Me: We have Yong Shin Jong.
Zim: Do you have the nuke?
Me: Not yet.
Zim: It wasn"t in the truck?
Me: If it was, it would have blown up by now.
Zim: Not necessarily.
Me: No, it wasn"t in the truck.
Zim: What are you going to do now?
Me: What everyone does when they visit North Korea. Go see the Great Leader.
Zim: (Pausing, obviously choosing his words carefully) I have to remind you that you are on your own. The government cannot help you. We won"t even spell your name right if Korea asks about you.
Me: M-a-r-c-i-n-k-o.
I was actually starting to admire the son of a b.i.t.c.h. Must have been early senility.
Soon after I hung up with the CIA officer, Yong came to. He wasn"t as surprised-nor as grateful-to see us as I would have thought.
"Water," he said.
He gulped from the bottle I gave him. There were pimples under his chin, and he blinked like someone trying to get used to seeing without gla.s.ses. He drank so quickly water s...o...b..red onto his shirt.
"Slow down," I told him. "You"re going to get cramps."
"Thirsty."
"I"m sure. There"s plenty of water, though. Take your time."
"Where am I?"
"In your homeland. How do you feel?"
Yong shrugged. "I have a headache. Chains on my feet."
"I didn"t want you sleepwalking."
"Am I your prisoner?"
"Not exactly. Do you know what kind of drugs they gave you?"
Yong shook his head. "They shot me up with something in the ship." He shook his head again, possibly reaching a new level of consciousness. Then he jerked back. "I don"t want to go to Pyongyang. I can"t. Korea is not my home."
"It"s not your home?"
"They"ll kill me."
"It seems to me that they"ve had plenty of chances to do that and they haven"t. What do they want from you?"
"To kill me."
Obviously there was more to it than that, but I"d have a better chance of tripping over a diamond on the cave floor than getting Yong to tell me the story.
"You"re a pretty valuable commodity," I told Yong. "My Russian friend was going to trade you for a nuclear weapon."
Yong Shin Jong scowled. "Kim would never give up a bomb."
"Not even for his b.a.s.t.a.r.d son?"
"The Russian was a big talker, but he was a fool."
"He was actually Polish," I said.
"Kim would have had him killed as soon as he arrived."
"What about General Sun?"
Yong Shin Jong didn"t get a chance to answer.
"Truck!" yelled Junior, pa.s.sing the word from one of the lookouts.
"Ours?" I asked.
"Can"t tell. Maybe."
"All right, you"re with me," I told Yong Shin Jong.
He struggled to get up, but clearly didn"t have the strength. I leaned over and hoisted him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
A heavy sack, with a chain that slapped me right across my thigh.
"Trace, Junior, get some AKs. The rest of you-go hide in the cave. Don"t make a sound. Go, let"s go-I want to make sure these are our guys."
As I scrambled out to the road, I told Trace and Junior to take flanking positions and cover me. They hustled behind the rocks; I waited until they were ready and then went out into the road with Yong.
"Sorry I have to carry you with me," I told him. "But I don"t trust you anywhere else."
"I"m not going to run away with these chains on," he croaked from over my shoulder.
"That"s not what I"m worried about."
I heard the truck coming up the incline. I raised my AK47. The driver saw me as he came around the bend and slammed on the brakes.
Sum Park, the captain in charge of the hires, jumped from the truck as it stopped. "d.i.c.k!" he yelled.
"I got him," I told Park.
"Good," said Park. He had his pistol out. "We can kill him here."
The rest of the company jumped from the truck, their rifles ready.
"We"re not killing him," I said.
"He is the son of the dictator and the enemy of my country," said Park. "He deserves nothing but death."
"You"ll kill him over my dead body."
"That would be a shame," he said, steadying his pistol.
30 The word "mercenary" seems to have acquired a bad reputation and I promised I wouldn"t use it.
31 For obvious reasons, I"m not using his name.
32 Obviously, I"m going to simplify all this. What do you think I am, a rocket scientist?
33 Can"t c.u.n.t. You ought to know that by now. Obviously, you didn"t read the first book.
12.
[ I ].
