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Someone grabbed the sack from behind, grabbing a handful of hair along with it and jerked his head back, forcing him on at a faster pace. His feet struggled to respond. That was the point when Lee realized they’d taken his boots. He was still wearing his damp socks, but his boots had been removed, perhaps as a trophy, or perhaps just out of practical necessity by another soldier wanting better boots.

He was pushed into a hut. His feet caught on the step in the doorway, and he struggled not to fall to the floor as he was dragged inside.

A chair scraped across a wooden floor.

Someone untied his hands before pushing him down in the chair and strapping his forearms to the arms of the chair.

Lee tried to be objective and observe the fine nuances around him. This was an endurance trick the South Korean military had taught him during his evade and escape training. As a prisoner, he was powerless over all aspects of his confinement save one, his mind. He had to keep his mind sharp, to look to learn from the subtle nuances of his captivity. Details were important. Details spoke louder than words, and what’s more, they were a distraction, a way of removing himself from the emotionally crippling reality that surrounded him. His captors would want to break him, and the truth was, they would, given time. His only hope was to hold out as long as possible and slowly capitulate, to appear more broken than he was. This was a game of deception on both parts, only the North Koreans were working with a stacked deck.

Details. He’d keep his sanity only by focusing on details, and so he drove his mind to be clear and objective.

Previously, Lee’s hands had been bound with rope no thicker than his little finger. The rope had been too thick to break, but it wasn’t the sort of hand spun rope he’d expect to find in a fishing village, it had to be something the soldiers had carried with them. Now, though, thick leather straps bound his forearms and lower legs to the chair. His hands were free, which seemed strange. Although he was relieved to get some feeling back into his wrists, he was alarmed by the change. He understood that everything he was enduring had a purpose, nothing was accidental or haphazard. More often than not, that purpose would be brutal and cruel. Lee doubted this wooden chair held any relief.

The sack was pulled from his head.

There was no one in front of him or to either side. Whoever it was that pulled the sack from his head remained out of sight behind him. Light peered under the door to his right. From the angle, it couldn’t have been more than seven in the morning. Given the angle of the sunlight, he was facing roughly due north. This is good, he thought. Keep focusing on the minutia, work those details.

The wall in front of him was bare of all adornment other than a framed picture of the Supreme Leader Most Glorious. The wooden frame was thin, providing a flimsy border to an image no larger than a sheet of printer paper. The Glorious Leader had been photoshopped. His features were airbrushed. White teeth radiated from a hollow smile, that of a jackal gloating. His eyes looked upward and to the side, as though he were illuminated by the rising sun. Not a hair on his head was out of place. Each strand had been meticulously pulled into place in a hairstyle that looked like something from the 1950s.

Lee turned to see who was behind him. A rifle butt clipped him on the shoulder, directing his gaze back at the Leader without a word being spoken.

Lee waited. He wasn’t sure how much time had elapsed, but it felt like he sat there for hours. The day stretched on. He was hungry, tired, exhausted. If his head began to droop, a rifle butt prodded him awake again.

He noticed that a crude bandage had been wrapped around his leg. Blood soaked through from the bullet wound, but seeing how little blood there was convinced him his initial assessment was correct. Thankfully, it was barely a graze. A couple of inches to the right and a measly hundred and twenty two grams of copper-plated steel would have punched through the bulk of his thigh at a phenomenal speed, covering seven football fields in barely a second and turning his soft tissue into shredded meat. The bullet could have severed his femoral artery or broken his leg, cutting through the muscle like a hot knife through butter.

The chair had no padding and his backside felt numb.

If he moved, trying to shift his weight to gain relief, the guard behind him would strike him with his rifle.

There were dark stains on the floor, blood splatter patterns. A metal toolbox was open on a table to one side, just visible on the periphery of his vision. It could have belonged to a mechanic, but somehow he doubted that.