Liz Montgomery had not expected to see her sister again.
Her attention was fixed on the fence that separated the compound from the rest of the prison camp. She had seen some movement there and was hoping against hope that it was the guards bringing Granny back. She had lost count of how many days he had been held in what Walter Coburn said was little more than a metal corrugated coffin about eight feet by ten feet. Liz knew that prisoners who were incarcerated in solitary confinement were reduced to husks of their former selves. They were broken men.
But not Granny.
Somehow, Liz knew that he would find a way to mentally rise about the torture that was being inflicted on him. Walter Coburn had said that Commandant Myang-Sook-Jang used waterboarding techniques to break his captives. She knew that Jang would use whatever means he had available to torment his prisoners. But Granny had not come back into the main compound and Liz wondered if he had succumbed to the torture and been killed. Then she dismissed that thought from her mind. Walter Coburn, the burly contactor she had befriended at the same time as Granny, had told her that the prison guards would have talked about it. He understood a little Korean and he would have heard snippets of conversations. Granny was a western prisoner along with the others who were incarcerated there. There were only four of them: Liz Montgomery, Walter Coburn, Granny and a new prisoner named Fredrik Jorgensen, a Dutch industrialist who had been transferred to the prison camp. He was a quietly spoken, introspective man. Liz had only talked him for a few minutes. He seemed shell shocked. She knew how he felt.
Liz had been imprisoned at another prison camp where a mass breakout had freed about one hundred Korean prisoners. Granny and another Black Ops operative named Mickey Kostmayer had led the raid and the hundred captives had been loaded into four helicopters and flown over the Chinese border. The mercenaries who had been a part of this rescue mission had all been killed except for Granny and Kostmayer. The prison camp had been moved to this older facility which was basically falling apart. Liz looked up at the watchtowers where three North Korean armed guards were permanently stationed. She thought they were rotated in eight-hour shifts. And there were the guards who roamed the camp to keep tabs on the prisoners. Most of the captives were incarcerated in the older huts in the front of the camp. This section was used to keep the more high-profile inmates, which included the western prisoners, who had been captured. There were no locks on the doors of the Quonset huts. They were watched day and night. Although Liz knew that Mickey Kostmayer had escaped from the camp during a work party when the North Korean prisoners had rebelled against their captors. She did not know if he had made it to the Chinese border or not. He never came back, so she supposed that he had been killed. But she did not know that for sure. She knew that Kostmayer and Granny had been close friends.
Liz’s hands clenched into fists. Her captivity had taken its toll on her emotional health. And it had been all her fault. As a photojournalist, she had strayed too close to the North Korean border trying to find a prison camp that the North Koreans insisted did not exist. Liz’s intention was to photograph this prison camp. Candid shots sent to the western world to show what kind of conditions the Korean prisoners were enduring. Her sister Deva Montgomery had been visiting her sister in New York City. She had insisted on accompanying Liz on her photo shoot. They had taken off from Jeongseok Airfield in an Air Force WC 135 Phoenix aircraft to make a reconnaissance survey at the North Korean border. They had strayed too far into the trees following some hikers that they had spied from the air. Their Phoenix aircraft had developed engine trouble and they had crashed landed in the dense woods. The pilot had been killed, but Liz and Deva had scrambled out of the crippled aircraft. They found a trail that the Korean hikers had used, but then they had become separated. Liz had lost sight of her sister and had been picked up by a North Korean BTR-152 Armored Personnel Carrier jeep. Liz had tried to explain that she was an American photojournalist whose aircraft had developed engine trouble and crashed landed. She demanded to be taken to a place where she could be flown to the American Embassy in Seoul. If the North Korean guards understood what she was saying she had no idea. They had not said a word. She had pleaded to the North Korean military personnel to find her sister Deva, but her entreaties had fallen on deaf ears. After seven hours Liz found herself in this North Korean prison camp which she knew was an old one. She had no idea what happened to her beautiful sister Deva.
Until today.
When Liz turned away from the fence and its gate her spirits soared. She could not believe her eyes. Her sister Deva had just stepped out of a modified jeep manned by two North Korean guards. She looked weary and disorientated, but she was alive! Deva had not seen her sister as yet. Liz ran down the compound and practically threw herself into her sister’s arms. Deva just burst into tears. Liz had always been the tougher older sister, edgy and forceful, who swore like a sailor and who had one-night stands more times that she could count. Her sister Deva was more withdrawn, sweeter, wary of affection and other people’s motives. Liz was a brunette with a page boy cut. Deva was a blonde with cascades of Farrah-Fawcett hair layered on her head. Liz was dressed in the grey prison uniform all the prisoners wore. Deva still wore her jeans, a turtleneck, a lightweight jacket and laced-up boots, but Liz knew that would change.
