Star of the North

by D. B. John

  “What are we supposed to do with our worthless won?”

  Mrs. Yang pushed to the front and showed her face, which was as hard as copper in the firelight. “Burn them for heating?”

  “Amounts in excess of one hundred thousand won must be deposited in the state bank,” the captain shouted.

  A laugh of derision went up. The captain took out his handgun, pointed his arm upward and fired it into the air, making everyone crouch. The shot echoed off the square’s buildings, subduing the crowd instantly.

  “Markets are breeding grounds for every type of unsocialist practice,” he yelled. “The Party is reasserting the people’s economy—”

  “We are the people.”

  Mrs. Moon hadn’t raised her voice. She spoke in her usual tone, but her words seemed to ignite and flare the moment they were out.

  She took another step toward the firelight. “Didn’t Comrade Kim Jong-il himself say that the people are the masters of the economy? We are the people.” The crowd began to murmur and whisper. The invisible force seemed to swell and grow stronger. She felt her words take power as they left her lips. She felt no fear, just a gathering elation rising inside her. There was something so simple and natural to what she said next, as if she were presenting options to children. “He will have to give us rice, or let us trade.”

  She tugged her three remaining bills out of her money belt. They looked pathetic, and one fluttered to the ground. She scrunched the other two into a paper ball, held out her arm, and dropped them into the brazier.

  The crowd went dead still. Those bills carried the image of the Great Leader, now flaring on the coals. Shock passed across the assembled faces. She had committed an act from which there would be no return, no forgiveness. Night was rolling down from the mountains. Faces flickered amber and gold in the firelight; and eyes were black and sparkling. The captain opened his mouth, but no speech came out.

  Mrs. Moon saw movement to her left and right. Mrs. Lee and Mrs. Yang stepped forward to the fire. One after the other they raised their arms out straight and dropped their bundles of worthless banknotes into the brazier. The troops, waiting for an order, did nothing. Everyone seemed too surprised to move, as if some universal law was altering before their eyes. Now Mrs. Kwon did the same. Then Mrs. Kim. Then Grandma Whiskey. Hundreds of thousands of won consigned to the fire. The ink in the notes made delicate flames of blue and lime and fuchsia that reflected in the women’s faces. Then the paper combusted brightly, sending orange embers up into the air.

  The crowd made an ominous noise, a herd being roused and provoked. “Disperse, everyone!” the captain shouted. “Disperse now or face arrest!”

  A woman’s shout came from somewhere at the back of the crowd. “Give us rice or let us trade.” Another voice, younger and nearer to the front: “Give us rice or let us trade!”

  The captain signaled with his hand to the troops and blew his whistle. For two seconds they did nothing. The troops were witnessing their first riot. Suddenly they charged into the mob, ramming people away, kicking them, punching them, knocking them to the ground with rifle butts. The violence, now unleashed, was brutal. The crowd roared, but the chant had caught and spread like a forest fire, with every individual’s energy feeding off each other.

  “Give us rice or let us trade!”

  “Give us rice or let us trade!”

  Every citizen in the square was shouting it, venting, fists punching the air. No whistle could drown the chanting. A stone flew through the air, hitting an army truck, then another, smashing an upper window of the Party headquarters. The whole square was chanting in unison.

  Mrs. Moon had not seen a sight like it. The world was turning upside down. Iron was melting, stone dissolving. Anything seemed possible.

  Suddenly, a gasp rippled through the crowd like the shock wave of a blast. As quickly as it had started, the riot stilled; the chanting stopped. People stared in disbelief. The small brazier cast its weak light onto the shadowy colonnades of the Party Bureau, enough to see that the long red placard erected in front of it that morning had been defaced. The crowd was trying to take in the impossible.

  In hurried black letters, two words had been painted above the Dear Leader’s name.

  DOWN WITH

  kim jong-il

  The only head not turned toward it, the only figure facing the opposite way, was the captain’s. For a moment his face was in shadow, until the firelight revealed his expression. His eyes were wild, unhinged. He was scanning the crowd like a laser for Mrs. Moon.

