A Corpse in the Koryo

by James Church

  “How late?”

  “Two in the morning. The lighting isn’t so good around there at that hour, and we don’t have enough night scopes, but we could see one of them was carrying a small bag, probably tools. They let themselves in—which they aren’t supposed to do—and thirty minutes later they came out again. I figure they jiggled a few wires on the commo equipment.”

  “Why didn’t the Chinese guards stop them?”

  “They had some sort of identification papers. Maybe the Chinese service is working with them. I don’t trust the Chinese, not one of them.” Kang turned on the engine. It coughed, just like it had at two in the morning in Kanggye. “No sense in hanging around here. Let’s go back to the city.”

  “Wait, I’ve got my own car.”

  As I started to open the door, Kang accelerated past a minibus and out onto the road. “Leave it. Get a new one.”

  “Are you crazy? Pak will bounce me on my head if I leave that car here. I’m not even supposed to be driving it half the time.”

  We were speeding past the first set of nondescript concrete apartment buildings beyond the airport, and Kang showed no sign of turning around. “Don’t worry about Pak. I told him you need a new car. It’s banged up anyway. What did you do, drive into a ditch?” We braked suddenly, crossed over the center line, and slid off onto a dirt side road, past a traffic policeman who was standing at a checkpoint. The policeman looked blankly at Kang and then put his face back toward the main highway. Kang drove to a small stand of trees, pulled behind them, and turned off the engine. From the direction of the airport, two black Mercedeses sped past. The second slowed for a fraction at the checkpoint, but when the traffic policeman waved in the direction of town, the car accelerated again.

  “I’m guessing you didn’t want that Finnish detective here.” I watched Kang slump down in his seat and pretend to relax once the two cars were out of sight.

  Kang’s lips toyed with smiling, then dropped the idea. “Well, I’m guessing neither did you.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “It would have been one more person I’d have to keep safe from snakes. Anyway, the two of you might have stumbled onto something that doesn’t concern your investigation. But, no, I didn’t stop him. And I never tamper with Foreign Ministry communications.”

  I opened the door. “See you around, Kang. I’ve got to get back to my car and then tell Pak I don’t have to babysit for the next three days.”

  “Sometimes you don’t listen very well, Inspector.” When Kang reached over to pull the door shut, I saw he was wearing his shoulder holster, which was a surprise. The number of people authorized to wear concealed weapons in the capital is limited, very, very limited. “Your car is not where you want to be right now. I don’t think it would have been a big explosion when you turned the key. They wouldn’t have wanted to injure a lot of foreigners. But you might have needed the cuffs on one of your pant legs brought up several centimeters, like maybe to your knee. And any passenger in the car would have had his eyebrows singed.” He rolled down his window to let in some air. “Now they’re going to have to figure out what to do with your car. I hope the tank wasn’t full. Waste of gasoline. I’ll bet they drain it.”

  It took a minute before I felt like speaking. “Thanks. I owe you. I thought you said you couldn’t help me here in the capital.”

  “I can’t help you on the case, but Finland is important to my operations. I can’t afford to have the Finns mad at us and tightening up on regulations.”

  “So why didn’t you want that Finnish detective here?” Kang’s fingers were drumming the steering wheel again. “Don’t tell me he works for you.”

  This time Kang smiled. “Okay, I won’t tell you that. Next subject. We need to talk.”

  “I doubt it. If Pak wants to work with your department, that’s his business. If you and I can work out a deal on our own, that’s fine. Like I said, I owe you.” I could feel my blood pressure rising, and from the way Kang glanced over at me, my voice must have been following suit. “But I draw the line, a thick black line, at working with my former brother. I’ll save us some time. Don’t bother raising the idea.”

  “Believe me, Inspector, I don’t like your brother. We’ve tangled more than once. He and his comrade friends get in my way. When it’s only a nuisance, I can ignore them, but every so often they threaten my people by compromising an operation. Your brother is right on the verge of doing that. He is still your elder brother, incidentally.”

  I meant to laugh cynically, but the sound got stuck in my throat. “So you think I’m going to talk to him again? Have a fraternal chat? You must be kidding.”

  “Inspector, there are several threads here. I’d say you are starting to realize they come together in an odd way. You might actually reach some conclusions before it is too late. Meantime, your brother is about to cause me serious trouble. If you think that by keeping him off your investigation you’ve accomplished something, you’re wrong. But that’s your problem. If you rile him up, he’ll get in my way. That’s my problem. See what I mean?”

  “I scared the piss out of him.”

  “Bravo. Not good enough. We need him neutralized.” Kang paused. “Don’t worry, I’m not talking about anything physical.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Wow!” He sat back. “A pair of scorpions. Do me a favor, put it aside for now. Whether and why you dislike him is not my business. But I need him off my back, and I need you to help me figure out what will make him crawl back into his hole on his own.”

  “Rat poison.”

  Kang sat still for a moment, took a deep breath and exhaled, and then turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered once and came to life. “Pak said you were unreasonable on this, but I said you’d help. I guess not.” He ignored the traffic policeman’s salute as we passed, turned onto the highway with a squeal of the car’s old tires, and drove with bored, silent concentration the rest of the way into town.

