The Poksu Conspiracy (Post Cold War Political Thriller Book 2)

by Chester D. Campbell

  "There's a 747," Jerry said with a nod. "It's probably the beast we'll be on."

  "Those things can gobble up a mess of people," Burke said.

  Jerry chuckled. "A mess of people, huh? Now there's a good old East Tennessee expression. We had a neighbor, used to call her Aunt Mattie, was always coming over to ask Mom if she'd like a 'mess of beans' or a 'mess of corn.'"

  "Know what you mean," Burke said. His face took on a thoughtful expression. "Speaking of messes, how do you figure the one we'll be facing in Seoul? You know the Koreans better than I do. Think we'll find a lot of antagonism?"

  "No. That's not their style. The opposition will be very subtle. Instead of quickly killing an idea, they'll talk it to death."

  "Yeah. I've heard doing business over there is a slow process."

  "They like to drag things out. And they won't come right out and tell you 'no.' When they start saying 'let's study this a little further,' or maybe 'Keul-seh-yo,' which means 'we'll see,' that's the same as saying the answer is 'no.'"

  "Is this going to cause us any problems with Duane Elliston? He can come on pretty strong."

  "I don't think so."

  "Why not?"

  The waitress topped off their cups with hot coffee. "I had a little counseling session with Duane," Jerry said. "He says he can be as gentle as a butterfly landing on a rose."

  Burke gave him a raised brow. "That I've got to see."

  "We're more likely to have trouble with Travis," Jerry said. "He doesn't usually have a hell of a lot to say, but he's got a pretty short fuse. When he starts locking horns with some of those Korean media people, we could have some fireworks."

  By the time they boarded the 747, they had agreed on the need for close monitoring of the staff and the neccesity for giving frequent reminders of the vast differences between the cultures of East and West.

  Namdaemun Police Station, Seoul

  Chapter 20

  While Burke and Jerry were dozing high over the Pacific Ocean east of the Japanese islands, Captain Yun Yu-sop sat at his cluttered desk in the Namdaemun Police Station more than a thousand miles to the west. He sipped a cup of barley tea and sifted through the stack of reports and documents in front of him. They represented the questionable results of thirty-six hours of digging since the discovery of Mr. Chon's battered remains.

  First was the interrogation of Pak Tong-hui. In retrospect, the fabric merchant had been able to add no significant details to the brief initial report. Clipped to this was a set of rather gruesome photographs of the victim. They told him nothing he didn't already know. Next was the file on his visit to the Chon home. Questioning a victim's family soon after a homicide was one of the toughest parts of Yun's job. Mr. Chon's wife had taken the news particularly hard. She was not in good health. When Yun gave her the news, she sank to her knees, rocking and wailing, of no help whatsoever. Kim Yong-man, a grandson, lived at the Chon home with his wife and baby. Mrs. Choe, Kim's wife—Korean women did not change their family name when they married—was fearful for her husband. He was still missing. She reported Kim had driven his grandfather to meet someone around eleven the previous evening. She had no idea who they were meeting or where. Captain Yun felt reasonably certain of the who. No doubt it was Chon's contact regarding Hwang. The old man had probably arrived with the expectation of receiving the requested information on the elusive assassin. Instead, he had walked into an ambush. Yun obtained descriptions of the grandson and the black Kia, which were promptly distributed to all police stations.

  Another report in the pile concerned the theft of produce from a truck on its way to make a delivery at Ewha Woman's University. The driver had stopped for lunch, of necessity parking his truck two blocks from the restaurant. He was not aware of the missing cases of fruit until he started unloading at the university. It was the afternoon before the murder. The produce company subsequently identified the crates in front of Mr. Chon's stall as their stolen merchandise. Yun noted the restaurant's location on the western side of the city.

