Enzan: The Far Mountain (16 page)

It was only years later that the world learned of the periodic raids the North Koreans would stage along Japan’s coast, abducting innocent farmers and fishermen. They may have been looking for intelligence, for information about the outside world that was hard to come by in their isolated land. Or they may have done it simply because they wanted to.

This was the early part of the sixties, when the war in Vietnam was ramping up and the renewed presence of the United States in the East was making the Chinese and Koreans anxious. Anxious men do stupid things.

Like that landing on a storm-battered coast. An isolated place with little to recommend it, except the presence of a member of the imperial family. A prime target for a kidnapping that could be of some use in whatever diplomatic maneuvering lay before them in the tumultuous years ahead.

How we both knew it, I am not sure. But I followed you back down the trail a split second after you started, convinced, as you were, that we were the only thing between Chika-hime and abduction.

Chapter 16

She didn’t scream, which was a real plus. My head was pulsing with pain.

Chie Miyazaki was pushed up against the driver’s side door instead, her face pale, eyes wide. I ignored her and got the car rolling even before my door had closed, one eye on the snowy road ahead, the other focused on the black rectangle of the sliding doors to the house. I gave the gas pedal a nudge, and when we hit the end of the driveway, I yanked the wheel and the sedan slid into a sloppy turn. I gunned it and the tires whirred in the accumulating snow. Traction was an on-again, off-again thing, but I kept at it, willing us up the slight incline of the cul-de-sac. I hoped the main ring road was in better shape. I was worried about many things: the pain that gripped me in spasms and what that said about whatever damage the beating had done; the deteriorating weather; the long-term plan about what I was going to do with the woman in the seat next to me. Mostly, I was worried about putting as much distance between us and Lim and his pals as I could.

Because in all the excitement I had forgotten to get the keys to their other car.

I got Lim’s car up the hill and felt at least a little relief. The main road had been plowed and sanded sometime earlier, and even though a new layer of snow was already smothering the road surface as the storm gathered strength, I was able to pick up speed. I thought of the layout of the roads at Mattson’s Peak, laid down in crisp lines and neat curves on the map I’d used earlier in the day. It seemed like a long time ago. The woods were dark along the roadside and the snowfall covered the terrain, making it all a series of soft, humped, and unfamiliar features. The world was all black trees and a sky gone gunmetal dark, and against that backdrop, the snow seemed to glow in the fading light. There is a term for it: albescence. I laughed. It was the type of weird observation that drove my brother Mickey crazy. I’d been beaten to a pulp, had probably just crossed some legal line that made me a kidnapper, and my brain was playing Trivial Pursuit.

“How can you laugh?” Chie Miyazaki’s voice broke my reverie. She may have been quiet, but she was watching me closely. “You killed him!”

“What?

“Lim. I saw you.” Chie’s voice wasn’t shrill, despite the accusation. She seemed stunned, withdrawn. It was probably just as well. I needed her docile so I could concentrate on driving.

“I didn’t kill him,” I told her. I had wanted to, and part of me worried whether I’d regret my restraint later on.

“How can you be sure?” Out of the corner of my eye I saw her hand creeping toward the door handle. I hit the button and the car’s electric door lock engaged. The thud of the mechanism startled her. The first real reaction she’d had.

“I’m sure, OK?” It was hard to explain: the amount of force I’d used, the feel of the impact, the way Lim’s body reacted when I dumped him in the snow. My voice was testy. I was mapping out a route, struggling to keep the car under control, gaming my next moves, and fighting the urge to vomit. I wasn’t up for conversation. But I needed her calm. “Trust me,” I said, swallowing. “I know these things. He’ll need some medical care, but he’ll live.”
A lot of that going around
.

I saw the turn I was searching for and pulled into the small parking area where I’d left my rental car. It was a snow-covered lump, but I was glad to see it. I had rented a small SUV and it had all-wheel drive. I’d shoved the keys and my wallet up under the front bumper when I’d left it there earlier in the day, following the basic rule that you should only carry what you need to do a specific job and never carry ID when planning on committing a crime. I scrabbled around in the snow under the car’s front end, grabbed the keys, and dragged Chie into the SUV. She didn’t put up a fight, just drifted along as if the entire process was inevitable. I thought again about my conversations with the roshi, about her psychological issues. Maybe for Chie Miyazaki the key to survival, to acceptance, was going along. I shrugged. Best to think about it later.

