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“Hold on,” Lily cried, and he could see she had no intention of stopping for either the police officer or the red light in the distance.

Lily timed her ride, cutting up onto the footpath at a low ramp designed for wheelchairs, but the angle she crossed the ramp on was acute, still catching part of the curb and Jason found himself launched airborne on the back of the dirt bike. He had to pull himself back down onto the seat by the handle as Lily raced past lampposts, trash cans and bus stop seats mounted on the sidewalk. His feet struggled to find the passenger footrests that were mounted absurdly high as the bike was designed for riding through creeks and streams.

They shot past the police officer and flew off the edge of the footpath and out across Central Park West. Police cars continued to race along the streets toward them, but Lily cut across into the park. She was working hard with the handlebars, making numerous small corrections as they continued to gain speed. Jason was very aware of his own center of gravity and how his motion affected their overall balance. The slightest movement, turning to look at the police or even looking over her shoulder caused the dynamic of the bike's balance to shift.

Lily's body felt taut and stiff, every muscle seemed tense. The bike's engine screamed like a swarm of angry hornets as they cut through the darkened park.

“What are you doing?” he yelled over the noise. “You're heading toward the lake!”

At the speed they were traveling, they bounced across thousands of tiny bumps on the gravel walkway. The undulations in the ground caused the bike to shudder and shake. Lily kept the throttle wide open, gunning the bike as they raced down a grassy slope toward the water.

“Ninety miles an hour,” she cried, yelling into the wind. “At ninety miles an hour we'll make it three hundred and twenty feet!”

The bike skipped, its knobby tires eating up the grass and bouncing from one mound to another, tearing across the park at breakneck speed.

“You're a scientist,” she added, not taking her eyes of the shoreline rapidly approaching in the moonlight. “This is physics in action!”

Jason tightened his grip on her waist, trying not to bounce off the seat behind her as the bike flew toward the edge of the lake. He yelled out, “You're mad! Crazy!”

“I know!” she screamed as they hit the water.

The bike roared across the surface of the lake.

He understood that as long as they had forward momentum they'd avoid sinking, glancing across the pond like a skipping stone, but their momentum began to wane ever so slightly. White spray lashed out to either side of the dirt bike as they skimmed across the waves. Water splashed fifteen to twenty feet either side of them.

“Come on, you son of a bitch!” Lily yelled over the roar of the engine.

The cycle screamed as the wheels threw water out to either side of the bike. Jason was so petrified he could have laughed. This was preposterous, but Lily was right, this was physics in action! They were a skimming stone on a pond, moving so fast they were being buffeted by the water beneath them. Just like a water skier, as long as they kept their speed up they wouldn't sink. They were skipping over the water, moving so fast they were bouncing off the surface of the lake, but they were losing momentum with each passing second.

Jason could feel the bike sinking as the water slowed their forward momentum. Red and blue lights flashed on the shore, blocking the path on land, but the police car was slightly behind them.

Jason had no idea how fast they were going when they hit the water, but it seemed as though they had carved their way across the pond for three or four seconds. The far shore approached as the bike sank, but they were close enough that the water near the edge was barely knee deep.

Lily worked with the gears, revving the engine as they settled on the muddy bottom. Water sprayed out behind them as the rear wheel struggled to gain traction.

Gun shots rang out through the night.

“Come on!” Lily yelled. The rear wheel bit beneath the water, and the bike lurched forward.

Lily had the front wheel up on the bank and her legs out to either side, steadying the bike as the rear wheel fought to free itself from the pond, slipping and sliding as water shot out some thirty feet behind them in an arc of fine spray.

After what seemed like minutes, but must have only been a second or two, they were free and the bike rode up out of the pond, across the rocks and back onto the grass. The engine roared in fury. Steam rose from the engine block and exhaust pipe. Dirt sprayed behind them and Jason felt himself being catapulted back to an absurd speed as they sped off through the trees, following a gravel path winding through the park.

