If Jin-Sang was telling the truth, that was good news. But there was no way to verify his story. The kid was a little hustler, a survivor. He would say and do anything to get what he wanted—what he needed to live another day. That made all his statements suspect.
Even so, they had to find out what he knew.
“Why are the Chinese here?” Tang asked him.
“For farming.”
“What about farming?”
“My sister is sick,” said the boy. “She needs food and medicine.”
“Focus on my question, Jin-Sang. Why are the Chinese here?”
Tears began in the boy’s eyes again. “Please,” he said. “My sister. She needs food, medicine.”
Though Fordyce couldn’t understand the words the boy was saying, emotion was universal. “What’s he upset about?” he asked from behind his camera.
“There’s a labor camp in the valley. He and his sister are prisoners. He says she’s sick and that she needs food and medicine.”
“If he’s a prisoner in a labor camp, what’s he doing out here?”
“Apparently, he’s a good little trapper. He’s bought off some of the guards by bringing back rabbits for them. They look the other way when he sneaks out.”
“What’s wrong with his sister?” asked Tucker. “What are her symptoms?”
Tang asked Jin-Sang and translated as the boy spoke. “Cough. Fever and night sweats. She has lost a lot of weight.”
“Is she coughing anything up?”
Tang asked the boy and then looked at Tucker and nodded. “He says sometimes there’s blood.”
Even before the response, Tucker had already begun digging into his medical kit. He removed a surgical mask and handed it to Tang. “Explain to Ginseng that he needs to put this on and keep it on.”
“Why?”
“Because it sounds like his sister has TB.”
“Tuberculosis?” Tang replied as he explained to Jin-Sang what he was doing and then helped place the mask on the boy.
Tucker nodded. “Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis is a shape-shifter and it’s surging in North Korea. We’re not taking any chances.”
Jin-Sang said something and Tang translated. “He wants to know if we have medicine that will help his sister.”
Tucker was about to answer when Fordyce interrupted him. “You tell him that before we talk about helping his sister, we need to know what’s going on down there.”
Tang relayed Fordyce’s directive and waited for the little boy to respond. When he did, Tang said, “The Chinese are here for farming.”
Fordyce set his camera down. “We got that point. But first of all, how does he even know what China is? They only teach these kids enough reading to understand how to operate sweatshop equipment. They never learn more than basic addition and subtraction.”
“He says his father had worked for the North Korean government. He had been a trade negotiator. Not only spoke Korean, but English and Chinese, too. He fell out of favor and was accused of taking bribes. That’s what led to the family’s imprisonment. His father taught him where China was and that if he could ever escape, that’s where he and his sister should go.”
“So why didn’t he? If he’s able to get out of the camp, why hasn’t he run?”
Tang waited for the boy to explain and then said, “Because the parents made the children promise to watch over each other. He wants to run, but his sister has been too afraid. Rather than leave without her, he’s been staying to protect her.”
The men respected the young boy’s sense of honor.
“So his father taught him about China,” Fordyce clarified. “What has he learned about the Chinese since they’ve been here?”
“He says they’ve been bringing through waves of farmers, thousands of them. They’re also being given military training and have bullets that hurt real bad.”
“What kind of bullets?”
Tang asked the boy to explain. When he was done, Tang replied, “It sounds like rubber ones.”
“And they’ve been using them on the prisoners? What the hell for?”
“The Chinese have established multiple farms across the valley. Every couple of days, the guards select a group of prisoners and tell them that if they can successfully raid any of them, they will be given extra food. The Chinese are being trained how to defend their farms. That’s why they’re using the rubber bullets.”
Tang paused for a moment before saying, “The Chinese are being told to envision the prisoners as starving Americans coming to steal from them.”
Fordyce was repulsed by what he heard.
“He says,” Tang continued, “that the Chinese farmers have even killed a few prisoners. Now, before each exercise, they are reminded not to attempt headshots, especially on the children.