  The Captain reasoned that the fruit had been a ruse to make the motorcycle less conspicuous if it had been spotted by a policeman. Following up on that thought, the next document involved a motorcycle and trailer reported missing from a western suburb. The owner had noticed it gone from its usual parking spot sometime after dark. At first he thought it might have been borrowed by a relative. An hour or so later, he had reported the possible theft to police. But the next morning, there sat the vehicle in its accustomed place, looking none the worse for wear. Or so it seemed. Then he started to detach the trailer and saw what looked like spots of blood on it. He reported this when he called to cancel the theft notice. He was told to leave things where he found them, and Yun was immediately alerted.

  The motorcycle owner was a construction worker named Chang. A burly man built like the stony-faced mountains that surrounded Seoul, he had arms about as large as Yun's legs. Yun had called for a forensic unit, which took a sample of the blood on the trailer. Then he looked over the motorcycle and noticed its instruments included a trip odometer.

  "Would you have any idea how many miles it might have been driven since last night?" he asked Chang.

  The heavy-set man glanced down at the odometer. "What you see right there. I put it back to zero every night when I get home."

  "You haven't driven it today?"

  "No, sir. The officer on the phone told me not to move it."

  Yun copied the figure off the odometer. "Exactly what time did you first miss it last night?"

  Chang thought a moment. "I'd say eight-thirty or eight forty-five. Something like that."

  "And when did you first see it this morning?"

  "I was up at six-thirty. Went outside shortly after that. Saw it was back then."

  Hwang had probably returned the motorcycle within an hour after depositing Chon's body in Namdaemun, Yun thought. It was the same pattern as the telephone company truck involved in the probing incident at the home of the industrialist, Yi In-wha.

  A blue and white police car drove up just then, and a short, bushy-haired man stepped out of the passenger side. He walked over and bowed to Captain Yun.

  "Mr. Pak," the Captain said, "does this look like the motorcycle and trailer you saw at Mr. Chon's stall?"

  The piece goods vendor stood back and frowned at the vehicle. "It appears just like the one I saw. Yes, sir. It was dark, of course, so I can't say for sure this was exactly the same one."

  That was good enough for Yun. This was the motorcycle Hwang had used. He had no doubt about it.

  Yun set his tea cup on a nearby table and cleared off the files, then spread a street map of Seoul across his desk. With a pencil, he drew a straight line from Mr. Chang's house to the Namdaemun Market. He would construct a rectangle by extending the line to either side by a distance calculated from the motorcycle's mileage. First, he took the number of kilometers on the odometer and divided it in half to get the maximum one-way distance Hwang could have traveled. Then, taking the distance to the market as a radius, he plotted to either side of that line a distance calculated from the number of kilometers left over. It gave him a rough approximation of the area in which Mr. Chon had likely gone to meet his contact and, instead, met his death. It covered a strip of western Seoul about eight kilometers wide. He wrote out a memo to all officers who operated in the target area, asking their cooperation in locating people who had been on the streets during the late evening prior to or the early morning hours following Chon's death. He wanted to talk to anyone who might have seen the motorcycle or Chon's black Kia.

  After dispatching the memo, he leafed through the remainder of the stack, including the medical examiner's report. As he had anticipated, the head blow was considered the cause of death. The time of death was put between twelve-thirty and two a.m., sufficient for transporting Chon's body to his stall.

  There was also a delayed report from a boat on the Han River. The people on board had heard a large impact in the water just
before dawn following the murder. It had the characteristics of a vehicle crashing into the water. The location was just below an abandoned warehouse where the parking area extended out above the river. Yun had arranged for divers to probe beneath the water. If it turned out to be the old man's car, he would not be surprised to find the grandson's body inside.

  The final document was a report on the first twenty-four hours of surveillance in his neighborhood. Two questionable sightings had been checked out and found to be legitimate visitors.

  He was returning everything to a folder in his desk when a gravelly voice spoke up behind him. "Captain Yun, I hear you've been looking for me."

