1000 Yards (2013) Novella by Mark Dawson

Author:Mark Dawson [Dawson, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thriller
Publisher: Black Dog Publishing
Published: 2013-06-01T12:00:00+00:00

11

Su-Yung’s brother, Kun, picked them up once they were a safe distance from Puhung station. It was not the Volvo this time; that car had just been torched with the body of Peter McEwan shut inside the trunk. This car was an old Ford, exported from the South during one of the irregular détentes that occasionally thawed relations between the warring neighbours. Kun took them to a house on the edge of the city. Inside Pyongyang, housing was restricted to one-room “pigeon coops,” but there was a little more space the further out you travelled. This accommodation was simple, utilitarian, and monochromatic, built from cement block and limestone. It was a single-storey row of one-room homes, stuck together like the little boxes that make up the chambers of a harmonica. The occasional door frame was painted a jarring turquoise, but everything else was whitewashed or grey. The only real colour was the stark red lettering of the huge propaganda sign directly opposite, its boldly vivid message standing out amid all the grey: WE WILL DO AS THE PARTY TELLS US.

Kun did not get out of the car with them.

“Where is he going?” Milton asked his sister.

“The freight is expected tonight. He will make sure it arrives as it should.”

Milton watched as the Volvo drove away into the jaded neighbourhood and then followed Su-Yung inside. The entrance led directly into a small kitchen that doubled as a furnace room. A large bucket that was a quarter-full of coal sat next to the hearth. The fire it produced was used both to cook and to heat the home. A sliding door separated the kitchen from the main room where two sleeping mats had been unrolled.

“We will stay here,” she told him.

“Is this where you live?”

“No — not here. I have an apartment in the city, much smaller than this. This belongs to a friend of our cause. He is visiting his family in Chongjin tonight. We will not be disturbed. You must be hungry — would you like something to eat?”

Milton said that he would and Su-Yung disappeared into the kitchen. The electricity was off and so the room was lit by a single paraffin lamp. He looked around: the sleeping mats were made of a thin vinyl that did not promise a particularly comfortable night’s sleep, a little heat radiated upwards from an underfloor system that was, he guessed, powered by the furnace, and a few cardboard boxes held clothes and a few cheap objects. It was austere.

He sat on the floor and measured himself: the dream had passed properly now, although he still felt a little weak. That was not unusual. Each episode drained him so completely that it often took a day or two for him to recover fully, and it seemed to be getting worse. He worried that it would affect what he had to do tomorrow — he would need a surgeon’s steady hand to achieve his aim — but then he did his best to put

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