Y
OUR HISTORY IS ONE OF
the most unusual I’ve ever encountered.”
Reel sat across from another agency shrink, this one a woman in her fifties with dull brown hair with gray roots, spectacles on a chain, and a dour expression. Her name was Linda Spitzer. She wore a long skirt, a cotton vest over a white blouse, and boots. They were seated across from each other in the woman’s office, a coffee table between them.
“So do I get a prize?” said Reel.
Spitzer closed the folder she was holding. “Why do you think you’re here?”
“I don’t think, I know. I’m here to be punished.”
“For what?”
Reel closed her eyes and sighed. When she reopened them she said, “Do we really have to do this? I’m a little tired and I’m sure DD Marks has more fun planned for me today.”
Spitzer shrugged. “We have an hour. It’s up to you how we use it.”
“Why don’t you read a book, then? I can steal a catnap.”
“You know, I’m not sure I would have recommended you for field duty given your history.”
“Well, maybe I was unlucky I didn’t run into you way back when. I could have skipped this part of my life.”
Spitzer smiled benignly. “I know that you’re very smart and cunning and you can talk circles around pretty much anyone, including me. But that doesn’t get us far, does it?”
“It works for me, actually.”
“Agent Reel, I think we can be more productive than this.”
Reel sat forward. “Do you know why I’m here? I mean really why?”
“My job is not tied to that. My job is to evaluate you to determine if you are up to the task of field redeployment.”
“Well, they didn’t seem to have a problem with my field deployment on my last mission. They gave me a medal.”
“Nevertheless, those are my instructions,” countered Spitzer.
“And you always follow orders, I take it?” said Reel contemptuously.
“Do you?”
“Okay, so here we go.” She sat back. “I pretty much always follow orders.”
Spitzer said, “Does that mean nine times out of ten? And under what circumstances do you not follow orders?”
“Actually higher than nine times out of ten. And I don’t follow orders when my gut tells me not to.”
“Your gut? Can you elaborate?”
“Sure. My gut.” She pointed to her belly. “That thing right here. It gives me tingly feelings when something is off. It’s also useful in holding and then digesting food.”
“And you listen to this instinct always?” asked Spitzer.
“Yes.”
“What is it telling you now?”
This query seemed to catch Reel off guard. She quickly regrouped. “That both of us are wasting our time.”
“Why?” Spitzer wanted to know.
“Because my being here is bullshit. I’m not being evaluated for redeployment. I’m damaged goods. I was sent here for another reason.”
“To be punished, like you said.”
“Or killed. Might be the same thing to some.”
Spitzer looked at her skeptically. “You actually think the agency wants to kill you? Aren’t you being a bit paranoid?”
“I’m not a bit paranoid. I’m
a lot
paranoid. I have been most of my life. The mind-set serves me well.”
Spitzer looked down at the file she held. “I guess I can understand that given your background.”
“I’m sick of people defining me by where I came from,” snapped Reel. She rose and paced the small room while the other woman watched her closely. “Lots of people have shitty backgrounds and grow up normal and accomplish a great deal. Lots of people born with silver spoons turn out to be worthless, bad people.”
“Yes, they do,” said Spitzer. “We’re all individuals. There are no hard-and-fast rules. You have accomplished much, Agent Reel. I think you would have done so whether you were born with a silver spoon or not. I believe it’s just how you’re wired.”
Reel sat down and studied her. “Right,” she scoffed. “You really think that?”
“You yourself just said that you were sick of people defining you by your upbringing. Or lack of one.” She stared at Reel expectantly.
“If you’re waiting for me to spill my guts, Doc, you’re going to be disappointed.”
“I wouldn’t expect a field agent with your level of experience to be loose of lip.”
“So what I am doing here?”
Spitzer said, “I’ve been instructed to perform a psych eval on you. I know you’ve had them done before. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Reel sat back. “Okay.”
“Do you agree that following orders is important if the agency is to be functional?”
“I do.”
“And yet you chose not to follow orders.”