  He turned to face the stocky frame and owlish face of Superintendent General Ha, the former army officer turned lawman who had been his first police commander. Normally outgoing and pleasant, Ha could switch at will to the legendary inscrutable look that Western writers found so intriguing, betraying no emotion, no hint of where his thoughts might be going. He had long-since retired to the seaport village of Chungmu, on the Hallyo Waterway southwest of Pusan.

  "Superintendent Ha," Yun said as he made a low bow, "what a pleasant surprise. To my recollection, you don't look a day older than the day you left us."

  "Captain, I hope your investigative abilities far exceed your powers of recall."

  "I was just asking about you the other day."

  "So I heard."

  Yun motioned to a chair. "Please have a seat. How is life in Chungmu?"

  "It was great until they built the tourist complex a few years ago. Now too many tourists."

  "Somebody always comes up with an idea to ruin the quiet places," Yun said. "It certainly hasn't been quiet around here."

  "I understand you've had some troublesome cases."

  "That's true." He wondered how much Ha had been told about his failure to solve the Yang and Yi murders. The Superintendent General's old friends higher up in the National Police had probably expressed their displeasure. "Two rather prominent homicides, I'm afraid. Now I also have the murder of my favorite informer to fret over."

  "Who's that?"

  "Mr. Chon, from Namdaemun Market."

  Ha shook his head sadly. "I hadn't heard. Too bad. I always liked the old cuss. I've known him since I was a young man, back in the occupation days."

  "That reminds me," Yun said, opening a drawer and digging into a file. It was the reason he had inquired about Ha's whereabouts. He brought out the poksu symbol. "Does this bring back any memories? Mr. Chon told me it was used by a guerrilla band that harrassed the Japanese."

  Ha took the piece of paper and studied it. He nodded. "That does take me back. I remember reading about them in Chosun Ilbo. Of course, the Japanese authorities tried to paint them as common criminals, but we could read between the lines. I think they started up in the north, probably with the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, then came across from Manchuria. They caused so much damage the Japanese Regent-General claimed at times there were several squads using the poksu banner. But I remember right at the end of the war, when they claimed to have killed two of the guerrillas, they said only two were still at large. Where did you come up with this?"

  Should he tell Superintendent General Ha of his conspiracy theory, Yun wondered? Perhaps Ha might offer some significant insights, spot some crucial angles that Yun had overlooked. On the other hand, he might find the whole idea ludicrous, suggest that Yun quit looking for obscure motives and get back to sound, basic police work. If he were so certain of the identity of the murderer in these three cases, he should present his evidence to Prosecutor Park and ask for an arrest warrant. Then he could go through the proper channels to the NSP and demand any information that might aid in making the arrest. He had great respect for his old commander. To lose face with him would be insufferable. He couldn't take the chance.

  "I found it while investigating a case recently," he said with a shrug. "Must have been in some old papers from a long time ago. I got curious about it."

  Ha pulled the paper between his thumb and forefinger and handed it back. He smiled. "Makes one wonder what ever happened to the two who got away, doesn't it?"

  "It does. Also makes you wonder if there are still people around with enough hate for the Japanese to strike out against their interests."

  The Superintendent General leaned forward, hands on his knees, and stared across the room with wearied eyes that seemed to be looking inward rather than outward. In that fleeting moment, Yun got the feeling that Ha had suddenly aged beyond his years. "I have no doubt there are such people, Captain." Then he looked up with his old smile and the burden of the years appeared to melt away. "I really must be going. A few old colleagues have invited me out to dinner. It was good to see you again."

  Yun jumped to his feet and bowed. "My pleasure, sir. Please come by again next time you're in Seoul."

  "I'll try. Take care, Captain Yun."

  After Ha had left, Yun sat back at his desk and stared at the square of paper. He had already reviewed the files of his missing, accidentally killed and murdered list, only to find nothing that would tie them in with anything remotely related to the Japanese. For a moment, he had an almost overpowering desire to rip the piece of paper into shreds and put a match to it. That was when he decided it was high time he locked his desk and headed home. Maybe Sun-ok would be in a mood to massage his back. When the spirit moved her, she could make her fingers work magic. It would drain all that excess yum energy out of his system. Then he remembered it was Sunday night. Se-jin would probably be there to bring them up to date on his love life. That thought did nothing to improve Yun's darkened mood.

