The Hermit Kingdom, page 24
"I've been stuck in here for over a week," she said. "Although it's hard to tell how long exactly. I was moved around the facility a few times, yet always locked to a table. They asked me questions for the first four days or so, trying to get information about what I'd learned from prion diseases."
"And what was that, may I ask?" Michaela asked.
"In time," Seong responded. "I think it will all make more sense if I go one step at a time, if that's all right."
"Of course."
"They threatened me, but I learned long ago that their words were just that – empty threats. They didn't hurt me. Not at first. I was terrified the first day, but I started to understand their tactics. They wanted me not just for my information, but because of who my father is."
She looked up at Shane then, as if wanting him to speak. “Chung-Hee Park,” he said.
"Yes. He is a very important figure in Korea, as our family has ties to both nations. He's also a very skilled political player, and I believe they wanted me to ultimately get to him. I was hoping your wife — Kate — could help me before that.”
"As we mentioned before, he's the reason we are here," Shane said.
Grudowski nodded as well. "He sent us here to find you."
"Yes, I believe that," she said, smiling slightly. "But I also know my father. His true colors. While he would do anything to get his only child back safe, he would never pass up an opportunity to exert some influence for possible political or monetary gain."
"What are you saying?"
"I don't know exactly," she said, "but I know his company funded a lot of my research. He has his fingers in almost every industry imaginable, and he is very good at putting two disparate pieces of seemingly unrelated information together to produce something he can sell."
"So, you think he wanted to send us here to discover what they were doing in this facility?" Grudowski asked.
She nodded. "I believe so, yes. Even you told me he was playing a game, correct? That Mr. Riley and Dr. Everly believed you were all on the same side for this mission?"
Her words were even, measured, but Shane couldn't help but sense there was a bit of vitriol behind them.
Grudowski tensed. "That's correct," he said. "I don't need to justify myself to anyone. I made a deal, and I will honor that deal. You're all still alive, are you not?"
Shane gripped the edge of the chair he had pulled over for Seong, but she had remained seated on the cold metal table.
"What happened after that?" Michaela asked.
"Well, they got anxious, I guess. Something changed, as if a switch had been flipped. They were decent before, manipulative and threatening, but decent. It's hard to explain, but I got the sense that they wanted me to be scared, but that they weren't going to actually do anything to me."
Shane tried not to look at the bandage covering Seong's missing eye.
"Obviously, they did. The fourth or fifth day – I can't be sure – they yanked me off of the table, threw me in a wheelchair and strapped me to it. Then they wheeled me to another room down the hall and did this."
She pointed to her eye and bit her bottom lip, her nose turning upward in a snarl.
"Did they say why? Clue you in at all as to what they were trying to do?" Shane asked.
"Not really, no. But based on my research, I have a feeling it has something to do with prions. The fact that they have been removing a subject's left eye, specifically, tells me that they are then injecting something into the brainstem directly. It suggests they are attempting to plant some sort of laboratory-produced infection."
"So you saw the other patients?" The mercenary asked.
She shook her head. "No, but I heard them screaming. And when I was first brought here, I had a bag over my head. Once we got inside the building, however, they removed it and I could see everything. Upstairs, in one of the hallways, there was a door… open. I could see inside. I could see it clearly, and I know exactly what it was."
She spoke as though she were about to reveal something unbelievable, but Shane beat her to it. "It's okay, we know. I saw the room full of eyeballs as well. They're from villagers nearby. Michaela and I got a brief tour."
Seong looked horrified. "Innocent women and children, too?"
71
SEONG
Seong Park looked around at the group in disbelief. Shane Riley, the man she had been speaking with, nodded solemnly.
"Yes," he said. "Whole groups of children and their parents – men and women. All of them had a bandage over their eye, or some sort of patch covering. Some of them didn't. All of them were missing their left eye."
"And it was strange," the woman sitting next to Shane Riley, Dr. Michaela Everly, added. "It was like they were protective of their village – they didn't attack us or anything, and they weren't outwardly hostile, but it seemed that they knew we were trying to find this place, and they didn't want us to. They followed us throughout the village, keeping an eye on us — er, watching us — the entire time."
"They followed you all the way here?" Seong asked.
"Well, I bet they would have. But we got… intercepted by someone else."
She frowned, waiting for Shane Riley to continue. Instead, he just shrugged. "That's a story for another day. Point is, this place has been experimenting on those people from the village, and if I had to guess, they're all totally fine with it."
Next to him, Michaela Everly shifted, her face a mask of confusion. "I don't know," she said then. "It's like… it's like they weren't happy that everyone from the village was experimented on, but it was sort of like they knew it was the only way.”
"The only way to what?" the soldier behind Seong asked. Seong turned and looked at him. He was shorter than Shane Riley, a bit thicker, but it looked as though he had spent years in the gym to earn that body type. "I didn't get the chance to interact with them," he added. "You think they're somehow involved with this? Beyond being kidnapped and experimented on against their will?"