  She began to inch her way backward, slowly, a step at a time, without drawing his attention. Then he saw her. The next thing she knew he was charging toward her, hurling people out of the way. He raised his handgun, holding it by the barrel, with the butt raised to strike.

  She raised her arms to protect her face.

  Out of nowhere, a small dark shape bowled into the captain’s legs, smacking him clear off his feet, sending his cap flying. He landed hard and heavily on his side, his ear to the ground, and howled in pain. Before he could catch sight of his assailant, Kyu was gone. The captain pushed himself up, touched his ear, and saw his fingers sticky with blood.

  Mrs. Moon turned and did something she hadn’t attempted in years. She ran. The bingdu had taken away the stiffness and pain in her knees. Her heart beat calmly; her head was clear. That did not, of course, alter the fact that she was arthritic and sixty years old. She’d made it as far as the rail tracks when the blow came from behind, punching into her back and knocking the wind from her lungs. Loose chippings crashed into her face.

  In the background she heard the tat-tat-tat of a machine-gun. As her head was pushed into the oily and shit-covered gravel between the sleepers, and the cuffs locked over her wrists behind her, she thought how happy she was to have given Kyu a name.

  35

  Thirty-first Floor

  Yanggakdo International Hotel

  Pyongyang, North Korea

  When Jenna awoke an orange dusk had settled over the city. The sirens had stopped, leaving an eerie silence. The streets were deserted of people and traffic. She glanced at her watch. She had only minutes to get ready.

  The bathroom pipes gave a phantom groan before scalding water sputtered from the shower. She washed and dried her hair quickly, put on her black Givenchy dress, and, after a cool, appraising stare into the mirror, applied some makeup and fastened her sapphire earrings. Taking Soo-min’s silver chain from her handbag she hung it carefully around her neck and touched the pendant with the tip of her finger. A Renaissance lady, pointing to a jewel.

  It was tempting to let Chad Stevens oversleep, but she’d agreed to pick him up and walked along the corridor in search of his door. The corridor lights hummed and flickered and then went out completely, leaving her in darkness except for the dim emergency exit lighting. This hotel was starting to creep her out. She hoped the elevators were working. The whole building had a deep stillness to it, as if this were the only occupied floor.

  She knocked on Stevens’s door. No answer. She knocked again, then opened it slowly to see Stevens, back toward her, hunched on the floor over his laptop wearing headphones. Beside it was his open Samsonite case and a half bottle of bourbon. A lead extended from the computer to the square, flat, unfolded satellite aerial perched on the windowsill. On the laptop screen was a BBC World News studio.

  “Stevens, what the hell—”

  He snapped the laptop shut and shot to his feet as if he’d been caught watching porn.

  “Jesus, you scared me.”

  Jenna stared in amazement. “What’re you doing?”

  He held his palms up. “Chillax, will you. Keep your voice down. Something big’s going on …”

  “D’you think this is a game? We’re in North Korea, Chad. Have you any idea what danger you’ve put us all in by bringing that—”

  “I’m sorry, all right? No one’ll be any the wiser …”

  She glanced about the room, noting the multi
ple hiding places a bug could be concealed, listening right now to this jerk confess his crime with his own big mouth.

  He gestured to the laptop. “I’m telling you, a massive story’s breaking …”

  She sighed and folded her arms, a schoolteacher hearing a lame excuse.

  He poured a finger of neat bourbon into a coffee cup and handed it to her. His face had lost its dull frat-boy look. His eyes were alight, his mind working. She accepted the drink. He sat back down on the floor, reopened the screen, and showed her a stop-motion, pixelated image. The ticker running across the base read TUNISIAN STREET VENDOR SPARKS UPRISING. An angry mob was marching through a bazaar, chanting in Arabic. An overturned car blazed, illuminating the crowd. Hundreds of fists punched the air. The signal kept cutting out. He turned off the audio. Then the footage cut to an ID photo of a young man with tight curly hair and large, sad brown eyes.

