The Golden Catch

by Roger Weston

  “When will you come to Seoul? You would like my country very much.”

  “Actually, I’m traveling to Korea soon. Should be there in about a week.”

  “This is good. You must come to my house.”

  That night Ingrid made pizza for everyone. Frank told her that he’d decided to extend his trip and go to Korea for a week. He wanted to visit an old friend.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  November 25th

  The plane touched down at Kimpo airport in Seoul, South Korea. The flight was full, and Frank felt cramped up. Weariness clung to him after six days of nearly sleepless travel, having spent hours replaying his horrible past in his mind.

  The airport was packed with thousands of people. They were lined up and shuffling everywhere, people filing this way and that. He felt a chill crawl up his spine as he watched the customs agent look over his false papers, so he thought about Melody on their wedding day. They stood in front of the young pastor who read their vows in the back office of the church. Melody wore a yellow dress, Frank an olive suit. Their short time together was a happy time. Her smile floated in his mind, her lost warmth now returning to him, but the sadness too. The customs agents let him through.

  Outside he caught a cab. “Lotte Hotel. Downtown,” he told the driver.

  Seoul was home to eleven million people. Over the next hour, the cab barely moved. The standstill traffic was ten lanes deep. Frank decided he could cover more ground riding a horse on his ranch.

  The cab driver rasped at him in Korean. They’d arrived at the hotel. Snow was starting to fall. A bellboy offered to take his luggage, but Frank decided to carry his own burden.

  The lobby was luxurious and filled with rhythmic waves of a foreign tongue. Frank checked in, found his room, and went to bed before opening his duffle bag.

  Morning came after five hours of uneasy sleep. He showered in the modern, western-style bathroom. Before leaving his room, he spent fifteen minutes at the window, where he gazed down through the still-falling snow, watching the shadows of the alleyway below. The darkness of his past returned to him.

  The hotel lobby was as busy as the night before. The time was past nine. Being in Korea again, a heightened alertness came back to him. As he strolled through the lobby, he observed his surroundings. A glow of expectation that he would soon secure a claim to the treasure helped him to mask his tension. On the way out, he picked up a city map at the front desk.

  The sky was a dense, dark-gray layer of clouds. Snow blew down in thick flurries. Most melted on the ground, though white patches accumulated in places. The Han’gul alphabet filled vertical signs overhanging the streets. Cars crowded the asphalt and lined up endlessly at traffic lights amidst the cement and steel skyscrapers.

  Frank noticed the details of parked vehicles, faces, cabs and drivers. Women were slim with short, bobbed hair. Men in business attire were hardly distinguishable from one another. All walked in moving crowds. Occasionally, he would spot a person who broke the pattern.

  Two blocks from the hotel, he spotted a sign that said “Coffee” in English. He went in and inhaled the sweet odor. He found a seat by the window and sat down, his wooden chair scraping the floor beneath him. Sipping the hot liquid, he looked over his notes.

  There were several sources of English information in Seoul. While researching for this trip, he’d picked a hotel that was centrally located by these sources. Noticing a pay phone in the back corner, he went over and jotted down the number.

  Back outside, walking to the USIS (United States Information Services), a fetid odor rose along the sidewalk. He held his breath and walked quickly past a sewer grate. The USIS kept only a few books on Korea.

  Back out on the street, he followed a long stairway into the dimly-lit subway system. People shuffled through wide cement corridors and bumped him from all sides. The smell of Kimchi and exhaust fumes wafted in the warm, subterraneous air. Frank found another payphone and wrote down the number. He called Mr. Lee and set up a time to meet.

  He made his way through the crowd and purchased a ticket. He fended his way down another flight of stairs and waited. The train arrived shortly. Bulging at the seams, it spewed a flood of people as the doors rolled open. No sooner had the crowd poured out when the next mass entered, Frank, the only westerner among them.

  Garlic breath followed the crowd, invading the subway car with its musty scent. Nearly every Korean began his day with the fermented garlic-laden dish, Kimchi. It brought back memories. Not good ones. Frank’s last mission in Korea haunted him the most. It was the one that caused him the greatest shame. It made him realize how far he had fallen. His only consolation was that his parents never knew. Melody on the other hand … he’d promised her it was over. But he was unable to protect her, to prevent the unthinkable. He tried to shut the thought out of his mind.