Dr. Everly shifted again. "I can't help but think that's the case. It's like they were all told they would have a safe and prosperous life if they just complied. That payment for being protected was an eye."
"An eye for an eye," Shane whispered. "Biblical."
"I've never seen anything like it. Or heard of anything like it. Maybe there's an arrangement with the government? Perhaps the village is left alone, their farms along the countryside and the valley their source of food and revenue, and they are allowed to prosper here. In exchange, the North Korean government – whoever was running this place – keeps anyone else – people like us – away."
Seong nodded along. "As macabre as it sounds, it does make a sort of logical sense." She stood up now, feeling that her legs were finally ready to support her own weight once more, and took a few steps around the room. The mercenary standing behind the table made a clicking sound with his mouth, then checked his watch. She sensed he was about to hurry her along, to keep them all moving, but he didn't voice any concern.
"What happened after they took your eye?" Shane asked her.
Now that she was standing, she saw how tall he actually was. He was built and fit as well, though not squat at all like the mercenary guarding them. He seemed leaner, but she could tell he was just as strong. "I honestly don't remember," she said softly. "They put me under for the surgery, thank God. I woke up hours later, I'm sure. I had enough drugs in me to control most of the pain, but it made me terribly drowsy. I drifted off again, and I may have slept for a day. When I woke up, I was parched, thirstier than I'd ever been. Hungry, too."
"Did they feed you?" Dr. Everly asked.
She nodded. "Not exactly a five-star restaurant, but yes. They never wanted to kill me, just experiment on me for whatever reason."
She noticed Shane glancing between them. "Well, about that…" he said. "We found something downstairs. Down the end of this hallway. Turns out they might not have wanted to keep you alive after all."
Her eyes widened. "Really? But why? If I was valuable to them, then –" she cut herself off. Suddenly, she understood. "My father."
The word came out cold, harder than she had intended, but as she continued, she realized the truth her subconscious had been trying to offer. "He's ruthless. I've always known it, but I never thought it would come to this. When they kidnapped me, they wanted information about my research. I never gave that to them, but I have no doubt they would have enhanced their interrogation methods soon enough. But you said my father sent you. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he's the reason they did this. At least, the reason they wanted to stop the research immediately and get away."
Facing her, Shane swallowed, then nodded. "I was afraid of the same thing. I think your old man wanted to get you back, but he played his hand too quickly. Or at least allowed someone on the inside to see it. They must have gotten spooked when they found out, so they killed the remaining survivors and fled. Everyone, except you."
The reality of it hit her like a physical presence. She stepped backward, feeling the cold edge of the table in her hand. "Yes, that has to be it. They were going to try to extract information from me, perhaps using me as leverage against him. But he forced them into action. Because of him, they had no choice but to change their plan.”
72
SHANE
Shane listened as Seong Park spoke. He agreed with her assessment – he had suspected as much earlier. Seong's father wanted not just to get his daughter back safely, but to take any political advantage possible. Men like him dealt in information, and he would have likely killed everyone here on his own to save his daughter and to get access to whatever they were studying if it had come to it.
Instead, he had somehow tipped his hand and given the North Koreans enough clues to discover that he had sent Shane and Evans here. That was the first domino that had caused the others to fall, and though they had Seong Park with them, they were still in danger. There was a bomb in the facility, and Shane wanted to finish debriefing anywhere else but here.
"We should move," Grudowski said. "I'd feel a lot safer having this discussion outside.”
Shane nodded, for the first time today agreeing with the man. "You and me both," he said. "Let's get upstairs and find an exit. Once we're outside, it'll be easy to see where we are and which way the village is."
The mercenary smirked. "Why? Your sense of direction not what it used to be?"
Shane squinted, cocking his head to the side as he remembered his escapade trying to get out the northern exit of the facility earlier.
They all moved toward the door, but Shane stopped when he reached the hallway. Michaela looked at him curiously, but he shook his head. Not now.
He was working on a plan, one he wasn't sure he would get the chance to enact, but one he needed nonetheless. He couldn't help it – he needed to feel like they had the upper hand once again, or at least feel like he could maintain the status quo. Though the mercenary had said he was willing to keep him and Dr. Everly alive, he now had Seong Park, alive and well.
Shane’s own life would be far less important now in the mercenary's eyes.
Grudowski was in the hallway now, waiting for Shane to exit. He did, then turned right and walked up the hallway toward the stairs. The last thing he needed was for this man to discover that Shane might still be working against him and get suspicious. Shane needed to act the part, to pretend everything was fine.
He didn't know if Grudowski would still turn around and kill them once they got outside, but he couldn't take that chance. He also refused to purposefully put Seong Park and Dr. Everly in danger.
They walked the length of the hallway in line, Michaela and Seong side-by-side. Michaela helped the smaller woman with an arm around her waist, though she was quickly regaining her strength. If the pain from the medication’s waning had any effect on her, she didn't show it. Shane respected that about her, and hoped he would be able to get her out of this place alive.
