He noticed Sung across from him with her eyes cast down. She looked up, met his gaze, and quickly lowered her head. He thought he saw fear in her eyes.
When the space was half full, the same man’s voice came over the PA system. This time it took on a scolding tone. Dawkins noticed the eyes of the spectators shifting to him-the lone Westerner. Panic started to worm into his stomach. When he found the courage to glance up, he couldn’t see anyone familiar besides Sung across the way and Kwon, who sat next to him, upright and rigid, with his hands folded in his lap.
Martial music played, then a metal door slammed and he heard a man barking orders. Four soldiers in olive uniforms marched in from his left. They stopped at the metal pole, turned with precision, and two men split off to each side and stood at attention with their automatic weapons held in front of them.
Then eight more soldiers marched in. The last two held metal chains that were attached to the wrists of a woman. Her long hair obscured her face, and she wore a plain gray sack-type dress. The soldiers chained the woman’s ankles and wrists to the metal pole. Then two of them used scissors to cut apart her dress until it fell off and she was naked. Dawkins still couldn’t see her face.
The soldiers left, leaving the chained, exposed woman alone in the pit. Then the man’s voice came over the loudspeaker again and began a long, loud harangue that seemed to go on for an hour.
Dawkins noticed that some spectators were visibly shaking and others started to weep. None of them dared make a sound. He started to feel sick. When he tried get up to find a bathroom, Kwon pushed him roughly back into the seat.
The harangue stopped and there was a long silence. He heard a low groan from the crowd and saw that the woman had peed down her trembling legs.
The metal door slid open again and a man wearing a black mask and carrying some kind of backpack emerged. At his side he held what looked like a hose with a nozzle. He stopped ten feet away from the woman, pointed the nozzle at her, and pulled a lever.
With a loud whoosh a bolt of fire shot out of the nozzle, hit the woman, and then subsided. The spectators groaned in unison. The flame had lasted only seconds, but it was enough to singe off all the woman’s hair and melt her ears and lips. She screamed in agony as her skin continued to burn. When the smell hit Dawkins’s nostrils, he lurched forward from the waist and threw up onto his pants and shoes.
He tried again to stand up, but Kwon slapped him violently on the side of his head. The voice came over the speaker again and harangued the crowd. They responded with groans of agony as the man with the hose released another bolt of fire.
This one hit one of the woman’s arms, which burned and snapped off at the shoulder. Dawkins covered his eyes. He couldn’t look anymore. The woman wailed like a castrated animal. Was she Chiang-su? Waves of shame and fear passed through his body as he felt a sharp slap across his ear and face, then another.
When he tried to cover his head, Kwon pulled his arms away and punched him in the mouth. One of Dawkins’s front teeth gave way. He tasted blood.
The crowd groaned louder this time. He heard another whoosh of flame and passed out.
Nan sat outside the burn unit of the Reston Hospital Center, waiting for Karen and feeling increasingly anxious. She wasn’t sure why, because this was a routine checkup, and so far Karen’s recovery had gone well. But she sensed that something was wrong. When she saw one of the burn unit nurses leave a room farther down the hallway, she hurried to catch up with her.
“Is Karen responding to treatment?” she asked. “Are there complications?”
“No, Mrs. Dawkins. She’s fine. An excellent patient. The doctor is changing the dressing on her ankle. She’ll be out in a minute or two.”
“Will there be much scarring?”
“Maybe a little on the outside of her ankle. It can be addressed with plastic surgery, if it’s a concern.”
“Thank you.”
The conversation with the nurse hadn’t lessened her anxiety. Maybe all the worrying about James and the incident with the fire had frayed her nerves. Thinking that she was about to have a panic attack, she crossed to the water cooler in the waiting area, filled a paper cup, and downed it.
She was about to refill the cup when her cell phone rang. She expected it to be a call from work, but the screen read “Unknown.”
The voice on the other end asked, “Bird?”
“Yes. Who is this?” No one called her Bird except for James and her stepsister, who she hadn’t spoken to in months.
“I’m calling in regard to Mr. James Dawkins.” It was a man’s voice with an Asian accent.
“Oh, oh…Yes! He’s my husband.”
“Mrs. Dawkins, I work for an antigovernment organization called the North Korean Strategy Center based in Seoul, South Korea.”
“Are you with my husband? Is that where he is now?” Nan asked.
“I am not with Mr. Dawkins. I’m sorry. He’s at a location called Ung-do. He’s been held prisoner there by the North Korean government.”
A dozen questions crowded her brain. “North Korea? Do you know why? Is he being treated well and in good health?”
“He is alive. Unfortunately, I have very few details. He’s living in an underground complex and is being forced to work on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.”
“Oh…What is the name of his location again?”
“Ung-do. It’s an island.”
Chapter Fifteen
A great river does not refuse any small streams.
– Korean proverb
After days of hanging around San Diego and growing increasingly frustrated, Crocker was summoned to NAB headquarters again. As he sat texting Cyndi, Captain Sutter arrived, all spit and polish, with every Kentucky-bred hair in place. The same group of analysts that had been meeting all week took their places-minus the FBI cyber expert and the analyst from the NK desk. Dina Brooke had a lizard tattooed on the back of her wrist and something that looked like computer code on her upper arm.
What it meant, he had no clue. Seeing the document stamped TOP SECRET that she set in front of him and the burn bag by the door, his mood brightened. Looked like they were finally getting down to business.
Sutter dove in, explaining that SOCOM-Special Operations Command-had been considering three military options for dealing with North Korean aggression:
A cruise missile attack launched from U.S. warships stationed in the South China Sea.
A laser-guided high-altitude aerial bombing with special bunker-busting bombs.
A small amphibious landing by a SEAL demolition team.
“But given recent developments, options one and two have been shelved,” Sutter explained.
“What recent developments?” asked Crocker.
“We learned last night that a missing U.S. advanced missile guidance engineer was kidnapped by the DPRK and is being forced to work on their nuclear missile program.”
“How long has he been held?” Crocker asked.
“About a month,” Anders answered. “The DPRK kidnapped at least one other missile engineer, an Indian gentleman, who we believe was killed recently. There might be others.”
“The blackouts, the counterfeit currency, now the kidnapped engineers…I knew they were up to something.”
“Analysts at CIA believe that these acts are all part of a campaign initiated by Kim Jong-un,” Anders explained. “His endgame isn’t clear. Maybe some form of nuclear blackmail, or an attempt to lure the United States and China into military conflict that he can take advantage of.”
Crocker’s blood pressure had started to spike. He said, “We’ve got to respond decisively. I hope that’s why we’re here.”
“DPRK’s missile tech operation is run out of the Ung-do complex,” Anders continued. “We believe it’s the same place where our guidance engineer is being held.”