A Piece of Peace on Earth

"I'm so glad to finally meet you."

She smiled.

"Not as happy as I was when that Tiffany woman said you were a policeman. I'm sorry you got shot because she said that, but I was hoping you'd get me out of that mess."

"Yeah. I recognized her and was afraid something was going to happen. I arrested her for prostitution about ten years ago. I was hoping she wouldn't remember me, but she did. I don't know why she was there unless somehow she got herself hooked up with the Mexican cartel. I figured she'd still be back in Philly if she was even still alive. I don't know how to thank you for what you did back there. I was hurt too much to use my right hand very well and I couldn't have shot her before she shot me."

Kim frowned.

"She was at that house when they brought us there and she stayed there all the time. She made us call her "Madam Tiffany", and she liked to hit us. She was a very mean woman, and when I saw she was going to shoot you, I picked up the closest thing I could find and hit her so she wouldn't. I don't remember doing it but they say I hit her two more times after that and that I killed her. Is that true?"

"That's what the agent who talked to me said and I believe it because I saw you do it. He also told me you saved my life by stopping me from bleeding so much. How did you learn to do that?"

Kim smiled again.

"Let's eat first and then I'll tell you."

We were finishing our drinks when Kim said there was a nice couch and some chairs in the living room and we'd be more comfortable there. When we walked into the room, she took a chair and motioned me to the couch.

"You might want to lie down, so you take the couch. Now, you want to know about me, so I'll tell you.

"I never knew my mother or my father. That's because my mother was a prostitute, or at least that's what they told me at the orphanage in Suwon. You probably don't know this, but in Korea, it is very important that you have pure Korean blood. In school we learned that is because for so many years Korea was invaded first by Japan and then by China, over and over again, and the women they raped had mixed-blood children. You aren't Korean if you don't have pure Korean blood. You're an outcast.

"I was just one of many children at the orphanage. Our mothers were either prostitutes around the military bases or other women who had gotten pregnant by a soldier. Most of our mothers were the same as we were. They had a Korean mother and a white or black father. Our mothers couldn't afford to take care of us, so they put us in an orphanage. The people who ran the orphanage were nice to us and made sure we went to school. They also made sure we learned English so we could get jobs on the American military bases. That was more important than I thought.

"When I got out of school, no Korean business would hire me because I'm not of pure blood, and there were no openings at the Army base. I kept looking, though, and finally found a Korean man who had gone to the US to become a doctor and then came back to Korea to treat people there. He needed someone to help him, and he didn't care that I wasn't pure.

"At first, I just took down the patient's complaints and took their temperature, but one day a man came in who had cut himself really badly with a sickle. The doctor asked me if I was afraid of blood and I told him no. He had me help him while he cleaned the man's cut and then stitched it together.

"When we got done, he said I'd done a good job and should study to be a nurse. I said that was almost impossible because I had a white father. He said it was too bad we weren't in the US, because there, it wouldn't matter. He said he'd teach me himself if I was willing to learn.

"He did teach me a lot over the next two years. I learned how to deliver babies and how to stitch up cuts and how to stop bleeding and how to bandage wounds. I was happy for the first time I could remember and I wanted to learn more.

"One day I was in his office when a man came in with a cut finger. The doctor looked at the cut and told me to take care of it by myself because it wasn't that bad and he needed to see another patient. I cleaned the man's finger like I'd been taught. It wasn't a very bad cut so I decided it didn't need stitches. I put a bandage on his finger and told him if it got pus in it to come back.

"He looked at me and said I was as good a doctor as the doctor and that I was prettier. I laughed and said I'd never be that good, but I would like to learn how to be a nurse. He said if I went to the US, I could do that, and he could help me.

"I was twenty-one at the time, but I was still thinking like I was sixteen. It sounded so good and he made it sound so easy. He said people in the US wanted people from all countries to come there and I'd be welcome. I'd go to the US, go to nursing school, and then be a nurse in a hospital.

