Stephen Mertz - The Korean Intercept

He had topped the hill and made his way by starlight to the graveyard, to the small hillside clearing surrounded by pines and a few twisted fruit trees where nightly he would kneel at his wife's grave. Though he knew that Mai's spirit was mercifully free of the physical suffering that had made her last year of life so unbearable for them both, his heart ached. That her mortal remains were so close to him in this ground somewhat eased the loss he felt within. These private moments with her memory renewed him and gave him the strength to face one more night and another tomorrow without her.

His life with Mai had never been without suffering and struggle. But the struggle had always seemed easier, worthwhile, because his woman, a good woman, was there to share the struggle with him. They were married when they were fourteen. They had met as children in the days of World War II when Japanese soldiers had used Hongsan as a staging area for attacks into China. The Japanese, who had massacred most of the adults when they withdrew, killed their parents. Youngsters like Chong and Mai survived only because their parents, fearing the worst, hid them in the mountains. Such tragedy had bonded them together for life, a life that became little better under the occupying heel of the Russians after the war and no easier when the country was handed over to its own Communist dictators three years later. Mai had already given birth to the first of their three children when Ann Chong was conscripted and sent south to fight the Americans in the winter of 1951, so long ago, the one time he had ever been more than fifty kilometers from his village and his family.

He now had full-grown children, and they had gone on with their lives since their mother's death. Ahn Chong did his best, but bitterness would not leave him, bitterness as ever-present within him as the empty place in his heart left by Mai's passing.

If Mai had become ill in the south, below the 38th parallel, she would have survived. His ailing wife would have received treatment. But the central government withheld food and clothing from the northern frontier provinces, as well as education and medicine, with an iron hand. That his son-in-law was chairman of the collective's Worker's Council, that the new military air base had been constructed less than three kilometers away, meant nothing. Another nameless, faceless old peasant woman had died and no one cared, it seemed, except for her widowed husband. Ahn saw her face whenever he closed his eyes: wrinkled and aged, leathery as his own, but even ravaged by illness, the most beautiful face he had ever known. He heard her voice in the whisper of the wind through the pines.

And so he came to kneel at her grave this night as he always did, to commune with her spirit and meditate on the words of the Buddha. Do not weep. It is the very nature of all things most near and dear unto us that we must divide ourselves from them, leave them, sever ourselves from them. Every life is filled with partings…

The heavens tore abruptly open above him, ripped asunder. It happened with such abruptness, such totality, such ferocity, power and nearness that Ann reflexively, instinctively threw himself across the mound of earth that was Mai's grave.

Something-something big-stormed by at what must have been treetop level, its backwash blasting over Ahn harsher, far colder, than the night wind. A shape momentarily blotted out the sky. There was not the thunder of a jet, only an extended whoooosh! that enveloped him as if it were inside his head. Pressing himself to Mai's grave, flattening himself to the ground, he knew that it could only be some sort of aircraft coming from the direction of the airfield. Then he heard the aircraft-whatever it was!-impacting into the earth on the other side of the hill that rose away from the graveyard, in the opposite direction from his village. There was no explosion, only the protracted sound of tearing metal as the huge something skidded across rock. Then complete silence re claimed the night, except for the wind.

Ahn Chong leapt to his feet. Dogs were barking, but the noises of the crash would have been muffled from the village by the hills and sloping terrain.

He hurried up a rocky hill, in the direction of the crash.

After the endless scream of tearing metal upon impact, the abrupt silence seemed absolute.

The first sound Kate Daniels became aware of was the whisper of wind outside of the fuselage. Liberty was enveloped in darkness. She turned her head. Her body responded slowly. The popping of joints creaked loudly and helped to clear her brain as her eyes adjusted.

Next to her, Scott asked, "Are you all right?" His voice was strained, hoarse, and she knew instantly that something was wrong with him.

"Thank God, Ron, I thought we were done for." She fought to keep her breathing normal. "Yes, I'm okay. How about you?"

"Broken leg, I think. At least I set us belly-down."

Kate ascertained that none of her bones were broken and none of her muscles were pulled or torn. The plight of the man next to her generated complete clarity of thought. She unclasped her safety harness and went to him. Reaching for a magnetized flashlight, she flicked it on, playing its light across his legs. The right one was twisted at an unnatural angle. His flight suit around that knee was torn and bloody.

She reached for his safety buckle. "Let me help you out of there."

He waved her off. "I can get myself out. Check on the crew."

"Ron-"

"Check them. We've got to camouflage this baby and make some distance before whoever brought us down comes looking for us. A broken leg isn't going to stop me. Someone below could really need your help."

"Yes, sir."

The flight suits were of insulated fabric but were no heavier than wearing a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, and allowed for easy mobility. She lowered herself down the short ladder through the circular hatch located at mid-deck. A flashlight beam in the living quarters swung in her direction.

The barely discernible shape of Mission Specialist Bob Paxton hurried over to her. She barely recognized the usually cool, calm and collected MIT physicist. Paxton's normally movie-poster handsome, square-jawed cool had yielded to confusion and apprehension with the hint of panic very close to the surface when he put his free arm around her, hugging her to him. "Kate! Kate, thank God… what the hell?"

She extracted herself from his embrace. "An unscheduled landing."

"I know that! Where the hell are we?"

"We're not sure. China, maybe North Korea." She looked past him, into the murky darkness of the living quarters. "How are the others?"

"China? North Korea? How can that be?"

"Bob, get a hold of yourself. How are the others?"

He swung his flashlight beam across the seats. "Al and Leo are dead. The impact broke their necks. Terri I'm not so sure about."

Leo Smith and Al Murphy were strapped in with their heads drooping. Kate hurried to them and felt for a pulse in each. Finding none, she went next to Mission Specialist Terri Schmidt, who was also motionless, although Kate could hear her breathing.

Terri was a trim brown-haired woman, some years older than Kate. Terri's eyes fluttered when Kate gently tilted her head back. There was a gash across one temple, a brutal tear in the skin surrounded by a rapidly swelling purple blotch. Terri's lips trembled. "Kate?" A weak, empty whisper. "What happened? I can't move. I can't feel anything."

"Take it easy, Terri. We'll get you out of here." Kate turned to see Ron Scott carefully lowering himself from the upper deck. "Al and Leo didn't make it," she told him. "Terri's in bad shape."

The flight commander moved aft, favoring but not slowed by the broken leg. "I'll get the door open. You two help Terri."

Kate unfastened Terri's safety harness. Terri's head lolled to the side again, her breathing a muffled gurgle. Kate slid an arm under Terri's back, pausing only when she realized that she was working alone. "Bob, come on," she said impatiently. "We've got to get out of here."