Chapter 336
Chapter 336
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Killing Intent
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In the fall of 1977, Pyongyang was burning with fervor.
“Release Lady Lee Se-eun!”
On the occasion of Lee Se-eun’s birthday, students gathered once more and marched vigorously through the streets.
They waved flags bearing her face.
The regime reacted swiftly to the procession of students marching through downtown.
It mobilized three hundred police companies to the heart of Pyongyang, sealing off the streets with paddy wagons and forming barricades.
The sheer overwhelming force brought the protesters to a halt.
“Fire!”
The police opened up with tear gas first.
In the acrid fumes, citizens and students alike coughed and wept uncontrollably.
“Charge!”
While the protesters hesitated, the police deployed combat units armed with batons and shields.
Students screamed and fled at the sight of the riot police charging through the tear gas like Roman legionaries.
Those too slow to escape had their heads cracked open by batons.
“Ugh, ugh!”
The riot police grabbed the bleeding students and dragged them away.
The streets were strewn with blood from the batons.
Students who dodged the police clubs scattered into alleys and backstreets.
But not everyone was lucky enough to escape.
“You little shits think you can protest after stuffing your faces?!”
Plainclothes police—the White Bones Squad—who had been lying in wait in the alleys beat the students mercilessly, then grabbed them by the hair and dragged them out into the street.
The riot police took custody and hauled them off in paddy wagons.
The protest was brutally crushed that way, but the police command wasn’t satisfied.
“Who’s behind this protest?”
“It’s gotta be the Pyongyang University student council, right?”
“Then round up anyone who can rat out the student council’s location.”
The police mobilized two thousand detectives for the operation.
In the vast dragnet that ensued, countless students with no connection to the protest were swept up.
They were taken to the counterintelligence offices and subjected to brutal torture.
“Talk. Where’s student council president Han Si-min?”
“I d-don’t know. I really don’t.”
“You don’t know? This punk’s hopeless. Give him another spin.”
The police didn’t hesitate to use water and electric torture even on ordinary students.
“If they’ve pissed off His Excellency, we gotta break ‘em. What’s this human rights bullshit?”
Unlike its outwardly mild facade, the Yusin regime revealed its ruthless true face against any challenge to the system.
The police’s savage crackdown inevitably led to casualties.
“Hey, wake up. Hey. Sergeant, check him.”
“H-he’s dead, sir.”
“Fuck.”
The police were stunned by the deaths.
It was no surprise that the head of the Public Security Bureau, the ultimate authority, issued a rebuke.
“Ease up, why’d you let someone die?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sigh. What the hell do I tell the commissioner?”
“What about the body?”
“Handle it quietly, like always. No noise.”
“Yes, sir.”
The body was disposed of, and the matter seemed settled.
But the problem didn’t end there.
“Release our classmates arrested by the police!”
As students launched fresh protests, the disappearance of Park Jong-ho came to light.
The police claimed they had questioned him and released him, but the students didn’t buy it.
Days passed, and then something snagged on a fisherman’s boat while trawling the Han River.
“What’s this? Oh god—a body!”
Hooked to the fisherman’s boat was a student’s corpse stuffed in a drum.
The incident exploded across the front pages.
“A Pyongyang University student found dead.”
Even the regime couldn’t suppress it by force.
“If we mishandle this, people might ‘misunderstand’ it as us killing him.”
The regime issued no media blackout on the story.
Of course, behind the scenes, it pressured its media plants to kill the articles as fast as possible.
One by one, the stories vanished from the papers, but the suspicions lingered.
Before long, the public cast doubting eyes on the regime and the police.
“Did the police kill Park Jong-ho?”
The regime agonized over the issue.
It even considered pinning it on the police.
“What kind of sloppy work is this, splashing shit everywhere?”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Prepare yourselves for disciplinary action.”
The presidential secretariat prepared punitive personnel changes for the police but decided against stirring the pot now, lest it fuel more suspicion, opting instead to bury the incident.
President Jang Dong-yoon agreed with the assessment.
“If that’s the best option, so be it.”
But the matter refused to die quietly.
“The barbaric true face of a regime that drowns college students in drums!”
