Prync had nodded understandingly throughout Dahn’s explanation, and once the sergeant had finished, he assured the MII agent, “Trust me, I have walked in similar shoes myself, and I’m here for a reason much like yours.”
Prync was playing directly into Dahn’s hands, but the sergeant was wary of winning him over too easily. He knew from experience that it was better to play devil’s advocate a little, to prevent suspicion from raising its head further into an undercover operation. So instead of seizing the offer of camaraderie, Dahn pretended to resist it.
“I find that hard to believe,” he said skeptically.
“It’s true,” Prync insisted. He went on to explain his own falling out with the KPA based on the chance remark he’d made alluding to one of the nation’s famine spells. “And, as with you,” he concluded, “once these thugs had made up their mind I was being treasonous, there was no convincing them otherwise. I’ve been here ever since.”
Dahn pretended that Prync’s story had given him something to reflect on.
“One has to wonder,” he said, “if someone is in the right, they’re normally not so quick to read false meanings into everything said about them.”
“It’s paranoia,” Prync explained. “And usually it’s a sign that someone secretly knows they’re in the wrong but can’t face up to it.”
“Perhaps, but a lot of good it does us to know we’ve been wronged,” Dahn muttered cynically. He glanced past Prync at the other prisoners, including Lim Seung-Whan and his family. Noting their abject, emaciated state, he added, “Give me a choice, and I think I would prefer to be a little less righteous and a little more free…”
“Patience,” Prync advised. “As it turns out, your plight might not be as dire as you think.”
Dahn shook his head. “I know how these camps work,” he said. “You come here on a one-way ticket. There’s no way out.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Prync said cryptically. “We’ll see.”
In that instant, Dahn figured he was in. With any luck, he could continue to play Prync like a fish on a hook, feeding out line and then reeling him in until he had all the information Yulim was looking for regarding the intended prison revolt. And if the ringleader were to become reticent, Dahn had another two bugging devices with him. All he would have to do is plant them near where Prync and his co-conspirators would gather to make their last-minute arrangements. Either way, he would have done what Yulim had asked, and hopefully Dahn would have bought the time necessary to untangle himself from the web he’d found himself caught in. Echoing Prync’s sentiments, he told himself, We’ll see….
“I HOPE I DID the right thing bringing it back,” Private Euikon Gryg-Il said as he stood in front of Major Jin’s desk inside the mountain facilities next to the concentration camp.
“You really didn’t have much choice,” the major responded. “But yes, you were right to bring it back.”
Jin had returned from Lieutenant Corporal Yulim’s bungalow only a few moments before Euikon had shown up to confirm that Oh Chol had been intercepted and killed, along with his driver, well before they could reach Kaesong. Jin was concerned by the news that the general’s cell phone had been on at the time of the execution, as his first thought was that Oh had been talking with MII officials back in Kaesong. But when he thumbed through the phone’s controls and accessed the call log, he breathed a sigh of relief. Oh had made only the one call after leaving Changchon, and Jin recognized the number as that of the general’s nephew, Park Yo-Wi. In terms of damage control, this was by far the easier fix.
“Is there anything else?” Euikon queried.
Jin glanced up from the cell phone. He hadn’t yet gotten around to planting evidence in the private’s locker that would link him to Operation Guillotine, thereby substantiating the preliminary findings he and Yulim had forced Sergeant Dahn to report to MII earlier. If Euikon’s gun could be later linked to the deaths of Park as well as his uncle, his supposed complicity in the coup attempt would seem all the more irrefutable. Of course, at some point the private would have to be killed, too, so that he wouldn’t be able to defend himself against the frame-up. But that could be attended to later, once he’d disposed of Oh’s nephew.
“Yes, there is one more matter,” Jin told the junior officer. “And I’m entrusting this to you only because you’ve proved yourself reliable. Not to mention worthy of promotion if you succeed.”