They whipped across a concrete path and screamed up a low grassy field, becoming airborne as they crossed the brow of the hill. Again, Jason found himself floating in mid air holding onto the seat with one hand and Lily with the other. They hit the ground with a thud and Jason figured they must have flown a good fifteen to twenty feet. Clods of grass flew from beneath the wheels of the motocross bike as they bounced on the landing. It felt as though they were losing their balance.

Jason was terrified. All he could think about was the kinetic energy they had gained and how a collision with one of the trees would break just about every bone in his body.

Lily hunched over the handle bars with her head down. As they raced through a thicket Jason quickly realized why as twigs and branches slapped at him in anger.

Lily seemed to be able to anticipate the gaps in the trees before they appeared. It was as though she had memorized the route, knowing every single bump and depression, understanding precisely how the motorcycle would respond. She shifted her weight, working with the handlebars and lining up the bike as they roared through the trees and out into an open field.

Several police cars were still in pursuit, but they had fallen a considerable way behind them. Lily's hair no longer whipped through the air regardless of their speed, and it took Jason a second to realize why: they were both dripping wet.

Lily wasn't stopping for anyone, of that Jason was sure, and that scared him, but there was nothing he could do other than hold on for dear life.

“Stop!” Jason pleaded. “You've got to stop.”

Lily ignored him.

The motorcycle shot out of the park and across Fifth Avenue, getting airborne again as they flew off the curb. They cut off a taxi and darted away as the driver honked his horn at the empty air.

Lily accelerated along East 72nd Street, flying across Madison and Park Avenue.

Jason wasn't sure how he knew, perhaps it was merely instinctive, but as Lily raced along she brought the bike hard up against the curb on the left hand side of the road and he knew she was going to swing hard to the right. Had there been any oncoming traffic they would have run headlong into them, but she didn't seem to care.

Hadn't she heard of brakes?

As absurd and comical as it seemed, he felt like pointing out to her that slowing for a corner was the norm. Racing around a corner at the same speed as you travelled in a straight line was not advisable. The law of the conservation of angular momentum meant there would be an illusion of centrifugal force causing understeer and they'd hit the building on the far corner. How his mind arrived at such a conclusion in that fraction of a second was something even he didn't fully understand, but it did. She was pushing physics too far!

The motorcycle raced along barely half a foot from the curb as Lexington Avenue raced toward them. The streets were slick, with pools of water still sitting on the surface after the rain. Oil floated on the road, giving the concrete a glossy sheen. This was suicide. Jason clenched, expecting to be hurtled from the bike as Lily cut in across the apex of the corner.

The motorcycle slid on the oily surface water.

The rear tire slipped out from beneath them.

Lily had her right foot down. She was standing on the road with one foot, or she would have been standing if she'd been stationary. Instead, her thick riding boots acted as a foil, skimming across the concrete, stabilizing them as they skidded around the corner, gliding across the slick road. She was standing, with her weight split between the bike and her right leg as they drifted through the corner. The bike lay sideways, almost parallel to the concrete. Jason found himself shifting his weight, trying to stay on the bike.

For a moment, he thought his leg was going to be pinned beneath the bike, but the exhaust took the brunt of the slide, scraping on the ground and kicking up sparks.

Lily gunned the throttle, dropping down a gear and accelerating through the corner. The motorcycle responded like a demon possessed, howling at the night as she straightened up.

Police cars poured into East 72nd almost two blocks behind them, but they'd made the corner into Lexington Avenue at speed.

Jason was shaking, his hands trembled as he struggled to hold on to the bike. Shock was setting in.

“Please,” he cried. “Please, let me off.”

Lily raced south along Lexington Avenue, coming up rapidly behind a semi-trailer trundling down the road before them at a leisurely pace. To Jason's surprise, the back of the semi opened, with its door lowering and becoming a ramp. Without either the bike or the truck stopping, Lily raced up into the back of the darkened truck, slamming on the brakes at the last minute.

Lights came on inside the trailer as the ramp raised, closing behind them, and the truck turned off Lexington.

Standing there at the rear of the truck, holding onto a set of ropes was Professor Lachlan.

“Hello Jason,” he said, smiling as Lily cut the engine on the bike. “I told you I'd be in touch.”

