THENEWYORKER,NOVEMBER23, 2020 55
Adrian had been in hiding for more
than a year. He said that he had not
been in contact with family or friends,
and he remained angry with the U.S.
government. “They ask for help, then
they put us in danger, they warn us of
the danger, then they put us under-
ground, then they make it very hard for
us to actually go underground,” he told
me. He felt that the Department of Jus-
tice’s “Wanted” poster had amounted
to a road map for North Korean agents
to find him.
On the phone, he elaborated for four
hours about his vision for freeing North
Korea. For a moment, it felt as if no
time had passed since I encountered
him as a student leader at Yale. “We are
going to remove this regime,” he said.
“We are going to confront it with force,
with the strength of our ideas, and with
our bodies until these people are free
and can determine their own future.”
The goal of his organization, he said,
was “abolition.” How would he achieve
that? “There is only one way,” he said.
“It’s an uprising. It’s a revolution.”
The next morning, there was a knock
on the door of Adrian’s hotel room. An
F.B.I. agent claimed that a girl had gone
missing in the hotel. He demanded the
passports of everyone in the room.
By then, Chris Ahn had returned to
L.A. When Adrian told him that the
F.B.I. wanted to talk with him, Chris
gave him his home address. About a week
later, two F.B.I. agents who dealt with
overseas affairs showed up. Chris served
them tea and cookies and told them about
what had happened in Madrid.
Adrian never got the computers back.
Soon, the Spanish court identified him
as the leader of the attack and requested
his extradition. Adrian faces up to twenty-
eight years in prison.
D
uring the weeks after our meeting
at Dallas BBQ, I often questioned
Adrian’s motives for continuing our con-
versations. I wondered if he was recruit-
ing me to be his witness. Though Adrian
focussed on the plight of North Kore-
ans rather than on the danger he faced,
the threat of extradition and North Ko-
rean assassins seemed to weigh on him.
Once, at the end of the night, I asked
him how he was feeling, and he texted
back, “Mostly just tired.” Then he added,
“From doing this for so long without
government protection or funding. It’s
hard to try to deliver the responsibilities
of a government without the privileges.”
He added that he was most worried that
“the movement would die.” He thought
that Free Joseon had achieved just three
per cent of what needed to be done.
On April 6, 2019, Adrian told me that
the F.B.I. had called him and said that
there were credible threats by North
Korea against his life and the lives of
other members, and that he should take
security measures and go underground.
He wrote in one text, “Call 911, they said.
After they are the ones who outed us.”
On April 18th, U.S. marshals raided
Adrian’s apartment, in downtown Los
Angeles, where they found only Chris
Ahn, who was visiting. Chris was ar-
rested and jailed for three months be-
fore being released on bail. He awaits a
hearing to determine whether he will
be extradited to Spain.
Later that day, at 5:43 p.m., Adrian
sent me a message that read, “Contact
my lawyer if you can’t reach me. May
be getting arrested—can’t talk now.” At
10:41, he sent another: a jumbled mes-
sage came through, reading, in part, “you
may not be able to reach me for a while.”
It was followed, at 1 a.m., by a link to
a letter written by Prince Sisowath Sirik
Matak, a Cambodian leader who col-
laborated with the U.S. in the nine-
teen-seventies. Before the Khmer Rouge
executed him, he wrote, “If I shall die
here on the spot and in my country that
I love, it is too bad because we are all
born and must die one day. I have only
committed the mistake of believing in
you, the Americans.”
Soon afterward, the Department of
Justice put Adrian on its wanted list,
posting the model of car he was last
seen driving and declaring him “armed
and dangerous.”
A
year later, in early May, a message
appeared on my phone: “Where
did we eat last?”
“Dallas BBQ,” I replied.
“Was it delicious? Your answer will
determine whether this proceeds. I’m
joking. It was terrible food.”
• •
