Somewhere Inside Read online

  “Don’t worry,” I said to Euna. “I’m sure Al is doing something to help.”

  I was referring to former Vice President Al Gore, the cofounder and chairman of our company. It was his vision that had made me want to work at Current TV nearly five years ago. He and his business partner, Joel Hyatt, formed Current as an independent network that gave its young adult viewers an actual say in political and global issues. Vice President Gore encouraged our journalism department to seek out stories that were too important to be ignored.

  I knew that being held prisoner in North Korea was one of the absolute worst situations an American journalist could be in, but I also knew that if anyone could get attention for us in Washington, it was the former vice president.

  “I wonder if your sister might be able to do anything,” Euna added. “She must have a lot of contacts.”

  “Yeah, but the problem is that she was in North Korea a couple of years ago. She came undercover with a medical team and did a really critical documentary about this place,” I explained. “I’m nervous they’re going to find out about that piece. That would not be good for me.”

  Euna and I spent that night in her cell. The guards gave me a blanket, which I placed on the concrete floor next to the wooden platform where Euna had been sleeping. The two of us lying there side by side took up the entire area of the cell.

  The next day we were taken to a small washroom where we were told to clean up and make ourselves presentable for the authorities in Pyongyang. One of the officials gave us each a towel. “Comb your hair,” he said as he handed us pink and green plastic combs with cartoon characters printed on the sides. “You can keep these as souvenirs,” he said with a self-important smile, proud of his cruel joke. Shivering, we splashed cold water from a large basin over ourselves. It was the first time we’d rinsed off since our detainment. My body was so sore from the blows dealt by the soldier on the frozen river that it was still hard to move. When the icy water hit my skin, it sent a shock through my system.

  In an adjoining room, a soldier brought in a low folding table. The same two officials who had interrogated us entered the room and invited us to be seated for lunch. We sat cross-legged on the floor as the soldier served a number of dishes including radishes, tofu, eggs, kimchi, and North Korean traditional cold noodles. They filled our glasses with warm beer.

  “What is going to happen to us?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry,” the handsome official responded. “Our chairman, Kim Jong Il, is a compassionate man. Just be frank and honest and he will forgive you.”

  The megalomaniacal Kim is reputed to be one of the most dictatorial heads of state in the world. Compassion was one word I never heard associated with his reputation.

  The official then went on to say that we’d probably be home in ten days. Ten days, I thought. That sounded like forever. After our first day, when the officer assured us we were being taken back to the bridge connecting North Korea and China, but instead we ended up in jail, I wasn’t convinced that this guy was telling the truth. But no matter what was going to happen, we were helpless. Everything seemed out of our control, and all we could do was wait and hope.

  “How do you like the food?” the other official asked. “It was prepared by our soldiers. The vegetables are local to this region. We do not use any pesticides.” Then he added, “It’s organic.”

  “It’s really good,” we responded truthfully.

  After lunch, two new escorts arrived to take us to Pyongyang. These officials laid out our belongings, along with a list describing each item. As before, they seemed to be obsessed with totaling up the money and making sure that every cent was accounted for.

  We got into an SUV with one of the escorts sitting in the backseat with us. I was by the window, with Euna in the center, and the escort by the other window. We were told to look down and close our eyes. Euna and I clasped hands the entire way. The mountainous roads were steep and rocky. I had to be careful that I didn’t knock my wounded head up against the window as we curved through the rough terrain. But it wasn’t easy, and I found myself banging up against the glass several times, causing my head to pulsate. I was able to look up occasionally and saw nothing out the window other than dry, barren fields. We rarely, if ever, passed other vehicles on the road. After about six or seven hours, it began to get dark, and we pulled into a gloomy motel. It seemed we were again being handed off to new escorts, who met us at this location. In a dark room lit by candles because there was no electricity, the new people in charge took note of our belongings, once again carefully counting the money.

  Dinner was brought to the room. One of the escorts looked on as we ate a simple meal of rice, soup, and vegetables. He seemed almost apologetic about the lack of meat, and said in Korean, “I hope you are okay with not having meat. It’s become very popular for people to eat only vegetables, because it’s healthier. These vegetables are all organic. There are no pesticides.”

  This was the second time I had heard someone express pride in the pesticide-free vegetables. I knew they were just covering up for their country’s shortages. I was embarrassed that our being Americans had caused such a reaction.

  “The food is delicious,” I responded with a gentle smile, asking Euna to translate. “We have a lot of vegetarians in the United States too.”

  After dinner, Euna and I were placed in separate rooms. We were told that under no circumstances were we to open our doors, and that someone would come for us in the morning.