  When we got to the bridge across the river from my apartment, Kang pulled over and reached into the backseat for a small package. All he said was, “I think this is for your picnic.” Then he got out of the car and walked to the riverbank.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant. The package was bulky, wrapped in plain brown paper. Inside was a hand-knit sweater. There was no note, but there didn’t have to be. Maybe there was still a trace of her perfume on it, or maybe I only imagined it. The sweater looked like it might be too big. But it was blue.

  5

  The next morning it was raining and windy. I rode my bicycle to the office. The traffic lady was not there, but my satisfaction at crossing the intersection aboveground was short-lived. An army truck spewing black smoke threw up a sheet of water as it passed me.

  Pak looked up from his desk as I stood in his doorway. “You are puddling on my floor, Inspector. Go dry yourself off, and get some hot tea. They might still have some in the traffic unit.” As I turned to start down the hall, he stopped me. “Where are you going?”

  “You told me to get some tea.”

  “Forget the tea.”

  “So, you heard about the car.”

  “The car has been taken off our books. There isn’t much left of it, anyway. The damage you did to the left fender by driving into that ditch has disappeared. Likewise the left fender, along with much of the left side of the car. I hope the gas tank wasn’t full.”

  “You mean it exploded? Who turned the key?”

  “No one, as far as I know. Must have been a stray radio signal. Very sloppy job.” Pak looked back down at his desk and I thought I was dismissed, but he looked up again. He pursed his lips, which he only does when he is thinking about how to say something delicate. “Kang is an ally. We have very few. He has helped us. He asks for our help, we give it, no matter what, and not just grudgingly.”

  I nodded. No sense in fighting this again, especially when being noncommittal would suffice. “Tell Kang I’ll give it some thought.”

  Pak closed
his eyes and rubbed his temples. “You still need to go to Hyangsan looking for pine needles?”

  “The pine needles aren’t the key, but if they match what was in the cuffs, we can rule out a lot of territory. If I go up there today, even with the rain, I can stay in the hotel and make friends with the staff. Those records may be gone, but the staff ‘s memory isn’t wiped out by power failures.”

  “Unless they’ve been warned off, like the people at the Koryo.”

  “I told you we shouldn’t take this case. Didn’t I tell you no one could solve it?”

  “I have great faith, Inspector, that you will solve it. And do you know why? Murder is bad enough, but having a foreigner murdered in the capital is worse, and not finding the murderer is worst of all. If this case isn’t solved in a hurry, there will be pressure from the Foreign Ministry. They will yowl for days about how it is harming our relations with the Finns, and to stop their yowling, the Center will lean on our Minister, and the Minister will lean on me. And you do know who I will lean on, Inspector?”

  “I can’t do miracles.”

  Pak smiled. “As long as we understand each other.”

  “You left out one player in all of this. Kim. Kim doesn’t care about yowling, and no one can lean on him or Military Security.”

  “So, you think he’s already gotten to the staff at Hyangsan?”

  “No, I don’t think he has. When Military Security lands, they land hard, but as far as I can tell, they don’t get ahead of the game very often.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Inspector. They cultivate a reputation as plodders so they can turn up where you least expect them.”

  “And that’s what I’m going to do. Turn up where they don’t expect us. For sure, once Kim hears I’m up there, he’ll gag the staff, but for now, he thinks we’re fumbling around the Koryo. In fact, why don’t you go over there today and tramp through the halls. Make it look like we’re closing in on a suspect.”

  “Any other requests, Inspector?” The question was tinged with annoyance, but Pak was already reaching for his jacket.

  I thought a moment. “Get us a new teakettle, would you? I don’t care what color it is, as long as it boils water. In fact, get a real plain-looking one. Maybe no one will steal it.”

  Pak stopped and started searching his pockets. “Have you seen my notebook? I had it with me last night. I didn’t leave it in your office, did I?” He frowned as we walked across the hall into my room. “It was nearly blank. Damn, I hate losing new notebooks.” He frowned again. “There were two pages from my meeting with the Minister, and a few odds and ends from what you found at the morgue.”

  My stomach got a funny feeling. “Anything about the pine needles in the trouser cuffs? Or the two sets of keys?”

  “No, the main thing was what that doctor told you. Ethnicity is not an identification. Something odd about it, so I wrote it down.”

  “Maybe your notebook is sitting in the same in-box as the Hyangsan Hotel’s records.”

  Pak nodded. “Maybe. From now on, those scraps of paper you call notes stay on your person, even if it means bathing with your clothes on.” He smiled absently out my window. “Those notes from the Minister’s meeting will curl their hair. The vice minister was droning on, and I can’t stay awake when he does that. So my notes had him saying something more provocative.”

  “You want me to take the train to Hyangsan, or can we get another car so soon? And do we trust the local guy up there?”

  “Take my car, but stay out of ditches this time. The local guy’s name is Song. His family is from Japan, actually. He speaks some Japanese That’s why he’s at Hyangsan, to handle visitors. I trust him this far”—Pak held his hands not too far apart—“but no farther. He means well, and he may be a little help. Use your judgment.”