  Chapter 21

  The flight from San Francisco arrived at Kimpo International Airport right on time. Burke and Jerry made their way through customs, stopped at a currency exchange window and then took a taxi downtown. The evening traffic moved at a restless pace through the brightly-lit streets. At first glance, it seemed the only thing that distinguished it from any big American city was the strange-looking characters on the signs, which might as well have been hieroglyphics as far as Burke was concerned. Of course, there were several striking and many more subtle differences that would become more apparent in the daylight and over the next several days and weeks.

  It was nearly eight by the time they arrived at the Chosun Hotel, Seoul's first luxury international hostelry. Lori had recommended it as a less frantic location than its larger and more plush neighbor, the Lotte. The Chosun's Ninth Gate bar and restaurant were favorite meeting spots for Korean and foreign businessmen. After checking into their rooms, they met back at the ground level lounge for a nightcap.

  The bar's plate-glass windows provided a ringside view of a centuries-old gate and a Yi dynasty (rulers from 1392) national treasure, the octagonal, triple-roofed Temple of Heaven. It was a revealing introduction to a city whose ancient past existed comfortably side-by-side with its ultra-modern present.

  "Did you call Lori?" Jerry asked after they had ordered.

  "Not yet. It's just six-thirty at home. She'd kill me if I woke her up that early on a Sunday morning." Burke clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back to stretch. The long flight had left him tired and stiff, though he was making a valiant effort to suppress it.

  "I'll be rolling out by six-thirty in the morning," Jerry said. "Got to get my running in. Maybe that'll put my system back in sync." He slumped in his chair and crossed his legs.

  "Didn't know you were a runner."

  "I try to get in three-to-five miles a day, four days a week."

  "I walk. Our good doctor friends advised me to walk thirty minutes a day. Good for my cholesterol and that sort of thing."

  Jerry nodded. "I never thought much about aerobics, or any other kind of exercise, until about ten years ago. That's when my Dad suffered a massive coronary. He was just fifty."

  "Sorry to hear that."

  "He wasn't the athletic type. Didn't do any kind of sports. He'd sometimes take us up into the
Smokies on weekends, so we'd learn to appreciate nature. That was important to him. But we never went on hikes, or anything like that. Most of the time, he was either working or reading or writing scientific papers."

  "So you were determined not to become a heart victim like him," Burke said.

  "Right. Physical conditioning was important to my job with DEA anyway. I decided to take up running. It builds your stamina, keeps the old blood moving, strengthens the heart muscle. I must be starting to get old, though. Seems it takes a little more effort now than it used to."

  "Don't give me that crap, Jerry. When you've pushed past fifty-five, then you can start talking about getting old."

  A pretty Korean girl with wide, dark eyes, dressed in a blue and white hanbok, brought their drinks. Burke handed her a fistful of the won notes he had picked up at the airport. She left them with a smile and a bow. Lifting his glass of chablis, he offered a toast, wrapped in his own smile. "Here's to a successful HANGOVER, Jerry. With what's riding on this one, we'd better do it right. And do it fast."

  "I'll drink to that," Jerry said, giving him a determined look. "You want to hit the Embassy in the morning?"

  "Yeah. Check on the reception and see what kind of words of wisdom they might have for us."

  "Think they'll be less pompous than our old buddy, Vanderpool?"

  "I damn sure hope so. The troops in the field are usually more practical-minded than the generals at headquarters." After he had said it, he realized he could be talking about himself. From the standpoint of Worldwide Communications and the Amber Group, he was one of the generals.

  Jerry picked up on it with a grin. "Is that the voice of experience?"

  "I asked for that, didn't I?" Burke said with a frown.