Return
A river called the Cho-gang flowed between North Korea’s Yeonan County and South Korea’s Ganghwa County.
It was only about three kilometers wide.
If they could swim three kilometers, they could make it back.
But in those three kilometers, North and South patrol boats were already moving into position.
A firefight could break out at any moment.
What was more, the North had even brought out fishing boats.
Even the North Korean fishing boats, with their miserable fuel supplies, had every light blazing.
It looked almost exactly like the squid-fishing boats off the East Sea at night.
If they were spotted, a clash was certain, and if that happened, South Korean casualties would follow.
“Let’s head for Kaesong.”
Kang-hae said to Kim Ha-jun beside him.
Ha-jun said nothing, only nodded.
It was a shame, but there was no helping it.
He, too, had no desire to start a firefight because of them, so he didn’t argue.
The two of them climbed back onto land.
Instead of swimming, they turned toward the line of mountains that stretched all the way to Kaesong and set off on foot.
It took a day and a half before they finally reached the MDL, the Military Demarcation Line.
By then, both Kang-hae and Ha-jun had been running on empty for a long time.
For four days, all they had consumed was water flowing down from a mountain stream.
The satellite communications gear that should have sent their current position had also broken down.
The two of them went looking for the defector-guidance phone installed at the MDL.
That was their only hope.
Maybe heaven was on their side.
It didn’t take long to find the phone.
As soon as Kang-hae confirmed there was no one around, he picked it up and pressed the bell.
The call connected, and a husky man with a low voice answered.
“I’m a member of the special mission battalion under the Republic of Korea Armed Forces’ Intelligence Command. I was carrying out an operation in North Korea and crossed back.”
[State your rank and name.]
“I can’t disclose that for security reasons.”
[I’ll give you the password for friend-or-foe identification. It’s Bumblebee and Bat. Please confirm.]
“Bumblebee and Bat.”
[Do you see a reed field to your left?]
Kang-hae looked left.
Just as the guide had said, there was a reed field tall enough to reach the shoulders of an adult man.
[Go straight along the reed field. There’s one of our army’s access gates at Point Five. Wait there.]
“Understood.”
Kang-hae hung up, then pointed at the reeds and said, “Bumblebee and Bat.”
He passed the password to Ha-jun.
“Jesus… we’re finally here…”
Relief soaked through Ha-jun’s voice.
“Let’s go.”
Ha-jun nodded without a word.
The two of them turned toward the reed field.
To avoid landmines, they kept five meters between them.
Ha-jun led, and Kang-hae followed behind.
After they had gone about a hundred meters, something reached their ears.
Kang-hae and Ha-jun dropped flat to the ground at once.
The sound drew closer and closer.
Footsteps.
Several of them.
Kang-hae prayed inwardly.
Please let those people be soldiers from South Korea.
“Bumblebee.”
It was the voice of the man Kang-hae had just been speaking to over the handset.
That same husky, low voice.
The tension drained from his body, leaving him weak all over.
Kang-hae took a deep breath.
Only then did he notice the thick smell of earth, the chirping of insects in the grass, the cold seeping up from the ground.
He lay there quietly, taking it all in with his whole body.
“Bumblebee.”
The guide called out the password once more.
“Bat, bat, bat, bat!”
Unlike Kang-hae, Ha-jun was practically delirious with joy as he sprang to his feet and shouted “Bat” over and over again.
And before he knew it, Kang-hae let out a laugh inside his head.
Haha.
That was Ha-jun, all right.
A moment later, soldiers in South Korean uniforms with camouflage cream on their faces appeared through the reeds.
“Are you recon? Or Special Forces? Who’s in charge here?”
Ha-jun asked them.
But he never got an answer.
One of the men in the South Korean uniform shot him in the forehead.
Bang.
With a sharp crack, Kim Ha-jun crumpled on the spot.
The men in uniform walked up to him and fired into his chest.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Three shots.
A confirmation kill.
And Kang-hae knew, without even looking, that Ha-jun had just been shot dead.
“I said there were two.”
The man speaking into the handset glanced around.
“He might’ve died on the way here.”
Another man beside him pushed back.
“No. The voice was different. Search.”
The men in South Korean uniforms spread out in a search formation.
Slowly, they began closing in on the place where Kang-hae lay.
