Narrator: Almost every country
has a specialized military tracking unit...
[ All grunt ]
...trained to capture terrorists...
[ Indistinct shouting ]
...guard borders... [ Dog barking ]
...and hunt criminals.
Stand back!
...and now they're about to face
one of their toughest targets...
...Joel lambert.
Let's go. Come on.
Narrator: A former Navy seal
and expert in escape and evasion...
All right. Come back.
...Joel's mission is to put them to the test...
They're not prepared for this. This is my turf.
Narrator: ...And evade capture for 36 hours.
Quitting is never an option. I'm gonna die before I quit.
Narrator: And now Joel faces a challenge unlike any he's faced before...
[ Shouts ] ...An urban evasion.
Freeze! Police!
He goes head-to-head with South Korea's
technologically advanced national police.
We got to go. Joel has 36 hours
to evade their extensive cctv system and make extraction.
[ Shouting in Korean ]
Narrator: The hunt is on.
-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com
captions paid for by discovery communications
today I'm going up against the knp, the Korean national police.
[ Shouting in Korean ]
They're one of the most highly trained,
technologically advanced police units in the world.
With over 5,000 closed-circuit cameras in this city alone,
it's gonna make it incredibly difficult
to move without being seen.
See you in the shadows.
I've got to assume they're gonna spot me on their cameras.
The key is to keep moving seemingly at random
so I'm always a step ahead of where they last saw me.
[ Keyboard clacking ] [ Speaks Korean ]
Narrator: Less than five minutes after hitting land,
cameras already have Joel.
The closed-circuit monitoring center,
which has cameras at major intersections
and places of interest
relay that Joel is in jeju city to the local knp command center.
[ Alarm blaring ]
[ Speaking Korean ]
Commander yen su Kim commands the jeju s.W.A.T. Unit,
helping keep crime in jeju city next to nothing.
All of their assets, including patrol boats,
helicopters, and takedown dogs,
all focus on capturing Joel.
No matter what environment you're in,
you leave a trail for people to follow
who know what they're doing.
In an urban environment,
it's credit-card transactions
and closed-circuit television cameras
and eyewitness accounts.
But those seeming liabilities, I can turn into assets
and use them to lay a deception trail.
I'm gonna move out into the open.
I'm gonna let the cameras see me.
I'm gonna interact with the locals.
I'm gonna leave a conspicuous trail
to draw all their assets here to this area,
and I'm gonna slip right out the back door.
Jeju island is a heavily populated tourist island.
It's about 60 Miles off mainland South Korea.
My plan is to evade the knp by moving from city to city
over the next 36 hours and then return to jeju harbor
to extract exactly where I came in.
The knp has no idea that my infiltration point
is also my extraction point.
Narrator: Joel carries with him a wrist light, rain gear,
map and GPS unit,
a multi-purpose tool,
$500 in cash,
and two cellphones.
After spotting Joel just minutes after disembarking at the port,
the cctv cameras tracked him for three blocks
before losing their target.
Based on Joel's last-seen location,
commander Kim orders his men
to quickly cordon off a four-block area
and slowly move in,
using their manpower to try and pin down his exact location.
[ Siren wailing ]
[ Speaking Korean ]
[ Wailing continues ]
Meanwhile, Joel is putting his deception plan into action.
Nice little, out-of-the-way hotel.
I'm gonna use that as a little bit of a base
and to start to set my deception trail.
There appears to be no cameras on this block,
but I'm gonna let myself get seen by the locals.
Once the knp gets tipped off,
they'll reroute their team here to raid my room.
By then, I'll be long gone.
Hello. [ Speaks Korean ]
Hi. A room, please.
Uh...
[ Birds chirping ]
I'm gonna get out of these sweaty clothes.
They are looking for a guy in a turtleneck and vest,
so the first order of business
is to change into something completely different.
Narrator: With his change of appearance,
Joel decides to use some technology of his own
to one-up the knp.
So, I've downloaded an app
that turns your smartphone into a motion detector.
What's gonna happen...
Is, if the knp finds my trail and enters this hotel room,
it's gonna snap a photo and e-mail it to me on this phone,
and I will know that the hunt is own.
[ Siren wailing ]
Narrator: With Joel disappearing into the shadows,
the knp continues canvassing the streets,
unaware that Joel is only one block away.
[ Dog barking ]
[ Siren wailing ]
I want the knp to think I'm still here
if they come through, asking about me.