"The man bought me a plane ticket to Honduras. When I landed there, there were people who met me and they knew why I was there. They said they'd get me to the US and pay for the nursing school. I rode for a week in the back of a truck with a bunch of other girls until we got to a little house in Mexico. It was then I realized what I'd gotten myself into.

"The men in the house took each of us into a bedroom and...it wasn't my first time. A boy in the orphanage and I had done it, but it was for most of the girls. They'd come out crying so I'd try to make them feel better. That happened for three days. After that, they drove us to the border and we had to walk through the desert. When we got to the other side, more men put us in the back of a truck and took us to that house, and every night, the same thing happened. Sometimes Tiffany would watch and laugh at us. Once, she even made me touch her...down there...while the man was on top of me.

"You couldn't run away. Tiffany was always there and she carried a gun and a whip. If you did anything she didn't like, she'd whip you. I treated the cuts from her whip on two girls who tried. Tiffany wouldn't let me have anything except rags, but I boiled the rags in water before I used them so the cuts wouldn't get infected.

"I never tried to escape, because by then, I realized I was trapped and running would only result in getting brought back and then whipped. I was happy when you came to the house. I didn't think things would get better if you bought me, but at least I'd be out of that house and away from Tiffany. When she said you were a policeman, I knew that was my only chance to get out of everything. There weren't any other policemen around that I could see, so if something happened to you, they'd still have me.

"You shot the three men, but Tiffany was still there. I knew she was going to kill you and I'd be back in the same situation, just with different men. That's why I hit her with the statue, so you could get me out of there."

Kim looked down at her lap.

"I'm ashamed that I did it for me more than for you."

I smiled.

"I don't remember trying to shoot Tiffany, but things were happening pretty fast. I don't care why you hit her with the statue. I'm just glad you did."

"Well, it was selfish, the reason I did it."

I shook my head.

"Nah, it was just survival. No need to feel bad about trying to stay alive. So, what are they going to do with you now? Since you're here in this safe house, I figure you're headed to witness protection just like I am."

Kim nodded.

"That's what they told me. They're going to send me to Chicago. There's a big Korean community there and they say it'll be easy to get lost in the crowd. I don't look like I'm pure Korean, so they probably won't like me there either. I don't know if I'll ever feel safe by myself again."

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The Federal attorneys didn't need either me or Kim for the grand jury hearings. The video and audio recordings, and the statements of the girls were enough to get indictments on the guys they'd caught so far. Kim and I stayed in that safe house for three months before the first trial. If Kim hadn't been there, I'd have gone nuts. There was nothing to do all day long. We couldn't go outside, we couldn't look out a window, and we couldn't make any phone calls. It was like being in prison, except the people in prison have a lot more freedom.

The only break in the monotony was when Kim changed my bandages every day. Susan had started to do that, but Kim told her she'd do it because Susan had enough to do already. I have to admit Kim was a lot more gentle than the nurses in the hospital had been. They were very efficient, but also pretty painful. They'd just rip off the tape and take some of my chest hair with it, then pull off the bandage, clean anything that needed cleaning, and then slap on a new bandage and tape. Kim always put the tape back where the hair had already been ripped out, and the touch of her fingers on my shoulder did things to me the nurses in the hospital never did.

We talked, or course, but after a couple of weeks, you know pretty much everything there is to know about the person you've been talking with. We watched a little TV, but what really helped the time pass was the deck of cards Susan brought us one day.

Kim wanted to play rummy. Apparently the doctor she'd worked with in Korea taught her the game and they'd played rummy when there weren't any patients. I hadn't played rummy for a couple of years, but I still remembered how, so we did.

Rummy is a card game of both luck and strategy and Kim was an expert at that strategy. We played hundreds of games and she beat me as often as I beat her. She'd just grin at me, make her discard and then lay down the rest of the cards she'd been holding until she got the one that finished out the last group.