No matter how skilled a special operations soldier might be, after four days without proper food or sleep, he couldn’t win against a group of armed men.
And Kang-hae didn’t even have a rifle.
During the retreat, he had thrown every piece of equipment and every weapon into the sea except for the communications gear and his knife.
He knew he wasn’t going to survive.
But he had no intention of swallowing a potassium cyanide capsule.
Sometimes there were moments when you had to fight, even knowing you would lose.
Even if the price was death.
Listening to the footsteps drawing closer, Kang-hae drew the knife from his thigh pocket.
One. Maybe two.
Kang-hae resolved that he would kill at least one of them.
He didn’t know whether they were South Korean soldiers or North Korean soldiers wearing South Korean uniforms, but it didn’t matter.
They had killed Ha-jun, who was no different from his own brother.
The distance between the man in front and Kang-hae narrowed to one meter.
Then bullets came flying toward the men in uniform.
Bang, bang, bang—
“You South Korean traitor bastards, go die.”
The ones firing were soldiers from North Korea’s 15th Special Unit.
Two days earlier, the 15th Special Unit members stationed in Pyongyang had been dispatched to the MDL.
Their order was simple.
Find the two South Korean Intelligence Command puppets fleeing south, and kill them on sight.
If they could do that, they might become heroes of the Republic.
But in that vast stretch of the MDL, how was anyone supposed to catch South Korean intelligence bastards as agile as wild animals?
They were short on manpower and short on equipment.
Major Kang Seong-won of the 15th Special Unit had already thought the mission was impossible.
And then something unbelievable happened.
While wandering on a useless patrol with no expectations at all, Kang Seong-won received a radio message from an observation post saying that a South Korean access gate had opened and South Korean soldiers were approaching.
Kang Seong-won led the patrol team straight there.
And through surveillance equipment, he watched the South Korean soldiers shoot one of the Intelligence Command men in the forehead.
In North Korea, it sometimes happened that a superior shot a subordinate dead with a pistol, but he had never once heard that such a thing happened in South Korea.
It was suspicious.
But the only thing on Kang Seong-won’s mind was taking away the Intelligence Command bastard who had been shot dead in the forehead.
He couldn’t let the spoils that would make him a hero of the Republic be stolen from him.
Kang Seong-won thought to himself, Let’s kill them all.
All he had to do was report that they had killed the Intelligence Command men, and that the South Korean puppet soldiers who had shown up after hearing the gunfire had all been eliminated as well.
So Major Kang Seong-won opened fire without hesitation.
Bang, bang, bang—
Bang, bang, bang—
A firefight broke out between the men in South Korean uniforms and the soldiers of North Korea’s 15th Special Unit.
And Kang-hae knew it.
This was his last chance to live.
He rose to his feet, ducked his head, and started running blindly.
The man who had been speaking through the handset spotted Kang-hae fleeing.
He fired at the escaping figure several times.
He should have gone after him to make sure, but with the North Korean soldiers shooting at them, that wasn’t possible.
All he could do was hope Kang-hae would step on a landmine and die.
* * *
A week after North Korea’s surprise artillery attack.
A high-level inter-Korean meeting was held in Panmunjom.
The South Korean representative was Minister of National Defense Seo Seong-guk.
The North Korean representative was Minister of the People’s Armed Forces Hwang Byeong-su.
And beside Hwang Byeong-su sat Ri Yong-sik.
As Seo Seong-guk and Hwang Byeong-su shook hands, reporters snapped their photos.
After that, the reporters left, and the meeting began.
“Minister Seo. My health isn’t very good, so today our comrade Ri Yong-sik will speak in my place.”
It was an unexpected development.
Seo Seong-guk looked at Hwang Byeong-su.
There was a great deal in his eyes.
What is the meaning of this?
This is a diplomatic breach.
If this continues, I’ll suspend the talks.
Hwang Byeong-su was not unaware of that look.
Anyone without a shred of tact would never survive at Kim Jong-un’s side.
But Hwang Byeong-su simply avoided Seo Seong-guk’s gaze and pretended not to notice.
Then Ri Yong-sik extended his hand toward Seo Seong-guk.
“Pleased to meet you. I’m Ri Yong-sik, commander of the 4th Corps of the Korean People’s Army.”