“I did. Because the agency also expects me to exercise my judgment. Orders are handed out by humans. Humans make mistakes. They issue their orders from the safe confines of their offices. I’m in the field, where it is hardly ever safe. I have to make decisions on the fly. I have to execute the assignment in the best way I see fit.”
“And does that sometimes include
not
executing the assignment?” asked Spitzer.
“It could.”
“And what about creating your own assignments for your own purposes?”
Reel appraised the other woman from under half-closed eyes. “I see your briefing has been more complete than you let on.”
“It is a very tight need to know. I have always felt that is the only way I can do my job. But I’m here to listen far more than talk.”
“So you know what I did.”
Spitzer nodded. “I do.”
“Were you also told why I did it?”
“Yes. Although some of the facts seem to be in dispute.”
“You mean the truth versus the lies?”
“I would like to hear your side,” answered Spitzer.
“Why? Why does that possibly matter?”
“It’s part of the eval. But if you don’t want to go into it—”
Reel impatiently waved this away. “What the hell? If I don’t, I suppose it’ll just be another mark against me, not that they need one.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands. “You ever have a close friend of yours murdered?”
Spitzer shook her head. “Fortunately, no.”
“The shock of it just takes hold of you. You go through all the stages of grief in what seems like a few seconds. It’s not like an accident, or illness, or old age. It’s like someone shot you as well as your friend. They took both our lives, just like that.”
“I can see that.”
“No, you really can’t. Not unless it’s happened to you. But when it does, all you want is revenge. You want to take the hurt you’re feeling, this acid hole in your belly, and hurl it at the person responsible. You don’t just want to make them suffer. You want them to die too. You want to take from them what they took from you.”
Spitzer sat back, looking uncomfortable but curious. “Is that how you felt then?”
“Of course it’s how I felt,” said Reel quietly. “But unlike most people in that situation, I could do something about it. I took the pain and I hurled it right back where it belonged.”
“And two people died. Two members of this agency, in fact.”
“That’s right.”
“So you played the roles of judge, jury, and executioner?”
“Judge, jury, and executioner,” repeated Reel, her eyes hooded again as she stared over at the other woman. “But I’ve been playing the executioner role for years. You people here have been handling the judge and jury parts. You decide who dies and you tell me. And then I do it. Sort of like playing God, isn’t it? Who lives, who doesn’t?” Before Spitzer could say anything Reel added, “Do you want to know how that makes me feel? You shrink types always like to know that, right? How we feel about every little thing?”
Spitzer slowly nodded. “I would like to know.”
“It makes me feel great. The agency does the heavy lifting. They decide who bites the bullet. I just carry out the order. What could be better?”
“So how did it make you feel to play all three roles?”
The smile that had emerged on Reel’s face slowly disappeared. She covered her eyes with her hands for a moment. “I didn’t care for it as much.”
“So not a role you can see yourself playing in the future?” asked Spitzer.
Reel glanced up. “Why don’t we cut the bullshit and just face reality, shall we? It’s not a role. This is not play-acting. The guy on the floor with the bullet in his head doesn’t get back up when the curtain drops. My bullet. My kill. He stays quite dead.”
“I take it you don’t enjoy killing.”
“I enjoy a job well done. But it’s not like I’m a serial killer. Serial killers love it. They’re obsessed with the opportunity for domination of another human being. The rituals, the details. The hunt. The strike. I’m not obsessed with any of it. It’s my job. It’s what I do as a profession. For me it’s a means to an end. I build a wall around it, do it, and then move on. I don’t care who the target is. I only care that it’s
the
target. It’s not a human to me. It is a mission. That’s all. I don’t read any more into it than that. If I did, I couldn’t do it.”
A minute of silence passed, punctuated only by Reel’s accelerated breathing.
Finally Spitzer said, “You were recruited into the agency at a young age, with no college behind you. That is highly unusual.”
“So they tell me. But I guess you don’t need a degree to pull a trigger.”
“Why did you choose to do so? You were a very young woman, barely at the age of majority. You could have done many other things in your life.”
“Well, I didn’t see many other options, actually.”
“That is hard to believe,” countered Spitzer.
