“What are you doing?” Lee cried, his voice breaking in a quiver.
“You will answer the question,” Eun-Yong replied calmly, turning back toward him, allowing the second soldier to step in front of Lee. “What do you know about him?”
Lee found his mind racing. What did he know? He couldn’t think of anything of any significance. He knew the North Koreans were paranoid, but did they really think his intention was to assassinate their leader?
The sight of the bolt cutters caused him to tremble. With his fingers spread, held rigid by the younger soldier, Lee found his mind racing.
“His name is Kim Jong-chol,” he blurted out.
“Don’t play games with me!” Eun-Yong cried in anger, waving his finger at Lee. “I will not be mocked! I will ask you one more time. What do you know about him?”
“Nothing,” Lee cried, on the verge of hyperventilating. “Nothing!”
Eun-Yong gave the slightest of nods, signaling to the soldiers. The first soldier tightened his grip, getting one hand beneath Lee’s palm and raising his pinky finger. The other soldier opened the bolt cutters.
“No,” Lee cried. “No!”
There was no further warning, no deliberation, no mercy. The soldier before him stepped in and snipped at Lee’s hand in an instant, severing his little finger in a single, brutal act.
“ARRRRGGG!” Lee screamed.
He rocked forward as the muscles throughout his body spasmed in response to the surge of pain. Lee fought in vain against the leather straps, trying with all his might to tear free from his restraints. Blood gushed from the stump on his hand, pulsing as it sprayed across the floor. The severed finger fell to the floor, rolling to one side away from him.
Lee pursed his lips, breathing in short pants, his mind reeling from the physical shock of the amputation. Every nerve in his body screamed in agony. He couldn’t think.
Eun-Yong paced as the soldiers positioned the bolt cutter over Lee’s ring finger. Lee was manic, his eyes focused on the steel blades already cutting into his skin. Blood welled from around the blades of the cutter. He fought to wriggle free, but the soldier beside him held him firm. His entire arm throbbed with pain. Waves of agony pulsed through his body.
“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HIM?” Eun-Yong yelled.
“NOTHING!” Lee yelled in reply.
Through the haze of pain, he felt the soldier clamp down on the bolt cutters slowly this time, the leverage building till the point the bone leading to his knuckle snapped and pain again surged up his arm, tearing along his forearm, his bicep and into his shoulder.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Lee shook violently, slamming his torso back and forth, clinching and struggling in vain against the leather restraints. He arched his back, trying to wrestle free, fighting to slip free from the soldier pinning his arm. The legs of the chair scraped across the ground, lifting off the floor and slamming back again as he flexed every muscle in his body trying to wrench himself free. Another soldier came up on his left, grabbing him and anchoring him in place.
“No. No. No,” Lee cried, his mind reeling from the pain. He was in shock. His heart raced, thumping in his chest. Blood flowed copiously from the severed stumps on his hand.
Eun-Yong was in a rage. His face was red with anger. Spittle flew through the air as he screamed at Lee.
“TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!”
Lee couldn’t speak. His head throbbed. He felt like someone had stuck a red hot poker up behind his eye. Spasms of pain shot through his arm and up his neck. He fought like a wild animal caught in a snare, thrashing and roaring in anguish. His vision narrowed. He thought he was blacking out, hoping darkness would come as a relief from the torture, but Eun-Yong was no amateur. Through the sweat and tears clouding his vision, against the flexing and trembling of his body, Lee caught the subtlest of nods from Eun-Yong to the soldiers.
“NOOOOOOOO!”
The pain of having a third finger amputated caused Lee to convulse. Having his middle finger severed struck him like a bolt of lightning, as though an explosion had gone off in that instant, blinding him for a second. The pain seemed unbearable, as though there were no more he could endure, and yet each time he lost a finger the pain surged higher again. Eun-Yong knew what he was doing, he seemed to understand how each cut increased the agony Lee was suffering.
Lee’s head whipped back. He was shaking involuntarily, struggling for breath. Urine ran from his bladder, pooling on the seat of the chair and running down the back of his legs. His world shrank. His eyes focused on the stumps on his right hand, staring at the blood flowing from the wounds. He was in shock, swept up in disbelief, but the pain was very real. He pursed his lips, hyperventilating as he fought to control the pain, but it was overwhelming.
The soldier pinning his arm to the chair pressed a dirty cloth hard against the bloody stumps. Lee could see two of his three severed fingers lying on the bloodstained floor before him, the third lay out of sight. He could barely breathe. His eyes were wide with fear, watching as the soldier in front of him positioned the bolt cutter over his index finger.
He fought, trying to wiggle free, but the soldier beside him held him forcibly in place. Again, Lee felt the steel biting into his finger, already the pressure was building.
“No,” he whimpered, helpless, the anticipation of pain already shooting through his arm.
Eun-Yong composed himself, speaking in an even tone. “You don’t need to go through this. Just tell me what I want to know.”
“I don’t know anything,” Lee pleaded, sobbing. “Please, I don’t know.”
“Three down,” Eun-Yong said coldly. “There are seventeen more. Are you sure there is nothing you want to tell me about him? Why did you come for him?”
“For him?” Lee cried, finally understanding. In that moment, he froze, his mind reeling from all that had happened, from the realization they were after the girl from the stars. He had to tell them. He couldn’t put up a facade. He hated himself for betraying her, but he knew nothing of this child.
“Not him,” he said. “Her. We were sent to rescue a girl.”
The soldier with the bolt cutters flexed as the soldier looked to Eun-Yong for the signal, but the colonel raised his hand.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
Lee shook his head. He couldn’t reply. His mouth was dry. Words failed him.
Eun-Yong raised his hand, flicking his fingers. He gestured toward a soldier standing behind Lee. “Bring in the American child.”
A young boy was thrust in front of Lee as the soldier beside him applied pressure to his wounded hand. The boy looked Korean. He couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. His long hair was matted and unkempt. He was wearing an oversized Nike T-shirt that looked like a dress on his small frame.
Lee stared at the boy with disbelief as the soldier before him with the bolt cutters held steady pressure on his index finger, cutting into the skin.
Blood dripped from his mutilated hand.
The child should have been horrified, but it was almost as though the young boy expected this, as if he had anticipated what was happening before he was dragged into the room. Perhaps he’d heard the screams. His head tilted to one side as he took a good look at Lee’s trembling hand still held forcibly in place by a kneeling soldier. Lee’s index finger was poised between a pair of bolt cutters. The boy seemed strangely detached, as though he were carefully examining the dynamics of the situation. There was no pity in his eyes, just acceptance.