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“He’s just a child,” Lee insisted, trying to keep his voice low. His mind brought back the eerie words the boy had spoken after his torture, speaking of his death. How could the child possibly know anything about Lee, let alone how he would die?

Perhaps he should leave him.

Perhaps he should run from such a dire prophecy?

Perhaps by running he could avert disaster?

There was something about the boy’s face, some innocence that demanded justice.

“He is under guard,” the soldier said, turning and walking on in the rain. “General Gil-Su arrived earlier this evening. Tomorrow, he will take the boy to Pyongyang to see the Great Leader. There is nothing to be done.”

“No,” Lee repeated, keeping his voice low but speaking with determination. He continued on beside the guard, his boots squelching on the sodden grass. “We cannot let that happen.”

“Why would you rescue him?” the soldier asked.

“Why would you rescue me?” Lee asked in reply. “For the same reason I rescued Sun-Hee. Because it is the right thing to do.”

“But if we are caught.”

Lee held up the bloody stumps on his right hand, saying, “Too many people have died, too many people have suffered for all this to be in vain. I’m not sure I buy the whole star-child thing, but that child is in the eye of the hurricane. I can’t leave him to the storm. If they did this to me, what will they do to him?”

“He is in there,” Sun-Hee’s brother said, pointing at a nearby building.

A dim electrical light hung over the door, barely lighting the wooden steps leading to the entrance.

They walked cautiously up to the administration block. Lee wasn’t sure what Sun-Hee’s brother was thinking, but for all his bravado, it was clear he dreaded being caught.

Lee struggled to keep his nerve. At any second, guards could burst around the corner, yelling and chasing him as they had in the village. He imagined spotlights blinding him as dogs were unleashed. Doubt swept across his mind. Each step seemed to be a step too far, a step that could never be undone or retraced in a slightly different manner to reach an alternate end. He was committed, regardless, and he knew it. If they caught him trying to escape, they’d kill him, but he knew he had to rescue the boy.

The fingers of his left hand trembled, betraying the fear welling up inside him.

Lee peered through a window beside the door to the administration block.

A light flickered from somewhere at the end of the hallway, casting a dirty yellow hue across the rough wooden floor. The step beneath him creaked as he moved to get a better look. There was a guard on a chair at the end of the hallway, his head propped up in the corner, asleep. He was slouching, slumping to the point that he had almost slipped off the chair. A rifle leaned against the wall next to him.

“What’s the layout?” Lee asked. He was trying to be brave, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his nerves.

Sun-Hee’s brother pointed to an open door just inside the hallway, saying, “That’s the reception area for the camp commander. His office is through there. The next two doors are storage and filing. The guard is outside the secretary pool. That is where they are keeping the boy, on a cot in the corner.”

Lee tested the door knob with his left hand. The handle turned.

“No,” the brother said, resting his hand on Lee’s shoulder.

Lee opened the door anyway. His eyes were glued on the sleeping guard in the distance. He pulled the door ajar, just wide enough to slip through and crept inside. The hinges on the door groaned briefly as he closed the door behind him, all the while keeping his eyes locked on the guard.

A floorboard creaked softly beneath his shifting weight. The guard stirred at the sound but didn’t open his eyes. He rocked slightly to one side as he fought to get comfortable and drifted back to sleep.

Lee cursed himself.

If he’d thought about his predicament logically, he would have backed out of the door and fled with Sun-Hee’s brother while he still could. If that guard woke, his bid for freedom was over. Even if he had a gun, he couldn’t use it. The sound of gunfire would have brought soldiers running from all over the camp. Lee wasn’t sure what he could do, but he felt compelled to do something. Two decades of rescuing drowning people from raging seas had given him steely determination in spite of the odds. He’d seen plenty of people survive when they should have died, and that same reverence for life drove him on to rescue the star-child. He’d risked his life before. This night was no different.

His fingers tightened around the rusted iron bar in the pocket of his coat.

Lee crept into the reception area, slipping quietly into the shadows.

Scattered clouds drifted by outside, allowing moonlight to brighten the room.