At dawn we ran out of gas.
As we had rolled through the countryside, there had been no roadblocks. Hero Kang explained to me that they wouldn’t bother. Word would just be sent out from Pyongyang to the commanders in the field and the provincial police forces to keep an eye out for us and arrest us on the spot. They would wait for us to fall into their net. He went on to verify what I’d already surmised: A rapid response force, standing by armed and ready to do someone’s bidding, was not an institution that the Great Leader trusted. Armed men sitting around with nothing to do would inevitably turn their thoughts to sedition. Besides, nothing was a true emergency in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea-except, of course, a threat to the Great Leader. Everything else could wait.
Hero Kang and I climbed out of the sedan and pushed while Hye-kyong-now admirably recovered from last night’s trauma-steered the car into the central road of a small farming commune. Although the sun was just coming up, work teams had already marched far out into the fields, carrying hoes and rakes balanced on their shoulders. Doors remained shut. Not only did no one come out to greet us, no one so much as peeked out a window.
“They’re frightened,” Hero Kang said. “Of such a big car. Of men in uniform.”
“And of a foreigner,” I said.
“Especially of that.”
Past the main buildings of the commune, the dirt road veered right and ran sharply downhill. Hero Kang and I stepped back and Hye-kyong steered around a bend into a narrow valley that held an old straw-thatched animal pen, except there were no animals inside. Momentum carried her halfway into the front entrance, and when we caught up, Hero Kang and I pushed her all the way inside the pen. After Hye-kyong climbed out of the car, we grabbed pitchforks and tossed straw over the black sedan until it was mostly covered.
“You planned this,” I said.
Hero Kang’s eyes widened. “Of course. Everything’s been planned.”
I paused for a moment, studying his face. He was happy tossing the straw over the car, happy having something definite to do.
“You didn’t plan to attack Commissar Oh,” I said.
Hero Kang tossed his pitchfork into a pile of straw. “No. That came upon me suddenly.” He pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket and shuffled through them until he found the correct one, which he used to pop open the trunk of the old Russian sedan. Inside sat a wooden crate, next to it a crow bar. He pried the crate open and pulled out the equipment inside.
My breath caught involuntarily. I recognized it from my training. A Soviet-made RPG, a rocket-propelled grenade with a high explosive projectile.
“What are we going to use that for?” I asked.
Hero Kang grinned, hoisting the weapon to his shoulder. “To stop the Red Star Brigade,” he said.
Hye-kyong reached inside the trunk and pulled out two canvas satchels. One she strapped over her shoulder, the other she handed to me. It was heavy. Additional projectiles. Then she took the keys out of her father’s hand, relocked the trunk, and finished covering the car with straw.
Five minutes later, we were marching along a narrow dirt path through a pear orchard.
We spent the night in the open, shivering and squatting next to one another for warmth. Before dawn, we were up and walking again.
“We must stay on the ridgelines,” Hero Kang told me. “Away from the cultivated valleys. Unfortunately, the Red Star Brigade is stationed the farthest away from Pyongyang. In about thirty li we should be there.”
Thirty li, or about fifteen miles.
By midafternoon we lay atop a hill looking down on a military compound, which was surrounded by a wooden fence topped with concertina wire. A few trucks and armored vehicles were lined up near sheds, as if awaiting maintenance. Still, there wasn’t as much activity as I would’ve expected for a unit preparing to move out within hours, heading toward the eastern coast of the Korean peninsula.
“They haven’t received their petroleum yet,” Hero Kang told me.
Hye-kyong said, “Do you remember the part of the briefing about fuel requirements?”
“Yes,” I said. “That was the most boring part. Very precise calculations of how many kilometers per liter each type of vehicle could receive; how many kilometers to Hamhung; how many kilometers from there, by the various routes, to Beikyang. And then calculations on how many more kilometers it would be up the slopes of Mount O- song.”
“They want to issue just enough diesel fuel,” she replied, “to allow the Red Star Brigade to reach a refueling point outside Hamhung.”
“The shortage of fuel is that great?” I asked.
During my briefings in Seoul, I’d been told that the Soviet Union was generous in providing the North Korean military with petroleum products.
“It’s not a shortage,” Hero Kang told me. “It’s part of the method of control. The Great Leader keeps each military commander on the shortest of leashes as far as how much ammunition he is provided and how much fuel he is allowed to move his unit throughout the country. He doesn’t want any commander getting any ideas about overthrowing the government.”
“As an additional precaution,” Hye-kyong chimed in, “their families, including their wives and children, are housed in Pyongyang, supposedly for the better schooling and more luxurious lifestyle. But actually they’re held as hostages so the commander doesn’t get out of line.”
“In Yim’s case,” Hero Kang added, “they even keep his mistress in Pyongyang.”
Hye-kyong turned her face as if stung.
Once again, Hero Kang realized his mistake. He clenched the binoculars he held in his hand so tightly I thought they might bust. Abruptly, he shoved them back up to his eyes and studied the compound below.
After a few minutes, in a timorous voice, Hye-kyong said, “The diesel fuel delivery will come through that pass. We must attack them there.”
“Us?” I asked.
Hye-kyong nodded. “Since the Red Star Brigade is under orders to move out in the morning, the delivery will be made tonight.”
“No earlier than absolutely needed,” I said.
She nodded again, somberly.
We crawled back down the hill.
Hye-kyong found apples.
We feasted on a ridge overlooking the narrow pass through a series of hills leading to the valley that was home to the Red Star Brigade. In the fields below, farmers worked, but none of them looked up our way. Even if they had, we were hidden behind clumps of wild shrubbery. I sat on a rock.
Gingerly, I removed the brown low quarters that were standard issue for Warsaw Pact military officers. They were made of thick leather, not very pliable, and stitched together with wire-like thread. My feet were red and tender and most of the flesh on the Achilles tendon had been scraped raw. The backs of my socks were stained with blood. I used a little precious water from our one canteen to wet them and wring them out before slipping them back on my aching feet. Then I put the shoes back on, leaving them unlaced so they wouldn’t hurt so much.
After devouring a third apple, I tossed the core away and waited for Hero Kang to resume his briefing. The plan was that he would fire the RPG at the second fuel tanker in the convoy. Then he would fire the other two rockets we had at the fourth and the sixth tankers. Hopefully they’d be clumped close enough together that some of the other fuel-laden vehicles would join in the conflagration.
“Won’t they attack us?” I asked. “Won’t the guards assault this hill?”
“There won’t be guards,” Hye-kyong said. “Only party minders to make sure that no one stops and sells fuel along the way.”
“But the drivers,” I said. “They’ll be armed.”
“Yes,” Hero Kang replied. “They’ll be armed.”
I shook my head at the lack of convoy security. In South Korea, the U.S. Army MPs spend much of their time escorting valuable cargoes around the country. But with the population here in North Korea being so tightly controlled, the Communist regime seemed unconcerned about hijacking.
“Surely they must be worried about us,” I said. “And after an armed assault on a fuel convoy, they’ll finally
