Professor Kwon knew that he didn’t need to go to Hoeryong Political Prison Camp 22. He could have given the vials to one of his lab workers to take to the infamous camp. Convincing Pak that it was a good idea for him to personally oversee the experiments did not prove difficult. Pak even offered his car and driver to take him to the northernmost prison.
Kwon wondered if Pak suspected him, but had to take the chance, even if there was the slightest possibility of success. For all he knew, Pak was responsible for the arrest of his family.
As Pak’s car passed through the town of Hoeryong, Kwon saw the prison against the mountainside. At that distance, it was impossible to see the entire boundary of the eighty-seven-square-mile prison. He could make out the massive wall of the southernmost entrance rising like an impenetrable castle from the surrounding rocks. Reports showed what separated freedom from the horrors of the prison was an inner wall, electrified with a 3300-volt electric fence and an outer razor-wire fence, with landmines and traps between the two.
As the car approached the entrance, Kwon remembered the day he heard where his wife and son had been sent. He never asked what happened to them for fear his fate would be the same. It took all his strength not to react when Pak told him the news. He wasn’t sure if Pak had made a mistake in telling him, or if it was a well-calculated seed of manipulation. Even though Kwon thought of Pak as a friend, he knew what a dangerous man he was and never to be underestimated for shrewdness.
It would be a fatal mistake to ask to see his wife and son. In a prison of 50,000, the odds of catching an accidental glimpse of his family were nil, but it was worth the risk. Any glimmer of hope was better than none.
He cringed to think his wife and son might be part of this testing, but human experimentation at Camp 22 was well known. It was the perfect place to further test the virus.
Although the virus was a mutation of modern-day mumps, he needed to be certain that people inoculated with the current mumps vaccine would not be immune to his new strain, the one he called M2H1. The abbreviation would be accepted in the scientific world, as it was a mutated mumps virus, (M2), combined with the influenza virus, (H1N1).
Five months earlier, Kwon had asked that 200 people at the prison be vaccinated with the mumps vaccine, long enough for their bodies to produce immunity. Now they would be exposed to the M2H1 virus. They would be quarantined so as to not infect the whole prison colony and the guards. He should receive his own vaccine soon, but there was no reason to risk a premature release of the virus. He did not want to think about the fact that all the patients would be quickly eliminated once its effectiveness was established.
Kwon had not expected the M2H1 virus would cause sterility in both men and women, but the discovery that it did was a pleasing bonus. It would result in an even faster halting of any population propagation.
He adjusted the case on his lap that contained the virus and took a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his upper lip as they pulled up to the first of a series of guard stations.
Everyone in North Korea knew what these camps were like. It was one more measure of control for the government to remind its people what could happen if anyone so much as hinted at stepping out of line. Occasionally, the government revealed photos of skeletal prisoners working in coal mines surrounding the prison. The pictures showed prisoners with missing ears, broken noses, and smashed eye sockets from repeated beatings and torture.
Camp 22 was the worst of the worst, reserved for anyone who criticized the government, anyone who had attempted to escape to China, South Korean prisoners, and, of course, Christians.
* * *
Pak was furious. Whoever had interrupted his time at the medical clinic would be reprimanded. New, young girls had been brought to the clinic, including Dr. Chul’s granddaughter.
Chul had been sent to the Hoeryong Political Prison Camp for his insolence. Pak had been incensed. How dare that man question my decisions? That’s why he had sent him to be re-educated at Camp 22. Chul was better off dead and being in that camp was as good as dead.
To interrupt Pak’s clinic time made him angry, even though he understood the reason why. Kim Jung-wook, a South Korean Baptist missionary captured and imprisoned the previous year, was about to be paraded on North Korean TV to confess his crimes against the government. One of Pak’s subordinates thought he would want to attend. He was right, of course, but the interruption came at an inopportune time.
Last week Pak’s agency had arrested thirty-three people who appeared to be associated with the missionary. Pak knew Kim was trying to start underground churches in North Korea, but he’d told his agents to torture the prisoner enough to get him to tell them he was a South Korean spy. Pak’s agents were to convince Kim the lives of the thirty-three other prisoners would be spared if he confessed.
They will all be sent to Camp 22 anyway, so they are dead, one way or the other.
Pak knew how necessary it was to tighten security at the northern border with China. Except for the Amrok River, there were no fences or barriers that separated the countries, and there had been a five-fold increase in defections the past five years. Fortunately, North Korea had an extradition agreement with China, and many of these traitors were returned and sent to Camp 22.
Just because they were trying to escape starvation was no excuse.
The Christians were a problem. Not only did they help on the Chinese side by providing shelter and food for the defectors, but many of them slipped back into the country and brought their propaganda and literature. Pak’s government had decreed that anyone caught with a Bible would be tortured and shot.