Chapter 4: No! Stop! Please Don't!

TL: LittlePeach

Dandong is a city with a dazzling nightscape, even by Chinese standards.

At night especially, compared to North Korea's Sinuiju across the river, where not a single light could be found, it looked like a village of stars.

And this Dandong was a tourist destination that South Korean travelers visited quite steadily.

For them, circling near the Yalu River Bridge on a cruise boat, or snapping photos with North Korean soil laid bare in the background, carried a significance all its own.

That sense of a distance close enough to touch, quite literally, was what kept drawing people to this frontier city.

"Find those rats' tails, whatever it takes! Before my neck goes on the block, I must snap those bastards' necks first!"

Into that Dandong came Ri Chol-jun, External Intelligence Bureau director of North Korea's State Security Department.

Eyes bloodshot with fury, he stood in a Dandong safe house, breath coming in ragged heaves.

'How in blazes did things end up in this sorry state!'

The unprecedented shootout in Sinuiju.

Recalling the carnage of that horrific scene, Ri Chol-jun felt the world go black before his eyes.

"Comrade Bureau Director, Public Security reports they cannot trace the South Chosun bastards' movements at all...."

"Shut your mouth! You think I crossed the Yalu to come here and listen to that drivel!"

Last night, a piece of intel had come in from a low-level Dandong Public Security officer he kept on the payroll.

[Unidentified operatives, traveling under Chinese cover identities, are scheduled to infiltrate Sinuiju aboard a tourist bus]

By rights, he should have reported this to the State Security Department first.

But blinded by his hunger for the credit, he had rushed troops in on his own authority, and that had been Ri Chol-jun's blunder.

All he'd meant to do was catch a few of those operatives a little faster; instead, most of the unit had ended up sprawled across the ground as slabs of meat!

'Damn it all. At this rate, my own neck will be cut before I ever kill those South Chosun brats.'

The Party accepted no excuses.

If he returned to Sinuiju empty-handed, never mind a reprimand, he would plainly be strapped up beside the Minister of People's Armed Forces, whose public date with the anti-aircraft gun was already an open secret, and blown apart without a trace.

If only to survive, he had to act at once, in whatever way he could, and produce results that proved his loyalty to the Party.

That was why he had crossed the river to Dandong in person.

"What does that chink who fed us the information have to say? Has contact been made?"

"He, he is not answering our calls."

"That goddamn bastard!"

Ri Chol-jun hurled an ashtray, thrashing in a frenzy.

If he could seize even one of the escaped South Chosun agents and drag him to Pyongyang, that would still count as a mercy.

But now that they had evaporated without a trace, exactly one path to survival remained.

An utterly extreme plan coiled itself inside his head.

"Deploy the troops at once and comb everything around the lodgings where the South Chosun brats are staying. Stuff a few of them into sacks without a soul the wiser, and prepare to cross the river."

"But the diplomatic friction.... Chinese Public Security will not sit still for it."

"You think I have the luxury of caring about diplomacy? My neck is about to come off; whether the chinks protest or not is no concern of mine!"

As the saying goes, if there's no pheasant to be had, a chicken will do.

He intended to round up every conspicuous South Chosun passport holder strolling the streets of Dandong and abduct the lot of them to the North.

Once they were caught, the rest was simplicity itself.

He need only strong-arm them into confessing they had been subversive South Chosun operatives.

Transforming an ordinary tourist into the world's finest spy was nothing at all for the State Security Department.

"I cannot go back empty-handed like this...."

At the bloodshot look in Ri Chol-jun's eyes, Deputy Bureau Director Choe Jong-hak's face soured.

One misstep, and this would clearly balloon into an outright act of international terrorism.

But what was done was done.

Inside the head of a stray dog driven to the cliff's edge, nothing seemed to remain but the urge to sink its teeth into something, anything.

*****

I took a taxi and had just arrived near the Yalu River Bridge.

'First, let's stock up on a few more useful things.'

Besides the one I'd used before, Dandong held two or three more Rabbit Holes.

One of them was a run-down fishing cooperative building hugging the bank of the Yalu.

"Ugh."

The moment I stepped inside, the stench of rotten fish rolled over me.

