by D. B. John
“May I ask what this is about?”
He was smiling and frowning at the same time. “My name is not familiar to you? Your father never mentioned me?”
She kept her gaze neutral, composed, but she felt mildly alarmed, as she did whenever anyone revealed even the most trivial knowledge of her family.
“No. I don’t remember my father ever mentioning a Charles Fisk.”
“Served with him in signals intelligence. US Eighth Army in Seoul. That was, oh, many years ago now, before you were born. He was the highest-ranking African American in the garrison. Did you know that?”
She said nothing, continuing to meet his gaze. A memory was stirring at the back of her mind. Of her Uncle Cedric, her father’s brother, throwing earth onto the casket as it was lowered into the ground, and her arms tightly holding her wailing mother, and the air filled with the smell of damp leaves, and, standing in the background at a respectful distance, next to the cortège, a row of men in long military coats, baring their heads to the rain as a bugle was played, then replacing their caps with visors pulled low. With the certainty of intuition she knew that this man had been among them.
A bell chimed in the clock tower. She glanced at her watch.
“You have no further classes until three,” he said. “I asked the provost to reschedule your teaching.”
“You what?”
“I told him I needed your advice on a matter of national security.”
Jenna was too surprised to stop herself. “Bullshit.”
He looked at her benignly, a wise great-uncle with a wayward niece. “I’ll explain over lunch.”
Jenna followed Fisk’s broad back as the maître d’ guided them to a table. The restaurant, on 36th Street, was in a Federal Period townhouse decorated with equestrian antiques and Limoges china plates. Portraits of the Founding Fathers gazed over a paneled dining room filled with the murmur of male conversation. She was feeling bang out of place, and annoyed. This man who claimed to have known her father, this total stranger who had hijacked her day, had brushed aside her protests with the ease of one who invariably got his way.
“The Maine lobster is very good,” he said, flicking open his napkin and smiling at her as if this were her birthday treat.
“I’m really not hungry—”
“Let’s have a dozen oysters to start.”
The waiter was quizzed on the merits of particular sauces, a bottle of Saint-Émilion was ordered and tasted, and glasses poured (again, her objections were waved away with a smile). It was an ostentatious display of good breeding, and she wondered how much of it was a show for her benefit. Slowly, after she’d taken a cautious sip of the wine, and conceded the futility of resisting such overwhelming bonhomie, Jenna felt her annoyance give way to curiosity.
She said, “My father never talked about his friends or colleagues in the army. I’d always assumed—”
“He was a private man, as you know.”
The thought crossed her mind that this was some elaborate confidence trick.
“How well did you know him?
“Well enough to be best man at his wedding.”
This was a surprise. Her mind instantly pictured that miserable red-brick Lutheran church in Seoul where her parents had married. She had always imagined it was just the two of them and a pastor. Her mother’s family had stayed away and had refused to give her a second, Korean wedding, as was the custom, going so far as to shun her for years afterward.
“When he brought your mother to Virginia I kept in touch with him. Later, I served with him again at Fort Belvoir …”
He began to reminisce, recalling legends and anecdotes about her father from a time before she was born, or had been very young. Some she knew; others she’d never heard, but it was becoming increasingly evident that this man knew a great deal. He was even familiar with the more recent history, the decline in her family’s fortunes—her father’s drinking and his discharge from the army, her mother starting a modest business as a wedding planner to make ends meet—all of which he related in a kindly tone, an old friend remembering the family saga, occasionally glancing at her as he doused an oyster in wine vinegar and lemon juice before tipping it into his throat. And suddenly she began to see, with a rising panic, where this was leading. He was getting closer, skating in slow, decreasing circles around the subject she would not speak of, the abyss into which she would not look.
He noticed her discomposure, and stopped, his fork poised in the air. Sighing, he leaned back in his seat and gave her a defeated smile, as if to show her he was dropping all pretenses. In a gentle voice he said, “You’re afraid I’m going to mention your sister.”
