The Golden Catch

by Roger Weston

  The twentieth-floor office was large and decorated in an opulent fashion that contrasted with the stark appearance of the building’s exterior. From baseboard to baseboard, the black marble floors shined from their daily waxing. The full-wall window shaded with its one-way tint. Behind the gleaming desk, a long, matching, red-oak credenza backed up against the wall.

  Sitting behind his big red-oak desk was Mok Don, a Korean man with gray hair and obsidian eyes. He headed the DowKai Group, a chaebol, a multinational conglomerate comprised of dozens of varied businesses.

  In his left hand he held a manila file folder. While he quickly flipped pages, taking each in a glance, the red light on his phone flashed and a voice came over the phone speaker: “Soo-man is here, Mister Don.”

  Mok Don slapped down the folder, hissing and scrunching his nose with resentment. Pressing his elbows against his desktop, he pinned his eyes shut and touched his temples with his index fingers, moving the tips in slow circular motions against the painful building pressure. He felt liquid passion course through his veins like vials of wrath.

  He continued flipping pages, but snapped the pages a little more sharply. “Send him in.”

  Moments later Soo-man walked through the door wearing his blue DowKai jumpsuit. Looking up, Mok Don took notice of him with particular acuity today. He’d been on the payroll ten years before Mok Don brought him on full-time as security chief. During those years, Soo-man was wrestling champion of the entire Seoul police force. After years of shooting a fortune in Deca-Durabolin steroids to enhance his intense weight lifting regimen—he bulged as a monstrous abnormality. He carried two pounds for every one of Mok Don’s. He had a broad forehead and his eyes portrayed confidence. Carrying a VHS tape, he walked up to Mok Don’s desk and bowed his head deferentially. His massive chest muscles flinched reflexively.

  Mok Don smiled coolly, giving no hint of his anger. He had just found out that Soo-man had taken advantage of his daughter and he hadn’t decided what to do about it yet. “What are you doing here?”

  Soo-man looked up, and Mok Don thought he saw a hint of a smirk on his face, but wasn’t sure. “Initiative Three,” Soo-man said. “The computer alarm for Initiative Three was activated--”

  Mok Don stood up straight. Perhaps he would deal with Soo-man’s betrayal later. He stared at Soo-man like the man had just come back from the dead. Years ago Mok Don had made a one-in-a-million long shot at tracking down a lost shipment of plundered treasure that would make his collection the premier collection in the world of Korean gold artifacts. In 1980, he bought access for a researcher to the Seoul government stacks. The man found reference to a lost cargo shipment that left Korea during the Japanese occupation. Further research and first-hand accounts verified that the ship disappeared en-route.

  Mok Don hoped that if the shipment turned up, the finder would check its origin through government archives. Or, if anyone was to search for the shipment, he’d wait and watch while they did the work. And if they hit pay dirt, they’d better have protection. He had the file rigged to set off electronic surveillance. He knew success using this approach was a long shot, but his instinct told him to try. After all, his chances of success were as good as any treasure hunter. He called the operation, Initiative Three. For sixteen years nothing had happened.

  “What’s going on?” Mok Don demanded.

  “A colonel by the name of Kim was paging through our file. All the equipment worked. I have the video right here.”

  “What happened?”

  Sweat was beading on Soo-man’s broad forehead. He lifted his head, but looked past Mok Don. “He made two calls,” Soo-man said softly.

  “I assume you traced them.” Mok Don walked over to the full-wall, tinted window. He stood with his back to Soo-man, facing the city view.

  “We used phone company records. The first call was to a public phone at a subway stop in Central Seoul. Someone answered and said the colonel should call another number. We traced the second call to a coffee shop nearby.” Soo-man’s voice faded off to a mumble.

  Mok Don looked angrily over the shoulder of his silk suit. “Speak up when you talk to me. Why would the call be relayed like that?” He turned away again.

  “The colonel’s dealing with an American named John Blake. We checked all the nearby hotels. Nobody had him registered, so we greased the gears and got the information we needed on American guests. There were nine. We did background checks on all of them. One of them was a fisherman. I found him the most interesting since the colonel is researching old ships and cargoes.”