Deva was a little unsteady on her feet, so Liz supported her to the large hut where she and the other western prisoners spent most of their time. Liz had been forced occasionally to go outside the prison camp in work parties, always supervised by the guards. She felt Myang-Sook-Jang had wanted these western inmates for a special purpose. Ransom, or to parade them in front of some video cameras so they could be forced to denounce the United States. But so far the prison hierocracy had left the western captives alone. Liz looked up and saw that the two North Koran guards up in two of the watch towers were following their progress with no interest. Liz looked around and noted that the guards in the compound regarded them with disdain. Which was fine with Liz. The less the contact they had with these torturers, the better.
When they reached the wooden steps at the large hut, Deva just collapsed onto them. Walter Coburn jogged over to them. Liz’s eyes searched his face for any word on Granny. He just shook his head.
“This is my sister Deva,” Liz said. “We got shot down in the forest, but then we got separated. It has been six days since I have seen her. I had lost hope.”
“Nice to meet you, Deva, even in these harsh circumstances,” Coburn said. He looked at Liz. “There is a reason your sister has been brought here to this camp.”
“I twisted my ankle sliding down a steep ravine,” Deva said. Her voice, as opposed to her sister, was softer and a little hoarse. “I couldn’t find Liz and then North Korean soldiers spotted me and picked me up. I was held at another prison camp for six days, then I was transferred here. They let me keep the clothes I was wearing. I don’t think they knew what to do with me.”
“You’re here, that’s all that matters,” Liz said, and hugged her sister again. “We’ll get you inside. There are no locks on these huts. We are watched all the time. But there are beds and even some furniture, a couch and a couple of chairs and a writing desk.”
The Dutchman Fredrik Jorgensen moved up to them. His voice had a melodic quality to it. He held out his hand, as if they were being introduced at a garden party. “Fredrik Jorgensen.”
“I’m Liz Montgomery.”
Fredric Jorgensen smiled in spite of himself. “But not the Liz Montgomery who was on our telly screens and who could twitch her nose to make magic happen?”
“Not that Liz Montgomery,” Liz sighed. “Or I would have twitched my nose a lot earlier than this and made all of these fuckers disappear. No offence, Mr. Jorgensen.”
“None taken, I assure you.”
“My sister has a colorful vocabulary,” Deva said, and laughed, probably Liz thought for the first time in days. “You should have heard her when she is dealing with other photojournalists who give her crap. She can swear with the best of them.”
“Especially in this godforsaken place,” Liz said.
“Best to remain circumspect and deferential in the camp,” Coburn warned them. “A wrong word could mean the difference here between life and death.”
Coburn had turned toward the rusting gate and took a step forward. “Granny is back!”
Liz turned and saw Granny, barely able to walk, pushing his way through the gate that led back to where the huts were lined up for the Korean prisoners. Two of the Korean prison guards were behind him. They watched him stumble and almost fall. Coburn leapt down from the wooden porch steps and ran forward. Liz jumped to her feet to follow.
“Wait for me here, Deva,” she said.
Then she was racing to catch up with Granny.
Walter Coburn reached him first. The contractor pulled him up to his feet. The two prison guards watched dispassionately. By that time Liz had reached him and took his other arm.
“I’m all right,” Granny said in a halting voice.
Liz could hear the strain in his voice. She clutched him tighter. “We got you, Granny.”
Granny looked at her with his lopsided grin. “You’re an angel come down from heaven.”
“I’ve had boyfriends who have described me in less glowing terms, but I’ll take the compliment.”
“Lean on me,” Coburn told him.
They half-carried Granny the rest of the way to the large hut. When they reached it, Granny nodded, as if he were fine now, which could not be further from the truth. Liz and Coburn lowered him to the lower porch step.
“This is my sister I told you about,” Liz said. “Deva.”
Granny nodded, his voice still hoarse, but getting stronger. “I see the resemblance.”
“We got separated, but they brought her here,” Liz said. “Thank God.”
“They want all the western prisoners in one camp,” Granny said.
Liz turned to Walter Coburn and said: “Bring him some water, Walter, would you?”