The words dropped from his mouth like rocks. Jenna went very still. The hum of conversation and chinking of silver on china faded to the background. She could hear her own breathing.
The next course was placed in front of them, but Jenna continued to stare at him.
“You know,” he said softly, “I sometimes think the things that are really worth talking about are the things people absolutely refuse to discuss.”
Trying to keep her voice level she said, “Who are you?”
His expression changed slightly, becoming colder, more serious. “I’m a spook, and I really did know your father. I’ve been keeping a professional eye on you for a long time. You needn’t look so surprised.” He broke off some bread and buttered it, watching her. His eyes were a pumice gray and had acquired an unnerving directness. “You’re a valedictorian with academic grades that are off the chart. You’re a National Merit Scholar with the highest IQ recorded in Virginia. Your doctoral thesis was so exceptional it guaranteed you a fast-track academic career. ‘The Evolution of the Workers’ Party as the Kim Dynasty’s Instrument of Power, 1948 to the Present.’ Yes, I’ve read it. You grew up in dual cultures, with dual languages. You spent three months last year in Jilin Province, China, perfecting your grasp of North Korean dialect. You’re fit and athletic. You were a finalist in junior league taekwondo. You run. You keep to yourself; you keep secrets. You’re highly independent. A set of skills and qualities like that wasn’t going to pass us by unnoticed.”
“Who is us?”
“We’re the Agency, Jenna. The CIA.”
Jenna let out a soft groan. She had the sensation of having been set up, and felt foolish for not seeing it coming. This was followed by a flash of anger at the realization that her father’s memory had been used as a lure.
“Sir …” She put her cutlery down next to the barely touched main course. “You’re wasting your own time and mine.” She touched the phone in her pocket, wondering whether it was too late to unpick the changes this man had caused to her teaching schedule. “I should get back to work.”
“Relax,” he said genially. “We’re just talking.”
She looped her handbag onto her shoulder and moved to get up. “Thank you for lunch.”
The bass register of his voice cut easily through the sounds of the restaurant, even though he spoke quietly. “At 06:00 Korea Standard Time yesterday the Kwangmyongsong rocket blasted off from the Tonghae Satellite Launch site in North Korea’s northeast, in violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions. It carried no satellite. Its technology was entirely hostile.” Jenna froze. “We tracked the launch. The rocket’s third stage fell into the Philippine Sea, where it was picked up by the US Seventh Fleet before the North Koreans could recover it. They were testing the heat shield for a long-range thermonuclear missile, which they’ll soon be aiming at our west coast. Your food’s getting cold.” He had begun eating. “Grilled sea bass in a champagne sauce …” He closed his eyes. “Perfection.”
Her mind was whirring through scenarios. She was barely aware that she had sat back down. “My God,” she mumbled. She had a sudden image of a shooting star high over the Pacific. Kwangmyongsong. “This means—”
“I want you to work for me.” He’d spoken with his mouth full of steaming food. “In the clandestine service.”
She did a double blink. “I’m … not CIA material. You may think you know everything about me but you don’t know that I see a shrink once a week. I take medication for nightmares.”
He gave her a pleasant grin, and she realized that he knew that, too.
“I’ve been recruiting agents for decades. It’s given me a gift for psychology, you could say. You, Dr. Williams, may be one of the most promising candidates I’ve ever met.” He leaned toward her confidentially. “You’re not just smart. You have a powerfully personal motive for serving your country.”
She looked at him warily.
“You know what I’m talking about.” Again, his voice was full of sympathy. “I have no answers for you. You may never learn the truth of what happened to your sister on that beach. But I offer secrets. I offer the possibility that one day a door may open and you may know. Her disappearance haunts you. I’m right, aren’t I? It’s made you cold and lonely. It’s made you trust no one and nothing, only yourself.”
“Soo-min drowned,” she said weakly. “That’s all there is to it.”
