Second life of GI who deserted to North Korea

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Jenkins rounds the corner in his Japanese subcompact and points to a spot along the road. "There," he says, "right there."

Near his wife's childhood home, where the family now lives, is the place where Hitomi Sago and her mother were abducted as they returned home from the market. Decades later, the mother's whereabouts remain unknown.

Nearly 700 miles east of Pyongyang, the site serves as a grim reminder of a captive past that will not leave Jenkins be. He often dreams about being chased by North Korean agents. More often, he fantasizes about kidnapping one of the sons of current North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, as a way to have some sort of revenge for a life lost.

Jenkins still shivers and looks over his shoulder, unconvinced that North Korean agents won't come for him.

"I figure I know more about North Korea than any foreigner in the world outside of Pyongyang," he says. "I don't care if they kill me. I just don't want them to take me back."

Each day, Jenkins reports to the souvenir shop with a homemade lunch of rice and dumplings his wife prepares before she heads off to work at a nearby nursing home. He has gained weight since arriving here at just over 100 pounds.

Sometimes he tires of the fishbowl life, the reporters who follow his every move. They trailed him to Tokyo when he went to take his driver's license exam and followed him to North Carolina, erecting their cameras in the front yard when he returned home to bury his 94-year-old mother.

And although he is thankful to the Japanese, he often feels like screaming if he has to pose for one more tourist snapshot. He now declines to autograph the boxes of cookies thrust at him.

With a smirk, he wheels out the life-size replica he calls "the dummy" that his bosses produce for tourists when he's not there.

"The tourists have seen his face on TV so often, they consider him a movie star," said Keigo Homma, a volunteer who helps Jenkins with his Japanese. "He's about their size, not like other Americans who tower over them. So they feel comfortable with Jenkins."

Despite the annoyances, Jenkins revels in his life without barbed wire, in being free to kick-start his motorcycle and go out for a spin. Like the day the local mayor let him race down the tiny island airport's runway. "Got up to 150 miles an hour," he says with a smile. "Man, that's fast."