When they find this room, that's the end of my trail,
and I'll have made distance.
[ Birds chirping ]
[ Speaks Korean ]
Give me your camera.
Camera.
[ Siren wailing ]
[ Dogs barking ]
[ Siren wailing ]
3, 2, 1...
[ Dog barks ] [ Shouts ]
Outside the door! Outside the door!
Police!
[ Indistinct shouting ]
Don't move!
Police!
[ Camera shutter clicks ]
[ Cellphone beeps ]
[Bleep] Me.
They're in the hotel room already.
We got to go. Let's move.
I've got to ditch this phone and get out of here.
[Bleep] Knp.
Timing is everything. Come on.
Narrator: Knowing that Joel can't be far,
the knp immediately canvass the surrounding three blocks.
[ Speaks Korean ]
Lambert: These guys have already laid a cordon
around the entire city before they moved in.
It's not what I expected.
Cctv.
[Bleep] Is everywhere.
[ Speaks Korean ]
Come on.
Easy, easy, easy. Right around here.
[ Dog barks ]
Come on, let's go.
[ Keyboard clacking ]
Narrator: Joel has unwittingly crossed in front of their cameras,
and the cctv center has his position,
now six blocks from the hotel.
[ Indistinct talking ]
Come on, we got to get off of these streets
and get into the back alleys
where there aren't so many cameras.
[ Keyboard clacking ]
As quickly as they found Joel, he has once again disappeared,
and the cctv center is left looking
for where he will appear next.
I haven't seen any knp around for a while,
which means [Breathes heavily]
We've probably moved out of the area that they have locked down.
This is a great opportunity to get out of this city
and on to the next one undetected.
We're gonna grab a taxi,
stay away from any cctv cameras, and also watch out.
There might still be knp patrols.
It's risky going back to the main streets, but we got to do it.
[ Keyboard clacking ]
Take us to hallim city. [ Dialing ]
[ Speaking Korean ]
Narrator: Unfortunately, the cctv center
has once again spotted Joel
and now has the license plate of the cab,
allowing their sophisticated technology
to automatically track the plate number
anytime it passes one of their cameras.
Knowing the direction Joel's cab is headed,
commander Kim immediately orders roadblocks
on all Southern and easterly roads heading out of town.
[ Speaks Korean ]
Oh [Bleep]
Keep going.
Drive, drive, drive.
[Bleep]
They've got a serious police presence up here already.
We can't move slow.
We're gonna have to be very, very quick.
Oh, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop right here.
Holy [Bleep]
They got roadblocks set up already.
Oh [Bleep]
[ Bell rings ]
Narrator: It's three hours into the hunt,
and Joel is heading to the next city,
hoping to stay one step ahead of the knp.
But, unfortunately, what Joel doesn't know
is his cab is being tracked.
And to make matters worse, he's headed straight for a roadblock.
Lambert: Oh, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop right here.
Holy [Bleep]
Thank you.
Come on, let's go.
[ Car door closes ]
We're gonna take a little detour here.
[Bleep] Oh!
[Bleep] [Bleep]
[ Sighs ]
[Bleep]
I forgot my [Bleep] backpack.
[ Whistle blows ]
They have obviously moved a lot quicker than I anticipated.
They have a huge police presence right down the hill,
and they're already blocking off traffic,
checking for my vehicle.
Let's get to that wood line, and we'll move from there.
[ Speaking Korean ]
Hey, hey, hey! [ Shouting in Korean ]
They got a roadblock up ahead of me,
and with [Breathing heavily] the police lights behind...
Uh [Breathing heavily]
I just had to bail out.
There's no way I'm gonna get caught in a cab.
I definitely don't want to be walking out
in that big open field [Sniffs]
Especially in my civilian clothes.
I do not belong here.
We're gonna stay in this tree line
and skirt it up to where the woods come in,
and [Breathes heavily] I can pop back on the road,
and we'll make our call from there.
Let's just get where we're gonna go right now.
[ Breathing heavily ]
[Bleep]
I don't have my backpack, and that [Bleep] sucks.
[ Breathing heavily ]
But it's okay 'cause we're completely shifting gears now.
Adapt and overcome. We're in the woods.
We're gonna draw them out into the woods.
This is where I have every advantage.
They're not gonna know what hit 'em.
I'm gonna create some distance. I'm gonna frustrate the knp.
