The Third World War: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict

19

At the truce village of Panmunjom, no fence separated the enemy troops. The actual line between the two Koreas ran through the centre of seven huts. Outside, it was marked by a strip of concrete. Inside, a microphone cable lay across a table covered in green felt where negotiations took place to end the war. The huts had a temporary campsite air about them.

Three of the huts were a pale blue, the colour of the United Nations, rectangular, long and narrow, pointing north-south, with aluminium chimneys for the winter and sloping, sharp-edged roofs with wide eaves that provided some shade against the overhead summer sun.

Lieutenant Lee Jong-hee, aged twenty-six, had been assigned to the centre hut, used by the Military Armistice Commission which handled the 1953 ceasefire negotiations. Outside the window were three North Korean soldiers, one looking south, the other two north. On the other side, the pattern was repeated with South Koreans. Soldiers from both sides took inspection tours around the huts.

Lee stood inside at attention precisely on the Military Demarcation Line. On both sides of the main negotiating table were smaller tables with hardback wooden chairs. The walls were plain blue with no posters or decoration. The windows had no curtains. In front of Lee were the UN and North Korean flags. Facing him directly at the other end of the table was a North Korean officer. It had been like this for more than half a century.

At the end of the Second World War, Korea had been divided along the thirty-eighth parallel between the United States in the south and the Soviet Union in the north. On 25 June 1950, North Korean troops attacked. Four days later they took Seoul. Five days after that, they were in combat with US soldiers. Then China's new leader, Mao Tse-tung, sent in his army against the Americans. The Korean War was the only conflict since 1945 when the armies of two formidable nations — China and the United States — directly fought each other.

America made its peace with China. The Soviet Union ceased to exist. South Korea became a great Asian economy. But North Korea, stubborn, unbowed, and bankrupt, remained a self-created prison camp, the ceasefire inconclusive and the conflict unresolved.

On the morning that Lee was on duty, fifteen tourists from Europe and the United States were shown into the hut on a tour that took place several times a day. Lee and the North Korean officer on duty with him remained stock-still in position, as a military guide, Captain Ed Hutton, explained the history of the war and the armistice.

'There have been violations, but none has led to war,' Hutton said. He ran his hand down the green felt, picked up the microphone cable and dropped it down again. 'You can now tell your folks you've stood on the last Cold War frontier in the world. Behind you is the success of democracy and freedom in South Korea. In front of you is a nation on the verge of collapse through poverty and communism. The succession of Kim Jong-il from his father Kim Il-sung was the only dynastic succession from father to son in the communist world. You may have read in the newspapers that a new, as yet unknown ruler, might now be in charge over there.'

'Was that why there was an attack on Yokata?' asked a German student.

Hutton faltered. Lee shifted ever so slightly on his feet, but his face remained concentrated and without expression.

'I am not at liberty to discuss that event, sir,' said Hutton, looking at his watch. 'Now, if you would, all file out the southern door of this building. You are not — I repeat not — allowed to cross the demarcation line outside.'

As the group left the hut, martial music from almost two kilometres away in Peace Village on the North Korean side stopped playing. The national red, white and blue flag hung from a pole 160 metres high. For the first time anyone could remember for that time of day there was complete silence from Peace Village.

Lee drew an automatic weapon from under his tunic and shot the North Korean officer three times, the first round in the right eye, the second through the neck and the third in the heart. The soldier collapsed face down on the table and slid to the floor, taking with him the microphones and the green felt, soaked in his blood. Lee walked out of the northern door of the hut, and, without looking back or changing his measured pace, strode across the narrow, open area into North Korea.