Frowning, I headed down to the basement, where rotting nets and fish traps were heaped mountain-high from the entrance inward.

Apparently the Chinese fishermen had been dumping their trash into the abandoned space however they pleased.

'How on earth do they keep finding places like this and turning them into Rabbit Holes?'

A place anyone could easily enter, yet one nobody would ever dare set foot in.

If I hadn't known about it in advance, I wouldn't have worked up the nerve to come in either.

Head throbbing from the smell, I worked my way slowly along the wall until a hidden room appeared among the garbage.

The lock combination was 91237.

I opened the door and went in; unlike the outside, the interior was kept fairly neat and orderly.

The smell, of course, was still there.

'There we go.'

Scanning the room, I spotted a box up near the ceiling.

When I lifted the lid, the contents were far more aggressive than the previous Rabbit Hole's.

The first thing to catch my eye was a box of 9mm Parabellum, compatible with most handguns.

On top of that were energy bars, morphine injectors, high-concentration caffeine injectors, an emergency-contact burner phone, a military combat knife, grenades, and the like.

"Hm?"

Then a black object lying at the bottom of the box struck me as oddly familiar.

The instant I confirmed what it was, my body flinched back on its own.

'No, what the hell. Why is there a Claymore in here?'

M18A1.

An anti-personnel mine built to detonate its internal C4 explosive and spray hundreds of steel balls forward.

Just in case, I checked, and the firing mechanism was alive and kicking, too.

Dumbfounded, I stood there blankly with the vicious thing in my hands.

'What could possibly call for setting off a Claymore in the middle of downtown Dandong....'

And then it hit me.

"Oh."

Out of nowhere, a thought rose up and tickled at a corner of my chest.

*****

The moment I entered downtown Dandong, the very mood of the streets had clearly changed from yesterday.

Chinese Public Security prowled in and out of the alleys, and North Korean soldiers with rifles slung over their shoulders strutted openly down the streets in pairs.

Here and there among the tourists I spotted people who looked Korean, but however far gone the North Korean soldiers were, they couldn't openly snatch someone off a main street crawling with Public Security.

One wrong move, and the fire would spread beyond a North Korea versus South Korea problem into a diplomatic crisis between China and South Korea.

Which meant that to abduct anyone, they would have to lure their target somewhere secluded, quietly.

"Excuse me, are you North Korean soldiers?"

And so, from this moment on, I became a backpacker without the faintest clue how the world works.

"Wow! This is my first time seeing real North Koreans up close! Could you take just one picture with me?"

Wearing my most gullible expression, I made a great fuss and sidled right up to the soldiers.

At that, the two North Korean soldiers clutched their rifle slings and looked at each other, bewildered.

"...What is this bastard?"

"Whoever he is, wouldn't he be just the thing to take in nice and quiet?"

Muttering between themselves, the soldiers gave me a quick once-over.

Eyes sparkling, I thrust my phone camera up before their faces.

"Just one photo? Please?"

"...Fine. We'll take your picture, so follow us first."

"Thank you so much!"

"Heh heh. No need for thanks."

We reached a back alley beyond Public Security's line of sight.

Once we arrived in the secluded alley, their faces changed in an instant, and they leveled their rifles at me.

Just as expected.

I recoiled in mock terror and threw both hands above my head.

"From this moment, if you do not obey us meekly, you will find holes drilled through that body of yours. Understood?"

"W-why are you doing this! We were getting along so well just a second ago!"

"Quiet. Will you not shut your mouth?"

"You idiot bastard, come along nice and quiet."

After that, everything went like clockwork.

They confiscated my phone, pocketed it, and cuffed my hands tight.

"No! Stop! Please don't!"

"This bastard? Hold still!"

I flailed my arms and legs, playing thoroughly terrified.

At that, one of them slammed his rifle butt into the back of my head.

Thwack!

Not that it hurt in the slightest, naturally.

"Gurk."

Still, I let my neck flop and drained every ounce of strength from my body, feigning unconsciousness.

Flop.

Sprawled on the pavement, I soon heard exasperated sighs pouring out behind my back.

"Why did you go and pull a pointless stunt like that? Now we're the ones suffering for it."