“I’m Minister of National Defense Seo Seong-guk.”
Seo Seong-guk was reluctant, but in the end he took the hand Ri Yong-sik offered.
“I heard there were casualties recently because of an unfortunate clash between our republic and South Korea. I’m deeply sorry.”
“Seven people were killed.”
“Minister. Over the past few days, many of the soldiers defending our republic’s territory have died.”
“They were shelled, so of course we returned fire. If you hadn’t fired in the first place, none of this would have happened.”
“No, I’m not talking about the soldiers who died in the return fire.”
What Ri Yong-sik was referring to was clearly the North Korean soldiers killed while Kang-hae and Ha-jun were fleeing.
Seo Seong-guk denied it at once.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“Then it’s one of two things. Either the minister is incompetent, or he’s lying.”
Seo Seong-guk didn’t know what to say, so he kept his mouth shut for the time being.
Ri Yong-sik went on.
“I left resentment and revenge behind in Pyongyang. I hope our republic and South Korea can put a painful past behind us and move forward in a constructive direction.”
“I feel the same.”
“Exactly. In the end, that would be good for you and me as well, wouldn’t it?”
When he finished speaking, Ri Yong-sik lifted the corners of his mouth in a smile.
Seo Seong-guk disliked those final words.
* * *
Even after the first round of talks ended, the meeting continued.
It went all the way to the fourth round.
The first round was for conversation.
After that, they adjusted their positions through successive rounds of negotiations.
The North broke off the second round first, and the South broke off the third.
During the third round, Kim Jin-cheol, who was being briefed in real time on the proceedings, exploded in fury and ordered the talks suspended.
The reason was that North Korea insisted on using the word “regret” rather than “apology” in the agreement.
“Those damn Reds. Seven people are dead, and they think regret is enough?! What kind of nonsense is that!”
At the president’s rage, all the secretaries fell silent.
Chief of Staff Yoo Jeong-hun stepped forward.
“Mr. President. Looking at precedent, the North has already shown as much sincerity as it can.”
“Hey, Chief! Is an apology the same as regret? You think the public is just going to sit there quietly?!”
“Mr. President. Since the shelling, the KOSPI has dropped seven hundred points. If it falls just another four percent tomorrow, it’ll be down in the low thousands. Foreign investors and institutions need to buy in and push the index back up.”
“I’m telling you, seven people are dead!”
“Mr. President. People don’t only die from bullets. If this situation drags on, citizens will start dying not from guns, but from money.”
“……”
When Kim Jin-cheol fell silent, the ministers who had been watching his mood also began to speak up.
“The Chief of Staff is right, Mr. President.”
“The U.S. Federal Reserve is scheduled to announce an interest rate hike next week.”
“Businesses are in an uproar. Not just the conglomerates—small and midsize firms with overseas operations are furious too.”
From the senior secretary for political affairs to the deputy prime minister for the economy, everyone was backing Yoo Jeong-hun.
It was different from when they had pushed ahead with eliminating Ri Yong-sik.
Back then, there had at least been a minority willing to stand with Kim Jin-cheol.
But not this time.
In the end, Kim Jin-cheol ordered them to set the date for the fourth round of talks.
And after negotiations that had dragged on through four rounds, North and South drew up an agreement.
Once the document was finished, the Blue House immediately held a press conference.
All of South Korea’s media gathered in the Blue House briefing room.
“We will now begin the briefing regarding the inter-Korean high-level officials’ talks. Minister of National Defense Seo Seong-guk will announce the matters agreed upon between North and South.”
When the Blue House spokesperson finished, Seo Seong-guk stepped up to the podium.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Flashes burst across the room, and Seo Seong-guk, standing at the podium, read the agreement that had been prepared in advance.
“First, despite the North’s military provocation, I sincerely thank the people for trusting our intelligence and our military. Through negotiations held over four rounds, North and South have agreed on three matters. First, as of this moment, all military activity along the Northern Limit Line and the Military Demarcation Line will cease. Second, high-level talks will be held in Pyongyang and Seoul at the earliest possible date. Third, the suspended Kaesong Industrial Complex will resume full operations as soon as possible.”
When the words Kaesong Industrial Complex were mentioned, the room stirred.
Kaesong Industrial Complex was something no one had expected.
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