I didn't mind her winning so much. I liked seeing her smile when she did. I found I also liked being with her. Kim wasn't like many of the women I'd known. She didn't have any of the hang-ups about the way she looked. She didn't just get out of bed in the morning, put on something, and then come down for breakfast, but she didn't spend an hour on her face and hair either. I don't think she used makeup at all, but her long, black hair was always combed straight and shined like it had just been washed.

When she got to the safe house, all she had on was a simple dress, a bra, and some panties. Susan had given her some of her own clothes to wear, but they didn't fit very well. Susan went shopping for us both the day after I got there and brought back six pairs of jeans and some tops for Kim, and jeans and shirts for me. The first day Kim pulled on a pair of jeans and a top and then walked down the stairs was the first day I realized she had a very small and slender, but very sensuous body. She wasn't big anywhere. I doubt she weighed even a hundred pounds, but every one of those pounds was feminine and inviting.

After that, I started looking at Kim a little differently, well after that and our card games. Before I thought she was just another woman who'd gotten herself into trouble by doing something dumb. Kim wasn't dumb at all. She was very intelligent. She also had a sense of humor, and most importantly, she had a sense of humor about herself. I've always thought a person who can't laugh at themselves is a person you want to stay away from. They're too concerned with themselves to really enjoy life and they probably won't let you enjoy yours.

We didn't always play cards. There were a lot of magazines of all sorts in the house. Kim read the women's magazines and once in a while would ask me about something she didn't understand. I'd explain as best I could, though I shied away from the sex stuff. I told her to go ask Susan or Kimberly about that.

I read hunting and fishing magazines and the do it yourself magazines we had. By the time the trial started, I knew how to hunt about any type of animal, catch any fish, build my own house, and raise all my veggies in a home garden.

Once the trial started and we had to spend the days in court, they moved us around in case somebody figured out where we were staying.

They'd have four or five identical panel vans in the parking garage under the courthouse, and nobody came into that parking garage unless one of the agents guarding each entrance and exit let them. Once we'd testified, they'd put us in one of the vans, and then all the vans would leave at the same time. As soon as we hit the street, each van would take a different direction. Only one would have me and Kim inside and every day, that van took a different route.

It took another month for those trials to get over. I'm happy to say all those arrested were convicted of sex trafficking and went to prison. Kim and I were the main reason that happened. The other girls couldn't really tell much about what happened to them other than they were seduced into coming to the US and abused when they got here. It was also difficult to get the juries to understand exactly what the girls were saying because they didn't speak English.

When the prosecutor or defense attorney asked a question, the court appointed interpreter would repeat the question in the girl's native language. She'd answer in that language, and the interpreter would then translate it to English. It got really tedious, and the defense attorneys kept pointing out there was no way to know if the interpreter was asking the same questions and interpreting the answers correctly. Even when the judge let them bring in their own interpreters they still objected.

Kim did a great job. She explained everything in really good English, from how she got to Honduras to how she got to the house outside of Houston and everything that happened up to the time the FBI and Houston PD got there. I could see the jury nodding as she spoke.

The defense attorney tried to trip her up a few times, but she was too smart for him. At one of the trials, he smiled at her and asked if she really just didn't enjoy having sex and that was why she came to the US. I could tell Kim was pissed, but she stayed calm and asked him if he'd been raped every other day for two weeks, would he still have the nerve to ask her if she liked it. The judge instructed the jury to disregard that remark, but I saw how the jury reacted. They weren't going to forget.

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The night of the last day of the last trial, Kim and I had dinner and then sat down on the couch in the living room of the house where we were staying for that night. Kim looked at me and smiled, but it looked like a fake smile to me.

"I guess this is the last time we'll see each other."

"Yeah. I'm headed for Montana tomorrow afternoon. I don't know where yet, only that it's in Montana."

Kim sighed.

"Susan told me she'll be going to Chicago with me, but once they get me into a house or apartment, that's the last time I'll see her. I'll have to find a job on my own and try to blend in."

"Same here. I don't know what I'll do yet. I've been thinking, but I've never done anything except be a cop. It's pretty hard to stop being a cop. You get used to looking at everything and everybody to figure out if there's a risk. A lot of people would be uncomfortable working around somebody who acts like that."