The CIA and NSA—U.S. intelligence agencies waiting for Korea to slip up—leaked the intel they had gathered.
In the process, the police’s murder of Park Jong-ho was exposed to the world.
The young life snuffed out under the regime’s brutality.
Pyongyang University students were the first to rage at the tragic reality.
“The criminal regime must resurrect Park Jong-ho!”
Universities across Pyongyang joined in solidarity with class boycotts and protests.
“We must be ashamed of the time we bowed our heads to the criminal regime. Speak truth to power! Time to take up the pen.”
Journalists who had been holding their breath finally spoke out.
Of course, their articles never saw the light of day.
“Have these bastards lost their minds?”
Defense Security Command agents embedded in newsrooms called in the police, who beat the reporters senseless.
Many opposed the Yusin regime, but their voices still failed to reach society.
Even so, the regime felt threatened.
Fearing a repeat of the 1975 crisis, the Jang Dong-yoon administration convened countermeasures.
There, KCIA Director Kim Jung-nam demanded full authority.
“As you’ve seen, the police lack the ability to handle this. Leave the Park Jong-ho cleanup to us.”
“If we give the KCIA full control, you have a way to resolve it?”
“We do.”
“Then handle it swiftly.”
“Yes, sir.”
With the KCIA rising as the command center, Special Agent Bae Sung-jun of the counterintelligence division received special orders.
“Agent Bae, you know how critical this is. Clean it up quietly.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bae Sung-jun raised no objections.
‘As long as the military and bureaucrats remain loyal to Jang Dong-yoon, the students have no chance of winning.’
Better to crush a hopeless fight than aid it.
Just as Kim Jae-gyu of the Blue House had done for so long.
Bae Sung-jun steeled himself, donning the mask of a cold-blooded operator.
As a political animal, he was consummate.
Once his thoughts aligned, he moved faster than anyone.
“From now on, protest suppression falls under our counterintelligence division.”
Police, prosecutors, and Defense Security Command public security units came under Bae Sung-jun’s command.
His strategy for crushing the protests was straightforward.
“Round up every student protester you see.”
Then convert them.
How?
Starve them.
In the revolutionary labor camps, inmates sold their beliefs and ideologies for a bowl of rice, becoming the finest turncoats.
Once such turncoats emerged, it was only a matter of time before the protests lost steam.
They’d attack from within to justify their betrayal.
Bae Sung-jun followed with a second strategy.
Simple again.
“Send the prisoners to military stockades and divide them into two groups.”
One group inmates, the other guards.
How would inmates change once roles were assigned?
The Nazis’ camps had the answer.
They proved that position makes the man.
Kapos acted like guards, prisoners like prisoners—for a scrap of food.
What if this played out among the students?
Bae Sung-jun’s strategies were all divide and conquer.
Nothing weakened protesters more effectively.
A month passed.
“Filthy turncoats.”
“Not even human.”
Once Bae Sung-jun released the captured students back into society, the protests’ momentum plummeted.
Some voices complained.
“Is it right to lock kids up without feeding them?”
“What about making them play prison guard?”
But stories of Bae Sung-jun’s divide-and-conquer never made the papers.
As protest energy waned, even the president expressed satisfaction.
Bae Sung-jun took a call from Jang Dong-yoon in the director’s office.
“I hear Agent Bae worked hard this time. Good job.”
“An honor, Your Excellency.”
“Put the director on.”
For a mere agent like Bae Sung-jun, even a kind word was too much.
“Director Kim.”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“Agent Bae handled this well. Shouldn’t we give a capable guy like that a boost?”
“Wise words, sir.”
“I’ll issue a commendation. Put him on next year’s promotion list and send it up.”
“Understood.”
Bae Sung-jun stood ramrod straight as the director and president spoke.
When the call ended, Kim Jung-nam turned to him.
“Agent Bae, at this rate, you’ll be deputy director in no time.”
“Me, sir?”
“Presidential commendation means automatic promotion, you fool.”
“I know that.”
“Then smile, would you?”
The director patted Bae Sung-jun’s shoulder and sent him out.
Leaving the office, Bae Sung-jun’s face was chillingly cold.
He took a deep breath, then resumed his emotionless mask and walked on.