“Give me your hand,” a voice said from the darkness.

Lee turned, looking around his cramped prison. He could see a dark silhouette in the adjacent cell. Terrified, he scuttled to the opposite corner, cradling his injured hand, nursing himself through the pain. He couldn't speak, all that passed from his lips was a whimper.

Over the following hour, the prisoner in the next cell kept calling for him, pleading with him to come over to the bars, but Lee couldn't move. His mind was still reeling with shock.

Moonlight fought its way through the bars set into the window. Broken glass lay on the cold concrete floor, mixed in with loose straw and clumps of dried mud.

Again, a hand reached out for him through the bars of the adjacent cell. Lee pushed his back up hard against the cold, iron bars of the far cell, desperate to stay away. His reaction was instinctive, unthinking, born of the desire to protect his wounded hand. Fingers grabbed at him through the darkness.

“It’s OK. I can help,” the stranger said softly. “Let me see your hand.”

The voice was American. In the haze of agony he felt following the torture, he hadn't realized that before, but like the young boy, this prisoner was speaking English.

Lee felt his head spinning. There was too much to take in, too much to process. Time seemed to compress, blurring reality, and he struggled to comprehend where he was and what was happening to him. He wanted to run. An impulsive desire swept over him, a longing to flee from danger. The outstretched, dirty arm of the other prisoner intruded into what little sanctuary he had.

Lee's cell was no more than four feet wide, but was at least ten feet long, stretching to the back of the barracks above.

Lee pushed his back against the bars of the far cell, trying to get as far away as he could from the hand reaching out for him. Terror swept through him. In the darkness, there could have been more hands reaching for him, dozens of them grabbing him from behind. That thought shook him.

“Please,” he pleaded. “Leave me alone.”

He cowered, struggling with his throbbing right hand. Blood oozed from beneath the soaked rag pressed hard up against the raw stumps on his hand.

“What have those bastards done to you?” the voice asked.

Lee felt his heart jump. This had to be one of the Navy SEALs.

He tried to speak, but his trembling lips wouldn’t respond. His cheeks quivered. Tears rolled from his eyes.

“Let me look at your hand. I can help.”

Help. The concept was foreign to Lee, sounding as though it were spoken in strange, inhospitable language rather than English. With what he’d gone through, Lee couldn’t imagine what it meant for one human to help another. A knot formed in his throat. Help? What help could he be?

“Trust me,” the man said. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. Look at the floor. You're still bleeding. We have to stop the bleeding.”

Lee could barely make out the man’s pale features in the half light. Mud and grime covered his face. His hair was matted and tangled, wild like the trees of the windswept coast. His drab olive clothing was torn and dirty. His boots were scuffed and worn.

Lee kicked against the concrete floor, his socks sliding on the straw as he pushed himself over toward the stranger. What could the American do? How could he help? It didn’t matter. Lee needed help, any kind of help. Just to hear a kind voice filled him with a glimmer of hope.

The man moved to the front of the cell, where the moonlight fell on the bars that separated them. He was squatting. It was only then Lee realized the cell was no more than three feet in height.

“Show me your hand.”

Lee shook his head. He dared not release his grip on the bloody rag covering his hand.

“I’m a medic. I can help.”

In the dim light, Lee could make out a needle and thread held in the man's right hand.

“You're lucky. They worked over Andrews too, but they took all of his fingers, even the thumbs. I managed to get a sewing kit from one of the guards, but there was nothing I could do. He’d lost too much blood.”

“He’s ...” Lee asked, the word sticking in his throat.

In the darkness, the stranger nodded, his lips pulled taut with anguish.

Lee dragged himself up against the bars, wriggling against them with his shoulders, pushing along the ground with his feet. His left hand was still fiercely protective of his right hand and he felt he couldn't let go.

“Keep the pressure on,” the medic said, with both hands reaching through the bars. He held the needle between his teeth as he spoke, saying. “I’m going to peel the bandage back slowly and close up your wounds one by one.”

Lee nodded, watching as the Navy SEAL pried the bloody cloth back just enough to reveal the bloody stump where once his little finger had been.