“Well,
you
didn’t have to believe it, did you? It was my choice,” Reel said harshly.
Spitzer closed her notebook and capped her pen.
Reel noted this. “I don’t think our hour is up.”
“I think that’s enough for today, Agent Reel.”
Reel rose. “I think it’s enough for the rest of my life.”
She slammed the door on her way out.
T
HE PLACE HAD SEVERAL DIFFERENT
names: Bukchang, Pukchang, Pukch’ang.
It was officially known as Kwan-li-so Number 18. That meant Penal Labor Colony in Korean. It was a concentration camp. It was a gulag. It actually was hell, near the Taedong River in North Korea’s P’yongan-namdo province.
The oldest of North Korean labor camps, Bukchang had been hosting dissidents and alleged enemies of the state since the fifties. Unlike the other labor camps, all of which were run by the
Bowibu
—also known as the State Security Department or the secret police—Bukchang was operated by the
inmin pohan seong
, the Interior Ministry. There were two parts to the camp. One zone was for reeducation. Inmates here would learn the teachings of the country’s two great dead leaders and might be released, though they would be monitored for the rest of their lives. The other zone was for lifers who would never see outside the camp. The majority here were lifers.
Nearly the physical size of Los Angeles, Bukchang housed fifty thousand prisoners who were kept in by, among many other things, a four-meter-high fence. If you were sent here, so was your entire family—the classic definition of guilt by association, which extended to infants, toddlers, teenagers, siblings, spouses, and grandparents. Babies born here shared the same guilt as their families. Unauthorized babies born here, because intercourse and pregnancies were strictly regulated, were killed. Age and personal culpability meant nothing, and a toddler and an ancient grandmother were treated the same—brutally.
At Bukchang everyone worked nearly all the time, in the coal mines, in the cement factories, and at other vocations. All of the work was dangerous. All of the workers were left totally unprotected. Many died from work accidents. Black lung disease alone had felled legions of forced coal miners. Food was largely unavailable. You were expected to scavenge for yourself, and families feasted on garbage, insects, weeds, and sometimes each other. Water came from the rain or the ground. It was dirty, and dysentery, among many other diseases, was rampant. These living conditions were used at Bukchang as highly effective population control.
It was not known precisely how many labor camps there were in North Korea, although the international consensus was six. The fact that they were numbered and those numbers reached at least as high as twenty-two was an indicator of their pervasiveness. At least two hundred thousand North Koreans, or nearly one percent of the entire population, called these labor camps home.
There were allegations of corruption inside Bukchang. Things were not going smoothly. For one, there had been ten escapes in less than two months. That, by itself, was inexcusable. Two armed battalions guarded the camp. The four-meter-high fence was electrified, with booby traps everywhere. Five-meter-high guard towers ringed the fence, and guards on the ground remained both overt and hidden, looking for any signs of problems. Thus escape should have been impossible. But since it had happened, there had to be an explanation. There were rumors that the escapees had benefited from inside help. That was not only inexcusable, it was also treasonous.
The female prisoner was huddled in a corner of the stone room. She was a recent arrival here after being caught in China and repatriated. She was barely twenty-five but looked older. Her body was small, scarred but also hardened and sinewy; there was strength in her small footprint. The money that she had hidden inside an orifice had been discovered. The guards had pocketed it before beating her.
She now sat shivering with fear in the corner. Her clothes were rags, filthy from the trip out and now the forced journey back. She was bleeding, her hair matted and dirty. She was breathing heavily, her small chest pushing out and pulling in with each frantic breath.
The heavy door opened and four men came in: three guards in uniform and the administrator of Bukchang, who wore a gray tunic and pressed slacks. He was well fed, his hair neatly combed into a precise side part, his shoes shined, his skin smooth and healthy. He looked down at the mess of a human in front of him. She was like an animal found by the side of the road. He would treat her as such, which was how all prisoners here were treated. Any guard showing pity or kindness would in turn become a prisoner himself. Thus no guard ever showed compassion. From a totalitarian mind-set, it was a perfect arrangement.
