The Patriot Threat (27 page)

She liked Malone’s moxie. Straight up. Direct. No bullshit. Daniels had said he had a low tolerance level.

But the two policemen did not seem concerned.

They ended the call.

*   *   *

Malone slipped the phone back into his pocket and retook the lifeboat’s helm, powering up the engines. What the policeman said worked two ways. He had no way of knowing who he’d been talking to, either.

But he couldn’t deal with that right now.

Fog still engulfed them, the wind and rain continuing, its spray as solid as buckshot. If Luke and Isabella had found trouble, that meant Kim was long gone with the documents. They needed to get gone, too. The lifeboat was stolen property and, by now, the ferry was in port and the police involved. He had no time for any of that. Stephanie could handle the locals later, that was her job. His was to find Kim and those documents. He’d made a miscalculation on the ferry in allowing the North Korean to walk away. Of course, at the time he’d had no idea of their importance or how brazen Kim could be. His only chance now was Howell, who sat motionless on one of the benches.

He kept his eyes out the front windshield, trying to pick a way through the murk, the blunt nose of the lifeboat bucking the sea. “I’m going to need your help.”

“He killed her. Just tossed her out and let her drown.”

No time existed for remorse. “Pay him back.” He added a compelling urgency to his voice that he hoped Howell caught.

“Damn right. I’ll do it. But I got a stake here, too. My freedom was in that satchel.”

“You may not need it.”

“What do you mean?”

THIRTY-NINE

Hana stood in the classroom, silent, as required. From day one all of them had been taught to stand straight, bow to Teacher, and never speak unless asked a direct question. The school building was similar to where she and her mother lived, a plain concrete square with filthy vinyl covering its windows. Teacher stood at a podium with a blackboard behind him. He wore a uniform and carried a pistol holstered on his hip. She did not know his name, but that was unimportant. Obedience was all that mattered. The forty students stood separately, boys on one side, girls the other. She knew only a few of their names. Camp rules discouraged close friendship and alliances were forbidden, as both bred collision.

“You have to wash away the sins of your mothers and fathers,” Teacher said to them. “So work hard.”

Most of every day was spent reminding them of their uselessness.

School had begun at 8:00
A
.
M
.
Absences were never allowed. Just last week, she’d helped a sick Sun Hi across the camp. The girl was perhaps Hana’s only friend, though she was unsure of that word’s exact definition. If it meant that she enjoyed being with her, then a friend she was. When Teacher provided them time to remove lice from their hair, she and Sun Hi would clean each other. Between classes, when Teacher allowed them to play “rock, paper, scissors,” they always gathered together. They’d both been born in the camp. Names were allowed for Insiders simply as a means of identification. But identities, personalities, character—those were forbidden. Still, she was drawn to Sun Hi, if for no other reason than just to be with someone her age. Someone not her mother. Simple interaction between two prisoners was not discouraged, as it helped root out rule breaking.

School always began with
chonghwa
. Harmony. Time when Teacher criticized them for all that they had done wrong the day before. More reminders of their lack of worth. Only this time the sins were not those of their parents, but their own.

She was nine and had slowly learned to read and write. Each year they were issued a single notebook. Pencils were fashioned from a sharpened piece of charred wood. Writing exercises were confined to explaining how she’d failed to work hard. Reading involved a mastery of camp rules. Today Teacher seemed especially angry. His criticisms had been harsh, but no one uttered a sound. If asked anything, the proper response was the same for them all.
I shall do better today.

“Be alert,” Teacher yelled at the class.

She knew what was coming. A surprise search.

One by one they approached and Teacher patted them down, then he rifled through their pockets. No one possessed anything that violated the rules except Sun Hi, who carried five rotten kernels of corn.

“You bitch. You stole food?” Teacher said. “We cut the hands off thieves.”

Sun Hi stood trembling, saying nothing, as no question had been asked.

Teacher displayed the blackened kernels in his open palm. “Where did these come from?”

A question. Which must be answered.

“The … field.”

“You dare steal? You worthless excuse of a person. You’re nothing. Yet you think you can steal?”

His words came fast, his voice loud. His right hand had twice reached for the gun at his hip, but he had not, as yet, drawn the weapon. Shooting prisoners was a daily occurrence, though it had never happened inside her school.

“Look at this worthless nothing,” Teacher said to the class. “Spit on her.”

They all did as he ordered, including herself.

“Kneel,” Teacher demanded of Sun Hi.

Her friend dropped to the floor.

Each of them wore the same black pants, shirt, and shoes issued a year ago. Now mere tattered rags covering little skin.

“Repeat for me subsection three of camp rule three,” Teacher said to Sun Hi.

“Anyone who steals … or conceals … any foodstuffs will be … shot immediately.”

“And what have you done?” Teacher asked.

“I have … broken that … rule.”

She heard the fear in Sun Hi’s voice.

None of the students moved, each stood straight and still.

Concealing food was one of the camp’s worst crimes. They were taught that from the time they could speak along with the fact that anyone who violated that rule deserved harsh punishment. The will to steal was just another fault they’d inherited from the treasonous blood of their parents. Worthlessness only bred more worthlessness.

Teacher reached for his wooden pointer, the one he used during lessons. His right arm whipped through the air, the thin line of wood crashing into the side of Sun Hi’s head.

The girl collapsed to the floor.

“Get up,” Teacher yelled.

Sun Hi slowly righted herself, dazed from the blow. Another came. Then another. Not a sound slipped from her mouth, the face twisted with fear and failure. She started to collapse again, but Teacher held her upright by the hair and continued the attack, every blow aimed to the head.

Lumps emerged on the scalp.

Blood began to leak from her nose.