  “This street seller set himself on fire yesterday, in protest against … everything. It’s starting a fucking revolution. There are already crowds on the streets in Cairo. This could spread anywhere …”

  Jenna watched a fuzzy, juddering aerial image shot from a helicopter. Tear gas trailed white smoke as it was fired, creating a sudden round hole in the crowd like an iris dilating. Now pundits were talking soundlessly, from London, Istanbul, Cairo.

  “You can bet every Arab dictator will impose curfews tonight. They’re on high alert—”

  “All the more reason to turn that off, now. Jesus, Stevens, remember where you are.”

  Her words seemed to sober him. He closed the computer and folded away the aerial. “You’re right.” Then gave her his salesman’s smile. “Exciting, though.” He knocked back his bourbon.

  “You’re not even dressed.”

  “Why don’t you go down? I’ll meet you in the lobby with the others.” She was through the door when he said, “You’re looking hot by the way.”

  He didn’t see her roll her eyes.

  On the landing for the thirty-first floor the other members of the mission were waiting for an elevator. The two State Department East Asia policy experts were in black tie, which she wasn’t sure would strike the right note; the Wall Street Journal reporter was power dressed like a presidential candidate with lacquered hair and big shoulders. Stevens’s cameraman had on the same bejeaned garb he’d arrived in.

  One of the four elevators’ doors opened; it was crowded with a group of extremely tall Asiatic men in sweatshirts bearing the words MONGOLIAN FRIENDSHIP BASKETBALL TOUR. There was enough space for a few more.

  “You guys go ahead,” Jenna said.

  The others got in and the doors closed. Again the lights flickered, dimmed, and went out. She wondered if the elevator was affected, but the digital display above the doors showed it descending smoothly to the lobby. In the darkness she noticed a small halo of ruby lights trained on her: a security camera. She moved to the window, out of its range, and gazed at the eastern, residential side of the city. Great swathes were in total blackout. The only pools of light, like icons in a catacomb, were the Father-Son portraits, which made the darkness oddly jeweled. Beautiful, in a sinister kind of way.

  Her mind was replaying the scene she’d just witnessed.

  A mob rampaging through a bazaar in Tunisia, a dictator’s grip on power weakening by the hour under the glare of the world’s media.

  The fright it must be causing the regime here …

  The realization struck her with the force of revelation.

  Kim Jong-il was only as powerful as his ability to control this news. If it leaked into this country, if rumors of revolutions spread, the smallest spark … the smallest spark …

  The sirens. The empty streets. The troops everywhere. Jenna put her hand to her forehead. The city was in lockdown.

  A ping sounded behind her.

  An elevator door opened. It was unoccupied. Where the hell was Stevens?

  She stepped in. The doors closed. She watched the descending digits and remembered what Stevens had told her on the plane. Sure enough, the steel panel next to her had an elevator button for every floor from the thirty-fifth down to the lobby, but not for the fifth floor.

  She tightened the belt of her coat. The air inside the elevator was freezing. She turned to the mirror to check her hair and makeup. The long descent began to slow. The elevator came to a halt and the doors opened with a ping.

  In the reflection of the mirror she saw not the lobby behind her but absolute darkness.

  In confusion she glanced up at the digit on the display over the door. The floor number displayed was five.

  An icy draft blew toward her, carrying with it a wave of pure void. She was staring into a long, dim corridor, as if into the barrel of a gun. The small light inside the elevator buzzed, then went out.

  The hands reached in and seized her before she could scream.

  36

  Fifth Floor

  Yanggakdo International Hotel

  Pyongyang, North Korea

  The hand had slammed over her mouth and nose, muffling her cry. She writhed and twisted, but then a voice hissed in her ear.

  “Not a sound, if you want to see your sister.”

  Jenna went instantly rigid, her eyes wide open. What she experienced was more powerful than surprise.

  Cho relaxed his grip slowly, uncertain of her, wary of her reaction. As her eyes adjusted to the dark she saw a corridor lined with doors and smoked-glass walls. A low, white-noise humming filled the space, and with it the hot-wire smell of computer servers.