“I’ll pass on the water,” Granny said, even though the irony was lost on the group.
Deva looked out at the guards who were patrolling the grounds of the compound. There were some North Korean prisoners among them, but they kept to themselves. “What are they going to do to us?” she asked, fearfully.
“Nothing,” Granny said. “Yet. They’ll make their intentions known to us.”
“I thought we had lost you,” Liz said, with genuine affection in her voice. She glanced at Deva to see if she had caught the implication in her voice. “Granny is very precious to all of us.”
Deva had not missed her sister’s tone. “I’m sure he is.”
“What did they do to you in that metal coffin?” Liz asked him.
“They made me drink water,” Granny said, ironic. “They asked me questions. I had no answers for them. After a while they let me out.”
“They could have let you rot in that metal coffin.”
“I was too busy working on my motorcycle.”
“They allowed you to have a motorcycle?” Deva asked, incredulously.
“It was a beauty. But I had to leave it behind.”
Liz was tracking with his logic. “I always said you should have played Steve McQueen in the Great Escape.”
Granny smiled at that.
“Is that really your name?” Deva asked him. “Granny?”
“It suits me.”
“Let’s get you inside the hut,” Liz suggested. “You need to lie down.”
Granny nodded. He allowed Liz and Coburn to help him up to his feet. Then he looked past them. Myang-Sook-Jang stood outside his two-story hut smoking a cigarette. Granny had looked into the windows of the hut before he had been knocked down by two of the patrolling guards. It was nicely furnished inside with wicker furniture, old-fashioned oil lamps, a desk, a sofa, two upright chairs, even a piano in one corner. Two wooden porch steps led down into the compound.
Jang did not move. He did not acknowledge Granny, or Walter Coburn, or the Dutch Industrialist Fredrik Jorgensen who had joined them. He was looking at the two sisters. There was nothing in his opaque eyes and no expression on his face. He smoked his cigarette. Granny allowed Liz and Walter Coburn to support him inside the hut.
He got a fleeting glimpse of Myang-Sook-Jang’s face before the hut door closed.
It was impassive, but Granny felt his black eyes were mocking them.
The fight in the playground area at P.S. 119 in Brooklyn had escalated out into the street. A black-and-white police car pulled up to the fence and two Officers jumped out. Both of them were in uniform. The female Officer was Alexa Kokinas, an American of Greek heritage in her mid-twenties, her raven hair piled up on her head. She was backed up by her partner, Tony Palmer, a good-looking, edgy cop.
Alexa Kokinas was deaf.
Well, that was not strictly speaking true. Her right ear had no hearing in it whatsoever. Her left ear had some partial hearing, maybe 30 per cent. Which, as far as Alexa Kokinas was concerned, was all she needed to function as a human being and be a good cop.
The hoodlums had invaded the playground and had sought out the high students there, some of whom had been wandering into their territory when they had been attending a party at some dude’s house. The street gang had arrived at P.S. 119 to kick a little ass and generally terrorize the students. Their game plan had been to find the students who had dared to encroach on their territory and teach them a lesson they would never forget. But the students at P.S. 119 were tough and the fight had spilled out quickly through the gate of the playground and into the street which was cordoned off to traffic. The gang members were wielding lengths of chain and knives. Unfortunately for them, Alexa Kokinas and Officer Tony Palmer had been in the neighborhood. In fact, they had just finished settling a domestic dispute at a house around the corner when the call came in on their radio. Alexa and Tony were on the scene of the school playground within two minutes.
The students were giving as good as they got. Anxious teachers who had been assigned to the school playground had already called the police. The gang members scattered when the patrol car pulled in their midst with a screech of brakes and the two NYPD Officers leapt out. One of the hoodlums had a scrappy student on the ground and was choking him. Alexa pulled him off and applied her own choke hold. She dropped him down to the sidewalk, dragged his arms behind his back and shook out her handcuffs. The teenager got to his feet and limped back through the school gate. A cheer went up from the students congregated there. The gangbangers scattered like so many rats deserting a sinking ship. Officer Palmer let them go. He was only interested how his partner was doing wrestling the hoodlum below her into submission. Which she accomplished with ease. She dragged the kid and threw him into the fence. Alexa relieved him of the switchblade knife he had pulled from his belt and had kicked out his length of chain away. By now there was a larger crowd of students, most of them younger than the high school student, standing at the front gate to the playground. Tony moved over to them, making a gesture for them to back off. The teachers at the gate stayed were they were. Tony had caught Alexa’s eye and nodded. There was a shorthand they used that worked well.
