Joy Brigade (13 page)

The gym was silent. This wasn’t a competition; it was slaughter.

Finally, somehow, the round ended. Hero Kang rushed
to the center of the ring and pulled me to the sidelines. He slapped my face.

“Can you hear me?” he asked, staring directly into my eyes.

“I can hear you,” I replied.

“He didn’t take you out in the first round,” Kang told me, “out of respect for General Yi. On the other hand, after one round of entertainment, it would be disrespectful to let this slaughter go on. As soon as you step back out there with him, he will carry you for maybe thirty seconds, then he will drop you.”

“Yes,” I said, nodding.

Hero Kang slapped me. Hard. Faces from the audience gawked. He leaned closer to me, embracing me, hissing in my ear. “You must win!”

“Win?”

“Yes, win. If you don’t, the Manchurian Battalion will be doomed.” He studied me, not liking what he saw. “If you don’t win,” he continued, “you will never see Doctor Yong In-ja again. You will never see your son, the one who carries your name, the one who carries the blood of your family. You must
win
.”

The words seemed odd, alien to me somehow: first “son,” then “win.” Hero Kang twisted my head until I was gazing at Senior Captain Rhee Mi-sook and the fixers who were waiting, guarding the exits. “Look,” he ordered.

“They’ll capture us,” I said dully.

“Yes.”

“And we’ll be tortured,” I said.

“That too. But if you win, we will be under the
protection of Commissar Oh and the fixers won’t be able to touch us. You must
win
.”

I gazed at the twisted flesh of his perspiring face. “How?” I asked.

“How what?”

“How do I win?”

“Forget Taekwondo,” he said. “Forget everything. Just think of getting out of here. Think of not being tortured. Think of life.”

I remembered feeling like I felt now, once, long ago. There were bad boys in my neighborhood, bigger and meaner. They would waylay smaller kids and steal coins we might have squirreled away in our blue jeans. They’d twist our arms and pinch us until we cried. I hated them; I was willing to do anything, pay any price, to avenge myself and the other kids. And then I’d discovered the Los Angeles sheriff’s athletic program at the Main Street Gym. A few good deputies took the time to teach us scrawny Mexican kids how to box. How to throw a left jab, how to counter with a right, how to hold our punches until there was an opening and then connect with our arms straight, our fists tight.

“You must
fight!
” Hero Kang hissed again. “Forget Taekwondo. Forget everything. Fight for your life.”

The whistle sounded. I found myself back in the center of the ring. A kick came out of nowhere. And then I was flying.

Hero Kang had been fifteen years old when he joined the Manchurian Battalion. They gave him a rifle, cloth shoes, a
down-filled jacket, and along with a group of new recruits, he was ordered south through the swirling Korean winter to fight the Yankee imperialists. Doc Yong told me the full story, both the official myth and the truth as best she knew it.

Hero Kang immediately fell under the guidance of Bandit Lee. His real name was Lee Ryong-un and he had led the Manchurian Battalion since the early days when they raided the Japanese Imperial Army and stole food, fuel, and medical supplies to distribute to the starving Korean communities in the hinterlands of the Manchurian wilderness. Years later, during the Korean War, Bandit Lee led a battalion of hardened foot soldiers—soldiers who faced the U.S. Army near the 38th parallel and suffered the brunt of vicious air and artillery assaults.

“The way we fight,” Bandit Lee told the man who would become Hero Kang, “is we dig in like moles during the day and at night we creep close to the Americans. So close that they can’t use their big guns or their airpower. Then we fight them with bayonets if we can, bullets if we have to.”

Many American soldiers had expected to encounter push-button warfare in Korea. Instead they’d ended up fighting in muddy trenches in freezing weather, face to face with a desperate enemy, using basically the same weapons that had been used during the Stone Age.

On Young Kang’s first nighttime raid, Bandit Lee was seriously injured. While they were creeping toward enemy lines, napalm was dropped on their advancing lines. Most of the soldiers were able to burrow into shell holes in the battlefield, but Bandit Lee was standing up, directing his men to take cover, when the first splash of napalm hit. He
was burned so severely his men thought he was dead. After the assault, the Americans left their fortified positions and charged down the hill. A horrible battle ensued and it was only later, while licking their wounds, that Young Kang and the men of the Manchurian Battalion realized their leader had been captured by the Americans.

The future Hero Kang was so upset by the capture of his mentor that under the cover of heavy rainfall he slipped away from his own lines and found the Americans who were interrogating—and torturing—Bandit Lee. Young Kang attacked, killing five Americans, rescued Bandit Lee, and carried him to safety. That was the myth. And it was so impressive that it eventually earned Hero Kang North Korea’s highest military honor, Hero of the Republic, and he was allowed to meet with and shake the hand of the Great Leader himself.

According to Doc Yong, what actually happened was quite different. It was Young Kang who was captured. Behind their sandbagged positions, the Americans tortured him. His howls of pain and pleas for mercy could be heard by his comrades hunkering down at the bottom of the muddy hill. Bandit Lee organized a rescue operation, just himself and a few trusted veterans. While the rain poured down, they attacked the Americans, killing all five and rescuing Young Kang. It was on the way downhill that the planes attacked. The wave of sizzling napalm was like a tsunami from hell. All of the soldiers in the patrol were incinerated, except for Bandit Lee, who was badly burned. Young Kang was spared because Bandit Lee tossed the almost unconscious youngster into a muddy pit and fell on top of him.