  She held her breath, her heart a tight fist in her chest.

  His voice was a tiny exhalation of air, less than a whisper. “We don’t have much time. The banquet starts in thirty-five minutes. Do you agree to do exactly as I say?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a price. Asylum in the United States. I leave with you on your plane at six a.m.”

  He’s defecting? Jenna’s mind reeled. She had no power to agree any such thing, and he must have known it. Then she sensed the magnitude of the implications. The North Koreans who defected were poor and hungry. Only once in a decade did someone of this rank—a regime insider—defect …

  She said, “You won’t get anywhere near the plane—”

  “I will, with your help.”

  Jenna felt frantic. He had released her, but she held on to his hands and turned to him in the dark, very close to his face, conscious of time draining away.

  His voice was tight with desperation. “Do we have a deal?”

  She would say anything to see her sister, anything at all, and he must have known that, too. “Yes.”

  He was silent for a moment, evaluating her, wanting to believe her.

  Afraid that he might suddenly change his mind, she kissed him suddenly on his cheek.

  She sensed his eyes searching hers in the dark.

  “Go quickly to the end of the corridor. Do not look left or right. Wait for me on the other side of the door. Be ready to run.”

  Jenna felt dizzying surges of fear and euphoria. Her legs were wobbling. She began to walk along the corridor. Unable to resist, she glanced to one side. Behind a smoked-glass wall she saw uniformed men sitting with their backs toward her. They were wearing headphones and watching banks of CCTV screens. She glimpsed moving footage of guests lying on hotel beds, guests waiting for elevators, and, on one screen, a woman taking a shower. Oh, you fool, Chad Stevens. They’ve seen everything.

  But was she any less stupid? What insane risk was she taking?

  After a hundred yards or so she reached the fire door. She looked back and dimly saw Cho reach into the elevator and press a button. The doors closed just as he jumped clear. Then he jabbed his elbow hard against a small panel on the wall, smashing its glass.

  Fire alarms rang clamorously, deafeningly, and she put her hands to her ears. Now he was sprinting toward her. One of the doors in the glass wall opened. Then another. Men stepped out.

  Jenna slipped through the d
oor before they saw her, hearing Cho yell, “Fire!” Then closer: “Fire! Evacuate the building!”

  He caught her elbow. Hurrying down the dim stairwell, lit only by fire-exit signs, they reached the fourth floor, then the third, which was now emptying of people. Maids, security guards, and foreign guests were filing out onto the stairs. Getting clear of the noise was all anyone could focus on. No one took any notice of Jenna and Cho. By the time they’d reached the first floor and joined the snaking line of waitresses, karaoke hostesses, croupiers, bowling-alley attendants, barmen, chefs and more guests, their escape had slowed to a crawl.

  They followed the crowd out of a fire door into the freezing night air, keeping their heads down. Directly to their left was the rear of a new silver Mercedes-Benz sedan with the license plate 2★16, parked as close to the fire exit as possible.

  “Get in,” Cho said, bleeping his key to unlock the doors. They jumped in; Cho slammed his door and turned the ignition, glancing in his mirror.

  Less than ten feet behind them, just past the fire door, the headlights of a waiting car came on full beam. But the vehicle was blocked from the Mercedes by the dense lines of evacuating staff and guests, passing in front of its headlights like a barcode. Cho revved the engine, released the hand brake, and slammed his foot down. Wheels screeched and they were speeding away, just as the car behind blared its horn in an urgent staccato. It was trapped behind the crowd, its horn lost in the cacophony of the fire alarm.

  Jenna turned to Cho. She was riding a wave of pure adrenalin, and felt her training kick in. Stay calm and alert. His face was focused on the unlit road, his hands gripping the steering wheel as if it were a life buoy. Focus with him. The car slowed as it reached the checkpoint on the Yanggak Bridge connecting to the city. Guards shone flashlights, and to her surprise, stepped back and saluted. The barrier was raised without Cho even having to stop. Moments later they were across Taedong River, accelerating along vast empty boulevards, past Pyongyang Station, past the Koryo Hotel.