Alexa faced the youth who was not so cocky now. He had a shock of strawberry blonde hair with white streaks in it for effect. She addressed him in a halting style, but her words were distinct, if a little slurred.
“What is your name?”
“Shaggy Dog.”
“Not your street name,” she said. “Your real name?”
“Raymond Daniels.”
“What is your gang affiliation?”
“Flatbush Greased Devils.”
“Catchy title,” Tony commented.
“This is what is going to happen, Raymond,” Alexa told him. “I am going to uncuff you. You scurry back to your own neighborhood with the rest of the scum.”
She glanced at Tony, who had his Glock 17 gun unholstered, but pointing down at the ground. He released the handcuffs from the youth’s wrists, then stepped back.
“If I see one of you back in this neighborhood,” Alexa said, “I’ll arrest you.”
That was enough for the youth, who took off. He turned the corner of the school and disappeared. “You let him off a little easy, didn’t you?” Tony asked her.
She shrugged. In her halting, hoarse voice, she said: “If he comes back to harasses these kids, we’ll know about it.”
Several of the kids approached the cops. One of them, a tall, gangling girl named Kristin who had been shooting hoops with her friends, picked up on Alexa’s affliction right away. “Are you deaf?”
Alexa smiled. “Pretty much.”
Another of her friends, Maddie, said: “But you don’t act like a deaf person.”
Instead of being offended, Alexa’s smiled broadened. She responded to both teenagers by using her voice and sign language. “What do deaf people sound like”?
“Like anyone else,” a third girl said, a willowy blonde named Taylor who was glaring at her friends. “Duh, you guys.” To Alexa she said: “I took some sign language courses last semester.”
Alexa signed for her. “How did you like them?”
“They were really cool!”
“But you can hear us, right?” Kristen asked.
“I have no hearing in my right ear at all,” Alexa said. “Completely dead. I’ve got 30 per cent hearing in my left ear.”
Alexa’s partner was getting impatient. “We’ve got to go,” Tony said.
Alexa continued signing as she spoke. “There is a Deputy Sheriff in Arizona who has partial hearing. I think we’re the only ones in the country to serve as Peace Officers.”
“You’ve got such striking raven hair!” Maddie said. “It’s gorgeous!”
Alexa smiled. “Thanks.”
One of their teachers, who did not look much older than the high school kids, whose nameplate said Mrs. Alvarez, stepped in. “That is enough, guys. These Officers do not want to be given the three-degree. We’ve had enough excitement for one morning.” She turned to Alexa. “I’m sorry for all the intrusive questions.”
“I don’t mind,” Alexa said.
Kristin said: “What if someone tried to sneak up on you?”
“They’d be very sorry they did,” Tony said and grinned.
Alexa looked at him with some affection that was not lost on the other kids.
“Did you attend the police academy?” Mrs. Alvarez asked her.
Tony answered for his partner. “She passed her exams with honors.”
“You cope with your disability very well,” Maddie said.
Alexa signed and said: “I don’t think of it as a disability.”
“What should we do if those hoodlums come back?” Mrs. Alvarez asked.
Alexa noted she did not use the word “gangbangers.” She looked at her partner.
Tony said: “You should call the 76th precinct. A patrol car will be here within five minutes and make arrests. It was an isolated incident. The Flatbush Greased Devils didn’t like a bunch of high school jocks showing up at their party.”
“But let us know if they do come back,” Alexa said.
“Thanks for talking to us,” Maddie said. “It was cool.”
“You kids have a good day now,” Tony said.
Alexa and Tony walked back into their black-and-white police car and climbed inside. Tony sat behind the steering wheel. Alexa slid into the passenger side and slammed the car door
“The Flatbush Greased Devils,” Palmer said. “Give me a break. What happened to the good old-fashioned Greenwich Village Motherfuckers? Let me know when you are going to wrestle an asshole like Raymond Daniels to the ground. I’m here to back you up.”
Alexa grinned. “No sweat.”
“Don’t take chances.”
Alexa looked at her partner and signed: “Because I am deaf?”
“No, because you’re reckless.”
“Don’t worry.”
A radio echoed through to them. “10-21,” Alexa said. “Burglary in progress.”
Tony picked up the radio, setting their vehicle in motion. “Responding,” he said.
The patrol car pulled away from the schoolyard.