And when I have enough space, I'm gonna turn around
and I'm gonna beeline back to jeju
and I'm gonna make the extract.
Hopefully, it'll leave them out here,
bumping into each other in the woods.
Let's go.
Narrator: Joel is now in the forest,
5 Miles South of jeju city.
His new plan is to draw the knp away from the city
by pushing deeper into the woods surrounding mount hallasan.
He has less than 32 hours to then double back to jeju
and make his extraction point
before the knp can physically catch him.
The s.W.A.T. Team has located where Joel exited from the cab
and secured the area while the forest tracking team deploys.
Arriving at Joel's last-known location,
the knp shifts from technology to their ground-tracking skills.
[ Speaking Korean ]
Okay. Let's go.
But Joel is making good time
and is already a mile ahead of his hunters.
Lambert: There's some sort of structure right up ahead,
but it looks completely abandoned.
All the windows are broken out.
There's a lot of grass growing on the roof.
[ Insects chirping ]
I don't see any movement.
All right, we're gonna go up and check that out,
see if there's anything I can use.
I've got to get across this open ground,
but I cannot afford to walk.
I'll be seen.
So my strategy is, I'm gonna go down to my belly,
and we're gonna crawl across.
Sorry, guys, but that's the way it's got to be.
[ Sighs ]
Now that the game has changed,
we're gonna have to adjust accordingly.
Ow!
Watch out for thorns.
Stay low. [ Breathing heavily ]
Narrator: Low crawling may keep Joel from being seen
by anyone in the area.
But it also leaves a clear trail behind him and takes time.
Spoor is any definitive sign of travel
a target has left behind --
in this case, footprints
that clearly indicate Joel is heading South.
This appears to be some sort of old apartment building
or dormitory or boarding school maybe.
One thing's for sure. It's definitely abandoned.
[ Speaking Korean ]
Narrator: Joel's tracks have led the knp to the edge of the forest...
...which points them right to the abandoned structure.
Oh, big old crickets.
Aha!
[ Sighs ]
I can carry all my stuff in this.
I don't know how long we're gonna be out here,
so we got to prepare for the worst.
If I can find some things that I'll need
to survive in the wilderness, I'm gonna be okay.
[ Speaking Korean ]
This is an improvised backpack.
Take little pieces of rock.
Put these in the corner.
Actually, an old Afghan man in jalalabad
taught me how to do this.
He saw me struggling trying to tie something
and came over and threw a little rock in
and didn't speak a lick of English,
but [Chuckles] made a friend then.
He was an old mujahideen fighter.
Fought the Soviets for many, many years.
So, what the rock has done
is it's created a bulge in the bottom of the fabric
that I can tie something around
that there's no way it'll slip off of or tear.
The search of the area.
Oh, oh, my God!
We got footprints!
Here. Here is footprints.
The possibility seal stay here is high.
[ Door creaks ]
Narrator: On the run in the forest of jeju island,
Joel has found himself in an abandoned building,
hoping to rebuild his supplies from scratch.
But the knp tracking unit
has tracked Joel to that exact location.
Go, go, go, go! [ Shouting in Korean ]
[Bleep]
[ Door creaks ]
Coming up to the crest of the hill,
keep your eyes peeled for any good climbing trees
so I can get a little elevation and get a lay of the land.
[ Breathes heavily ]
I can see mount halla out there in the distance,
which means that's due South,
and we've been heading due South. That's good.
Let's push up on this little bit of high ground,
see if I can get a better look at things.
There's a trail right here. We're gonna use that.
I've got to camouflage these clothes up.
My light clothing
stands out horribly against all this green vegetation.
I need to try to camouflage it so I can blend in.
I am way too easy to spot right now.
See some mud right here.
The best camouflage is always the natural dirt and vegetation
from where you happen to be operating in.
What I'm trying to do is not only get my colors to blend in,
but to also break up my outline.
Time to get a move on. [ Sighs ]
I'm feeling less and less comfortable.
Let's move out.
Narrator: Back at headquarters,
commander Kim receives word of Joel's direction of travel.
Believing Joel to be heading to an open area
South of the tree line,
he orders in additional forces to try and set up a trap.
And he takes to the skies
in hopes of spotting Joel from above.
Lambert: This is a huge, open area
where there's enough tall grass and stone walls
that we should be able to make it
all the way across to those trees.
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]
Hold up, hold up.
It sounds like a helicopter.
It's right over there.
