"Paths of Courage" by Mike Woodhams

[esercito sconfitto]

The group entered a long corridor outside the plant room, busy with people milling between maintenance areas lining both sides. Striding confidently down the grimy corridor bathed in yellow light, they entered into a similar corridor. Here they saw, through glazed screens, small, dingy laboratories occupied by white-coated medical personnel. They were all hunched over desks, test tubes and microscopes. Grace could see from the equipment being used that they were chemical tests only. Martial music played in the background and pictures of Kim Jong Il and his son, Kim Jong Un, hung side by side on almost every wall. Grace’s first priority now was to locate the medical personnel changing areas and dress appropriately allowing her to move more freely around the laboratories.

She found what she was looking for near the end of the corridor. Grace entered the female changing area whilst the men lingered outside. A number of women occupied the big room between the lines of lockers, making it extremely difficult for Grace to break into one without attracting attention. She mingled, walking up and down the lines, awaiting an opportunity. Unfortunately, it never came; there was always someone nearby. None of the women she encountered wore any form of ID. Mouth dry, Grace felt her fear increase as she reluctantly left to join the men back in the corridor.

“We’ll have to wait,” she said quietly to Ryder.

“We don’t have the time,” he shot back, voice edgy. “We take out one your size and be done with it.” Grace understood. With no game plan and feeling somewhat trapped herself in this labyrinth of corridors, he had the right to be on edge. She eyed the flow of women passing by and reluctantly agreed.

A little later they found an unlocked, empty store off the main corridor. Ryder entered, the others remained outside. Grace nervously waited for a suitable victim. Thank God the discomfort caused by the snake bite had gone away.

She did not have long to wait. A woman, about her size and age, dressed in white medical gown, white cap and white mask dangling around her neck, came out of a lab further down and approached. With some apprehension, using the authority of her uniform, Grace pulled the woman to one side and told her she was required to enter the store to determine if the contents of a medical kit were correct. Slightly bewildered, the woman reluctantly agreed and was ushered into the store.

Minutes later, Ryder stepped out from the store and Grace entered. The woman lay dead on the floor with a broken neck. Guilt grabbed Grace, but it was quickly pushed aside as she removed the woman’s gown, cap and mask, put them on and hurried out, steeling herself for what was to come.

Boldly, she strode down to the end of the corridor in a turmoil of uncertainty, followed at a discrete distance by the other three. Her priority now: to locate the hot zones. It weighed heavily on her knowing basically that she was on her own from now on and would need to keep calm. She focused on getting out of this place alive.

The corridor led into a huge cavernous area where prisoners from the camp were being unloaded from trucks and herded into several wire cages at the rear. This was where the men were separated from the women. The cages each held ten to fifteen prisoners, had dirty mattresses strewn about the floor and buckets for bodily functions lining the back walls. This was obviously the holding area before the poor unfortunates were taken to the labs. She hung around unobtrusively with the group of medical personnel supervising the unloading, hoping to establish where the labs were located.