Vortex

Chapter Six

It was the rainy season in North Korea, and the season was living up to its name. Torrential rain fell through the humid air, so heavy that it blurred the bright red light of the twenty-five-metre-high torch on the top of the imposing Juche Tower. Lee Chin-Hwa gazed out at the hazy sight from the back of his Mercedes limousine — a luxury given only to party bureaucrats or those favoured by the regime. Few ordinary North Koreans had cars. If they wanted to see the splendour of the Juche Tower — built to commemorate the seventieth birthday of Kim Il Sung, the former Communist leader and father of the current leader, Kim Jong Il — they would have to walk. But nobody would be walking there at the moment. Not in this rain, and not at this time of the morning.

It was five o'clock and still dark. Lee Chin-Hwa had been awoken by a telephone call as he slept in the small apartment that he shared with his elderly mother on the outskirts of Pyongyang.

'Lee Chin-Hwa?' the harsh voice at the other end of the phone had asked.

'That's right,' he had replied groggily.

'There is a car waiting for you outside. You are required to attend the government offices.' There was a click as the phone was put down.

Chin-Hwa had always been interested in physics, ever since his schooldays when he had trudged dutifully every morning to the faceless concrete school near his parents' apartment block. His teachers, however, had been more interested in indoctrinating their pupils according to the regime's instructions. So instead of learning about atoms at school, he had learned about revolutionary history. And instead of learning about space, he had learned about the blessed life of Kim Il Sung. Only at home could he study the science that so excited him.

Chin-Hwa's father Ki-Woon had fought in the Korean War, during which time he had come into contact with some American soldiers. Through them he had learned a phrase which amused him, and which he used to repeat in his comic-sounding American accent every time he found Chin-Hwa reading one of his prized and illegal scientific textbooks: 'You can't keep a good man down!'

Ki-Woon had been a talented physicist himself. When Chin-Hwa was fifteen years old, however, his father had been instructed by the government to join those scientists involved in developing North Korea's nuclear programme. But Ki-Woon was a principled man: he was of the firm belief that science should be used for the good of mankind, not for its destruction.

He knew what he was doing. And he knew what the outcome would be.

It was just before midnight when the knock on the door came. Chin-Hwa shared a bedroom with his parents. He saw his father sit up promptly and exchange a meaningful glance with his mother, whose face was fixed in a mask of undisguised terror. He hugged her tightly, only untwining his arms when there was another, slightly louder knock. Then he climbed out of bed, pulled on his threadbare clothes, and hugged his son. 'It is up to you to look after your mother now,' he whispered in his ear.

Chin-Hwa and his mother followed timidly as Ki-Woon walked out into the main room of the apartment and opened the door.

Standing in the dimly lit corridor were three men. They were not wearing military uniform, but something about their demeanour made it clear that they were here on official business. One of them — clearly the leader of their little gang — spoke. 'Lee Ki-Woon?'

Chin-Hwa's father nodded.

'You have to come with us.'

'On what business?'

The man smiled nastily. 'On the business of His Excellency the President, on suspicion of treason.'

A sob escaped the lips of Chin-Hwa's mother as, head held high, her husband started walking through the doorway.

'Wait!' the man said, holding up the palm of his hand. 'Your son too. He must come.'

A horrible silence descended, and Chin-Hwa felt a chill run through his body. And then he heard it: the scream of his mother. 'Not my son! Please, not my son! He has nothing to do with this. He is innocent.'

The men at the door looked suddenly panicked. 'Shut her up,' their leader told Ki-Woon harshly. 'Shut the woman up now!'

Ki-Woon glanced back at his family. 'There is nothing I can do,' he said. 'If you take her son away from her, she will scream like that until the end of her days.' He raised an eyebrow at the group as his wife's wails continued. 'Of course, if she carries on screaming just for the next few minutes, she will attract attention. People will come to see what is the matter, and you three will be revealed for the government informers that you are. Things will go badly for you then, I think.'

The men looked nervously at each other.

'I will come with you,' Ki-Woon continued quietly. 'But if you insist on bringing my son, I swear I will fight you with every bone in my body. You will have to kill me here and now, in front of all the neighbours who will surely be at our door very soon.'

The man stared at Ki-Woon; Ki-Woon returned his gaze without letting the fear that he must surely have been feeling show on his face.

'Grab him,' the man said finally, and his two accomplices stepped inside the flat and each took an arm.

Ki-Woon did not struggle. He just turned his head round to look at his son. 'Remember what I told you, Chin-Hwa,' he said.

Seconds later, he was gone. Chin-Hwa never saw him again.

That was seventeen years ago. Barely a day passed when Chin-Hwa did not wonder what had happened to his father. He knew he would never find out, although he could make a pretty good guess. In the north of the country were the notorious prison camps where hundreds of thousands of political dissidents were sent. Torture was commonplace in such places. The lucky ones died soon after they arrived.