He gave orders to his men, who finished stripping her down. The administrator stepped forward and nudged her exposed buttock with his glossy wingtip.
She bunched tighter, seemingly trying to melt into the wall. He smiled at this and then drew nearer still. He squatted down.
In Korean he said, “You have money, it seems.”
She turned her face to his, her limbs trembling. She managed to nod.
“You have earned this while away?”
She nodded again.
“By taking Chinese filth into your bed?”
“Yes.”
“You have more money?”
She started to shake her head but then stopped. She said, “I can get more.”
The man nodded in satisfaction and looked up at the guards.
“How much more?” he asked.
“More,” she said. “Much more.”
“I want more. Much more,” he answered. “When?”
“I will need to get a message out.”
“How much more can you get?”
“Ten thousand wons.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Not enough. And I don’t want wons.”
“Renminbis then?”
“Do I look like I want Chinese toilet paper?”
“What then?” she said fearfully.
“Euros. I want euros.”
“Euros?” she said, shivering once more since it was freezing in here and she was naked. “What good are euros here?”
“I want euros, bitch,” said the warden. “It is no concern of yours why.”
“How much euros?” said the woman.
“Twenty thousand. Up front.”
She looked shocked. “Twenty thousand euros?”
“That is my price.”
“But how can I trust you?”
“You can’t,” he said, smiling. “But what choice do you have? The coal mine awaits.” He paused. “Your record says you are from Kaechon,” he said.
This was known as Camp 14 and located on the other side of the Taedong River, adjacent to Bukchang.
He continued. “They coddle their prisoners there. Even though we have a reeducation zone here, and Kaechon is only for sons of bitches that are irredeemable, we do not coddle at Bukchang. You will not leave here alive. You will be caught trying to escape. And you will be tied to a pole, your mouth stuffed with rocks, and you will be shot five times by each guard. And every minute you are here alive will feel like death.”
He looked at his men. “Kaechon,” he said, and laughed. “For shit coddlers.”
They all laughed too, grinning at each other and slapping their thighs.
He stood. “Twenty thousand euros.”
“When?”
“Five days.”
“But that is impossible.”
“Then I am sorry.” He motioned to his guards, who moved forward.
“Wait, wait!” she screamed.
The men stopped and looked at her expectantly.
She rose on quivering legs. “I will get it. But I need to get a message out.”
“Perhaps that can be arranged.” He looked over her naked body. “You are not so scrawny. When you are cleaned up, you will be pretty, I think. Or at least not so disgusting.”
He reached out and touched her hair. She flinched and he slapped her so violently he drew blood.
“You will never do that again,” he ordered. “You will welcome my touch.”
She nodded and rubbed the skin where he had struck her and tasted the blood on her lips.
“You will be cleaned up. And then you will be brought to me.”
She looked at him and knew what that meant. “But the euros? I thought that was the payment.”
“In
addition
to the euros. While we wait the five days. Or do you prefer the filthy, dangerous mines to my bed?”
She shook her head and looked down, defeated. “I…I do not want to go to the mines.”
He smiled and cupped her trembling chin, lifting her gaze to his.
“You see, not so difficult. Food, clean water, warm bed. And I will have you as often as I want.” He turned to his men. “As will they. Anytime we want. You understand? Anything we want, I don’t care what it is. You are nothing but a dog, do you understand?”
She nodded tearfully. “I understand. But you will not hurt me? I…I have been hurt enough.”
He slapped her again. “You make no demands, filth. You do not speak unless I ask you a question.” He put his hands around her throat and slammed her against the wall. “Do you understand?”
She nodded and said in a defeated voice, “I understand.”
“You will call me
seu seung
,” he added, using the Korean word for master. “You will call me this even after you leave here.
If
you leave here. I make no promises, even if you get me the euros. You may not safely escape. It is up to me and me only. Do you understand?”
She nodded. “I understand.”
He shook her violently. “Say it. Give me my proper respect.”
“
Seu seung
,” she said in a tremulous voice.
He smiled and let her go. “See, that was not so bad.”