  He looked at his fellow passengers. A few wore surgical masks to protect them from pollution and viruses. He remembered being surprised about this years ago. The doors closed automatically, and the train sped into the darkness of the tunnel.

  The train entered the next station and he got off. Walking in the flow of a river of people, a crooked old lady elbowed her way past him. The mass of foot slapping sounded like a herd of cattle moving through. Filling the wide corridor, over a thousand heads bobbed in front of him and as many behind. Frank moved with the crowd.

  Climbing cement stairs up to the street he could see gray-white sky. Below the sky, brilliantly painted ancient buildings appeared through the falling snow. Turquoise, red, orange, and green contrasted with the white dusting of snow that covered the ground. He took several deep breaths of the brisk, cold air. Unlike the skyscraper-filled area he had just come from, this area was graced with traditional historical structures, remnants of an ancient kingdom. Pulling out his wallet, he looked at a picture of Luke and smiled. He flipped to a picture of his wife, gazed at it for a while, studying her features carefully. He pocketed the wallet and caught a taxi.

  The British Council Library was on the first floor of a pale five story building next to the historical Toksugung Royal Palace. He walked down the ally along the palace’s perimeter wall with its roof of traditional tiles. The library was small, but Frank found what he was looking for in a matter of minutes, a book on Korean national treasures.

  The colorful images on the pages grabbed his attention immediately, and he found himself examining the photographs carefully. He stared at the pages, comparing the relics in the pictures to the ones he’d seen among the Kiska treasures. Many were different from the Kiska treasures, but others were similar. And while there were similarities, a striking difference was that only some of the relics in the book were gold. On Kiska they were all gold.

  He learned a fascinating piece of archaeological news: A tomb discovered in 1972 by a construction crew was the tomb of King Muryong (462-523 A.D.), the twenty-fifth king of the Paekche dynasty and his queen. The crypt sat untouched for centuries in Kyongju, Korea. Over two-thousand objects were excavated including elaborate gold works, gold ornaments for crowns, painted lacquer wares, bronze mirrors with designs, copper bowls, pottery, wooden pillows, irons and hornblende tomb guardian animals. Many of the artifacts attested to the refined sense of beauty and highly developed sense of handicraft of the Paekche people.

  As he flipped pages, he came across references to other archaeological digs in the 1970s and thereafter where artifacts were discovered. All of the artifacts were on display in national museums. He found no mention of any missing treasure. The treasures in the book were dated 300-700 A.D. and originated with Shilla and Paekche dynasties. He made notes and photocopies of general background information he felt might be useful to an attorney building a case.

  He found his fascination growing, and time passed quickly as he devoured information on Korean culture and relics. But questions remained unanswered. Convinced the Kiska treasure originated in Korea, he wondered how it ended up on an Alaskan island? What was the Musashi Maru doin
g in those waters with a cargo like that? And what about the turtle ship carving on the cave wall?

  With pages of notes in hand, he caught a taxi to the Royal Asiatic Society. The bookstore resided on the fifth floor of an old office building. The room was no bigger than a large bedroom, but English books about Korean culture lined the shelves. A Korean woman was talking with another westerner when Frank walked in. He left a half hour later with a dozen reference books.

  After checking out of his hotel, he left by the side entrance. He walked several blocks, cutting down alleys and doubling back once. At crosswalks he waited till the last possible moment to cross. Pausing under an awning for a few minutes he watched the street behind him. At the subway station, he dialed the payphone and waited. A man answered, spoke in rapid Korean.

  Frank said, “Colonel Kim, this is John Blake.”

  There was dead silence on the receiver. . . . Finally, a deep hesitant voice said, “John Blake?”

  “I’m sure you remember me.”

  Another pause. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again—ever.”

  “I need some information and knew you could help.”

  “Yes, I—I understand. This is not a good time for me.”

  “It could get worse.”

  “Wha— You don’t understand. Right now it is impossible. I’m sorry.”

