Running Out of the Darkness

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At the time, Kim says, she had no thoughts of going beyond China. While she was in the labor camp, her mother had begun attending a church for ethnic Koreans. "I started to pray for her all the time there," her mother says. In February 2004, after Chinese police raided the church, Kim's mother and sister fled to Seoul, but Kim didn't follow. "I was frightened by what had happened to me the first time," she says. "I didn't want to try to get out and risk getting caught." For the next year, Kim lived a quiet life with her new husband, a Korean-Chinese translator. But the fear of arrest gnawed at her. Her Chinese was not fluent, and in 2005 the crackdown on refugees intensified. Because of her forced abortion, she could not have children, which caused irreparable strains in her marriage. In October 2005, her mother met Kim Sang Hun--a prominent underground-railroad activist in Seoul who took the case to Peters. The two of them started working on the logistics of Kim Myong Suk's flight to freedom.

A successful operation needs money, a meticulous plan and reliable people. The operatives working in China are critical. Peters and Kim Sang Hun prefer to depend on fellow Christian activists but will work with trustworthy brokers. There's no magic formula for knowing how many people or how much money is needed. Nor can the route be specified in advance, although right now there are two hot roads out of China--one through Mongolia, another through Laos.

On Nov. 15, 2005, Kim Myong Suk told her mother she was ready to go. Peters had raised $1,500 for the operation, and he and Kim Sang Hun had recruited four people to help. Kim Myong Suk's husband did not intend to leave China but accompanied her to the Laotian border. That was critical; it meant there was no need for safe houses, since the authorities would see just an ordinary couple traveling through the country. On Dec. 9, they boarded a train headed for the city of Kunming in southern China. Several days later, with the help of two fixers hired by Peters, Kim reached China's southern border with Laos.

She thanked her husband, said goodbye and climbed into a taxi that headed for the heavily guarded border, deep in the mountainous terrain where Laos, China and Burma meet. Kim and her guide got out at a remote spot and started to walk. For two hours they trekked through the mountains until they met a car, which took them to Vientiane, where Hite, the activist once arrested by the Chinese, was waiting. On Dec. 24, Kim called her mother in Seoul, and Hite called Kim Sang Hun and Peters. A month later, Peters and Kim Sang Hun went to Thailand to meet the latest survivor of the journey along the underground railroad. When Kim Myong Suk saw the two men waiting for her, she grasped Kim Sang Hun's hand and stared at the ground speechless, overcome with gratitude and pain.