Dark Zone

“Zaijan,” said the minder without answering the question. “Good-bye.”

“Yes, good-bye, and thank you,” Lia told her.

Fee was a euphemism for a bribe, which tended to be customary.

Lia gripped the handle of her overnight bag tightly. She had no weapon on her. Her only link with the outside world was her communications system, which was powered by circuits and a battery built into her belt. She clicked it now, making sure it was on. “A fee,” she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for the Art Room to hear.

“We briefed you on that,” answered Jeff Rockman, who had just taken over as her runner. “Pay it and come home.”

The men carried AK-47s that were perhaps twice as old as they were. Several paces behind them was an officer; he was a few years older and shorter than Lia.

“Nu xing shenme?” asked the man in Korean. He was a lieutenant.

“He’s asking your name,” said the translator in the Art Room as Lia hesitated.

Actually, he was asking her family name, Lia realized, and the implications were very different. She felt her body tense.

“Why?” Lia answered sharply in Chinese.

“Come this way, miss.”

“Wo xing Wang,” she told him, saying that her family name was Wang. She then asked what was going on, as she was due aboard the flight waiting out on the tarmac.

The officer’s face flushed. He stamped his right foot and pointed in the direction of the building. “Jepjjok!” he thundered. “That way.” The two soldiers flinched.

“I am on important private business,” she said.

North Korean officials tended to back off when she spoke firmly and with implied authority. But the young lieutenant was too full of himself — or maybe too worried about losing face in front of his men — to do that. “You will come now or be dragged away,” he told her.

Lia struggled against her instinct to lash out. She probably could deck the lieutenant and wrestle one of the weapons from one of the soldiers. But there would be no escape after that.

I played it wrong, she realized. I should have been more submissive, more in character. He needs to feel superior.

Lia bowed her head forward. “Mianhamnida,” she said in Korean, giving an apology. “Yes, I am going.”

The officer said something in Korean that she did not understand. The translator back in the Art Room apparently did not hear it or thought it unimportant to relay.

There was a subtle etiquette involved in the bribe exchange. The official would not be merely after money. While China was North Korea’s strong ally, there was a great deal of resentment among most Koreans toward their large northern neighbor. China’s historic domination and long occupation of the Korean peninsula caused deep animosity, which could not be erased over a period of only fifty years. Many Chinese — and this would especially apply to anyone associated with the Westernized and hence “decadent” Hong Kong area, where Lia’s credentials as well as her travel arrangements declared she was from — were viewed by the Koreans as greedy, soft, and worse. The fact that she was a woman, alone, young, and single, didn’t help the situation, as it only lowered her status in the eyes of the official, at least partly canceling any connection she had to the higher-ups in town. Lia and her briefer had played out different scenarios on how to offer the bribe, which of course wasn’t referred to as a bribe but an “official fee for expediting important matters.” Lia had to be the one to suggest it, once the official pointed out a problem.

She followed down the hallway toward a small room at the side of the building. The room smelled of fresh paint. The walls were bright white and there were six overhead incandescents, unusual in a country where power was severely rationed. In the middle of the room sat a large table, the folding sort often used at banquets. The four chairs next to it were heavy metal affairs with vinyl cushions. Lia walked toward the table but waited to sit until instructed to do so — an important point her briefer had emphasized.

Outside, she heard the sound of the 737’s engines being spooled up.

“I hope my papers are in order,” she told the officer in Korean. “My time here has been wonderful and productive. I have met with many important people.”

She continued on with a standard formula about how helpful the local officials had been and how indebted she was to Korea’s great leader, Kim Jong II. She stuck to the official cover that she was a journalist; the officer would know and probably care nothing about the business arrangements.

The phrases did nothing to soften the officer’s grimace. He requested her travel documents. Lia hesitated, worrying that the officer intended on taking her place on the plane himself, a contingency she had not considered until now. But she had no choice but to hand over the small sheaf of papers.

As she did, she mentioned that she hoped all of the proper fees had been paid. The lieutenant did not take the hint. Nor did he seem all that interested in the documents themselves. He pushed the papers to one side and stared at her.

“My superiors would not wish me to be late arriving in Beijing,” she said in Chinese. She wanted the Korean translation — she thought it likely now that the officer did not speak Chinese very well, if at all — but the Art Room had gone silent. Possibly they had decided to communicate as little as possible, which was standard procedure when a field op was in a difficult situation.

And this definitely qualified. The aircraft engines seemed to kick up another notch.

Lia decided to turn her communications system on and off, in effect flashing her runner back home. But as she reached for the belt buckle, one of the guards grabbed her arm. His fingers dug into her bicep. It took all of her self-restraint to avoid turning on the man and taking him down.

Could I if I have to?

Absolutely. She could have his rifle in a breath, club his companion in the stomach — no, the head or neck — then bring the gun to bear on the officer.

And then?

The officer said something in Korean. Lia did not catch it all, but the words she understood were ominous: he called her a tasty plum.

The Art Room translator started to supply the words, but Lia didn’t wait. “My employer wishes me home on time,” she said in Chinese. “And unhurt. I do not work for a mere newspaper,” she added. And then, switching from Chinese to Korean, she asked if she had to pay a customs tax: “Gwanserui neya hamnikka?”

Her sharp and quick tone conveyed her anger and emotion quite clearly, just as her snapping open the purse showed she was willing to pay for her freedom.

The lieutenant leaned forward, eyes locking on hers. He told her in Korean that she was not in China. As the translator began translating in her head, Lia placed her hands on the edge of the table and leaned forward.

“I’m in a hurry,” she said in Korean. The phrase sounded like “ku-p’haiyo” and under the best of circumstances would not have been considered particularly polite.

“You’re going too far,” hissed the Art Room supervisor, Marie Telach. “Relax. He just wants money. And to see you cower. Let him have his ego trip.”

Lia stared at the Korean officer; the lieutenant stared back. Finally he started to smile and then laugh. He raised his head, looking at the guards. Lia, though still angry, began to relax.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She launched into the standard apology again, blaming the stress of travel for her rude behavior.

The lieutenant nodded. The documents, he said, were good, but she had neglected to get a stamp.

“Then that must be taken care of,” said Lia, relieved that finally they had come to the endgame. “How much is the fee?” she asked in Chinese. “I understand that it is very important to pay properly for the trouble a visitor brings.”

As the Art Room translator began giving her the words in Korean, Lia saw the shadow of one of the guards moving from the corner of her eye. She started to spin toward him and was caught off-guard by the hard shock of the other man’s fist against the other side of her head.

Her breath caught in her throat as she fell forward, fists flailing but catching nothing but air. She tried to get