  LISA

  LINDA MCFADYEN WAS ALSO assigned to our case from the State Department’s Office of Citizen Services. She was in contact with both Euna’s and our family every day. More than anything she became our friend and the shoulder my mother cried on. Mom called Linda every morning, as soon as she woke up, to find out if there were any updates. Most days Linda had nothing to report, but she was always patient and gracious with her time. I know this was hard to do because, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, Mom got crazy. She walked around the house like a zombie and she looked like one too. Her hair stuck straight up from not washing it, and she wore the same brown sweater and gray sweatpants for days on end. She had already been diagnosed as an insomniac, and her prescription sleeping aids weren’t working. A family friend gave her some enhanced baked goods that were moderately successful in helping to relax her and get her through the tear-filled days and nights. Two full weeks into our ordeal, Iain finally had to tell her to shower and change her clothes. She became so frantic that every time I left her house, I would get nothing short of ten calls from her asking if I had heard anything new. In frustration, I often exclaimed, “No!”

  Dad has always been known as the funny guy with the lewd punch lines, so for the most part, he held himself together when he was out in public. Privately at night, however, he would call me from his home in Sacramento and break down. It’s difficult to describe how hard it was for me to hear my tough-guy father crying so deeply and painfully.

  “I miss her,” he would say. “I miss my little girl.”

  Kurt Tong and Linda McFadyen started scheduling a weekly conference call with our family and Euna’s husband, Michael, on Fridays. Most of the time there was little to report. Kurt, Linda, and others who were in the room at the State Department during the calls were often on the receiving end of my foul-mouthed tirades, which erupted out of frustration.

  Former Vice President Gore became a main point of contact with the highest-level people in the State Department and the White House, and without him the morass of layers of government would have seemed impenetrable. Though I had connections within different branches of government, it was comforting to have someone with such intimate knowledge of Washington’s inner workings.

  Gore was relentless from the start. He told me of his close friendship with Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg, who was the principal deputy to the secretary of state. In other words, he was the person who had her ear. Gore said he was speaking with Steinberg regularly, and i
t was determined early on that the best way to handle the situation was to get China to help persuade the North Koreans to let the girls go. China was an ally of North Korea, and North Korea relied on it for its economic survival. Within days, Gore had reached out to a number of high-ranking Chinese officials, including the Chinese ambassador to the United States, Zhou Wenzhong. From early conversations, it seemed as if China was game to help.

  But I wasn’t content to stop there, and I started furiously looking for anyone with knowledge of North Korea. A few names came up repeatedly. One was Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico. He has had more successes than any other American in negotiating the release of Americans from North Korea. From his days as a member of Congress, Governor Richardson has been active in U.S.–North Korean affairs. In 1996 he helped rescue Evan Hunziker, a young man who was accused of, but not tried for, espionage when he swam naked from the Chinese border into North Korea. Plagued by years of mental illness, Hunziker committed suicide a month after his return to the United States. Most recently, in April 2007, Governor Richardson made his sixth trip to the Communist country to recover the remains of American servicemen killed in the Korean War. More than thirty-three thousand American troops died in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, and more than eighty-one hundred are still listed as missing.

  I had never met Governor Richardson, but I was initially hesitant to reach out to him because of the controversy that had surrounded him in the weeks after Barack Obama won the presidential election. The president-elect offered him the position of commerce secretary, but Governor Richardson abruptly withdrew his nomination when an investigation into some questionable business dealings in his home state arose. He would be exonerated in August 2009, but this was still March, and I wasn’t sure if the Obama administration would welcome the governor’s participation.

  Making things even more complicated, when Richardson dropped out of the 2008 presidential race, he endorsed Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton. According to press reports, this upset former President Bill Clinton, a longtime friend of Richardson’s, who first appointed him ambassador to the United Nations and later secretary of energy in his administration. Now Hillary Clinton was the secretary of state. It seemed that, by all accounts, Richardson had fallen out of favor with the powers that be.

  Still, a friend gave me the governor’s contact information, and he responded to my call immediately. He sounded like someone who was unsure of how he stood with the administration, but he said he would try to help us as a private citizen. I liked Governor Richardson from the start. He seemed more like a regular guy than any other politician I’d ever met.

  He asked me if the State Department had a plan for how to deal with our situation, and I told him that Beijing was being solicited for assistance. “The North Koreans hate dealing with China!” he tersely warned. “Trust me, the North Koreans will become very upset if the U.S. tries to involve China in any way.”

  He went on to say something that would be repeated to me by a number of ardent North Korea watchers: “What they [the North Koreans] want is to deal directly with the United States. North Korea is insulted by the six-party talks.”

  Begun in August 2003, the six-party talks are a negotiating process involving six nations—North Korea, the United States, South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia—to bring about a peaceful resolution to the security concerns provoked by North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

  Governor Richardson promised to call the State Department to offer his perspective on China’s involvement and what he believed North Korea wanted. He also said he would reach out to his contact in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry to see if he could get any information about our case.

  Several days after our first conversation and just over a week after Laura and Euna’s initial detainment, Richardson told me that both President Obama and Secretary Clinton had officially asked him to take on our case. They also asked him to maintain a low profile, given the sensitivities among the countries that neighbor North Korea.

  “I’m telling you that they called me because I have already been advising you,” the governor explained. “You can’t say anything to anyone. Okay?” He went on to say that he’d told the State Department to cut China out of the process.

