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The young soldier turned his head slowly to one side, eyeing the rifle out of the corner of his eye. Lee wondered who would get there first. The soldier was closer, but Lee could have got to him before he brought the weapon to bear.

Lee didn’t dare make any sudden moves, not wanting to provoke a violent response. He held his hands out in a gesture for the young soldier to stay calm. In the cold, Lee could see sweat beading on the soldier’s forehead. He understood the conflict in the young man’s mind. The contradiction he saw before him must have shaken his foundation. Everything he’d been told about the southern devils would have been called into question when Lee staggered through that door holding his sister. Now his sister was safe and the devil stood before him, what would he do?

“Don’t,” Sun-Hee whispered, and her whisper carried through the empty wooden hut. Lee had no doubt Sun-Hee meant well, but he doubted her brother could turn his back on his country.

Lee stepped backwards, inching toward the door. He could feel the wind gusting around his legs, the rain driven against his lower back.

There were voices outside, boisterous and loud, but they weren’t behind Lee, they were coming from somewhere beyond the back door of the hut, behind the soldier.

The young man’s dark eyes betrayed what was about to happen. Lee understood before the back door opened: this young soldier was not alone. The soldier’s trembling fists told Lee he should run, that he should flee while he could, that the brother had to come after him but that he would give Lee a head start.

Deep down, Lee knew there could never be any other outcome. The young soldier could never let him go, but it seemed he would spare his grandfather and sister from seeing Lee killed in cold blood in front of them.

Lee had to run.

Sun-Hee reached out her arm toward Lee, distracting him for a moment. He could see the pity in her eyes, but a woman’s pity could not save him, not in North Korea.

The rear door opened and two more soldiers walked into the hut. They must have been outside smoking as one of them stubbed out a cigarette on a metal case, saving the stub. With rifles slung over their shoulders, they joked with each other, smiling and laughing. Their features froze as they locked eyes with him.

Lee wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t move. He thought about running, but the time lag between that thought and the muscular response in his legs felt like an eternity. The soldiers swung their rifles down from their shoulders, dropping their cigarettes and yelling as they brought their guns to bear on him.

Lee’s boots scraped on the wooden floor. Turning, he slipped, falling against the door jamb. With his hands, he grasped at the frame, pulling himself out onto the wet porch.

“Halt!”

Lee swung his arms and began pumping his legs as he bolted into the drizzle.

Water splashed beneath his boots as he ran through puddles.

The mud caked on his boots slowed his pace, acting like lead weights tied around his ankles.

He could hear someone behind him, pounding across the porch, their heavy boots thumping on the old wood.

He drove his legs, scrambling across the muddy gravel outside the hut.

The rattle of a diesel engine starting up cut through the quiet of the night. Headlights blinded him.

He turned, darting between two huts.

Voices screamed behind him. Coming around the corner of the rickety old hut, he lost his footing and slipped, falling sideways in the mud.

He looked back.

Several soldiers ran down the alley behind him, their dark silhouettes illuminated by the lights of a military jeep.

Lee scrambled to his feet and ran on, his heart pounding in his chest, his lungs burning in the cold air.

A shot rang out, piercing the night like the crack of thunder.

At first, Lee wasn’t sure what had happened. Fire burned in his thigh, tearing through the muscle like a red hot poker.

He fell.

Adrenaline demanded he keep going. He struggled to get back to his feet, but his left leg refused to respond. He grabbed at his thigh and his hand came away covered in blood. Still, he staggered on, turning into another narrow alleyway between the huts of the village, trying to weave his way back to the fields and into the forest.

Voices yelled behind him.

“He is here. Down here.”

“Cut him off!”

Lee hobbled, using the rough wooden walls to keep himself upright, falling against the warped panels and pushing off them, dragging himself on.

Dark shapes moved across the alley ahead of him.

Flashlights shone down the narrow, muddy gap between the huts.

Lee could see two soldiers at the end of the alley with rifles raised. He turned. Behind him, three more soldiers stood poised, ready to fire.

Lee fell to his knees in the mud as the rain picked up, soaking him once again.

The huts had been built on raised stumps. Lee realized he could crawl beneath them. He couldn’t give up. In his mind, he could still see the US Navy SEAL being savaged by dogs on that lonely, windswept beach. He couldn’t die like that. He had to believe he could escape.

Soldiers ran in from both ends of the alleyway.

Lee had begun scrambling beneath one of the huts when a hand grabbed his leg. He kicked, lashing out with his boots, but the soldier was strong, dragging him back into the alley.

Lee clutched at mud and stones on the ground, desperately trying to claw his way beneath the hut.

Another set of hands grabbed at his clothes, wrenching him out and flipping him over on his back.

Flashlights blinded him.

The last thing he remembered was the sickening crunch of a rifle butt being slammed into his forehead.

Jason checked the time on his phone – 11:47.

He rushed up the broad stone stairs leading to the physics hall, holding his paper under his arm.

The campus was deserted.

Normally, the ebb and flow of students gave life to the old buildings, giving them a charm beyond the lifeless red bricks and the white wooden window frames staring back at him. Without students, the physics hall seemed more of a museum than a university.

The main door was locked.

Jason shook both doors, testing them for any give.

“Fuck!”

Why the hell didn’t Professor Lachlan allow him to email his paper? How could such a brilliant mind be so backwards in regards to technology? What was wrong with email? What plausible reason could there be for not allowing papers to be submitted electronically? Especially on a holiday! Why did the professor insist on coming into the university on his day off? Professor Lachlan needs to get a life, Jason decided.

Damn, he thought, Lachlan is probably sitting in his office waiting. How the hell am I going to get in there? He peered through the thick glass, trying to see if there was anyone inside the hallway, perhaps a security guard.

Jason took a deep breath, trying not to get frustrated.

Lachlan loved working with paper. He would use three different colored pens to mark his papers: blue for general comments, green for praise, and red for everything in between, showing his disdain for anything out of the ordinary. Jason tended to get a lot of red. Paper was the soapbox upon which Professor Lachlan proclaimed his disdain for change.

“The 1930s called,” Jason muttered. “They’d like their slide rules back.”

“Sorry,” a voice said from behind him. “I didn’t catch that?”

“Professor!” he cried, jumping at the sound of Lachlan’s voice. Jason’s eyes were wide with surprise. He turned to see Professor Lachlan standing behind him smiling.

“Ah, nothing,” Jason continued, almost dropping his paper. The loose sheets slid in the manila folder and he grabbed at them, catching them before they fell.