than emergency aircraft were canceled until further notice. I argued with the NCO in charge and flashed my badge and even threatened to call the Provost Marshal, but it did no good. No choppers were lifting off unless it was a life-or-death situation.
'There is some good news,' the sergeant told us. 'The weather's expected to break sometime tonight.'
'And you'll put us on the first thing smoking?' I asked.
'You got it,' he promised.
Resigned to our fate, Ernie and I grabbed a couple of cups of coffee and tried to make ourselves comfortable on the wooden benches in the tiny waiting room.
I leafed through a magazine. Ernie bitched about missing Happy Hour. We waited.
It was almost midnight, and I had started to doze off, when the Flight Control Sergeant shook me awake.
'Call for you.'
Rubbing my eyes, I stumbled to the counter and grabbed the telephone. It was Herman. In the background I heard a woman shrieking. Slicky Girl Nam.
'We received another package,' Herman said.
'From the kidnappers?'
'Yeah.'
'What's it say?'
'It doesn't say nothing. It's a clipping from a newspaper or something. A picture of the full moon.'
Nam was crying and gnashing her teeth so loudly in the background that I could barely hear Herman.
'They're reminding us of the deadline,' I said. 'That's it? There was nothing else in the package?'
'Something was wrapped in the paper.'
My stomach started to churn. Herman's voice seemed eerily calm.
'What was it, Herman?'
'A part of a finger. Mi-ja's. Two knuckles' worth.'
I heard something plop on wood. The phone line crackled. Slicky Girl Nam's wailing increased in volume. Herman came back on the line.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I dropped it.'
I swallowed through a dry throat but managed to speak. 'Have the KNPs come up with anything?'
'Nada. Not a goddamn thing.'
'Keep a grip, Herman,' I said. 'Ernie and I are on our way to Taejon.'
I hung up the phone.
Ernie was still stretched out on the wooden bench, his head propped up on his overnight bag, his hands laced across his stomach, snoring calmly. He slept with the clear conscience of a Catholic saint.
Three hours later the rain slowed and the wind stopped. I shook Ernie awake and the two of us clambered aboard a roaring Huey helicopter.
As we lifted into the sky, the stars emerged from behind drifting monsoon clouds. They sparkled brightly, as if each one had been polished by the hand of God.
11
Steel needles of agony shot up from Mi-ja's severed finger. The pain from her missing ear had long since settled into a pounding ache. Still, all these sensations had gradually spun into an unbreakable cocoon of misery. A cocoon Mi-ja was coming to accept.
Mi-ja was most worried about whether or not her legs would work. A couple of times she'd raised from her squat on the cold cement floor, but she managed only a few faltering steps. Yet she must find strength in her legs and she must find it now.
Every time she moved the chain rattled. She had to be careful, because if she made too much noise one of the men would come in to check on her.
Her face was just a few feet from the commode, the chain attached to her neck wrapped around the pipe that ran into the cement floor. The toilet hadn't been flushed since she was brought here, and Mi-ja was glad of that because she was afraid that if anyone tried to flush it, rancid filth would overflow onto the floor.
The stench bothered her not at all. She had more important things to worry about.
All night, as she faded in and out of consciousness, she had heard the voice of her mother. 'Hardship is the lot of women like us, Mi-ja. You must be a strong girl, even if it means you have to leave us and go far away to live with someone else.'
She had promised her mother she would be strong- and now she would prove it.
Mi-ja had a plan.
Footsteps approached. She held her breath. Now was the time. She would be allowed only one chance.
The door of the byonso crashed open. Mi-ja flinched. Dim light filtered in, slicing into her eyes. She covered her face with both hands.
One of the foreign men stomped across the cement floor. Roughly, he grabbed the chain and jerked it upward, almost choking Mi-ja in the process. He reached in his pocket, pulled out a key, and unlocked the padlock that held the chain. With the side of his boot, he kicked Mi-ja back away from the commode.
Mi-ja kept her eyes tightly shut, cowering against the cement wall. Within seconds she heard the steady stream of urine splashing into the waste-filled porcelain bowl.
Slowly, she leaned backward on her haunches, flexing the stiff muscles of her thigh, testing their strength. Flesh quivered in protest. Still, her body must obey her commands. Her legs had to work. It was vital that everything proceed in one unbroken motion.
The stream of urine was steady and hard. The reek of it drifted into Mi-ja's nostrils. She forced herself to take a deep breath, opened her eyes, and launched herself for- ward, twisting behind the urinating man, slamming her thin shoulders against the far cement wall.
The chain around her neck slipped and clattered to the floor. The urinating man swiped his hand backward, but his fingers slithered off the flesh of Mi-ja's upper arm. She hit the wooden door-squirming, turning, running- pushed through, and burst out into the outside room.
Men squatted on a large vinyl-covered floor, tossing oddly-shaped wooden sticks into a pile between them. They looked up as she ran past them, scattering dried bones in her wake.
Men shouted. Men reached out. But none of them moved quickly enough. She was already at the front door. She slammed into it and pushed but it wouldn't open.
Frantically, Mi-ja twisted the handle. It slid downward and she pulled the door ajar. She stepped out into the hallway, glancing both ways. A window. People on a street far below. The voices of children. Men and women selling fresh produce. The sounds of Korea. The sounds of home.
She heard footsteps behind her and sprinted with all her strength toward the window. Too high to jump out. A stairway. She ran toward it.
Mi-ja was naked, she knew that, but her mind had no care for modesty. Only freedom. Only real air. Like an animal escaped from its cage, that was all she could think of.
As she rounded a corner she saw it. A metal grillwork door blocking the stairway. She grabbed the tightly woven bars, rattled them. They wouldn't budge.
Trapped.
The footsteps of the men were in full pursuit now. No way to slip under the grillwork, but she could climb over it. There was enough space at the top for her to slip through. But there wasn't enough time. Her pursuers would be on her in seconds.
In the hallway behind her she spotted a small wooden hatchway. It probably led to a storage shed for charcoal.
She stepped back up the stairs, pushed the door. It held at first but then, just as she was about to surrender to despair, it shifted slightly. She pushed harder. The door popped open. Flat back. She was right. The dank space
