Ballistic Force(58)
The Korean kissed his wife’s bare shoulder and carefully eased out of bed, taking care not to wake her. Lying at the foot of the bed was Shinn’s small pet terrier. The dog stirred and began to wag his tail, thumping the carpet.
“Shh.”
Shinn reached over and stroked the dog affectionately, whispering in Korean, “Quiet, Kyono. You stay here and be quiet.”
Kyono’s tail went limp and the dog lowered its head back to the floor.
“That’s my boy,” Shinn told the dog.
On his way out of the bedroom, Shinn grabbed a loose pair of shorts and a large, well-worn T-shirt from the closet. He quickly changed in the main room of their trailer home. The place wasn’t fancy, and it was a step down from the two-story Phoenix condominium he and his wife had moved into after defecting. Shinn, perhaps a bit more than Mi-Kas, actually preferred the Spartan living arrangements. He’d had his share of material pleasures back in Kanggye, all of them spoils earned by virtue of his allegiance to the Great Leader. In time, he’d come to view his fine furnishings and all the other extravagances as symbols of disgrace, especially in the face of the prolonged famine that was claiming so many of his fellow countrymen. Even his more modest accommodations in Phoenix had somehow seemed dishonorable. These days, he wanted things simple.
Once he’d stabbed his feet into a pair of sandals, Shinn slipped outside. He and his wife lived on a remote stretch of rambling foothills a few miles off the highway that ran from Phoenix north to the Grand Canyon. Their closest neighbors—a Libertarian Web site geek and his herbalist wife—lived nearly a quarter mile up the dusty, unpaved road that linked a handful of other equally remote homes. The closest city, Prescott, was a half hour’s drive to the south, and as far as Shinn knew, he and Mi-Kas were the only Koreans within a fifty-mile radius. But, then, that was fine with Shinn. It was a welcome departure from Phoenix’s Koreatown, where there had been too many reminders of the life and country they’d left behind. Here, it was easier to put the past behind him and try to find some sense of inner peace.
One of the best ways Shinn had found to cleanse himself of troubled thoughts was his morning ritual at the Zen garden he’d created on a terraced swath of land located fifty yards downhill from the trailer home. The garden was roughly the size and shape of a putting green, but instead of grass or plants, there were neatly raked furrows of sand emanating in concentric circles around a large rectangular boulder. Shinn had lined the periphery with smaller rocks the size of bowling balls, but the barrier was too low to keep wildlife from traipsing across the sand. As Shinn came upon the garden he saw that, as was the case more often than not, his handiwork from the day before had been disrupted by a set fresh animal tracks.
Havelinas, he figured, as he reached for his rake. The boarlike creatures were as prevalent in Chino Valley as coyotes had been in the suburbs of Phoenix.
Shinn had barely begun his final sweep around the periphery of the garden when the first light of dawn began to crest the distant mountaintops. He was about to set the rake aside and assume his usual lotus position when the sun’s rays stretched out across the garden, revealing the elongated silhouette of someone coming down the path toward him. Shinn had his back to the path and, puzzled, he was about to look over his shoulder when he heard a thud in the sand off to his left. He turned just in time to see something roll to a stop amid the furrows he’d just raked. Shinn’s eyes widened with sudden horror as he saw blood seep into the sand from the severed head of his pet terrier.
“Kyono!” Shinn gasped in horror. “No!”
Heart racing, the defector whirled to see three men heading down the path toward him. Two of them were dragging Shinn’s beloved wife between them. The woman was barely able to stay on her feet, and she was naked except for a band of gray duct taped wrapped several times around her jaw, muting her cries. One look at the shame and fear in his wife’s eyes and Shinn’s legs weakened beneath him. He slowly dropped to his knees, speechless.
“You’re a hard man to find, Shinn Kam-Song,” Hong Sung-nam attested. “But find you we have.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Joint Security Area, Panmunjom, South Korea
It would be another twenty-four hours before Lim Seung-Whan would be returned to his homeland in exchange for ransom, but when Colonel Michaels asked if Akira Tokaido wanted to check out the spot where his cousin would be dropped off, it was an offer the Stony Man computer expert couldn’t refuse.
Although Panmunjom was just a short drive from Camp Bonifas, the Joint Security Area was a world unto itself. Straddling the DMZ, the JSA was steeped with tension, as sentries from both Koreas faced off against one another from their positions on either side of the bright blue buildings where the U.S. and its allies sat in on the neverending negotiations between the two countries. And yet at the same time there was an almost surreal festiveness in the air, as Panmunjom was also a popular tourist attraction that lured throngs of curiosity-seekers who came to buy souvenirs and take tram rides through one of the infamous tunnels the North Koreans had burrowed through the surrounding mountains in hopes of allowing troop access to the South. Tokaido found it unsettling to see so many people posing for pictures atop the concrete barricade separating the two nations, and when he saw a young couple walk away from a trinket kiosk marvelling at the strip of prison camp barbed wire they’d just purchased, he felt as if he’d stumbled into the Amusement Park from Hell.