ginseng. She slipped off her rubber glove and let it fall to the ground. Stepping closer, she upped the stakes and unbuttoned the collar of her dress. I didn’t have time to continue trying to communicate with hand signals and her rudimentary English, so I said the words in Korean, the words that had been relayed to me in the middle of the night in a secluded spot on the edge of the Port of Pusan.
“The Nampo Southern Section People’s Grain Warehouse,” I said. “I must go there.”
Her mouthed gaped open. She’d probably never heard a merchant marine speak Korean before.
“Bali,” I said. Hurry. “Na insam sago sippo.” I want to buy ginseng. Still speaking Korean, I asked her how I could get outside of the fence surrounding us so I could make my way to the grain warehouse.
Pei’s mouth closed. She stared at the silver coin, rebut-toning the collar of her dress. She seemed frightened, confused. I needed to reassure her, so I slipped the coin into her open palm. The flesh was rough and calloused. She gazed up at me, thinking it over. Her brow wrinkled.
“No one will know,” I said in Korean. “A friend told me you’ve done deals before. I’ll be careful.”
Finally she nodded. Her fingers closed around the coin.
Quietly, we stepped farther down the dark hall. She opened a door that led outside, turned, and motioned for me to wait. A few yards away, a guard stood at a side gate. He seemed bored as he stared into the mist-soaked darkness. As Food Worker Pei approached, he turned, clutching his rifle. She bowed and stepped closer to him. When she was almost touching him, she spoke.
If she wanted to betray me, now was the time.
The guard whispered a few questions. Pei answered. Finally, the guard glanced around, ensuring that no one was watching, and took a couple of steps away from the gate. Pei motioned for me to come forward. I did. The gate guard couldn’t have been much more than a teenager. He stared up at me, insolent.
“Tambei,” he said, silently snapping his fingers.
I pretended I didn’t understand. Food Worker Pei mimicked the act of smoking.
I didn’t smoke, but I knew that one of the best ways to inspire cooperation was to always have cigarettes on hand. The ones I pulled out of my pocket were British-made, purchased in Hong Kong. The guard stared at them greedily. I slipped one out of the pack and handed it to him.
Like a magic trick, the cigarette disappeared into the pocket of his jacket. Then he snapped his fingers and said, “Dok.” Again.
I hesitated. Food Worker Pei nodded. I took two more cigarettes out of the pack, handed them to him and, with an air of finality, stuck the remainder of the pack deep into the recesses of my peacoat.
The guard seemed pleased. He glanced around, pulled something from another pocket and handed it to Food Worker Pei. He sauntered off, not looking back. As his footsteps faded, Food Worker Pei bent toward the gate and fiddled with a lock. Metal clinked on metal. She stepped toward me and asked me in Korean, “Odi inji allayo?” Do you know where it is?
I nodded.
This shocked her, the full realization finally hitting her that I was not only a foreigner who spoke Korean but one who knew where the People’s Grain Warehouse was located. The fingers of her left hand rose to her lips, as if the full import of what she was doing was finally coming clear to her. I grabbed her shoulders and spoke to her urgently.
“Kokchong hajima,” I said. Don’t worry. “There’s another silver coin for you when I return. Tell that guard to expect me after one hour. I have more cigarettes. Don’t betray me. If I’m caught, both you and he will be punished.”
She gazed at me in terror. “One hour?” she asked.
I nodded. “One hour. Maybe a little more.”
Then I turned and pushed through the gate, closing it behind me.
I watched as Food Worker Pei scurried forward and snapped shut the lock, feeling guilty about getting her into so much trouble. I had no intention of returning to the People’s Hall of International Friendship. At least not voluntarily.
I had long since memorized the path to the grain warehouse. Eighth Army’s aerial reconnaissance of North Korea is state-of-the-art and covers every square foot of this poor, targeted country. The North Koreans have a small air force but no capacity to stop the U.S. overflights of supersonic aircraft, and certainly no capacity to stop our satellite surveillance. The zoomies tell me that they purposely make sonic booms over the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to remind the Great Leader that we can take him out whenever the spirit moves us.
Back in Seoul, I’d spent hours studying black-and-white blowups of photographs of the Port of Nampo and the surrounding area. I trotted now through cold, narrow alleys, mud sloshing beneath my feet, with few lights to guide me. Only at major intersections did the occasional yellow street lamp stand guard. I avoided these, sticking to the shadows.
The sailor who’d brought me the message back in the safety of the Port of Pusan had specifically said that I must contact a man called Hero Kang at the People’s Grain Warehouse in the southern section of Nampo. It was only a few hundred yards from the People’s Hall of International Friendship and other sailors had gone there to transact black-market deals. Who Hero Kang was or what he looked like, I had no idea. The only thing I was told was to use the code word “orphan.” In Korean, ko-ah. Child of bitterness.
The People’s Grain Warehouse was right where the recon boys told me it would be. Luckily, North Koreans retire early, and on the way I’d seen only a few people from a distance: laborers trudging their way home, an occasional man pushing a wooden cart. I’d managed to avoid them.
The rotted wood door at the back of the warehouse was open. I stepped inside carefully, prepared for anything. Inside, a candle flickered on a low wooden table. The odor of fermenting grain was overpowering. Dust floated in the air. Not dust, I realized, probably minute particles from the husks of rice.
The candle still burning indicated that someone was working late. Hero Kang, I hoped. He couldn’t have known which ship I’d be arriving on-we’d had no communication since the initial message-but certainly he’d be here any night a foreign ship pulled into port, which was only, according to the intelligence boys in Seoul, two or three dozen times a year. A desk sat in a corner and in front of it were square wooden slots, an old-fashioned filing system with yellowed paper rolled and stuffed into various pigeonholes.
I didn’t want to say hello-what if Hero Kang wasn’t alone? What if he’d been joined by a surprise visitor and had led the visitor away, hoping I wouldn’t barge in at the wrong time? I decided to find a hiding place and wait. Before I did, I couldn’t resist peeking through a double wooden door. Stepping gingerly on the creaking wood, I pushed the door open slightly and peered into the vast darkness of a high-ceilinged storage area. Something flitted amongst rafters. Bats. I was about to retreat and find a hiding place in the outside alleyway when the soles of my shoes slid on something rough, like tiny pebbles. Grain-millet, I thought-had been strewn purposefully along the floor. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I realized that the grain had been dropped to form the shape of a crooked arrow, an arrow that pointed deeper into the warehouse. Quietly, I scattered the grain with my shoe and followed.
Moonbeams streamed through a skylight. I passed ancient wooden pallets piled high with sacks of rice. North Korea was a fecund country, rich soil in the lowlands, profitable minerals in the mountains. Begrudgingly, some of my briefers in Seoul had admitted that the standard of living in communist North Korea-as judged by the per capita annual caloric intake-was higher than that in democratic South Korea. But they were quick to add that the Soviet bloc was spending millions subsidizing the North Korean lifestyle, and South Korea was gaining on them rapidly.
At the far end of the warehouse, another tiny candle wavered. It sat on the floor in the center of a short hallway. The door at the end of the hallway had been propped open by a stone. Near the flame, more grain had been scattered. I knelt to examine it, this time expecting a message. It formed two words. The first was a Chinese character. Three lines, the outer two angling in on the straight line in the middle. It took me a second and then it came to me. Su. Water. The second word was in shadow. I lifted the flaming plate of oil. It was in English. Then I realized what it said.
Run.
2
