.

  And she realized too late that she was running with five thousand desperate men and a thousand fear-maddened horses across a frozen pond. And their enemy was loosing heavy cannon on them. The enemy needn’t find any target smaller than the vast pond itself. The barrage would shatter the ice, and they all would drop like weighted stones into black, frigid depths.

  Awake.

  They were inside a tunnel. McConnell glanced over. “Close your eyes,” he said softly. “Get some sleep.”

  Dalia blinked, then sat awake, staring at rows of fluorescent lights, waiting for an exit from the tunnel into daylight that never seemed to come.

  Manhattan, NY

  “Personally,” Nina said, “I’d do it at the Y.”

  A pair of policemen were coming down the sidewalk. One looked at Song and Nina—two uptown ladies waiting patiently for an attendant by a downtown parking lot—and smiled pleasantly. Song smiled back.