  “Yes, what did you find?” Mok Don turned around, smoothing his tie.

  “Name is Frank Murdoch. American. He was staying at the Lotte Hotel, but he’s checked out.”

  “Find him!”

  “We got a hold of the hotel security videos and saw him checking out. I’ve got thirty men with his photograph checking every hotel in Seoul. I’ve alerted our contacts in law enforcement, and they’ve posted an alert for his passport at the airport. I expect we’ll find him within two hours.”

  “Excellent. What’s on the video?”

  “The colonel mentioned the Japanese occupation, royal tombs, also something about a shipment—”

  Mok Don’s hand shot out. “Let me see that.”

  Soo-man handed him the VHS tape with two hands. In Korea, it was a sign of respect to pass things with two hands. This ancient royal tradition was originally required by law to ensure another person wasn’t carrying a weapon. It was meant to safeguard kings. It was a tradition Mok Don took seriously.

  He accepted the tape and walked across the office to a large black television resting on a round, red-oak table. The table was a rare antique from the Choson period. The TV was a Samsung with a built-in VCR. He turned on the unit and pushed the tape in. The video was low resolution to compensate for the poor lighting, but clear. A Korean man--a Korean colonel--was dialing on the bugged phone. The man waited while the line was ringing. . . .

  He spoke in English: “John, this is Colonel Kim. I found something. During the occupation, there’s reference to Japan’s governor-general obtaining information on certain royal tombs. The information was given by an unnamed Korean, a former government official. That would explain why this was kept secret; the trader would have been disgraced. The records of this event were shuffled away and lost in a bureaucratic catacomb for five decades. There are export papers here--Quarantine and Agriculture Declarations in duplicate, a Cargo Manifest, Load Line Certificate, Register, Private Parcels List, Bill of Lading, letters, and other forms. The contents were shipped out, bound for Tokyo. . . . My thoughts exactly. I’ll be here a while longer, then call later.” He hung up the phone, walked back to the file cabinets, and began shuffling through more papers. “Yeah, Blake,” he mumbled. “I’ll get you your files. Then I don’t want to hear from you again in this life.”

  “There’s no more calls,” Soo-man said. “After that he just searched for information.”

  Mok Don eyed Soo-man and laughed at the bizarre twist of events. He was suddenly remembering his daughter’s tears, her humiliating story about Soo-man’s strength. Mok Don wondered if she’d left the house today. How unfortunate that he suddenly needed Soo-man more than ever. What were the colonel’s exact words?

  Mok Don rewound the tape. He listened to the phone conversation again, then a third time. “What else do you know about the American?”

  “Files an individual tax return listing a P.O. Box in Seattle. No known address or phone number. No known relatives. Couldn’t find anything on him except that he owns a crab boat. We traced his flight itinerary back to Dutch Harbor, Alaska. It appears he’s traveling alone.”

  Mok Don sighed and breathed more easily. He smiled. “A Bering Sea fisherman . . . . Good, Soo-man. How long has he been a fisherman?”

  “Seven years, according to the IRS.”

  “They’re very helpful.”

  “I haven’t found out the name of his boat yet. I’
m working on it.”

  “The Bering Sea. . . .” Mok Don walked over and stood facing Soo-man. “The Pinisha is in the Gulf of Alaska, isn’t it?”

  “Just left Anchorage. I contacted them. They put a man in Dutch Harbor.”

  “Who?”

  “The Pinisha’s first mate, Won-song. He’s walking the docks, asking questions.”

  “Good work. Dutch Harbor’s a small fishing village. If Murdoch owns a boat, someone there will know where we can find it.”

  Mok Don couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A crab fisherman. His black eyes bored in on Soo-man. “Find out the name of his boat, the location--do whatever you have to.”

  Soo man nodded.

  “If he’s really a crab fisherman,” Mok Don said, “why would he have used an alias when he called the Colonel? That doesn’t add up.”