I swept what snow I could away from the windows and off the hood using the length of my arm as a brush. As we pulled out, I lobbed the keys to Lim’s car into a snowbank.

I drove down the mountain, grateful for at least the suggestion of increased traction from the all-wheel drive. But the roads were a mess, the snow kept coming, and there was only so much the SUV could do. I drove as fast as I could, desperate to escape but afraid the twists and turns of the narrow road would dump us into the deep culverts that lined either side. At the beginning I was glad the ride was all downhill, but it didn’t take long for that feeling to leave me. The road snaked down a narrow track whose borders were increasingly hard to see. There were points at which I had the brakes locked and the SUV just kept going, sliding and unresponsive as I madly turned the steering wheel, hoping to reassert control. By the time we bottomed out on the feeder road that would eventually lead us to the interstate, I was drenched in sweat and my hands ached from clenching the wheel.

The snow kept coming, a manic swirl of flakes that danced in the headlights. The temperature was dropping outside; I could feel the cold seeping in through the windows despite the fact that the defroster was going at top speed. The wipers thudded back and forth, the snow building up on them and then sloughing off at random. The windshield was streaked with ice and foggy with condensation. I was breathing so hard I was creating a small circle of water vapor on the inside of the windshield. Fortunately, there were virtually no other cars on the road. I had stopped checking the rearview mirror for pursuit. It was taking all my energy simply to drive.

My eyes burned. The blizzard was growing denser and the car was cocooned in falling snowflakes. They glittered and shone in the headlights, but everything outside the arc of the lights was black. There was a hypnotic quality to the bright flakes that streamed in from the deep darkness and danced around the vehicle, only to disappear as if a curtain had been drawn behind us. I found my focus shortening until I was looking at the bright swirling points of snow. For a moment, I felt the shock and disorientation of vertigo. I wasn’t sure where I was in relation to the road. I shook my head and the pain made me wince but also got me focusing once again.

We slid on toward Route 6.

Chie had remained silent after her first outburst. Maybe she was picking up on my tension. Maybe her heart was jumping up into her mouth every time we hit a slick spot or I lost control of the steering. I know mine was. But once we were headed out on Route 6—a broader road surface bearing the signs of recent plowing—she could probably sense me calm down a bit.

“Why?” she asked.

“Why what?” Maybe I was calmer, but driving was still no picnic. And I had just remembered the approach to Interstate 84 was a long, long downhill run. The dread made my voice tight.

She put her head in her hands. “Oh, please.” Half plea, half sarcastic retort.

“Your family …”

“Really does not give a shit about me,” she finished. Her face was pale with the dashboard lights, but her eyes glittered in resentment.

I shrugged—a cautious movement. I felt the tug of damage along my ribs. “Well I think the picture thing got their attention.”

She slapped her hands on her thighs. “I told you I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The pictures? Of you and Lim … and whoever.”

“I like a good time,” she retorted. “So what?”

A plow truck came hurtling down the road on the other side of Route 6. As it passed, it tossed a wave of snow in front us. I gripped the wheel a little tighter and felt the momentary lack of traction as the wheels slid across the extra snow.

“Look,” I said, “whatever you do is whatever you do. But sending the pictures to your father? That was cruel.” I winced at the judgmental way I sounded. Not because I didn’t think she was screwed up, but because I had forgotten it would probably be best to try to keep her docile.

It was too late; she was angry. “‘Look’ yourself, you … complete asshole! I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never sent my father anything like that.”

“Some of the shots came from your own cell phone.”

“Bullshit.” She rummaged around in her pockets, but then gave up. “I’m always losing the fucking thing. Lim holds on to it for me.”

“Lim,” I said. “What a guy.”

“What do you know about him?”

A state trooper passed us on the rutted left-hand lane, his lights flashing. I instinctively slowed down. The last thing I needed was to get stopped. I had a handgun in my pocket, the marks of a severe beating, and an unwilling passenger beside me. It would take about three seconds for them to decide to cuff me. But the trooper was focused on more pressing business ahead and as he passed us my hands relaxed slightly on the steering wheel.

I focused back on Chie. “Lim’s got a street rep as a low-level dealer and party boy. But his apartment tells a different story.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve probably never been to this place.” I told her the address. She looked confused. “It’s very neat. Very serious. Not the kind of place you’d expect.”