[ Whirring continues ]
With the tensions between north and South Korea,
there is no air traffic rolling around here.
That helicopter was definitely knp.
Oh [Bleep]
He's right over there.
He's hovering right over in the direction we were going.
I don't know if they've seen us or not, but that's a bad sign.
Stay under the canopy.
Narrator: Joel's spoor has led the knp ground units
to the edge of the field.
Now they quickly spread out
to try and box him in before he escapes.
Lambert: Got to get myself to that wood line.
Let's go.
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]
[Bleep]
Back in.
[Bleep] There's a lot of people right there.
The helicopter's above, and right up there,
can you see [Bleep] red and blue lights?
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]
Our team line up from here to here.
We are blocking this area.
They have me completely pinned.
I've got the helicopter running racetracks,
circling right above me and directly overhead.
[ Whirring continues ]
I've never been this close to a hunter force.
I've never made a move like this before.
Move fast.
We got knp.
The vehicles are right there.
We're shielded from them by this grass.
We're gonna stay low and get right in there.
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]
With his troops spread across the 1/2-mile field,
commander Kim rappels down
to personally cover the South perimeter.
[Bleep]
It's a wall.
[ Speaking Korean ]
Narrator: With the knp closing in on all sides
and a helicopter running search patterns above,
Joel is pinned down in this open field.
Move fast.
Joel has two choices --
stay where he is and hope they move off...
Wish I could stay longer.
Narrator: ...Or try to slip through their lines and escape their dragnet.
Lambert: We got to get across this open ground.
Once I get in that wood line, I know I can lose 'em.
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]
[ Rustling ]
Narrator: Joel decides to use
the only concealment immediately available -- the stone walls.
Let's go.
I don't think [Breathes heavily] anyone saw us.
Feels good to be back under these trees.
Narrator: The knp continues
to methodically search the graveyard.
But after two hours and no new signs of Joel,
they come to a frustrating realization --
Joel is no longer here.
Realizing that Joel must have made the tree line,
they immediately begin casting for his spoor
as the helicopter moves ahead, hoping to spot him from above.
Hey, check it out. Looks like a cave down there.
[ Helicopter blades whirring in distance ]
[Bleep]
It's that [Bleep] helicopter again!
There's not enough tree cover. Get in the cave.
[ Whirring continues ]
[ Water running ]
I can feel some air moving. Cave is open.
With more sinkholes than one, I'll have an escape route.
I can squirt out if they come in.
I am not going out there with the helicopter overhead again.
It's gonna be nighttime soon anyway.
We might as well stop down here tonight.
I'm gonna look around to see if I can rig up
some kind of warning system in case the knp shows up.
I'm gonna use this garbage as an early-warning system.
I'm gonna string these cans like a bunch of Christmas lights.
The trip wire gets pulled, and they're gonna make...
[ Rattling ]
There we go.
This is a slack wire. It's not a taut trip wire.
It'll tangle their feet up if they move through here.
That's good. Let's move a little deeper.
Oh, that's the last of our light for a while.
[ Water running ]
All right, this cave is a risk
because there's only two ways that I know of in and out of it,
but at nighttime, the only way the knp will be able to track me
is with thermal imaging.
This cave is the safest place to be.
Situation always dictates your tactics.
Narrator: Less than a mile away,
the knp are back on Joel's spoor,
but even with thermal imaging,
they are unable to see the details needed
to continue to track and hunt
and decide to wait until first light to resume.
As dawn breaks,
the knp immediately resumes tracking Joel's spoor,
which leads them right to the cave.
[ Speaking Korean ]
[ Rattles ]
Lambert: I don't know if it's an animal or the knp,
but [Bleep] [Bleep] quiet.
Grab your [Bleep] let's go.
[ Water running ]
God, I hope it's got a good opening up here.
[ Rattling ]
[ Speaking Korean ]
Lambert: Wait, wait, wait. Stop, stop.
Hold on, hold on.
Narrator: Joel has reached the back exit of the cave
only to find another knp unit searching for him.
We're going up that, and we're gonna do some climbing.
This terrain is much harder to navigate than I anticipated.
[Bleep]
We've probably only gone 1 mile
in the last couple hours, and that's not gonna cut it.
We got to pick up our pace.
They'll start to find the tracking there.
And we are gonna start to push in this direction.
Narrator: Still 4 Miles from jeju city and extraction,
Joel spots an opportunity to get back to town quickly,
leaving no spoor at all.