Sun Hi’s shoulder tilted, an elbow dug into her side, the frail body listed sideways, then her eyes went glassy and she pitched forward. But Teacher kept pummeling, gritting his teeth in a weird grin, his eyes an even mixture of hate and contempt. Finally, he released his grip and allowed the girl’s body to topple to the floor.

He stared down at his student, breathing hard. Then he stepped to the open door and tossed the five kernels of rotten corn out into the wind. He cleared his throat of disgust and said to the class, “No one is to touch those.”

Sun Hi lay bleeding, not moving, the face swelled in sorrow.

There she stayed for the rest of the day, while they learned their lessons.

Disappointment always made Hana think of Sun Hi. Her friend had been dead fourteen years. And that was what she had been. A friend. Of that she was now certain.

No one in the class ever spoke of Sun Hi again. It was as if she’d never existed. No one questioned the punishment, either. All realized that it had been necessary. Sadness and regret were two emotions she’d learned only
after
leaving the camp. Behind the fences survival was all that mattered. No prisoner ever judged another for anything. Nor did they ever judge the guards or Teacher.

But that day changed her.

Though she was only nine, she resolved that no one would strike her with a wooden pointer until her head burst open. And never would she spit on a friend again. If those refusals meant she died, then that was what would happen. Suicide, of course, always remained an option. Many followed that path, especially Outsiders. But any surviving relatives were severely punished for that defiance, which made that route all the more tempting. The thought of her mother being disciplined pleased her. But killing yourself inside the camp was a problem. Some tossed themselves down the mine shafts. Others chose poison. The quickest way was to rush the fences and wait for the guards to shoot. But the worse that could happen was for an attempt to fail. Then only more hard labor, hunger, beatings, and torture came.

On the day Sun Hi died Hana had known nothing of what lay beyond the camp. But she decided then to find out. How? She did not know. But she would find a way. Her mother’s crimes were not hers. Sun Hi stole five kernels of corn because she was starving. Teacher was wrong. The guards were wrong. That day, while only nine, she stopped being a child.

“You are so smart,”
Sun Hi would tell her.

“And you so obedient.”

“That’s what my name means. Obedience and joy. My mother gave it to me.”

“Do you like your mother?”
she asked.

“Of course. It is the sins of my father that placed us here.”

She’d never forgotten Sun Hi, with her perpetual runny nose and wet-mouthed grin. Hana’s mother had named her at birth Hyun Ok. Which meant “clever.” But she hated anything and everything associated with her mother so she never spoke that name. The guards and Teacher called her bitch, as they did every other female. She liked the label Sun Hi had given her when they were allowed time to play in the forest or swim in the river, before five kernels of corn changed both of their lives.

Hana Sung.

It meant “first victory” and she’d never quite understood why Sun Hi thought of her that way. But she liked the name, so she kept it, never speaking it around her mother.

Twice in her life she’d made a choice. The day her friend died and the day her father found her. Both had generated irrevocable decisions. And both were special because
she
made them.

The time was approaching for a third.

Which she, too, would decide.

FORTY

W
ASHINGTON
, DC

Stephanie kept reading
The Patriot Threat,
the text actually quite interesting, the reasoning thorough, its conjecture clearly delineated from facts. Howell dealt with the rebuttals against the 16th Amendment as skillfully as any lawyer. His arguments seemed a careful merger of legend, history, speculation, and hypothesis. Enough that she wanted to know more. Especially about Andrew Mellon, who seemed at the heart of it all. She recalled the sections read earlier at the courthouse about Mellon and Philander Knox. They were close friends, so much that Knox in 1920 convinced Warren Harding to appoint Mellon as his secretary of Treasury. She found one of the portions that had been flagged by the Treasury secretary and the words that had intrigued both her and Harriett Engle.

Some say that, before his death, Knox passed a great secret on to Mellon.

The next few pages expanded on this bold assertion, sections that had not been flagged by Joe Levy for them to read.

Philander Knox was more a pawn than a rook or a bishop. His ability to move across the political chessboard seemed limited to only one space at a time. His success came from doing what others wanted. He personally wanted to be president, but was never able to make that a reality. Several questions remain unanswered about him.

First, assuming there may have been problems with the ratification process in 1913, why would Knox ignore those concerns and declare the 16th Amendment “in effect”? Knox was a Republican. His boss, Taft, was a Republican president, and the amendment itself had been proposed by Taft and approved by a Republican Congress. Remember, the entire idea in 1909 had been for the amendment to fail, either in Congress or during the ratification process. But Congress overwhelmingly approved the language and the states, one by one, started to ratify.

By 1913 the country had swung decisively toward the left. Progressivism became popular, and supporting the rich elite would be political suicide. All three candidates for president in 1912, Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson, supported ratification. The Democrat Wilson won that election, handing the Republicans a decisive defeat. By February 1913, when Knox acted on the ratification (as one of his final chores as Secretary of State), the last thing the nation wanted to hear was that there might be problems. That type of “eleventh hour” revelation might even have been construed as a Republican dirty trick. Even if Knox had declared the amendment invalid, the Democrats who were, by 1913, in power would have just re-proposed and re-submitted it for ratification, taking all of the credit. So nothing politically productive would have come to the Republicans by challenging ratification.

Biographers note that Knox was proud of being the center of all that attention. Legally, he was the sole decider of the 16th Amendment’s future and he chose to let it stand. But some semblance of conscience may have shown through. Instead of declaring the amendment “ratified,” as had been done with all previous and subsequent constitutional amendments, he chose the curious language of certifying it merely “in effect.” Was that a message? A hint at the truth? We’ll never know. All we do know is that during his short campaign to secure the 1920 Republican presidential nomination, Knox several times commented that he “saved the Party back in ’13.” Nowhere, though, is that assertion ever explained.