  “We haven’t figured that out yet.”

  “When you find him, don’t let him out of your sight. If he talks to anybody, find out who they are. I want to be sure this Frank Murdoch and John Blake are the same person. Follow him around the world if you have to. Find out who he is, what he’s doing? If he’s found Korean gold, I want every detail. Don’t mess this up.”

  “I’ll have a complete file on him soon. If he has a family, I think they’ll make excellent leverage. I’ll begin preparations to take them.”

  Mok Don tapped his forehead with his pointer finger. “Wait until I give you the go-ahead. And keep me informed.” He thought about Soo-man and his daughter and a vile impulse tainted the joy he felt from the good news about the treasure. “Don’t screw this up, Soo-man. You know what we do with incompetent salary men.” Mok Don pointed at the door.

  Soo-man bowed and left the office.

  Mok Don sat down and leaned back in his chair. He looked around his large office. Resting on one end of the credenza was a black mother-of-pearl inlaid lacquer box. The lacquer box, a ninth century antique crafted during the Koryo Dynasty, was one of Korea’s finest in quality.

  The office’s long wall, off-white and opposite the view window, was decorated with three rare appointments:

  Farthest from the desk stood a three-shelf book chest of matching red oak: the doors, shelves, side, and top panels were paulownia; the museum quality piece was a nineteenth century antique from the Choson period.

  Nearer the desk hung a landscape painting by the famous Korean artist Kim Myong-guk. Art scholars said that a painter of Myong-guk’s talent only comes along once in a hundred years.

  Closest to the desk, a four-shelf open étagère: the skeletal structure was crafted from a pear tree, the shelves from paulownia. During the Choson period, art objects were displayed on this tall exhibition piece. Currently, Mok Don used it to display four of his finest gold artifacts: The bottom shelf boasted a solid gold Buddha from the Unified Shilla Dynasty; the second shelf displayed a fifth century gold cup on an openwork stem from the Old Shilla Dynasty; on the third shelf rested a sixth century gold vessel from the Paekche Dynasty; and the top shelf flaunted Mok Don’s finest piece: the solid gold Sarira Reliquary.

  Mok Don leaned forward for a closer look at his most cherished treasure. A lotus stem stretched from each bottom corner of the casket, and Lokopala, Four Guardian Kings, sat atop of each stem. The only one of its kind, the Sarira Reliquary was in excellent condition--and during his earlier years, Mok Don personally plundered the treasure from a Shilla burial mound.

  A great patron of the arts, he took pride in the fact that everything in his office belonged in a museum. Though his taste for Korean antiques and art masterpieces was insatiable, he especially coveted gold artifacts from the Three Kingdoms Period. While he purchased various pieces abroad in Japan and China from time to time, he knew of collections in Japan that were superior to his, collections that were plundered during the Japanese occupation.

  Any commonplace citizen could buy a collection, but for a collection to boast supreme glory, the collector’s acquisition must follow the age-old tradition of plunder and pillage. For centuries conquerors like Genghis Khan plundered the Korean peninsula; in this tradition Mok Don wanted to amass his own collection of historic artifacts. Was he any less of a man than the conquerors of the past? Of course not. Perhaps his day of opportunity had finally arrived.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Frank Murdoch awoke at four a.m. and studied Korean history and archaeology for an hour. For two hours he devoured Dark Night Of The Soul, by St. John of the Cross, another of the volumes he acquired in Anchorage.

  Putting his book aside, he pondered his reading and the destiny of his soul. He looked at Melody’s photo for a long time. His thoughts drifted back . . .

  Led by the wailing cries of their colicky baby, Frank, exhausted from sleep deprivation, walked into the dim kitchen. In a small pool of illumination around the little oven light, Melody held her baby in her arms, calming him in the middle of the night, singing lullabies. Her voice was soothing and comforting. Frank sat at the kitchen table and lay his face on his arms. He wondered how he got so lucky to spend the rest of his life with such a precious wife.

  Frank checked the time, looked out his hotel window at the awakening city, into the clouds. In life, he was worth a fortune, and yet his money was now useless. Melody was forever out of reach. So many regrets. He could never forgive himself for his choices.