Starting to drop back down into civilized areas.
Jeju city is right down there a couple of Miles.
That truck is gonna be my only shot at extraction.
I just hope it's going straight down to jeju.
Otherwise [Sighs] this might be over.
Sometimes you just got to go for it.
Stay on me.
Come on.
It's my chance. Come on. [ Engine turns over ]
Narrator: No matter where the truck is heading,
it will take Joel away
from the knp force immediately on his tail.
Get in, get in.
[Bleep]
Narrator: Luckily for Joel, the delivery truck heads north,
right back to jeju city.
Unsure of its final destination,
Joel readies himself for a fast exit.
Get ready to move.
I'm gonna get out of these nasty clothes,
put on this guy's shirt.
Maybe -- ooh.
We're getting out quick.
You're getting out first.
Go.
[ Man speaking indistinctly ]
Keep your eyes peeled for cameras.
Narrator: The cctv center once again spots Joel on camera.
Immediately, they notify commander Kim,
who alerts all of his forest and city units.
[ Siren wailing ]
[Bleep]
[Bleep] Knp's everywhere.
They must know I'm here.
[Bleep] Knp!
[ Siren wailing ]
[ Dog barking in distance ] I got an idea.
[ Barking continues ]
Cops are everywhere. It's time for me to make a move.
I'm going to [Breathes heavily] use the storm drains
to exit down to the water.
[ Metal clanging ]
I'll leverage this up.
And I'm gonna be able to roll it back.
Go ahead, go down.
[ Siren wailing ]
[ Wailing continues ]
[ Speaking Korean ]
Somebody's up there.
This whole island is volcanic rock.
They actually sell bottled water from this island.
It's like Fiji.
I've heard that a lot of the caves up here in the mountains
were used to store ice way back in the day before refrigeration.
We've lost a lot of temperature
being up high and going underground.
It's gonna get a lot colder.
Narrator: The knp quickly mobilizes back to jeju...
[ Speaks Korean ]
...and begins to fan out through the city.
[ Gun cocks ] [ Metal scrapes ]
Joel attempts to evade their net
by slipping down into the city's matrix of storm drains.
[ Speaking Korean ]
[ Water running ]
Somebody's up there.
[ Speaking Korean ]
The smaller tunnels join in these sumps
and head on out through the larger tunnels.
We lucked out.
It's an open tube. There's no grate.
Narrator: Joel travels through the storm-drain system unnoticed.
Unfortunately, it doesn't take him where he had hoped.
Looks like we're about a 1/2 mile east of the harbor.
We got to find a way to get there without being seen.
Hand me the camera.
My window for extract has almost closed,
and I have no guarantee
that he'll stay there the whole time either.
I've got to get to my boat.
[ Woman shouting in Korean ]
Narrator: Lacking concealment at the shoreline,
Joel moves back into the alleys to avoid the knp
and try to make his way back to the harbor.
Direction I want to travel is totally swarming with patrols.
I'm gonna try to loop around
and get around behind them and moving this direction.
All right.
Narrator: As the closed-circuit monitoring center
scours the downtown area for new signs of Joel...
...commander Kim returns to the command center.
And knowing the nearest way to extract from downtown is by boat...
[ Speaking Korean ]
...he directs his men to shut down the harbor.
Go, go, go, go. Go, go, go, go, go, go.
[ Shouting in Korean ]
Don't move.
Come on, come on, come on.
Get in, get in.
Right across nice and easy.
Get in here.
The water line is about 20 meters in front of me.
Give me that little camera.
I'm gonna make my move.
You hang out in here till I'm on extract,
and then you can move out and call production.
Narrator: With the knp patrolling the docks
and only 15 minutes left, Joel must make a move,
or his extract boat will leave without him.
[ Shouting in Korean ] Go!
[ Speaking Korean ]
[Bleep]
They're right above me.
[ Alarm blaring ]
Oh, man! Go, go, go, go!
Oh, hey! Get down, get down!
Hands up on your head!
Stop, stop!
Whoo!
[ Speaking Korean ]
Go, go, go! Let's go!
These guys were fantastic.
That was a kick in the nuts,
and in the end, technology was king.
Everything that was happening was systematically boxing me in.
Nice work, you guys.
I slipped through a couple times,
but in the end,
there was just no way to escape all the eyes in the sky.
I left some flesh and blood out there on the fields of jeju,
and it wasn't enough.
But I gave it all I had.