“I'm sorry,” he added. “But I’m going to need to close off the severed veins. I’m so sorry, but this is going to hurt.”

The medic handed Lee a small lump of wood, saying, “Bite on this. The last thing you need is to crack a tooth.”

Lee pushed his wrist and forearm hard against the bars, trying to hold them still as the medic pulled the needle from his mouth and began stitching up the bleeding stump on the edge of his hand. Lee couldn’t look. He bit on the wood and concentrated on his breathing, trying to take steady breaths as the needle passed in and out of the skin and flesh on his hand. Each jab felt like a burning hot knife searing through his skin. He kept his eyes focused on the window, looking out beyond the bars to the trees in the distance, watching as bats flittered among the branches.

The pain came in waves and felt as though it would never end. Every muscle in his body tensed. Slowly, the medic repositioned the bloody rag, working in silence, moving the cloth back and revealing what had been Lee's ring finger and then his middle finger.

Lee tried to distract himself. As best he understood the layout of the camp, he was looking roughly west, out toward where he had flown over the Yellow Sea in his rescue helicopter. Lee had no idea how far inland he was, but in his mind he imagined hills rolling gently down to the coast. Mentally, he was trying to escape this prison and the pain surging through his hand.

The medic was rough, pulling at his hand from time to time and repositioning his arm, pushing and pinching and prodding. He had his face pressed hard up against the bars, with both forearms protruding through and anchoring Lee’s forearm as he worked on his hand.

“Done,” he finally said, relaxing his grip. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have helped more, but at least we’ve stopped the bleeding and closed off the wounds.”

Lee turned and looked at his hand for what felt like the first time. Coarse black stitches, irregular and chaotic weaved across the bloody stumps set hard against his hand. The skin had been pulled taut. A semi-clear fluid seeped from around one of the stumps. The other stumps were bloody and bruised.

“Thank you,” Lee said, his voice shaking. He held his right hand by the wrist, afraid to touch the hand itself, unsure how much of the surging pain would return.

The medic slumped away from him, exhausted by the effort. He pushed his back against the bars on the far side of his cage. Cell was too nice a term for the filth they squatted in, Lee decided. These were animal cages.

Already, his head was clearing. He was still in agony and his hand throbbed, but just that tiny sliver of compassion and help from the medic lifted his spirits and helped him focus.

“What a clusterfuck, huh?” the medic said. Above his head, boots marched by, crunching on the gravel.

“Will we ever get out of here?” Lee asked.

“Do you mean here?” the medic replied, pointing at the ground, “Or here.” He circled his hand, indicating all around them, which Lee supposed was representative of North Korea as a country.

“Either,” Lee replied. “Both.”

“I don’t think they’ll keep us here long, as in, here in these cells. These are holding cells at best. I think they’re normally used to shelter animals during winter. As for here in this camp, I suspect we’ll be taken to Pyongyang before too long. There’s nothing the US public hates more than seeing its soldiers dragged through the streets of some foreign capital. They’ll keep us alive till then, at least. It’s too good a PR opportunity to miss. From there, who knows? Maybe we’ll spend a decade as pawns on a chessboard until some kind of trade can be arranged.”

Lee was silent. He doubted the North Koreans would be so hospitable to someone from South Korea. More than likely, they’d kill him to avoid any complications. As far as anyone from the south would ever know, he died in the helicopter crash and his body was never recovered. In some ways, that might be the better option for his parents, as it would avoid putting them through a living hell for the next decade, giving them a chance to grieve once and not for years on end.

“And as for your hand,” the medic continued. “That’ll be a wound sustained in the crash, or they'll offer some other plausible scenario.”

Lee nodded.

“As far as getting out of North Korea,” the medic said, “I don’t care how we leave, so long as it’s not in a body bag.”

Lee’s head dropped. There was silence for a few moments.

“You were the pilot, right?” the medic asked.

“Yes.”

“What have they figured out?”

“Uh,” Lee began, not sure where to begin. “I don’t know. What a nightmare! This should have been a textbook run up the coast, drop you guys offshore and then back to Incheon for breakfast.”

