The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

them, someone has to take those ideas out of their heads.”
    Jervis had his sidearm out. “Pak,” he said. “Please translate that this man is about to get shot.”
    Jun Do stepped forward. The Second Mate’s eyes were cold and flashing with uncertainty, and the sailor looked to him for help. Jun Do carefully took the hat off the sailor’s head, then put a hand on the Second Mate’s shoulder. The Second Mate said, “A guy has to be stopped before he does something stupid,” then took a step back and tossed his knife into the sea.
    Rifles high, the sailors cast an eye toward Jervis. He approached Jun Do. “Obliged for helping your man stand down,” he said, and with a handshake, slipped Jun Do his officer’s card. “If you’re ever in the free world,” he said, then gave the
Junma
a last, long look. “There’s nothing here,” he added. “Let’s have a controlled withdrawal, gentlemen.”
    And then in what was almost a ballet—rifle down, retreat, shift, replace,rifle up—the eight Americans left the
Junma
so that seven rifles were pointed at the crew at all times, and yet, in a brief series of silent moments, the deck was clear and the boarding craft was away.
    Right away, the Pilot was at the helm to bring the
Junma
about, and already the fog was stealing the edges of the frigate’s gray hull. Jun Do half closed his eyes, trying to peer inside it, imagining its communications deck and the equipment there, how it could perceive anything, how it had power to apprehend everything that was uttered in the world. He looked at the card in his hand. It wasn’t a frigate at all, but an interceptor, the USS
Fortitude
, and his boots, he realized, were crawling with shrimp.

    Even though their fuel was low, the Captain ordered a heading of due west, and the crew hoped he was making for the safety of North Korean waters, rather than a shallow cove in which to scuttle the disgraced
Junma
. They were running with the waves at a good clip, and with land in sight it was strange not to have a flag clapping above. The Pilot at the helm kept looking at the two white squares on the wall where their leaders’ portraits had been.
    Jun Do, exhausted in the middle of the day, swept the shrimp he’d spilled into the gutter troughs and out into the water, returning them to whatever world had made them. But it was fake work, this sweeping, as it was fake work that the mates were about with the live well, just as the wrench the Machinist held was a prop. The Captain was circumnavigating the deck, growing angrier, judging by the way he muttered to himself, and while no one wanted to be near him when he was like this, no one wanted to take an eye off him, either.
    The Captain passed Jun Do again. The old man’s skin was red, the black of his tattoos practically shouting. “Three months,” he said. “Three months on this boat, and you can’t even pretend to be a fisherman? You’ve watched us empty a seine purse on this deck a hundred times—don’t you eat off the same plates as us and shit in the same bucket?”
    They watched the Captain walk to the bow, and when he came back, the mates stopped pretending to work, and the Pilot stepped out of the helm.
    â€œYou camp down there with your headphones on, tuning your dials and clacking all night on your typewriter. When you came aboard, theysaid you knew taekwondo, they said you could kill. I thought that when the time came you would be strong. But what kind of intelligence officer are you—you can’t even pretend to be an ignorant peasant like the rest of us.”
    â€œI’m not in intelligence,” Jun Do said. “I’m just a guy they sent to language school.”
    But the Captain wasn’t listening. “What the Second Mate did was stupid, but he took action, he was defending us, not putting us in jeopardy. But you, you froze, and now