Bamboo and blood

Chapter Three

I left the sacks in the trunk of my car and carried back a small bag to the front gate. The gaunt guard wouldn't look at me. He frowned at the bag and then waved me into the hut. The general sat alone at the table. He had taken off his parka, though it was even colder in the room than it was outside. I put the bag down in front of him. "It would please me if you shared my dinner," I said. He didn't react. I put down the envelope. I hadn't opened it; I wasn't even tempted. Jeno had passed it to me, but from Pak's reaction, I could tell it was from someone I had never met and didn't especially want to.

The general quickly opened the bag, divided the contents into six portions, and called out to the guards. As they came in, one at a time, he handed a portion to each of them. When that was done, he stood and carried the third portion along with the envelope through a doorway into a dark room at the back of the hut. With the door shut, I could hear no more than a murmur of voices, someone coughing, and a sound of a dog barking once, softly, as if muzzled.

"My adjutant," the general said when he emerged again. "He's not well." That left three portions. He nodded and gave one to me. The second he put in his pocket. "Come with me, Inspector," he said. The last portion stayed on the table.

Outside, as soon as we were beyond earshot of the gate guards, he stopped. "You seem awfully sure of yourself," he said. "Passing things to people you don't know. It's not wise." It was cold enough for the parka, but he'd left it behind. He was going to make it clear to me that he was tougher than I was.

"I'm not worried. In Pyongyang, a colonel threatened to have me shot."

"Son of a bitch!" he shouted so loud that the gaunt guard whirled around to see what had happened. "At our last staff meeting, we were told colonels couldn't shoot policemen. Only generals could." He laughed; it didn't seem to be something he did very often. "I wouldn't have shot you."

"I think I knew that."

"Even so, one of the guards might have pulled the trigger. They don't need my permission to shoot. Their standing orders are to keep out of this compound anyone-anyone-who doesn't carry special orders. You don't have anything like that. You don't even have regular orders. Out here, your ID is garbage."

"That's what I've been told. If you don't mind my saying, your soldiers didn't seem ready to shoot. They're surly enough, but not killers, I'd say."

"Only a few of them carry live rounds. You wouldn't want to find out which ones, believe me. Anyway, you don't know for sure that those were the only guards watching, or whether my weapon was the only one trained on you. All you know is what you saw."

"Ah, reality," I said. "You're right, I only know what I saw. I am fairly sure, however, that I saw you pick up that envelope and carry it into that back room. You didn't have it when you came back. So, can I see this facility or not, General?"

"You shouldn't be here." The general kicked a stone to the side and started walking. "No one should. Not even the army. The place is empty. It's falling down. And you still haven't told me what you want."

"Someone needs to look around, with your permission."

"Someone without authorization, obviously. What if I say no?"

I didn't reply. Of course he would say no. How could anyone in his right mind say anything other than no?

The general took a pair of gloves from his belt and put them on. He was tough, but he wasn't crazy, I decided. The cold was immense.

"Let me ask the question another way," he said. "Maybe it will help you formulate a response that goes beyond a dumb stare. What is this about?"

Jeno had been vague, and Pak, after he'd heard my account, hadn't gone beyond saying I should make the contact but not get myself killed in the process. I didn't think either of those explanations would be edifying.

"When a general asks a question, a general expects an answer. You must have learned that somewhere along the way. If it will do any good, I can repeat myself. This facility is off-limits. Very, strictly, completely, totally off-limits."

"That's why it was selected, one presumes."

"I'd be jeopardizing my men, not to mention myself, if I let someone visit here for purposes I didn't understand and that were never adequately explained. I'm not interested in what you presume. What do you know?"

"The contents of that note weren't enough?" I thought I felt one of the winds Pak had warned me about starting to blow across the open ground.

"That note isn't your business."

I didn't have any instructions or explanations on how to keep this going any further than I'd taken it. All I could say was what popped into my head. "Maybe no one need know about the visitor or the visit."

He shook his head. "Don't be a fool, Inspector. My men are loyal, but only up to a point. People can't simply materialize inside this compound. You and your visitor will have to go through the gate, past the guards. Even if they let you in, word will leak out quickly. Do you think the guard with the dull eyes doesn't see everything around him? People check and double-check. The political officers come through and ask questions. On occasion, the field telephones even work all the way out here." If there was a straight "no" in there, I didn't hear it.

"What if we came up with a story?"

"We?"

"General, this is important. Think of it as a hinge. A door won't open without a hinge." It wasn't a bad image, considering I had no idea what we were talking about.

"You're one of O Chang-yun's grandsons, aren't you?" If he had hit me on the back of the head, I wouldn't have been more surprised. It didn't come out of nowhere, though. We'd never met, he didn't know I was coming to visit, but somehow he had that piece of information, and he must have been waiting the whole time for the right moment to slip it in.