  “I need your help, Colonel. I know you won’t let me down.”

  “What is this about?”

  “You help me now in a simple matter, and you’ll never have to think about me again.”

  “How can I be sure?”

  “Obviously I forgave your part in what happened, or you’d have ended up like the others.”

  A long silence. “Okay, okay. Maybe I can help you.”

  Frank said, “I need to find out if there’s any record of Japanese taking shipments of gold out of Korea during the occupation period.”

  “Yes, these things are difficult with the bureaucracy. I’ll need money.”

  “You’ll get what you need.”

  “It’s not so simple. These things can take time. Maybe it’s impossible. The Japanese occupation was a long time ago.”

  “I wouldn’t have called unless I thought you could help.”

  “Very few people can access such sensitive information. The documents you’re looking for are stored in a classified section of the government archives.”

  “The war’s over,” Frank said.

  “Over? You know better than that.”

  Wrinkles formed on Frank’s forehead. He didn’t respond.

  “I will contact you tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll call you,” Frank said.

  “I won’t be near a secure phone,” the Colonel said. “I’ll have to call you. It’s the only way.”

  Frank gave him the number of the pay phone he’d noted earlier in the subway. “Call me at exactly three.” He paused. “One more thing, Colonel: you won’t discuss this with anyone. I’m paying you to be discreet. I’ll be gone within a week, and as long as you forget you ever saw me, you won’t see me again.”

  Frank hung up the telephone. He didn’t like trusting Colonel Kim. He scanned the horde of people shuffling through the station. None wore uniforms. That was good, but the real threats would blend in. After a slow, deep breath, he strolled toward the subway exit.

  It was dangerous now, but the colonel wouldn’t sell Frank out without incriminating himself. The past would stay buried. Frank smiled at a legless beggar, then stopped and gave him a hundred dollars.

  The taxi ride swept him through a familiar cityscape. Modern high-rise apartment buildings carpeted Seoul. Smaller apartment buildings, called villas, squeezed between them. Occasionally Frank saw tree-covered green hills. He got out in Yoksam-dong, where he checked into a small, non-descript hotel under a new identity. After a short nap, he returned to the streets and caught another cab.

  Togok-dong, one of Seoul’s nicer residential areas, was mixed with big and small apartment buildings as well as single-family homes behind high walls. The taxi driver found Mr. Lee’s brick apartment building on a narrow, one-lane street. The building was five stories high, modern, and no more than a few years old.

  Frank located the right apartment and knocked. The door opened and a small, friendly-looking Korean woman stood smiling. She bowed slightly, spoke in Korean, and invited Frank in with a wave of her hand. Pointing at his shoes, she spoke again in Korean, and Frank removed them before proceeding.

  The apartment was a large modern townhouse with hardwood floors and wood-paneled walls. Numerous bookcases with glass covers graced the walls in the living room. Antique chairs held stacks of books and magazines. The kitchen in the far-right, back corner opened up to the living and dining area. The left wall backdropped for a huge oak desk with leather-bound books stacked atop in numerous piles.

  Mr. Lee was a retired fisherman and sea captain. While the Japanese bought ninety percent of the annual Alaska king crab harvest, Americans also had joint-venture contracts with the Koreans and Russians. Frank had contacts in all three countries from his time spent as a crab fisherman and for other reasons. Years ago, an inexperienced crane operator dropped a full brailor of crab on Lee, breaking his back. Frank hadn’t seen him since, but kept in touch and knew he retired to Seoul.

  Using a cane, Mr. Lee limped out of the kitchen area, hunched over somewhat with a crooked back. He was smiling, his face as jolly as ever, maybe more than Frank remembered. His hair was graying now. The captain greeted Frank and introduced his wife who didn’t speak English. The wife bowed and returned to the kitchen.

  “You ought to be fishing this time of year,” Mr. Lee said.

  “I’m a rancher now.”

  “Of course, you are, a rancher on Kiska. Amazing.” The captain smiled curiously at Frank and steered him into a wooden antique chair.

  “This is your first time to Korea, isn’t it?”