“So what?”
Did I hear a defensive note creeping into her voice?

“And when I visited the place, I got a surprise visitor.” I turned toward her to see her expression; her face was impassive. “We didn’t talk much.” I remembered the sound of our banging around the hallway, the thud of blows. “But guess where he was from?”

“My father?” she guessed.

I smiled bitterly. “Nope. Someone from the frozen Choson.”

“What?” I glanced at her and saw the slackness of confusion as she tried to process my statement.

“Yep. Lim’s pal was some kind of operative from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.” I looked at her again. “You know, our friends north of the thirty-eighth parallel.”

“Bullshit,” she said. But her voice didn’t carry much conviction.

“You know, Chie,” I told her, “you need to get your head straight on this. I’m not sure how everything fits … what it means. But trust me, something is going on and it’s bigger than just you and whatever issues you have with your family.”

That struck a nerve and I regretted the words almost the second they got out of my mouth.

“What the fuck do you know about my family?”

I tried to make my voice calm. “Some things I know … some I don’t. And I know, in some ways it’s none of my business.” Which was a lame comment, since I had just kidnapped her. So I kept talking.

“Here’s what I’ve got, however. Your family is worried about you and your involvement with this guy Lim. The pictures you sent …”

“I didn’t send the fucking pictures!”

I winced at the shrillness of her voice. “OK, you didn’t send the pictures. Doesn’t it worry you that somebody did? Your old man’s some kind of hotshot diplomat, right?” She nodded grudgingly. “And when I start poking around, I find out the hard way that some people really—and I mean really—don’t want me to do that. Including your boyfriend Lim.”

That got her back up again. “You broke into the house and attacked us!”

Technically, of course, the door had been open, but I thought I shouldn’t point that out.
Maybe I’ll save that thought for my trial instead
.

“So why didn’t he call the cops?” I asked her.

“Lim told me my family had sent someone to look for me. He was afraid the cops might be in on it.”

“How’d he know?”

“Know what?”

“That your family was looking for you?” Silence. I pressed on. “How’d he know my name? I didn’t tell him and I had no ID on me.” The windshield wipers thudded back and forth and the car rumbled across the ruts in the snow. She said nothing.

I let her sit there for a few minutes. Finally I spoke up. “Chie.” She stared straight ahead. “Chie, look at me. Look at the beating they gave me. What was that all about?”

“We were angry,” she said.

“And Lim’s phone call?”

“What do you mean?”

“I show up,” I explained. “You clock me across the head and he’s got me all tied up. Best thing to do at that point would be to cut and run. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to follow you.”

“So?”

“So,” I countered, “what does your boyfriend do? He ducks out to make a phone call. Who’s he calling, Chie? It wasn’t the police. Why’s he calling?” She had no answers. But my voice was rising with indignation. “You don’t know. I don’t know either. I do know I got the crap beat out of me.” I thought of how she had looked when Lim was sending his henchmen upstairs after me. “And we both know what was going to happen to me after he made that call.”

She turned her head away, staring into the blackness. “No,” she said in a tiny voice. I wondered what she saw out there in the night.

“Yes,” I said. “They were going to toss me off a cliff.”

I let that idea float between us for a while. I concentrated on driving down the long approach to Interstate 84. There was more traffic on the road now and it made the going both slower and more treacherous. We finally made it, though. By that time I was spent. There was a gas station and convenience store off to our right, an island of bright white light in the swirling darkness. A team of heavily muffled guys with shovels was trying to keep the areas near the pumps clear. They weren’t doing too well.

I slid into the parking lot, and Chie Miyazaki and I sat in the relative silence of the parked car. The wipers thumped back and forth. The defroster fan worked with the resignation of a forlorn hope. A snowplow rumbled by, followed by the hiss of a sander. Yellow flashing lights, car doors thudding closed, the sounds of cars growling through the snow.

“They were going to toss me off a cliff,” I told her again. “And I want to know why.”

She sat there, silently gnawing on her lower lip. The two of us stared straight ahead, watching the occasional battered driver stagger into the bright refuge of the convenience store. I hit the electric lock and got out of the car. I scooped a fistful of snow off the hood and pressed it against the side of my face. It burned for a moment; then the cold began to numb my skin. I waited, looking expectantly at her through the windshield. Finally she shrugged and got out.