"The brat kept making trouble, did he not? Hurry up and lift him."

"Ungh. This bastard, why the hell is he so heavy? What bullshit!"

"Should we just dump him here and go?"

"Shut it."

The two North Korean soldiers hooked me firmly under both armpits and hauled me up.

Thanks to them, I got to be dragged along in perfect comfort without walking a single step on my own.

Before long, we arrived at the State Security Department safe house.

They had a small building all to themselves.

"Haah. Hah."

"Haah. I'll tear him to shreds."

They dragged me down a flight of basement stairs.

As we passed along a damp, dank corridor, a muffled sobbing drifted in from somewhere.

The sobbing drew steadily closer.

"Open the door. We've brought in one more South Chosun brat."

"Impressive that you caught one. Where did you find him?"

"Nothing impressive about it. This idiot walked right up to us on his own two feet, asking to take a picture together, if you can believe it."

"Heh heh heh. Is he cracked in the head or something?"

"So I gave his skull a knock with this rifle butt."

The pair who'd dragged me in and the North Korean soldier standing guard bantered back and forth.

Even as they talked, the man guarding the basement swung open a thick steel door.

Creeeeak.

Only then did the crying that had been sealed inside come through that much clearer.

"Alley-oop."

They tossed me into the middle of the basement like a sack of luggage.

Smack!

All noise, zero impact.

"Kyaaah!"

"Mom, mommy...."

Someone screamed at the sight of my head slamming limply into the concrete floor.

I stayed limp and sprawled where I fell.

"Did he croak or something?"

"Who knows. Dead or alive, no concern of mine."

"All that from one knock to the head? What a weakling."

Slam!

After the steel door shut, I could feel them muttering as they receded down the corridor.

A chilling silence settled over the basement, filled with nothing but sniffling.

'How many were kidnapped?'

Eyes closed, I was taking stock of my surroundings when someone edged cautiously toward me.

"E-excuse me? Are you, are you alive? You're alive, right?"

A careful hand grabbed my shoulder and shook it.

The instant I cracked an eye open, the startled hand flinched away.

"H-he's alive!"

I lifted my head and quickly scanned the room.

Fortunately, no soldier had been posted inside to watch us.

"Hic, sob...."

"What do we do? Are we really going to die now?"

Not counting me, a total of three South Koreans had been abducted.

One man, two women.

All of them around college age, clearly here on a trip.

The two girls, apparently friends, were clutching each other tight, and the one who had touched my shoulder just now was the young man.

"Um, are you all right? You hit your head really hard back there...."

"Shh."

"S-sorry?"

I raised my cuffed hands and pressed a finger to my lips.

After swiftly confirming there were no surveillance cameras around, I leaned soundlessly against the wall and pressed my ear flat to the steel door.

"Um...."

"Wh-what is he doing?"

"No idea...."

Watching a man who'd been half dead moments ago suddenly move with such crisp economy, the three of them stopped whatever they were doing, faces full of confusion.

In their eyes, fixed squarely on me, a thread-thin hope began to bloom.

They looked far too frightened; for now, they needed at least a little reassurance.

"Don't worry. I'm an agent of the Republic of Korea's NIS."

"...Ah!"

Only then did a faint flush of color return to their ashen faces.

"I was dispatched here to rescue you. From now on, you must follow my instructions. Stay as quiet as possible, and do not say a word."

"Y-you came to save us?"

"Oh, thank God...."

"I knew it. The NIS came to save us!"

Sure enough, a few words are never enough to keep people under control.

Reassured now, they crowded around me, chattering away, their voices growing steadily louder.

'Honestly, I'd rather they went back to crying.'

I quietly took my ear off the steel door and turned to look at them.

Judging by the bright, shining eyes that met my stare, they needed to be taken down a peg.

The method was simple.

"But don't get your hopes up. I just got captured too, you know."

"Ah."

If merely promising a future can plant a small hope in someone, the reverse works just as well.

"...Sob, sob."

"Aah. It's over.... It's all over...."

"Dear God...."

Only then did the three of them sink back into despair, sniffling.

Watching them, I nodded in satisfaction.

'Perfect.'