His voice fell to a murmur. He was treading with care now. “No body was found. She may have drowned …” He studied Jenna, reading her. “But you can’t rule out the other possibility …”
Jenna closed her eyes. This was her most private article of faith and it was being contradicted. “She drowned. I know she did.” She sighed unhappily. “If you knew how many years it’s taken just for me to say those words …”
She stopped and gulped. Suddenly she was fighting back tears and had to look away.
She left the restaurant before he could stop her. She was out of the door and onto the street, breathing in great mouthfuls of sky, walking back to the college as fast as she could, the wind catching at her hair and coat and sending leaves eddying around her.
2
Baekam County
Ryanggang Province, North Korea
Same Week
Mrs. Moon was foraging for pine mushrooms when the balloon came down. She watched it glide between the trees and land on a fox trail without a sound. Its body shimmered and the light shone straight through it, but she knew it wasn’t a spirit. When she got closer she saw that it was a deflating polyethylene cylinder about two meters in length, carrying a small plastic sack attached by strings. Strange, she thought, kneeling down with difficulty. And yet she had been half expecting something. For the past three nights there had been a comet in the sky to the west, though what it signified, good or ill, she could not decide.
She listened to make sure she was alone. Nothing. Just the creaking of the forest and a turtle dove flapping suddenly upward. She slit open the plastic sack with her foraging knife and felt inside. To her astonishment she pulled out two pairs of new warm woolen socks, then a small electric flashlight with a wind-up handle, then a packet of plastic lighters. And something else: a red carton with a picture of a chocolate cookie on the lid. Inside it were twelve cookies, sealed in garish red-and-white wrappers. She held one to the light and squinted. Choco Pie, she read, moving her lips. Made in South Korea. Mrs. Moon turned to peer in the direction the balloon had come from. The wind had carried this thing all the way from the South? A few ri farther and it would have landed in China!
The sky to the east was bleeding red light through the treetops, but she could see no more balloons, just a formation of geese arriving for the winter. Now that was a good omen. The forest whispered and sighed, telling her it was time to leave. She looked at the Choco Pie in her hand. Unable to resist, she opened the wrapper and took a bite. Flavors of chocolate and marshmallow melted on her tongue.
Oh, my dear ancestors.
She clutched it to her chest. This was something valuable.
Feeling flutters of excitement, she quickly put the items back into the sack and hid the sack in her basket beneath the firewood and bracken fern. Then she hobbled down the forest track, licking her lips. She’d reached the lane that ran along edge of the fields when she heard men shouting.
Three figures were running across the fields in the direction of the forest—the farm director himself, followed by one of the ox drivers and a soldier with a rifle on his back.
Goatshit.
They had seen the balloon go down.
All day she worked the field in silence, uprooting corn stalks with the women of her work unit, moving along the furrows marked by red banners. Enemy balloons were seen in the sky at dawn, one of the women said. The army’s been shooting them down and the radio’s warning everyone not to touch them.
A biting wind swept down from the mountains. The banners flapped. Mrs. Moon’s back ached and her knees were killing her. She kept her basket close and said nothing. At the far edge of the field, she could see only one guard today, bored, smoking. She wondered if the others were searching for balloons.
When the watchtower sounded the siren at six she hurried home. The distant summit of Mount Paektu was turning crimson, its crags etched sharply against the evening sky, but the houses of the village, nestled on a slope of the valley, were in deep shadow. The Party’s face was everywhere—in letters carved on stone plaques; in a mural of colored glass depicting the Dear Leader standing in a field of golden wheat; in the tall obelisk that proclaimed the eternal life of his father, the Great Leader. Coal smoke drifted from the chimneys of the huts, which were neat and white with tiled roofs and small vegetable patches at the rear. It was so quiet she could hear the oxen lowing on the farm. The temperature was dropping fast. Her knees had swollen up painfully.
She pushed open her door and found Tae-hyon sitting cross-legged on the floor, smoking a roll-up of black tobacco. Under the exposed bulb his face was as lined and rutted as an exhausted field.
He’d done nothing all day, she could tell. But it was important to her that a husband shouldn’t lose face, so she smiled and said, “I’m so happy I married you.”