The reason for the lie was that Bandit Lee was covered from head to toe with burns and later his legs had to be amputated. In his horribly mutilated condition, he could no longer lead the Manchurian Battalion. Not officially anyway. Koreans, and especially North Koreans, are superstitious about the wounded and the handicapped and they hide them away. They don’t allow them to be seen in public, and they certainly wouldn’t allow a hideously deformed man to be the leader of one of the most important battalions facing the Americans. Young Kang was chosen as Bandit Lee’s successor because he was husky and strong and had a marvelous speaking voice, and because he could carry Bandit Lee on his back. While Young Kang—Hero Kang—was given official leadership during the Korean War, Bandit Lee was the true commander, and he still maintained the position more than twenty years later.

“And this double life,” I asked, “being considered a hero but not really being one, does it bother him?”

Doc Yong nodded slowly. “Yes. He owes everything to Bandit Lee and the Manchurian Battalion. That is why he helps us. That is why he is risking his life.”

“Is that the only reason?” I asked.

“And also,” she said, “because he faces a great shame.” She paused. I waited. “In North Korea, even a hero, or the family of a hero, is not immune from the avarice of the Great Leader and the legions of party cadres who serve him. Hero Kang’s daughter was systematically brainwashed like all the other young women who grow up in this country.”

“Brainwashed?”

“Taught to believe the Joy Brigade is a place of honor when it is a place of shame.”

When my senses returned, the referee was guiding me back toward the center of the floor. Hero Kang looked worried. The soldiers on either side of the gym were standing in the bleachers, pointing and laughing. All their lives, the government and the schools taught them to hate foreigners—especially Americans and the Japanese—but for entertainment purposes, any foreigner would do. I spotted Senior Captain Rhee, her arms still crossed and a look of disgust on her face. The experts of the First Corps all stood in a line, smirking and shaking their heads.

Fifth-degree black-belt Pak glanced up into the stands at Commissar Oh. The Commissar languidly removed his cigarette and nodded. Pak looked back at me, smiling. It was the cold smile of a predator. I turned to Hero Kang. His fists were clenched, his face puffed in a spasm of anguish. Pak was about to take me out. Kang knew it, Pak knew it, everyone in the stadium knew it. Senior Captain Rhee motioned for her security men to move in closer. Hero Kang and I would be arrested and tortured.

The referee waved us together. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. It had nothing to do with the rules of this tournament, nothing to do with the martial spirit of Taekwondo, but everything to do with survival. If I could survive one kick, I would be able to take it from there.

Almost casually, Pak stepped forward, his back straight, not even crouching in the fighting position most often assumed by practitioners of the martial arts. He
didn’t need to. His kicks came out so fast he was confident I couldn’t stop them. I was confident of the same thing. But stopping them wasn’t my goal. I hopped forward. Pak launched a circular front kick that swiped my forehead. It didn’t hurt me, but I pretended to stagger. The crowd was hooting. Pak followed. I backed up but stood my ground. Pak launched a vicious round kick to my midsection, which I partially blocked with my forearms, but still it forced me to bend forward. That’s when I lunged. He countered with two more roundhouses to my head and my shoulders and for a second I thought I’d black out. Somehow I fought away the darkness until I could see his eyes staring straight into mine. He wasn’t worried. As soon as we clinched, the referee—according to the rules of Taekwondo and the rules of propriety—would break us apart. We would pause for a second, the referee would wave us together, and then Pak could resume his assault.

As the referee stepped forward to break us from our clinch, I remembered the sheriff’s deputies at the Main Street Gym. I remembered them coaching me to keep my left jab straight. “Don’t get fancy,” they’d tell me. “Just reach out straight, like you’re reaching for an apple.” While Pak was standing there—dropping his guard, backing up, complying with the referee’s orders—I let him have it with a left jab. His head snapped back. My right followed.

Before fifth-level black-belt Pak hit the ground, he was out cold.

The referee screamed in outrage, shoving his arms in front of me. The men of the First Corps howled in anger and rushed toward me. Hero Kang shoved me from behind and I lost my footing, falling under a sea of
rushing bodies. There were punches and kicks from every direction and I heard Hero Kang cursing above me. Out of the pile, a foot swung toward my head and suddenly everything went blank.

When I came to, I was lying facedown on stone.

I expected to hear the wet splash of the sponge and feel the cool dribble of soap on my skin, but instead all I felt was cold. A terrible cold. I tried to raise my head. A spasm of pain ran down my back. I controlled it and lifted my head as high as I could. The room was dark, no steam, no masseuse hovering nearby. There was only the sound of clanging metal far away and occasional distant voices. Flickering rays of light filtered through a high aperture. I studied the stone beneath me. It wasn’t stone at all. It was brick. I lifted myself to my feet, but before I could stand fully my head hit the roof. I shuffled toward the light and peered through a small barred window that I only now realized was part of a thick wooden door. The brick hallways outside were long and silent and empty.

Prison.

I took inventory of myself. I was only wearing jockey shorts and a soiled T-shirt, and suddenly I realized I was shivering, my teeth chattering from the cold. The cell was only a few steps across in either direction, and the only appurtenances were a metal bucket and a wood-slat bench made of ancient lumber, splintered and filthy.

Still, it was better than the floor.

I sat on the bench, crouched forward, wondering what had gone wrong with Hero Kang’s plans. I remembered
the rage in people’s eyes, their desire to kill me. No wonder they’d thrown me in here. Maybe they’d done me a favor. It was better than being torn limb from limb by an angry mob. Sort of.

I thought of the torture in my future. Would they tie my wrists behind my back and hang me from the rafters, popping my shoulders out of joint? Would they turn me upside down and pour water up my nose? Or would they just practice their Taekwondo on me for hours at a time?

How long would I be able to withstand it?

Not long, I decided.

Whether or not my cover story would stand up to scrutiny depended on how well it had been prepared by the Manchurian Battalion. I tried to think of a fallback cover story, in case the Romanian one fell apart. Some way to convince the North Korean interrogators that I wasn’t an American spy.

Offhand, I couldn’t think of one.

6