The SEALs paddled all through the next day and into the night before they both collapsed from exhaustion. One minute Crocker’s arms and shoulders ached, and the next he was lying in bed with Cyndi, completely rested and pain-free, eating pancakes covered with butter and maple syrup from a wooden tray. Then the tray and bed shook as though the house they were in had been hit by an earthquake.
He heard the wood crack, which jarred him awake a split second before the front of the little boat shattered on a sharp rock. Bracing himself, he saw Akil struggling to hold on as the boat pitched right. The splash cooled his face, and a second later he was in the water, flailing his stiff, tired arms, trying to get them to work. Even in his weakened condition, he remembered why he was doing this-the mission, the freed hostage, their escape from North Korea. His feet touched soft silt and he relaxed. Cold surf slapped his chest. To his right, he saw Akil helping Dawkins to the shore.
As these impressions coalesced, he scanned the narrow ten-foot-long strip of beach and a cliff above it covered with foliage. A voice in his head told him to look for a structure or lights. Then he forgot.
They were lifting Sam and carrying him out of the water when Akil slipped. Crocker bent down to help him up, tasting salty water and resisting the impulse to drink it. They set Sam down on the sand. His head felt so heavy he could barely hold it up. In his mind he was reaching for something-the reason for being where they were, an idea of what to do next.
Someone asked, “Where are we?” in a weak, pleading voice.
He couldn’t answer. Leaves rattled above him. Through them he made out stars.
Picturing Holly and Jenny standing over him, he awoke. The warmth of the sun felt good. An orange crab waited a few feet from his arm. He sat up and saw a man in a dirty shirt and black pajama pants squatting next to Akil and feeding him something from a ladle. He wondered if he was dreaming.
“Akil?” His throat was dry and caused his voice to crack.
The man with the ladle pivoted his head toward him. He looked old, withered, and Asian.
“Where are we?”
Crocker slapped a fly off his wrist. His body begged to sleep, but something told him not to. He fixed his eyes on the yellow bucket. The man kneeling beside it muttered something that didn’t make sense.
He heard Akil moan “More.”
“More what?” he asked.
Akil turned and looked at him sideways. His eyes were red, his neck and face covered with thick, dark beard, and his forehead was chalky gray.
He thought he heard Holly say, “It’s okay. You can rest now.” But when he blinked again, she wasn’t there. Looking at his blistered bare feet, he pushed himself up.
“Akil, what’s going on?”
He found his boots in the sand near where he’d been sleeping but couldn’t find his belt.
“Akil, who took my weapon?”
“You didn’t have one,” Akil replied weakly. His lips were badly cracked. “I did. Besides, he’s friendly.”
“Who’s friendly?”
The word didn’t make sense.
He woke up in a dark place. Thin ribbons of sunlight peeked through rough boards. Someone handed him a plastic cup.
“Drink this. Drink it slowly.”
He didn’t recognize the man’s roundish face. The liquid brought his body alive, but it didn’t feel good. Pain and nausea radiated from inside him.
“Drink.”
It tasted sweet. He wanted to be alert.
“Drink slowly. A little at a time.”
The man looked familiar. Wisps of brown hair fell over his high forehead.
“Dawkins?”
“Yes.”
He saw a gray wolf staring at him. He stared back. It licked his face.
He sat leaning against something. Someone was running a wet cloth over his forehead. He opened his eyes and tried to focus.
A man said, “See if you can get more water in him. Then feed him some rice.”
“I’ll try.”
He sat alone in a boat on a lake. Someone was calling him from a distance. He heard his voice skip over the water. A light blinded his eyes.
A candle was burning. In the glow he saw Sam’s face. He was sitting up next to an Asian boy who was holding a red plastic rectangular device that looked like a Game Boy. The boy pushed the buttons at the bottom of the screen and the device made funny noises.
A wave of information hit his brain at once, causing his head to hurt. “Sam?”
“Yeah, boss. How you feel?”
“Better, I think. Where are we?”
“We’re safe for the time being.” Sam pointed. “In that plastic bag in front of you is a bottle of water and a plate of food.”
“Yeah?”
“We got some into you earlier, but you need more.”
He untied the knot in the plastic bag, removed the bowl of rice and chopsticks, and started to shovel food into his mouth. When he took a long drink of water, his stomach felt like it was going to burst.
“Slow is better,” Sam said. He crinkled his eyes and then returned them to the little screen. Crocker thought he hadn’t seen him looking this happy and healthy in a long time.
“How’s your ankle?”
“Hee cleaned it up and rebandaged it. She gave me some ginseng and herbs to battle the infection.”
“Who’s Hee?”
“Dang’s wife. He’s the guy who owns this little plot of land. He’s away now working at a farming cooperative up the road. He and his son, Ju, found us yesterday.”
Crocker shoveled more rice into his mouth. “Where are we exactly?”
“About eighteen miles south of Wonsan, still in North Korea.”
It started to come back to him, the mission, the SDV, the crash. “How far are we from the border?”
“Somewhere between forty and fifty miles. We did good.”
“Akil and Dawkins okay?”
“They’re in the main house helping Ju’s sister with something.”
“How sure are you that we can trust these people?”
“About sixty percent. They’re real nice, and they’ve been hospitable, but Dang confided to me that if we’re still here when the soldiers come around, he’ll have to report us. Otherwise they’ll kill him and his family.”
“How likely is that to happen?’
“He said patrols come through here at least once a week. Sometimes as many as three times. It depends.”
“On what?”
“Rumors. Reports.”
Crocker finished the bowl of rice and fish and set it aside, then took another long gulp of water.
“How long have we been here?” he asked.
“A day, more or less.”
“We’d better leave soon.”
“You’re probably right.”
The next night Crocker presented Dang with forty of the hundred dollars he kept in the sole of his boot. The four Americans thanked him and his family, and set off through a field of new wheat with the moon over their shoulders.
Dang had advised them to move farther inland and avoid the coast, which he said was more heavily patrolled. The KPN was constantly on the lookout for South Korean naval vessels and North Korean refugees escaping south. For that reason, the prospect of the Americans commandeering another boat and reaching South Korea by sea wasn’t good. Furthermore, as Dang explained, the currents along this part of the coast were particularly strong and the waves high, because they were no longer in the bay.
So they walked slowly in single file, Sam for the time being hobbling on crutches Akil had made for him. Dang had also supplied them with a piece of canvas tarp that they could use as a makeshift stretcher when Sam got tired. Each man carried a plastic bag containing more plastic bags filled with rice and pickled fish, a large bottle of water, and something Dang had called doraji, which was bellflower root brined in vinegar.
It felt good to have a calm, full stomach and to be moving again. For these two things, Crocker was enormously grateful to Dang and his family. They were another example of a phenomenon he had experienced in war-torn parts of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen. In all of those places, he had come across generous, decent people who had no allegiance in the local conflict and whose basic humanity trumped religious, cultural, and political differences.