  Governor Richardson felt confident that he could secure the girls’ release. He said he was going to begin making overtures to his North Korean contacts and let them know that he would be point man for any negotiations should they happen. He also made sure to note that he was going to tell them he was prepared to jump on a plane to Pyongyang immediately. It gave us some relief to know that Governor Richardson was working on our behalf and that he still maintained his North Korean connections. At the end of our conversation, he reminded me that he had never failed to bring people home from North Korea and he had no reason to believe that this time would be any different.

  CHAPTER THREE

  going to pyongyang

  LAURA

  THE NEXT MORNING, WHILE we were still at the motel, a doctor came to my room to check and sanitize my wound. As he removed the bandage, the room went dark. Another power outage. An official moved to the window to let in some light, and as he pulled the curtain aside, the entire rod of black fabric came crashing down and natural light flooded the room, creating a hazy glow.

  After the doctor finished his work, I was left in the room alone. I sat and peered out the window. About fifteen yards away, I could see an electric train filled with downcast commuters. Also, there appeared to be a factory off in the distance and row upon row of small, ramshackle houses.

  A few hours later we set off again on the dusty ride to Pyongyang. Euna and I clutched each other’s hands in fear and kept our eyes closed. Early on, while traveling up a mountain road, the car’s engine began to fail. We pulled off to the side, and when the escorts left the car, I lifted my head and looked around. People were walking and riding their bikes, but it was eerily quiet. People didn’t seem to be talking to one another, just going along their way. Finally, we were on the road again.

  By nightfall, we entered a small town and pulled up to a dilapidated gray building. The streets were dark and empty. The dim glow of candlelight shone through some windows of what looked to be a three-story apartment complex or dormitory; the others were pitch-black. There was no electricity. We were led into what looked like a family’s kitchen and living room. The only decorations on the walls were portraits of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong Il, and his father, the previous leader of North Korea since its founding in 1948, Kim Il Sung. It was hard to tell if this was a home that doubled as a restaurant or if our escorts had arranged for the woman of the house to prepare a meal for us. The room was sparse, with just a low folding table in the center. We were each given a plastic box of rice, an egg, and kimchi, along with a bowl of seafood soup. A skinny kitten roamed around the room and rubbed up against our feet, waiting for scraps.

  As I picked out the bones from the fish in the soup, the officials commented on how well I was able to use chopsticks with my left hand. Every time I’ve gone to Asia, people have commented about my being left-handed. In some Asian cultures, left-handedness is not desirable, and many parents force their children to use their right hand instead. Tonight I wondered if being left-handed made me seem even more peculiar to the authorities. Here I was—a left-handed, black-and-blue-bruised American of Chinese ancestry who could barely speak Chinese. I felt relieved that I at least had Euna to help communicate.

  After the meal, we drove for roughly twelve more hours before pulling up to what appeared to be a government building. Another SUV was waiting in the parking lot, and it was clear that meant they were separating Euna and me. Suddenly my mind was swirling with questions. Would we ever see each other again? Were they going to let one of us go?

  At this point Euna and I were allowed to use the restroom in the government office before beginning the next leg of the journey. We squeezed each other tightly and told each other to be strong. Without E
una, I was alone and lost.

  I was taken to the new car, squashed between three officials in the backseat, and then we were off. I tried to make myself seem as small as possible and not take up too much room. Periodically a man in the front seat shone a flashlight onto my face to make sure I was looking down and my eyes were closed. I shuddered in fear each time the sharp rays penetrated my eyelids.

  The distance from the border region where we were apprehended to the capital city is roughly three hundred and fifty miles. Our journey, over winding, rocky mountain paths and narrow dirt roads, ended up taking around twenty-four hours over the course of two days.

  All of a sudden I could feel that we were driving on paved roads for the first time since we began the trip. My eyes had been shut for the past five hours. Finally I could sense the vehicle go up a steep driveway and heard a guard dog bark ferociously.

  When I stepped out of the car and opened my eyes, I saw that it was early morning and could feel the raw wintry air. It didn’t get any warmer when I entered the two-story building. A large chandelier hung in the entryway illuminating a giant mural of Chairman Kim Jong Il walking through a park on a brisk autumn day. Kim’s austere image and that of his father are constants throughout the country, but especially in the capital.

  As I looked at his iconic image on the wall, I wondered if Kim knew we had been taken captive in his country. I had known before our apprehension that there was a lot of speculation about Kim’s deteriorating health after the stroke he suffered in 2008. Now it was unclear if Kim was the one calling the shots or if his ruling generals would dictate our fate. I didn’t know which would be worse.

  I was led into a corner room with portraits of the father and son hanging high on a wall. A stern-looking official with the face of an aging bulldog rose from behind a desk and started looking me over from head to toe. I bowed toward him politely. Two young women who appeared to be in their midtwenties followed his lead and leaped up from a couch in the corner to peer at me with ice-cold stares. The man led me into an adjoining bedroom and began speaking to another official who gruffly translated his orders to me in Chinese. I listened intently, hoping my basic knowledge of Mandarin would be enough.