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Simon doubled over. He whispered her name but knew she was gone. He waved the flashlight around the empty grove. Nothing. With a groan, he hurled the light to the ground and smashed the lens with the heel of his boot. Why Hannah? She was too young, too innocent. He hated thinking about what might befall her in enemy hands, but his mind would focus on nothing else. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and stumbled blindly into the woods.
He should have never left her alone. He failed her. He failed everybody. He shipwrecked his own mission and kept Hannah from carrying out hers as well. If he hadn’t followed her around like a stricken mutt, she would still be safe. The warning message would have reached her in time to hide. What had possessed him to think they could travel safely together?
He stumbled blindly into the woods but couldn’t guess which direction to turn. He was soaking wet from the rain. And even if his flashlight still worked, any tracks would be washed away by now.
He sank down against a tree trunk. “I’m sorry.” He covered his head with his hands, swallowing away the painful lump in his throat. “I’m so sorry.”
He should have listened to Mr. Stern. It was too dangerous for missionaries to travel together. Why had he ever thought he could keep Hannah safe? Now everything was lost. Hannah, the backpack ...
The backpack. His head jerked up. He was no good to Hannah, the Sterns, or the underground church as long as he stayed here whining like a schoolboy. The graduates expected hardship. They were prepared for danger. Hannah went through the same crisis training as he. She was young, but she was strong. Stronger, perhaps, than Simon gave her credit for. When all the other girls dropped out of the program, she remained, sometimes even putting the older students to shame with her passion for the Lord. She would have given up her life, and gladly too, to see those Bibles safely delivered.
The backpack. It didn’t just have the Bibles but also the map. If the National Security Agency found it, dozens of Christians, not just Hannah, could die. But what if they didn’t have it? Hannah was a smart girl. If she saw the attackers coming, wouldn’t she try to hide it?
Energized by this small spark of hope, Simon hoisted himself to his feet. He couldn’t sit around paralyzed while there still might be deliveries to make. He clenched his jaw shut. At least she had given him the contact list. He only had a vague idea where he was, but he would wander these woods all night if he had to. He would search for the bag until winter claimed the entire countryside, and then he would dig under every snowdrift to reclaim it. He lifted his chin, ignored the raindrops pummeling his face, and tried to retrace his steps. He would complete the mission. God help him, he couldn’t afford to fail.
***
“I said I’d make you talk,” the interrogator sneered.
Lying on his stomach, his bloody cheek against the cold floor, Mr. Tong absorbed the vibrations from each boot stride as the guard paced back and forth in front of him. He hung his mouth open so the blood would not pool so much in his throat. Through toothless gums he muttered, “My God will protect her.”
“I wouldn’t be so bold in my convictions if I were you. You know you led us right to her.” The agent pressed one boot down on the center of Mr. Tong’s back, compressing his lungs. Unable to shift his weight, Mr. Tong let his breaths grow even shallower. He would not fight death. Why should he? He wondered if his beloved would look even more beautiful in heaven than he remembered her on their wedding day.
The weight lifted from Mr. Tong’s back before he could pass out. What more did they want from him? “You’d better get some rest,” the guard snarled. Mr. Tong had already lost feeling in his legs. He wished he could say the same about his arms. The guard spat on his cheek. “We’ll have the girl brought in as soon as she arrives. You should save your strength. Watching us work when she gets here might make you ... tired, to say the least.”
Still bound, Mr. Tong was unable to wipe away the tears that streaked down his bloody cheeks.
***
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Tied and gagged in the backseat of a National Security van, Hannah tried to recall every lesson Mr. Stern taught her in crisis training. “Chances are at some point you will be questioned. Admit to crossing the border if necessary, but don’t let them know you’ve had contact with foreigners.” Hannah couldn’t do it. These men were trained interrogators. How could she stand up to them?
She shut her eyes and pictured Mr. Stern standing behind her, whispering in her ear. “They’ll have ways to make you talk. Make up names. Give them false leads. Don’t betray the other graduates or the Christians you’ve already met. You may not be able to save yourself, but at least the ministry will continue.”
Back in Yanji, Hannah had wondered if it would ever really come down to that. Now she knew. At least the ministry will continue ... The men hadn’t found the backpack. There were still reasons to rejoice.
By the time the van pulled up in front of the Chongjin jail, her trembling had subsided just a little, and she could breathe more smoothly. She didn’t resist when her captors yanked her out of the car. She would be strong. For Simon’s sake, she would endure.
***
“We got the girl. She’s on her way here now.”
General Sin gave a curt nod, ignoring the blood stains on Byung-Jun’s shirt sleeve. “Very good.” He marched down the hall, but then he stopped and spun around. “Kill the blind man. We don’t need him anymore.”
Byung-Jun shuffled his feet. “I thought I might keep him around while we talked with her.”
“As you wish.” General Sin dismissed the guard with a wave of his hand. So they found the missionary girl. He rubbed his chin. No surprises there. Still, the idea of foreigners sending a teenager over the border all by herself was a little incredulous. Did she have an accomplice, then? And when would this mysterious partner make an appearance?
It was time to pay blind Mr. Tong one last visit. He strode into the interrogation room, swinging the door wide open in front of him. The old man was splayed out in a puddle of blood. One leg bent behind him at an impossible angle. The only indication of life was the short, irregular tugging from his ribcage. He looked like a fish out of water just before it dies, still alive but no longer flapping around so pathetically.
Sin closed his eyes for a moment, and the smell of ginseng mingled with the dark stench of blood and mold that permeated the room. He stooped down to examine the man’s mouth. Mr. Tong wouldn’t be answering any more questions. It was a pity. He would have liked more information before she arrived.