Kim sighed.

"I wish I could just go somewhere where nobody lives. It would be so much easier that way - no job to find, no people to worry about, nothing to do except live like I want to live."

I chuckled.

"I thought you wanted to be a nurse. You can't do that if there's nobody around to take care of."

Kim shook her head.

"I can't be a nurse. I know that now. To be a nurse you have to go to school and I can't go to school because I don't have the money. Chicago probably has all the nurses they need anyway."

I smiled.

"Nah, I doubt it. Everybody needs nurses. I'm sure Chicago does too."

Kim looked at me.

"Do you think they'd send me to Montana instead of Chicago?"

"Well, I don't know. I suppose you could ask and see what they say. What would you do in Montana that you couldn't do in Chicago?"

I saw Kim's eyes fill with tears.

"I could be with you. I'd feel safe with you. I won't feel safe in Chicago. I've read about Chicago and there are so many people there I wouldn't be able to tell if someone was watching me or following me around, and I'd worry about that all the time."

It was strange that she'd brought that up, because I'd been thinking the same thing. I knew a lot about the cartels, probably as much as most agents in the FBI and DEA. They always settled their grudges and they weren't dumb. If they didn't have somebody who knew something, they'd find someone who did and either pay them enough or beat the hell out them so they'd talk. Most people have a price. It's just a matter of finding out how high that price is. I was confident most of the men and women who ran the witness protection program were dedicated to their jobs, but it would only take one who needed some extra cash to give the cartel an address.

Several articles I'd read in the magazines we had were about people who move out of society and live on their own. Usually they were doing that because they thought the world economy was going to collapse or there'd be another civil war or some other stupid shit. They'd become self-sufficient and didn't need anything from anybody. When I'd read those articles, I figured most of them had some really loose screws, but when Kim said what she did, I realized they weren't just self-sufficient. They were basically untraceable. They didn't use credit cards, didn't have any type of phone, weren't connected to the electrical grid, and because they had no income, didn't pay taxes. There was no paper trail to them of any sort except the deed on the property where they lived.

I got up and went to find Jack, the senior agent who'd been with us since the start.

He came back into the living room three hours later.

"John, are you sure this is what you want to do?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Does Miss Kim agree?"

"I didn't ask her yet. I wanted to know if it was possible before I did that."

He turned to Kim.

"John has asked if we would change his location to somewhere in Montana near the mountains. He wants at least a hundred acres with a house in the middle of it. He also asked if you could come with him."

Kim looked at me and I saw a tear trickle down her cheek.

"You'd take me with you?"

"Yeah, if that's what you want, but it won't be easy on you."

I explained to her we'd have to raise our own food and hunt and fish. I said we wouldn't be around anybody, but that would make it easier to know if somebody had found us and easier to defend ourselves if they did. She listened, and then smiled.

"At the orphanage, we raised all our own food. One of the military bases close to Suwon gave us money, but that went for clothes and things for school. We had a big garden and raised chickens and pigs. It won't be any harder than that."

She looked up at Jack then.

"If I can go with John, that's what I want to do."

We spent another week in a safe house in Billings, but at the end of that week, Kim and I took another black panel van to a building on the edge of town. Kim and I changed from the van to an older four-wheel drive pickup. I drove the pickup and followed the van out towards the mountains. Two hours later we pulled up in front of what had once been a hunting lodge. It had a small barn in the back and a hundred feet from the cabin was a stream almost wide enough to be called a river.

Bill Walker, the agent assigned to us by the witness protection program, got out of the van and grinned.

"This far enough out for you?"

"Yeah, it looks great."

Bill smiled.

"It's not as rustic as it looks. The lodge has solar panels on the roof and a battery bank in a little shed behind the house, so you'll have some electricity. There's a radio in living area, but it doesn't pick up much way out here. The short wave in the bedroom is your best bet if you want to find out what's going on in the world, not that it'll make any difference to you.