his breathing and heart rate steadier, Tang ducked below the windows and crept toward the infirmary’s front door. Jin-Sang had described the layout to him as best he could. His sister, Hana, was isolated, but she wasn’t alone. There were other patients inside the building. If any of them became suspicious of him and raised the alarm, he was cooked. It was Les Johnson, the SEAL he had pointed his gun at, who had made a simple but brilliant suggestion: “Mask up.”
It made perfect sense. It was an infirmary. Hana’s condition sounded like TB. The doctor and assistant probably wore surgical masks around her, as well as around any other patients with similar conditions. The problem, though, was that the doctor would be dressed in military garb and the assistant in a prison uniform. Neither of them would be dressed in the clothes of a North Korean farmer.
Tang, though, had no choice and hoped that his mask and an authoritative bearing would be enough to bluff his way through and cow any prisoner into believing he had a right to be there.
He was also hoping that the presence of the Chinese, along with their North Korean advisors, had been disruptive and odd enough to condition prisoners to accept the out-of-the-ordinary. It was a long shot, and he knew it, but it was the only shot they had if he was going to make contact with Hana.
Placing the mask over his face, Billy Tang crept the final distance to the door, took one more deep breath, and prepared to slip inside.
CHAPTER 44
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The old wooden door was unlocked, just as Jin-Sang had said. As Tang opened it, the hinges groaned in protest. It was a terrible sound; like someone moaning in pain. He debated whether to close it, but knew that an open door would attract attention. Lifting up on the handle, he helped alleviate the pressure on the hinges and the door closed more quietly than it had opened.
Even through his surgical mask, the inside of the infirmary smelled terrible. The only thing sterile about the place appeared to be its décor. The bare, concrete walls were unadorned and the floors were stained. With what, Tang could only imagine, but he had a pretty good idea.
Based on the streaks that started at the door and led down the hall toward what must have been an examination room, there had probably been countless prisoners beaten, tortured, and then dragged bleeding into this building. The DPRK treated farm animals better than it did its prisoners. The smell, mixed with thoughts of the horrors this building had seen, turned his stomach.
The first door Tang passed was labeled Doctor and was locked up tight. The next was marked with the Korean characters for Storage and was also locked. The third room was an empty exam room. Considering that the guards, the prison officials, and their families used the infirmary, it was stunning how substandard and filthy the place was.
By smell alone, he knew that he was nearing the ward. Above the smell, he could hear coughing, lots of it. Tang was glad to be wearing a mask.
The North Korean idea of “isolating” Hana from the other patients had been to separate her bed with three sheets hung from the ceiling. The sheer incompetence of even the doctors in the DPRK never ceased to amaze him.
Stepping behind the sheets, he saw her. The sixteen-year-old looked more dead than alive. Her arms were covered with lesions, her breathing was labored, and her chest was covered with the bloody sputum that she had been coughing up. Despite all this, there was an angelic quality to her expression that broke his heart. The idea that a five-year-old could be locked up in a labor camp for what her father had done was beyond inhuman.
Coming closer, Tang looked for the scar beneath her right eye. It was there, Jin-Sang explained, that an angry foreman had once struck her with a pipe for not working fast enough.
Having confirmed it was Hana, Tang removed a small digital camera from his bag and turned it on. The circumstances weren’t even close to optimal for filming a video, but he would have to make do.
Hana’s eyes were half-open. Billy Tang knelt next to her bed so he could whisper in her ear. Taking her hand, he asked in Korean if she could hear him. Slowly, she turned her head to look at him.