"Yes," I said simply. It wouldn't have done any good to ask him how he knew.

Now it was his turn to remain silent. He stared at me, but I wouldn't have called it a dumb stare.

It was now or never. "Show me around; we can talk."

"You inherited his guts, but not his brains. Alright, we'll walk. You talk, I'll listen." He straightened his tunic and patted his pistol. "And I'd better like what I hear."

We passed through an inner fence line. There wasn't any guard at the gate, but a soldier stood a few meters away with his back to us, looking out across the fields with binoculars. He didn't turn around to salute, though he must have heard the crack as I broke the ice that had formed over the puddles on the path. I saw him twist the focus wheel; it was obvious he couldn't see a thing.

"This is where the simpler components were assembled." The general had decided that he would do the talking after all. Maybe he'd had time to digest what was in the note. "Most of the important work was done underground, inside those hills"-he waved in the direction of the first line of mountains that rose a few hundred meters away-"but some of it was done above ground, in these buildings. Don't ask me why. I don't plan these things. I don't construct them, either."

We walked another fifty or sixty meters over broken ground, littered with debris. The general pointed at a building several stories high, with all but a few windows broken. It was hard to imagine how that could happen. Who would break windows on such a secure site? "The place is unseated, and the roof leaks," he said. "In summer, the humidity drips from the walls. Anything copper has been stripped out; everything metal is rusting; all the wood has already rotted." We stepped through a door hanging from one hinge into a huge, dark room. He knocked on the wood. "Is this the sort of door you meant?"

I could smell acid and mold. A control panel sat against one wall-the covers on the gauges were cracked and water had seeped in, though it didn't much matter because the dials had fallen off. "They're frozen, as you can see, but there is nothing to worry about. The gauges have nothing to record." He led the way into a narrow, low-roofed, U-shaped passageway that led into another room, probably fifteen meters high and nearly twice as long, with two half-dismantled storage tanks lying on their sides.

"Is there another way out of this room?" I looked around. Sometimes I get nervous for no reason in dark, unfamiliar places.

"Only through those hatches on the floor."

"Leading where?"

"These were the waste tanks used for the chemicals that treated certain components. At the bottom of each tank is one of those discharge hatches."

"Big enough for a person?"

"A person? Not normally, they're pretty narrow. It would have to be a very skinny person." He shrugged. "Not normally, but these days, yes." I hadn't expected irony from him. "You need to see anything else?"

I followed him outside.

"That pair of buildings, over there." We had crossed a small field down to a point near the river. "They look interesting. Why are they so close to the water?"

The general shrugged. "Good for discharging chemicals, I guess."

"What's in front of the shorter one? From here I'd say it looks like a band saw."

"It will look the same when you get closer, because that's what it is."

"To cut metal?"

"No, to cut wood. You'd be surprised what went into these missiles."

Missiles, he said. What else did I expect?

We turned a corner and walked down a path lined with shivering, mangy poplars. Most of them were less than two meters tall, and more than a few of them had been stripped of most of their branches. "This may be the closest thing to a forest in the province. These trees would be gone in a day if I opened the gates. As it is, I have to make sure none of my men accidentally knocks one over. Because after that, they will accidentally sell the wood on the outside."

We came to another pair of buildings on either side of the path, both four stories high. They were joined by a trestle bridge that looked like it had been used to move small, narrow carts between the upper floors. Scattered on the ground in front of us were rusted steel beams.

"These were the assembly buildings. The one on the right is a complete wreck. When I got here last year, it was already in this state."

"And the other one?"

"Only a partial wreck."

"Does anything still function here?"

"That's not my concern. If it's inside the fence line, I guard it."

"I suppose the vegetables are worth something." I walked over to a small plot that showed signs of having been cultivated a few months ago. The rows were uneven and the soil was rocky. "I don't think they got much of a harvest, though."

"Did you need to see anything else? Or have we exhausted your curiosity?" The general stopped to retrieve something from under one of the steel bars. He held it up for me to see. "Cigarette butt."

"I recognize the species."

"My men don't smoke these."

"Cigarettes?"

"Not these." He sniffed it. "French. Agitates."

"If you say so. I never smoked a French cigarette, so I'll take your word for it." I'd also never run across a cigarette butt that still smelled after sitting most of the winter in the snow, but there was no use pointing that out to a general. Besides, what a French cigarette was doing in his compound was his business.

He put the cigarette butt in his pocket and then reached for his pistol. "I'm going to escort you back to the hut, Inspector. It will look better if we don't seem to have become fast friends."

"Have we?"

"Put it this way: When you finally walk out of here, my men should not see you again."

Back in the hut, the general pulled off his gloves and threw them on the table. The last portion of food was gone.