He laughed, lost in thought as he spoke, “I was supposed to be playing golf today. Oh, to walk on a carefully manicured lawn taking my frustrations out on a small white ball. What bliss that would be!”

Lee held up his mutilated hand, saying, “Bit of a handicap, wouldn’t you say?”

The medic grinned.

“I thought they were after a young girl,” Lee continued. “Took three bloody fingers to convince them I was as stupid as I am.”

Lee turned to face the medic as the temperature outside plummeted and a chill crept into their prison.

“I hope that boy is worth it, or a lot of good men died for nothing.”

The medic was silent, nodding in response, letting Lee talk.

“He recognized me,” Lee said. “I don’t know how or why, but he did. Freaked me out!”

“Did you see anyone else on the run out there?” the medic asked. “Did anyone else make it to shore?”

“No. No one,” Lee replied. “Wait, there was someone, but they caught him. A pack of dogs ravaged him on the beach. I washed up on the rocks, just north of him. I saw him die.”

The medic nodded. He turned and crawled to the cell door and struck at the bars with a clump of wood, calling out in Korean, saying, “Open up. I’m finished here.”

Lee was confused. He didn’t understand what was going on. He scrambled over by the medic, reaching through the bars with his one good hand.

“What are you doing?” he asked quietly.

Suddenly, the realization that he had been betrayed swept over him, chilling him more than the cold of night. The Navy SEALs had all been wearing black wetsuits, not army fatigues. The medic’s eyes had the classic epicanthal fold characteristic of people throughout Asia, but his accent was from the American midwest, Lee was sure of it. And he was wearing boots! Lee had been stripped of his boots. All the clues were there, but he’d missed them.

A guard stepped down and opened the adjacent cell door. His keys rattled as he fought with the old, rusted lock.

“I don’t understand,” Lee called out, still reeling mentally from all that had transpired. He trusted this man. “Why?”

The medic turned, speaking in English as he said, “We had to know if you were telling the truth.”

The door opened and the medic crawled through, getting to his feet and dusting himself off.

“But ...”

“Oh,” the medic replied, stepping in front of Lee’s cell. He crouched in front of Lee, smiling and pointing across the courtyard as he added. “You thought that was the interrogation over there? No, that was the prelude. This was the interrogation, and you did admirably. You told me what little you knew.”

Lee sunk to his elbows.

The medic left, laughing with the guard as they walked off, their boots crunching on the gravel as they crossed the driveway.

Lee was devastated.

He looked at the weeping stumps on his right hand and sobbed, feeling worse than when he was thrown in the cell. As much as the physical pain had crippled him, he’d somehow endured that, perhaps only by holding onto the moment, waiting for the passage of time to provide relief, but the cruelty of those last few words from the medic cut deeper than the loss of his fingers. That laugh, the ignominy of knowing he’d freely given up what little information he had, and the humiliation of his trust being betrayed broke his heart. Lee felt a pain like no other eating away within his chest. His hand throbbed, his muscles ached, but it was the mental anguish that crushed his soul.

He lay there in a fetal position for the next hour, rocking gently, trying to stay warm on what little straw covered the concrete floor. Outside, the routine crunch of boots passed every fifteen minutes. A sentry was walking a set path, walking along the gravel road at regular intervals.

Shortly after the sentry passed, another set of boots crunched on the gravel, only these were more hurried. They stopped outside his cell. The abrupt silence seized his attention and he turned to see nothing more than a set of legs beyond the bars.

Moonlight lit the courtyard, highlighting the soldier's legs in silhouette. Something dropped on the ground and was kicked through the bars, landing not more than a few feet from him.

Lee didn’t move.

He lay there looking at the small box no larger than a pack of cigarettes. When he looked up, the legs were gone. He hadn’t noticed the sound of boots on the gravel, so whoever it was had approached from across the courtyard but then exited along the side of the building on the grass, before disappearing god knows where.

Slowly, cautiously, Lee picked up the cardboard packet, examining it in the soft light flooding in from outside. He didn’t recognize the label on the front, and the writing on the back was too small to make out in the faint light, but one Korean word caught his eye: painkiller.