Ki-Woon's son had obeyed his father's instructions, taking care of his mother as she slipped into an old age full of sorrow. His interest in science had not abated, but he had made a conscious decision to avoid studying nuclear physics. The government's passion for becoming a nuclear power was well known, and he had no desire to be forced into helping them. When the regime was finally overthrown — as surely it must be someday soon — he wanted his skills to be of use, and so he had studied electronics and computing in his spare time, while making a living fixing the antiquated wiring systems of the cheaply built apartment blocks around the capital.

Every couple of months he had saved up enough to spend an hour on the heavily filtered workstations at Pyongyang's only Internet cafes — no doubt the authorities had known that he was looking at sites informing him of the latest advances in the world of electronics. But they left him alone — theirs was a Cold-War mentality and they were interested only in bombs.

A year ago, however, it had all changed.

He had arrived home at lunch time to find his mother sitting frightened in the one armchair they possessed. A man he did not recognize, smartly dressed in a khaki military suit with shiny shoes, stood nearby.

'Who are you?' Chin-Hwa demanded of him.

'Lee Chin-Hwa?' the man asked, ignoring the question.

'That's right.'

'Ah, good. I was just telling your mother that I have brought you a gift.' He handed him a small white envelope. Chin-Hwa's eyes narrowed and he looked inside. Banknotes. At a guess, Chin-Hwa would have said there were 3,000 won there — more than he earned in a month. 'Come with me,' the man instructed. 'I would like to show you something.'

Chin-Hwa knew he couldn't refuse.

The official — Chin-Hwa would never find out his name — escorted him to a waiting chauffeured Mercedes. In silence they drove to an area on the outskirts of the city where there was a large athletics field. A crowd had gathered, but there were no sportsmen. Sickened, Chin-Hwa knew what they were here to witness.

'Get out,' the official told him.

Together they joined the waiting crowd.

After a couple of minutes, a white minibus drove up. It stopped in front of the crowd and six armed soldiers jumped out. They opened up the back and bundled out five people, their eyes blindfolded and their hands tied behind their back. The people were lined up. One of them fell to his knees through fear, and was roughly pulled to his feet, then five of the armed soldiers formed a line a few metres from them. The sixth soldier started to shout commands.

'Ready your weapons!'

'Aim at the enemy!'

'Fire!'

The rifles cracked and the prisoners fell as one to the ground; Chin-Hwa, nauseated, averted his eyes.

'Fire!'

A second shot, just to be sure.

'Cease firing!'

The soldier turned to the crowd. 'You have witnessed,' he shouted, 'how these miserable fools have ended up. Traitors who betray the nation and its people end up like this.'

The official turned to Chin-Hwa. 'Miserable fools,' he whispered, echoing the soldier's words. 'They knew what would happen to them.'

Chin-Hwa didn't reply. He was too busy trying not to be sick.

'Your mother is frail,' the official continued. 'It would be a pity if she were to end up like those miserable fools, would it not?'

Chin-Hwa froze for a moment. He turned to the official. 'What do you mean?'

The official just raised an eyebrow and gave a knowing look towards the dead bodies only a few metres away from them. 'Of course,' he said, 'it's up to you. If you make the right decision, she could enjoy a long and happy old age. You'll even get one of those white envelopes every month to make her more comfortable.'

Chin-Hwa closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 'All right,' he said. 'You win. What is it that you want from me?'

The official smiled. 'Well,' he said, ushering Chin-Hwa back to the waiting car, 'that is rather complicated.'

And so it had all started

Every week since then, and sometimes twice a week, the reluctant scientist had been escorted by the same black limousine in which he now sat on that rainy morning, to the government building of the Supreme People's Assembly. What he had learned there he never told anyone, even his mother. It was not just because he had been forbidden to do so; it was because he was ashamed. Ashamed of being a part of what was going on. Ashamed that, unlike his father before him, he was unable to refuse to use his scientific knowledge for purposes such as this.

As the limousine drove him closer to the government buildings, Chin-Hwa remembered that day seventeen years ago when his father had been taken from them. Ki-Woon had told him to look after his mother. Well, in a way that was what he was doing. He wondered if his father would have accepted that as an excuse for being involved in the government's terrible plans. He wondered what his father would have done.

A few months previously, there had been a buzz on the streets of North Korea. The government had announced that it was to dismantle its nuclear reactor. It had been hinting to the world that its nuclear capabilities would soon be given up. This was cause for optimism, everybody said. A turning point. There was hope for a new future.

But they didn't know what Chin-Hwa knew.

They hadn't heard the powerful men talking.

They hadn't seen the plans.

They didn't know about Vortex.