A moment later he clutched at his throat where she had struck him. He staggered backward, colliding with one of his men.
She moved so fast it seemed that everyone else had slowed by comparison. She catapulted across the room, slipped one guard’s gun from his holster, and shot him in the face with it. Another guard came at her. She turned and kicked so high her foot caught him in the eye. Her jagged toenails ripped his pupil, blinding him. He screamed and fell back as the third guard fired his gun. But she was no longer there. She had pushed backward off the wall and cartwheeled over him, taking the knife off his belt holder as she sailed past, landing a foot behind him. She slashed four times so fast no eye could follow. The guard clutched at his neck where his veins and arteries had been severed.
She never stopped moving. Using his falling body as a launch pad she leapt over him and caught the blinded guard in a leg lock around his head. She twisted her body in midair and hurled him forward, where his head struck the stone wall with such force that his skull cracked.
She picked up the pistol she had dropped, stood over each guard, and fired into their heads until they were all dead.
She had always loathed the camp guards. She had lived for years with them. They had left scars inside and outside of her that would never heal. She would never be a mother because of them. Because of them she had never even contemplated being a mother because that would mean she had come to accept herself as a human being, which she never could. Her name in the camp had been “Bitch.” Every woman in the camp had had that name. “Bitch. Bitch.” That was all she had ever heard from light to night for years on end. “Come, Bitch. Go, Bitch. Die, Bitch.”
She turned to the administrator, who lay on the floor near the door. He was not yet dead. He was still clutching his throat and gasping for air, his eyes unfocused but panicked. She had planned it this way, hitting him just hard enough to incapacitate but not kill. She knew exactly what the difference was.
She knelt down next to him. He stared up with bulging eyes, his hands at his throat. She did not smile in triumph. She did not look sad. Her features were expressionless.
She knelt down closer.
“Say it,” she said in a whisper.
He whimpered and clutched at his ruptured throat.
“Say it,” she said again. “
Seu seung
.”
She cupped a hand under his neck and squeezed. “Say it.”
He whimpered.
She placed her bony knee against his crotch and pressed. “Say it.”
He screamed as she jammed her knee down harder against his privates.
“Say it.
Seu seung
. Say it and no more pain.” She rammed her knee against him. He screamed louder. “Say it.”
“
S…seu…
”
“Say it. Say it all.” She ferociously ground her knee into him.
He screamed as loud as his damaged windpipe would allow. “
Seu seung
.”
She straightened. She did not smile in triumph. She did not look sad. She was expressionless. “See, that was not so bad,” she said, parroting his earlier words.
As he stared helplessly up at her she leapt into the air and came down on top of him. Her elbow slammed into the man’s nose with such force that she pushed the cartilage there right into his brain, like a fired bullet. This killed him instantly, whereas his crushed windpipe would have taken more time to finish him off.
She rose and looked around at the four dead men.
“
Seu seung
,” she said. “Me, not you.”
She searched the guards’ pockets and found a walkie-talkie. She pulled it out, turned it to a different frequency, and said simply, “It is done.”
She dropped the walkie-talkie, stepped over the dead men, and walked out of the room, still naked, covered in the men’s blood.
Her name was Chung-Cha, and she and her family had been labor camp prisoners many years ago at Camp 15, also known as Yodok. She had been only one year old when the
Bowibu
had come for them in the night. They always came at night. Predators did not come during the light. She had survived Yodok. Her family had not.
Other guards passed her in the hall and rushed onward to the room where the dead men were.
They said nothing to her. They didn’t look at her.
When they got there two of the guards vomited onto the stones after seeing the carnage.
When Chung-Cha reached the prearranged spot two men who wore the markings of generals in the North Korean military greeted her with respect. One handed her a wet towel and soap with which to clean off. The other held fresh clothes for her. She cleaned and then dressed in front of them without a shade of embarrassment for her nudity. Both generals averted their gazes while she did so, although it did not matter to her. She had been naked and brutalized in front of many men. She had never had privacy and thus had no expectation of it. It simply meant nothing to her. Dogs did not require clothes.