"This is my headquarters. That is my headquarters staff." He pointed at the two guards who had moved from the gate to stand by the door. "After the incident with that corps on the east coast-" He stopped suddenly. "You know what I'm referring to?"

"I try not to pay attention to military matters, especially those outside the capital. It overloads my circuits."

"Someone in the Fifth Corps went crazy, or maybe they came to their senses. Anyway, it looked like the beginning of a rolling coup." He watched my eyes. "Don't pretend you hadn't heard. It was crushed, and the rest of us had to readjust to fill in the blank spots. My division has twice the area to cover and half the staff. I am to guard these facilities and a few others close by. They moan to each other at night across the emptiness. That's all they do."

"I'm still puzzled about the glass." That, and why I was out here in the first place.

"The glass? It's a mystery, isn't it? You're a policeman, why don't you find it for me?"

"Can't you replace it? At least board up the empty panes."

The general looked over as his adjutant shuffled out of the back room. He shut the door before I could see what sort of dog was in there. Not too many guard dogs are put up in staff headquarters, even if they're only huts. "The inspector thinks we should board up the windows, Major."

The major coughed weakly and sat down on a chair against the wall. "Are you the one who brought the food?" He coughed again. "Did you bring any cigarettes?"

The general turned back to me. "Fixing the windows will protect the overturned and rusted machinery, the rotted floors, and the corroded pipes from… from what?"

"Forget I mentioned it." The major needed cigarettes like Pyongyang needed one-way streets.

"No, please," the general said in a suddenly solicitous tone, "it is instructive to hear from Pyongyang. Always good ideas."

"To tell you the truth, General, I'm not here to comment on your facility."

"A relief to learn that, isn't it, Major?"

I didn't remember sarcasm as a strong point of military service. Maybe the times had brought it out. "My apologies. No one is in a good mood these days, and I should have been more careful."

The general nodded at a chair. "Sit down if you want."

"You said this was a component assembly point."

The major stirred slightly, and the general frowned. "It was what it was; it is now something entirely different. Let's call it a symbol and leave it at that."

"Whatever you call it, I'm authorized to bring a visitor here."

"This should prove interesting because I have no authorization to receive anyone."

"You received me."

"No, at the moment you're still under guard." He patted his pistol.

I took out the document Pak had given me and unfolded it carefully. "This is a special situation."

The general stared at the paper. "More notes. Are you mocking me, Inspector?"

The major coughed and put his head against the wall.

"Not at all," I said. "I'm serious."

"If I had a telephone that worked, I'd call the chief of staff," the general said. The major lifted his head. "Or perhaps not," the general continued. "Why not the first vice marshal?" He looked at the two soldiers. "Get me the first vice marshal on the double." Neither of the guards budged, though the major groaned softly. "No, wait. We ate the last dispatch pigeon a week ago, didn't we?" The soldiers smiled slyly.

The general took the paper, read it quickly, and tore it into small pieces. "Wonderful to see you, Inspector. Nice to break the monotony. Now get out of here." He put his pistol on the table. "Drive back to wherever you came from. Tell them that all is calm in the countryside, and that they can safely let us continue to sink into the earth."

The game wasn't over, and we both knew it. "There are several sacks of rice in the trunk of my car, General. I put them there for traction in case the road was icy, but it's clear, so I won't need the extra weight on the drive back. The lock on the trunk is broken."

No one moved a muscle.

"I need to be back in Pyongyang by sunset, so I'll have to drive fast."

The general nodded; the two soldiers disappeared. After a minute or two, I heard the trunk of my car slam shut.

"I hope to see you again, General."

"Have a safe trip," he said, but he didn't walk me to my car.

Going back, the roads were no better than they had been coming. There was no reason they should be, since most of them were one lane.

When I drove into Pyongyang, it was past dinnertime. I went straight to the Koryo. Jeno was pacing around the lobby. As soon as they saw me, the hotel security men disappeared behind the pillars and went for something to eat.

"Where have you been?" Jeno pounced. "I thought you'd be here hours ago. Do you have any idea how many times the electricity went off while I was waiting?"

I was hungry and tired from the drive. "Next time bring a flashlight if it bothers you."

"Did you get permission?"

"Can I at least have time to sit down before you start on me?" I went over to the doorman's chair and sat. "Hard to tell what we got. The military says no instinctively. In this case, it may have been less than categorical. The fellow on the scene is interesting, that much I can say with confidence."

"Now what? Do we go or don't we? Without seeing the place I'm not prepared to proceed."

"Proceed? With what?" He started to reply, but I stopped him. "Don't tell me, I don't want to know. That's your business, and you can have it. Give me a day to think over what comes next. It will take me some time to fill up again, anyway."

"With gasoline?"

"No, rice. This will cost you."