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that they had not requested assistance, then that would be the end of them both.

Chapter Eleven
    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 Ford 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, 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 the concern aside; worrying about it now would serve no purpose, save rob him of the sleep he knew he needed.
    Su-Yung returned with a bowl of broth with a long-handled spoon and a steaming teacup that gave off a rich, acrid tang. “ Sul lang tang ,” she announced, handing Milton the bowl.
    “What’s that?”
    “Beef soup. It is a traditional Korean dish. The tea is nokcha . Green tea. For years we have imported it from the Chinese, but my countrymen have recently been successful in cultivating the tea plants themselves. A better achievement than all of the Dear Leader’s work with nuclear bombs, if you ask me.”
    They drank the tea quietly, watching the darkness of the night through the open window, the ghostly shape of the city’s few skyscrapers forming a dim, irregular skyline in the distance. Milton found that he was developing a fondness for the quietly dignified girl. She, too, was taking a big risk—a much bigger risk, indeed, since she would not be leaving the country once the objective was achieved. Milton knew