  He remembered the tsunami, a cold testament of his mortality. Yet the treasure was his opportunity to make up for his past.

  He wondered what Luke was doing. The boy was forbidden to go across the island until his father returned. Would the boy be able to resist that kind of temptation?

  Kiska Island posed an extensive set of dangers. And there was always the possibility of a problem luring Luke away from headquarters. That dog, Taiga, for example, was a wanderer. Even in storms the animal preferred to stay outside and was prone to disappear. If Luke wandered too far off looking for Taiga and got caught in another storm, he could freeze to death quickly.

  If he went fishing and misjudged the ice on Icy Creek, he could fall through. Hiking along dozens of different mountain ridges, a snow cornice could collapse and bury him in an avalanche. He could be thrown by his horse. And then there were the caves and tunnels. The list went on and on. Luke had common sense, but he had curiosity, too.

  Everything was probably all right on Kiska. Frank would go back as soon as he wrapped up his business here.

  He locked his room and took the elevator downstairs. Koreans moved about the busy lobby. Frank strolled into the restaurant and ordered the breakfast buffet. Afterwards, he found a pay phone at a subway station nearby and called Mr. Lee.

  “Frank, my friend has researched your questions. I’ll try to explain his findings in a historical perspective. Let me say first that many Korean royal tombs have been robbed at the time of excavation. There are numerous stories of Japanese occupation forces stealing gold artifacts during the 1930s and 1940s. For that matter, numerous stolen Korean artifacts are scattered around foreign museums in several countries.

  “Recently a small scandal flared up in Japan when a man named Umezu Hayashima repatriated 3,031 artifacts to the Korea National Museum. The artifacts--his share of an inheritance from his father--were collected in the 1920s and 1930s. During that time, his father bought stolen artifacts from every grave marauder he came across.”

  “Umezu must have felt guilty,” Frank said.

  “Scared too. At first he donated the artifacts anonymously, fearing his deed would be hindered when reported by the Japanese press. Later he took credit. He said he wanted to atone and asked forgiveness for the Japanese annexation of Korea.”

  Frank was silent in thought. Finally he said, “How old were the artifacts?”

  “Very. They came from the Paekche, Koryo, Shilla, and Choson Dynasties.”

  Frank said, “The old collector probably thought his son would appreciate his inheritance, but he inherited a legacy of guilt. The son probably looked at those relics and saw only the c
ountless victims of the occupation.” Frank paused. “It seems every decision and action can knock over dominoes that topple through generations.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s right . . . So true. And there are other stories. As the war escalated in the early 1940s, sapping their resources, the Japanese sought to compensate by stepping up the plundering of Korea and other occupied territories. Though their atrocities against Koreans were already staggering, they grew even more ferocious.

  “While some Kyongju royal mound tombs were missed by the Japanese--and later found intact by Koreans--many were not. In the 1930s, excavations were carried out by Japanese colonial authorities at numerous royal mound tombs around Korea. When treasure was found, the excavations turned to looting.”

  Frank made notes on a pad so he would remember details later on.

  “In addition to systematic excavations and looting,” Mr. Lee went on, “there were chance discoveries. For instance, many Korean Kings were buried in remote locations to guard against grave robbing.

  “Once, while the Japanese were constructing a work camp, they discovered hidden Shilla and Paekche burial chambers laden with ancient gold treasure. They ransacked the tombs like scavenger dogs.”

  “That’s a shame,” Frank said.

  “You mean a crime. Those tombs constituted a significant piece of Korean wealth, culture, and heritage. After plundering them, the Imperial Army destroyed the catacombs, caved them in, and sealed them off with bulldozers. No traces remained. There was nothing for the Korean people to find. No books mention these particular tombs. The incident was lost in a maze of bureaucratic archived paperwork. In the Tokyo archives, there are no direct accounts of the thefts, just bits and pieces, offhanded references, dropped crumbs that mark a trail, but enough to put the puzzle together.”