No one spoke for the time, everyone lost in their own thoughts. Shane tried to assume what those thoughts might be – Grudowski had one thing on his mind, and was thus the simplest to figure out. If the man were going to kill them, there was a good chance he would have done it already. But that didn't mean Shane and Dr. Everly were off the hook. At any moment, he could put a bullet through their backs and leave them here to die, like he had Jonathan Evans.
While he seemed to be a simple grunt — nothing but a soldier interested in making a buck — Shane knew better than to underestimate Grudowski. Perhaps all of the pandering and posturing earlier was just that: a way to throw Shane off the scent.
Perhaps the mission was, in fact, to kill him and Dr. Everly and leave them to die in the facility. It would be a far cleaner mission, in some respects.
For that reason, Shane kept his ears focused behind him, doing his best to interpret every small noise the mercenary made. If he heard the slightest indication of Grudowski’s rifle shifting, or any other quick movements from the man, Shane would duck and roll, preparing to fight.
None of that happened, but the more he thought about it as they walked, the more convinced he was that there was no way this mercenary had a good plan to bring him, Dr. Everly, and Seong Park back to South Korea safely.
There was no way one man could control three others, even if two were untrained civilians.
And Grudowski would know that.
No, Shane knew almost without a doubt this man was going to kill them after all. He had only waited because he had needed them – he needed their help to find Seong Park, needed Michaela’s help to discuss details with her, and needed Shane in case they ran into extra trouble on their way down to find her.
Shane felt the anxiety rising. Fists clenched, his muscles tight. He found himself moving quickly into fight or flight mode, still unconvinced which of the two was the right option. It was very likely he could get away, push himself in front of the other women and up the stairs, where he could easily hide in the depths of the facility. But what good would that do? He would leave Michaela exposed. This man probably wouldn't kill Seong Park, but he certainly would use the other woman as leverage.
Plus, that left the bomb. Though its signal from the communications tower seemed to be severed, Shane didn't trust it. It was still a bomb, a trigger for any number of other explosive devices planted around this place. And by the rushed way they had all evacuated the place — and killed the remaining villagers — he trusted its integrity even less. An accidental shift in the wind might be enough to set it off.
He had no idea, but he didn't want to take the chance. Any extra moment down here with that thing was too long.
That left one option. Fight.
He didn't have a clear picture of the mercenary's position behind him, as they had walked the entirety of the hall. Had Grudowski fallen behind? Was he still only a few feet away? These things mattered, since Shane would be attacking unarmed. He had no doubt he could hold his own in a fistfight, so he needed to make sure that’s what it came to.
That meant he needed to disarm his attacker, and there was only one way to do that.
He needed to let the man get closer.
He wondered if Grudowski was currently thinking the same thing – that it was finally time to get rid of Shane Riley and Dr. Michaela Everly.
Shane turned around, slowly, his arms raised, trying to feign ignorance about the situation.
But Grudowski was one step ahead. The mercenary's smirk returned, and lengthened into a full smile as he spoke. He was standing about 5 feet away from Shane, his rifle pointed directly at Shane's chest.
"Good guess."
73
SHANE
Grudowski fired, but Shane was already in motion. The shots erupted like tiny missiles on the ceiling, dislodging chunks of concrete that sprayed down on his head.
Shane had reached up and out, clipping the barrel of the rifle just before Grudowski fired. The man still held the rifle, but Shane wasn't finished.
While Grudowski was focusing on getting off a clean shot, Shane barreled toward him, aiming his solid body down toward the shorter man's chest. He wrapped him in a bear hug, a perfect on-the-numbers tackle, and together they flew backwards.
Michaela screamed, but Shane was focusing only on one thing.
He had to get the weapon out of the man's hands.
That part turned out to be easy – Grudowski tossed the rifle to the side to free his own hands.
That's when Shane realized his mistake. He suddenly remembered how powerful the man's fists were, how well-trained he was in hand-to-hand combat.
Shit.
The old adage flowed through his mind. Fool me once…
Grudowski's fists went to work immediately. Shane felt his temple rocked by a punch, eliciting stars and immediate dizziness. He reeled backwards, only to be somehow met by another blow that landed behind him, as if the man had reached behind his back and punched him in the spleen.
That one hurt even worse.
Shane did his best to parry the blows. He lifted his arms and covered his face, ducking and dodging as he anticipated where the blows would land.
He got about half right.
Already beaten and only taking more damage, he tried to croak out instructions.
"Run – run!" he stuttered to the two women.
There was no response, and he dared a look from behind his protective elbow in front of his eyes and saw that Michaela and Seong Park were gone. "Get out – get help!"
He wasn't sure who they would call for help, but the women were smart — they would figure it out. The last thing he wanted was for this man to beat him to a pulp, grab his weapon, then chase after Michaela and Seong.
But there was little Shane could do. He tried getting in a few blows – powerful in their own right, but far short of useful – but Grudowski wouldn't let up.