THE FACT THAT I"d antic.i.p.ated something like this didn"t make it any easier to deal with.
The fact that Trace and Junior were standing behind the South Koreans did.
"Yong Shin Jong is just Kim"s son," I told Park. "He"s n.o.body."
"You are wrong, d.i.c.k. He is responsible for many deaths. He was a member of the special forces and the secret police when he was younger. He led a mission into South Korea and kidnapped several people."
"That was in my youth, when I was a fool," said Yong Shin Jong heatedly. He began speaking rapidly in Korean.
Park answered. Yong Shin Jong shook his head.
"He"s a liar," said Park, explaining to me in English. "He claims his father ordered him to do it-a convenient falsehood."
"He may be a liar, but he"s my liar," I told him. "Look, Park, we don"t have time to argue here. You have to let him go-it"s for the greater good."
"Which greater good? So you can get rich?"
"That"s not why I"m doing this."
"I know you get much money for your missions, d.i.c.k."
"I doubt I"ll be paid for this one."
We could have had quite a discussion about patriotism and duty and greed if we"d wanted-and maybe we would have if I hadn"t left the other half of Park"s force back in the cave where they wouldn"t complicate things. But the discussion would still have come down to us two, staring at each other. It was a question of whether he trusted me. And there my reputation-call it fame, call it battle scars-helped considerably.
Or maybe it was the gleam in my eye-and the reflection of Trace"s and Junior"s guns.
"All right, d.i.c.k. I"ll trust you," Park said finally. "For now."
He put his weapon away and bowed his head. I bowed in return. His men lowered their weapons.
I will say this for a Korean-if he gives you his solemn word, you can take it to h.e.l.l and back.
Which is pretty much what I did.
WE LOADED UP the truck and headed west. Sum Park had refilled the gas tank at Songchu, which gave us enough fuel to make Pyongyang without stopping. Since I didn"t know what Polorski"s arrangement with Kim had been, I decided my best bet was to follow through on my own deal with Sun. Though the terms of Yong Shin Jong"s return had not been specified, I interpreted our arrangement to mean that I should bring him back to Kim"s compound.
The guards at the outer gate stood at attention when I drove up, not even stopping me. But the second set were much more demanding. The machine guns that flanked the roadway were turned toward me, and a guard demanded in very belligerent Korean that I step out of the truck.
"How do I say, "No f.u.c.king way"?" I asked Sum Park, who was listening over the radio.
He supplied me with a few choice Korean words. Then I told them who I was, and that if they didn"t let me through, Kim Jong Il was going to be very angry with them.
That worked with that set of guards, but the final group I met in front of the entrance to the Kim"s complex were not persuadable. They surrounded the truck, flashing a variety of weapons, including two grenade launchers and a Minimi, the Belgian cousin of the M243 machine gun. I kept my hands on the steering wheel, and said in very calm, very slow English, that I was Richard Marcinko and had come to see the Great Leader.
They answered in very excited, very rapid Korean that I was a piece of worm s.h.i.t and should get out of the truck immediately.
"I will get out, if you tell the Great Leader that I am here."
More Korean. More excitement. The grenade launcher was pointed at my face. It"s my belief that a round from an RPG-7 when launched at that close of a range will merely blow right through you without igniting, but I decided this wasn"t the time to test the theory. The Korean reached to the door and I stepped out, hands spread wide.
More guards arrived. I was poked, prodded, and searched. If I"d been a ma.s.s murderer in America, I"d have had one h.e.l.l of a case against the cops for violating my civil rights. But in North Korea I was an honored guest, and the ma.s.s murderer was my host. The Koreans rough housed me into a low-slung building across from the main entrance to Kim"s humble abode, pushing me down the stairs and into a hallway to a windowless room that smelled of rat urine.34 When the door was closed I was left completely in the dark.
I was there for about a half hour. The place was so dark and quiet that my senses shut down. I stood at the door and began visualizing what was going on outside, trying to project myself out into the corridors. Before I managed to reach the proper state of concentration, the door snapped open. The light practically blinded me.
"Richard Marcinko-you have returned!"
General Sun stood sneering behind the guards who"d opened the door.