  Frank’s gaze strayed to a book shelf. “Yes,” he said, mechanically.

  “What do you think?”

  Well, now, there was a question he could answer. Frank elaborated glowingly on his impressions about Korea. Korea was great. And then the captain guided the conversation back to Alaska.

  “You were never timid going after the crab,” he said. “I remember your stories about the savage seas and screaming wind-tunnel passages of Adak; as I recall you even hunted opelia crab on the edge of the polar ice cap. You’re probably lucky you got out while you’re still alive.”

  “Luckier than you know,” Frank said.

  They talked on about old times, Alaska, fishing. Mrs. Lee returned with rice water. They drank and the captain made recommendations of places Frank should see. Frank found his eyes wandering about the bookcases gracing the walls and the volumes stacked in piles on the desk. “Looks like you’ve been hard at work.”

  “Yes, yes. In work I find one of life’s great joys. So, on the telephone you didn’t say why you were coming to Korea.”

  “Just visiting, always wanted to see this part of the world. You once told me a story about a Korean turtle ship. I’ve been intrigued ever since. It was a long time ago, and I forgot the details. I just remember the turtle ship. Do you recall what I’m talking about?”

  Mr. Lee smiled. “The turtle ship is famous in Korea.” He nodded and looked toward a bookshelf, then back at Frank. “In 1592, Japanese Shogun Hideyoshi launched his campaign to conquer China. Korea’s Yi court wouldn’t participate. In retribution Hideyoshi attacked Korea with 150,000 soldiers. By land, Hideyoshi’s army easily overwhelmed Korea in less than a month; they raped and pillaged Korea to such a degree that even today many Koreans resent the Japanese.”

  Frank squeezed his cup and listened intently.

  “However, their sea campaign was another matter,” Mr. Lee explained. “Korea’s Admiral Yi Sun-shin gave our navy a surprise advantage with his invention of the world’s first armor-plated warships, called turtle ships due to their humped appear
ance. The turtle ships were propelled by oars and heavily armed with cannon. They were compact, highly maneuverable vessels. Their decks and gunwales were plated with spike-studded sheets of heavy iron. This made them impossible to board and practically invulnerable to enemy projectiles. Although the Japanese greatly outnumbered the Koreans, Admiral Yi’s turtle ships sent the Japanese into a panic, and during eight battles they sank over two-hundred and fifty Japanese ships. Over a six month period, the Japanese lost over five-hundred ships in encounters with Admiral Yi. Yi forced them to withdraw before the Japanese set foot on Chinese soil.”

  Mr. Lee paused. Remaining in his chair, he touched the floor with his cane and pushed to straighten his posture. “In 1597, Hideyoshi launched another attack on Korea. However Admiral Yi had lost his post due to court intrigues. The Japanese slaughtered his successor, leaving only a dozen vessels in the Korean fleet. Admiral Yi was quickly reinstated.”

  The captain’s eyes crinkled at the corners and he smiled. “And with only this handful of ships at his disposal, Admiral Yi again vanquished the Japanese fleet. He sank or captured most of their ships and routed the rest. During the final battle of the war, Yi was struck by a stray bullet and killed; however, both he and the turtle ships live on in Korean legend. Hold on a minute.”

  Mr. Lee directed Frank to a bookcase with glass covers. Frank removed the book indicated and returned to his chair. Mr. Lee flipped through the pages, then passed the book to Frank.

  The turtle-ship drawing on the open page looked like the petroglyph Frank saw on the cave wall. He studied the picture in amazement. Mr. Lee leaned over and pointed.

  “The mouth of the turtle-head bowsprit carried smoke generators that emitted sulfur fumes and hid the ship from view. This caused confusion among their enemies. Sometimes the turtle’s mouth was used as a gunfire hole.”

  “The turtle breathes a hail of bullets,” Frank said. “Impressive.”

  “There was another gunfire hole beneath the turtle tail astern and several on each side. During engagements, the spikes on the roof were covered with a straw mat to hide them. Then the turtle ship dashed into the enemy at seven knots. Not recognizing the spikes, the enemy sailors boarded. They stumbled and fell down over the protruding spikes.”