  As he threw me a set of keys, Pak said matter-of-factly, “Don’t turn to look, but there’s a black Mercedes outside on the street that wasn’t there a minute ago. Pretty blatant.” He picked up my umbrella from where it was propped against the wall. “This thing leak?”

  “I don’t know. I found it the other day.”

  Pak nodded toward the window. “They must be awfully concerned to play us like this. I’ll lead them around the city and then to the Koryo. You wait a few minutes to make sure they don’t double back, then zip out of here. They won’t have anyone else standing around outside in this weather. Keep in touch.”

  I walked over to my file cabinet and pulled an armload of old files off the top. My desk is close enough to the window so that anyone in the street could see me, if that was what they wanted to do. I dumped the files on my desk, sat back in my chair, and lit a cigarette. Except when I’m traveling, I rarely smoke, but I figured from the street it would look like I was settling in on a rainy morning. With luck, they’d pull away before I had to take more than a few puffs.

  Below in the courtyard, Pak made a show of trying unsuccessfully to start his car, got out, and used the telephone at the guard post to call the duty driver. It didn’t take long for an old jeep to pull up; Pak climbed in, and they drove away. From the corner of my eye, I could see that the Mercedes wasn’t moving. The motor wasn’t even running. They knew my car was in pieces, and it looked like Pak’s was out of commission. I wasn’t going anywhere in the rain, even if it was lightening up to a steady drizzle. So why were they sitting there? The driver and his partner were probably arguing about what to do, whether to follow Pak or stay and watch me. Unless one of them pulled rank, they were liable to sit and argue all morning. Just as I resigned myself to being a prisoner in my own office, the window on the driver’s side opened and a cigarette, barely smoked, was thrown onto the street. The tires spun, then caught the wet pavement, and the big car shot away from the curb. Our guards craned their necks to watch for a moment, then pressed back under the small overhang in a futile attempt to avoid the downpour that had just begun.

  6

  I put off leaving until the weather improved, but it kept raining hard and the wind picked up, so I ended up going over my notes again and calling around to see who might know something about Military Security operations. They didn’t seem to have much of a rhythm to anything they did, but I figured they must have some sort of regular procedures. Every organization has regular procedures, even lunks and thugs. I wanted to have some sense of the telltale signs if they started after me in earnest. Nobody would talk to me. As soon as they heard me mention Military Security, their voices went toneless and they suddenly had to go to some meeting or another. The phone rang just before dinner, as I stood at my window watching rain splash off the sidewalk. It was my brother.

  “We need to meet.” I wasn’t used to hearing his voice over the phone. It was low and rough, as if it had been soaked in gravel.

  “We already did.” I resisted the urge to slam down the receiver. “Once a year is enough.”

  “Half an hour. At the Koryo.”

  “I’m busy.” As usual, I was talking to myself. He had already hung up.

  When I walked into the hotel’s lobby, he was in the beer hall, slumped at the same table, fiddling with a matchbook. I strolled over but remained standing. “I’m here. What do you want?”

  He didn’t look up. “Sit, please, this is serious.”

  “Since when do you have anything serious to say?”

  “Do us both a favor, cut the police inspector crap. Sit, just for five minutes. Hear me out.”

  I took off my coat, folded it carefully, and laid it on the bench. “Don’t waste my time.” I sat down.

  “Things are happening.”

  I started to get up again. “We’ve had this conversation.”

  “Sit. Shut up, just listen for once. Things are happening, but you don’t know what they are.”

  “And you do?”

  “I have a good idea, a lot better than yours. Everything will move, compass points will change, brilliant stars will be plucked from the sky. Rearrangements. Rethinking.”

  “It won’
t be the first time. We’ll survive.”

  He ripped a match from the pack and crushed its head between his nails. “No, this time is different.” He swept the powder onto the floor.

  “Okay, this time is different. That’s life.”

  “No, that’s not life.” The waitress walked over and started to ask for our order. It was the same girl who had overheard us last time. When she saw it was my brother, she closed her mouth and backed away. “You are my younger brother. We are all that is left of the family. I looked out for you during the war, or have you forgotten?”

  “The war is a blank, an empty room, no echoes, no shadows, no light, no dark. I don’t remember, I don’t dream, I don’t dwell on it.”

  “You’re a sad case, you know that? Some people still ache from the war, but you act as if it’s nothing.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “The point is, you’re going to have to trust me for the next couple of months.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Stay out of my way. Get off this case, drop it, break a leg. Better yet, resign from the Ministry. I can have your files pulled, so yours won’t be there when there’s a review. I’ll put them in a safe place until things calm down.”

  “Funny, Pak wanted me to resign, too.”

  “When did he say that?” My brother’s voice became smooth, suspicious.

  “That got your attention, I see. Never mind.”

  “So, you’ll do it?”

  “Then what?”

  “These things are hard to predict.”

  “What makes you think I’m in your way?”

  “You are.”

  “And if I stay where I am, continue my investigation?”

  “I can’t help you when the boom drops.”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  “No, I mean I can’t. I’ll be fighting for survival. I have others to protect, programs, people.” He paused. “Ideas.”

  “Ideas?”