Ballistic Force(7)

There were two obstacles to the Changchon enterprise. The first, climatic conditions, was beyond the regime’s control. Poppies thrived best in a warmer terrain with better soil than what the mountains here provided. But the feeling was that by cultivating more and more land, quantity could offset the inferior quality of North Korean heroin compared to that harvested in more favorable environments such as Afghanistan and Myanmar.

The second problem involved the work force, and as Oh’s jeep carried him along the periphery of the poppy fields, he was given a vivid demonstration. Twenty yards to his left there was a sudden flurry of activity. Seven carbine-toting soldiers broke from their positions at the edge of the fields and stormed through the waist-high plants to where one of the workers, a woman in her early sixties, had just slumped to the ground.

Oh motioned for his driver to stop the vehicle and he watched as two of the soldiers jerked the woman to her feet. Blood flowed freely from where she’d slit her wrists with the sharp-edged tool she’d been using to cut open the poppy bulbs. Apparently the soldiers hadn’t gotten to her in time, because she hung limply in their arms until, disgusted, they finally dropped her back to the ground.

The other workers shrank back as one of the soldiers shouted at them while pointing at the body. Oh could hear the officer demanding to know why no one had stopped the woman or at least notified the guards the moment she’d turned the blade on herself. When none of the workers responded, the man barked a command to his fellow soldiers, who promptly raised their carbines and fired. Three workers reeled from the impact of the gunfire and pitched forward, disappearing from view amid the poppies. The others let out an involuntary cry, then quickly fell silent when the rifles were turned on them.

Oh knew this was an all-too-frequent occurrence here in Changchon. The laborers were all interred prisoners at the nearby rehabilitation center, and because it was common knowledge that assignation to the camp was the equivalent of a life prison sentence, all too many workers had taken advantage of the tools they were provided with and opted to commit suicide rather than suffer through an extended incarceration. Those who ran the camp had made it clear that anyone who stood by and allowed a fellow worker to take his or her life would face execution, but obviously the deterrent wasn’t working.

Oh had no stake in the struggling venture, which was run under the aegis of the Ministry of Security, but when Lieutenant Corporal Yulim Zhi-Weon, the camp’s supervising officer, wandered over to exchange a few words, the general couldn’t help offering an opinion.

“Maybe you need to run things more like in Chongjin and the northern collectives,” he suggested. “Use schoolchildren to do the harvesting.”

“And where do we get the schoolchildren from?” Yulim retorted. “Ship them in from Kaesong? I don’t think so.”

“There has to be a better way.”

Yulim glanced at the fields, where soldiers where dragging away the slain workers, then turned back to Oh and shrugged. “There are always more prisoners,” he said. “One way or another, we’ll make our quota.”

“That’s what our Great Leader would like to hear,” Oh responded.

Yulim changed the subject. “You’ve been away the past few months,” he told Oh.

“My services were needed in Pyongyang,” the general replied.

“There has been a lot of activity inside the mountain,” Yulim reported. “Not to mention all the late-night shipments. At least four times a week.”

Oh nodded. “That’s what I’m here to check up on.” The general didn’t bother explaining that the bulk of his time at the North Korean capital had been spent choreographing the clandestine deliveries Yulim had just mentioned. And even though the facilities Oh had come to inspect were located directly adjacent to the concentration camp, what went on inside the mountain was classified and Yulim lacked the necessary security clearance to be brought inside the loop. The lieutenant corporal could pry all he wanted, but he wouldn’t be getting any answers from Oh.

The men were interrupted when a dilapidated army truck suddenly appeared out of the foliage twenty yards to Oh’s right. The truck had arrived at the site by way of another of the dirt roads leading up into the mountains. The rear bed was covered by a canvas shell, but Yulim had apparently been expecting the vehicle and knew what kind of cargo it was carrying.

“Speaking of more prisoners,” he said.

Once the truck came to a stop, officers immediately encircled the vehicle. The rear tailgate was lowered and, one by one, more than a dozen men and women climbed down to the ground and were herded into a single file. Half of them wore peasant rags and had the emaciated look of farm laborers. The others, however, were far better dressed, and a man, woman and a girl in her midteens looked to be part Japanese. Since most of the repatriates had long since been weeded out of the general populace, Oh suspected they were from the south. Spies, perhaps.