He stared at the body for a moment and allowed himself a heavy sigh. He turned on his heel when the old man muttered something. Sin scarcely made out the word. “Jai-Bong?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he took out his gun and aimed it at the back of the blind man’s head. “Farewell, Brother,” he whispered before pulling the trigger.
***
Hannah was still retching an hour after the agents threw her in the cell with Mr. Tong’s butchered corpse. She hugged her arms around her stomach and heaved again.
“Seems your friend thought he could keep secrets from us.” At first, the agent held Hannah’s head in place with iron strength so she couldn’t turn away. “He didn’t want to tell us where you were going, you know. But eventually he found his tongue. And we found you.”
She was too stunned to cry for the old man. There were still people alive she had to protect. The agents hadn’t found the backpack. The list of contacts was safe. Simon was still free. She shouldn’t have argued with him about staying behind in the woods. Now, at least he would be able to carry on the ministry without her. She had to be strong. No matter what they asked, no matter what they did, she needed to protect him and the believers on that list.
Hannah cowered on the floor in the cell, twisting away from Mr. Tong’s mangled body. There was nowhere to look. Even when she closed her eyes, she saw his pale face, his bloody mouth, the sticky red hole in the back of his skull. She tried to recall a hymn, but singing praise in the face of such gore seemed almost blasphemous.
A guard opened the door, and Hannah wasn’t sure if she should shrink back or try to fight him off. He was tall, his cap perched high on his head. He was older than the other guards, but he didn’t appear to have lost any strength or vigor. “I am General Sin.” He yanked Hannah forward by the elbow. “You will come with me.”
When Hannah was back in the Secret Seminary, she sometimes imagined how she would react if she were captured. She envisioned herself calm and serene, the Holy Spirit enveloping her in a beautiful quilt of peace and protection. General Sin pulled her so fast down the hallway she didn’t have time to think or feel anything. She didn’t even realize her lip was bloody where she bit it until he strapped her down in a chair in a cold, austere room. He clasped his hands behind his back, a mocking grin on his face. She glanced over her shoulder and recognized one of the agents who had captured her in the woods. He stood near a shelf, sorting through a gleaming metal toolbox.
“You will tell us who you are working with.” General Sin leaned closer. His breath smelled like cigarette ash. “You will tell us where to find them. Or you will end up worse off than your blind friend.”
Her mind was too paralyzed to process the threat.
“Who were you meeting tonight?” He dangled a pair of handcuffs in front of her face. “Give me the name of your contact.”
The Sterns had warned her about these interrogations. Just the role-play scenarios from training gave Hannah nightmares for months.
General Sin cuffed her wrists to the chair. “You won’t talk? Well, we’ll see how you feel after Byung-Jun finishes with you.” The younger guard pulled out a metal clamp that glistened in the light. She tried to clench her jaw. General Sin shrugged. “Of course, we could do this the easy way. Tell me what you know, and I’ll transfer you to a more comfortable room.”
She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t put Simon or the other Christians in danger. No matter what.
***
General Sin clenched his cigarette with his teeth while he watched the prisoner through a one-way mirror. Byung-Jun slipped in and shut the door.
“She’s not breaking with orange. I’ll move her up to green after this break.”
General Sin raised an eyebrow. “She’s just a child, Comrade. A little girl. And you’re talking about green?”
“She must have been trained, sir.” Byung-Jun’s eye twitched.
“Trained by pathetic imperial missionaries,” Sin spat. “And what about you, Comrade? Weren’t you trained to gather information from underage Western spies?” He glared at the girl. She sat with her back to the wall, hanging her head. Part of him was glad his agent hadn’t succeeded with her yet.
Byung-Jun bowed his head. “If we move her to green ...”
“Unacceptable.” Sin spun away from the window. “You will keep her at orange, and you will make her talk. Unless you want everyone knowing a little girl got the best of you.” He let the last comment linger in the air like a question.
Byung-Jun bowed again. “It will be as you say, sir.”
General Sin whipped his head back to the mirror. “It better.”
***
It was nearly dawn when Simon finally stumbled upon the alcove where he had left Hannah. How could he have failed her like this? He gritted his teeth. Did he really want to find the backpack? If Hannah was in custody, the guards would interrogate her. They’d demand to know why she was going from house to house and village to village. Once they learned about her mission and realized she left her contraband behind, they’d make her tell them where it was. She wasn’t ready to stand up to their methods. Why had he left her alone? When his candlelight landed on the dark blue canvas of the hidden backpack, he wasn’t sure if he should rejoice or not. Her interrogators would torture her until she told them where it was. If he took the bag now and the National Security Agency didn’t find it where she said it was, what would happen to her then?
He swallowed down the growl rising up from his gut. How could he have failed her so miserably? He thought about leaving the backpack there so the National Security Agency would find it. But then what? It would only give them more evidence to convict her. Clenching his jaw, he heard Mr. Stern’s warnings in his mind: “The National Security agents will prey on your compassion for others. Don’t give them that opportunity.”
Simon kicked the backpack, but his memories kept replaying Mr. Stern’s admonitions. “That’s why you’re safer going out alone. As harsh as it may sound, you need to focus on your mission, not on your comrades.” That was easy for him to say sitting on his American passport on the other side of the border. Still, Simon knew his mentor was right. If he didn’t take the backpack, all the Bibles would be lost. Hannah’s suffering would be for nothing. Nothing at all.
“I’ve always thought it would be a beautiful privilege to die for the sake of the gospel,” Hannah had breathed one night while they sat side by side in the garden. He remembered the stately look in her eyes, and Simon knew what he had to do. The bag was heavy as he swung it onto his shoulder.
“Father, please protect her,” he whispered and ventured out into the night.