Tae-hyon looked away. “I’m glad one of us is cheerful.”
She lowered her basket to the floor and slipped off her rubber boots. The electricity would go off at any minute, so she lit a kerosene lantern and placed it on the low table. Her concrete floor was spick and span, the sleeping mats rolled up; her glazed kimchi pots stood in a row next to the iron stove; and the air-brushed faces on the wall, the portraits of the Leaders, Father and Son, were clean and dusted with the special cloth.
Tae-hyon was eyeing the basket. She had not found a single mushroom in the forest and had nothing but bracken fern and corn stalks to add to the soup, but tonight, at least, he would not be disappointed. She took the plastic sack from her basket and showed it to him. “On a balloon,” she said, dropping her voice. “From the village below.”
Tae-hyon’s eyes bulged on hearing the euphemism for the South, and followed her hand as she took out each item and placed it on the floor in front of him. Then she opened the carton of cookies and gave him the uneaten half of her Choco Pie. His mouth moved slowly as he ate, savoring the heavenly flavors, and in a gesture that broke her heart he reached out and held her hand.
Tomorrow she would scatter an offering of salt to the mountain spirits, she said, and travel into Hyesan to sell the cookies. With the money she would make, she could—
Three hard knocks sounded at the door.
A cold terror passed between them. She swept the items underneath the low table and opened the door. A woman of about fifty was on the doorstep, holding up a battery-operated lamp. Her head was wrapped in a grimy headscarf and she wore a red armband on the sleeve of her overalls. Her face was as plain as a blister.
“An enemy balloon was found in the forest with the package removed,” she said. “The Bowibu are warning us not to touch them. They’re carrying poison chemicals.”
Mrs. Moon bowed. “If we see one, Comrade Pak, we’ll report it.”
The woman’s hard eyes moved from Mrs. Moon to the room behind her, then narrowed in contempt as she regarded Tae-hyon sitting on the floor. “Everyone in the hall by eight,” she s
aid, turning away. The light of her lamp danced along the path. “Correct revolutionary attitudes in the workplace is tonight’s theme …”
Mrs. Moon closed the door. “Poison chemicals, my foot,” she muttered.
She lit the stove to prepare dinner, while Tae-hyon studied each of the items from the balloon, holding them close to the lantern.
He felt the socks and pressed the wool to his cheek; he wound the small handle of the electric flashlight and shone it at the ceiling; he ran his finger over the labels and trademarks of that mysterious parallel universe, the South. Then the plastic sack caught his eye.
“Something else in here,” he said, opening it up.
In her haste to leave the forest that morning Mrs. Moon had not noticed the bundle of loose paper flyers at the bottom of the sack. He held one to the light.
“‘To our brothers and sisters in the North, from your brethren in the South! You are in our prayers always. We miss you and care about your suffering. We await with joy the day when North and South are reunited through the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ …’”
Tae-hyon squinted at the flyer. An extreme wariness entered his voice.
“‘Hasten the coming of that day. Rise against the deceiver who tells you that you are prosperous and free, when in truth you are impoverished and in chains. Brothers and sisters, Kim Jong-il is a tyrant! His cruelty and lust for power are without limit. While you starve and freeze he lives in palaces like an emp—’”
The flyer was picked out of his hand before he could say another word. Mrs. Moon heard her breathing sound ragged. Suddenly she swept the rest of the flyers from his lap and in one movement crossed the room, opened the stove, and thrust them onto the coals.
Tae-hyon was staring up at the portraits on the wall, his mouth open, and it was at that moment that the electricity went off. In the flicker of the lantern the eyes of the Leaders seemed to glitter, and a condemned look came into Tae-hyon’s face. “The Bowibu …” he whispered. He began running his fingers through his hair, a habit he had when he wished something wasn’t happening. “They’ll know …” His voice was hoarse. “They’ll know we’ve read those words. They’ll see it in our faces. They’ll make us confess …” He looked at his wife with an animal fear. “Take these things back where you found them …”
