The Line

by Martin Limon

  Ernie and I looked at one another. “Okay,” I said, dipping a cracker into the steaming chili broth. “It’s a violation. What’s that have to do with us?”

  “What’s it have to do with you? You caused it. It’s your fault.”

  “Hey,” Ernie said. “We were just there to look at a crime scene. Nothing more.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Strange said. “You were the enlisted pukes on site, so you take the blame.”

  “What about Lieutenant Colonel Brunmeyer?”

  Strange smirked and sipped his hot chocolate. “He has connections.” Then he paused, knowing he had us enthralled, and said, “When he finishes up his JSA assignment, he’s slated for promotion to full colonel. And he’s still under forty. That means he’s on track to make general. The honchos at the MAC can’t afford to be too angry with him. Might come back to haunt them. So they have you.” Strange set down his mug and smiled broadly. “It’s been nice knowing you two.”

  Ernie scoffed. “They can’t do anything to us.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  “Like what?” Doubt had already crept into Ernie’s voice.

  “Like a court-martial for creating an international incident.”

  “We didn’t create an international incident.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who dragged the body from the North Korean side of the line to the South Korean side?”

  Ernie and I glanced at one another. So Lieutenant Colonel Brunmeyer had already dimed us out, blaming us for moving the body even though it had been under his orders. But we said nothing, knowing better than to provide Strange with any more information than we had to.

  “There’s no provision for ‘creating an international incident’ in the UCMJ,” I said.

  Strange laughed. It was hideous, like a hedgehog choking on phlegm. “That’s never stopped them before.”

  He was right. The UCMJ, or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, was the law that every member of the US military lived under. And it was a flexible document. If you found yourself in violation of loosely worded passages like “disruption of good order and discipline” or showing “silent contempt” toward a senior officer, you could find yourself staring at the interior of four walls in a federal penitentiary.

  Strange leaned toward us and spoke in the low, creepy voice that he used for such things. “Had any strange lately?”

  Ernie had just polished off his sandwich, his mouth still full. Chomping on the last bite of tuna salad on rye, he said, “Why? You have information for us?”

  “I’ve already given you information.”

  “Huh. Some information. We could’ve figured that out ourselves.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Didn’t have to. Everybody knows that a GI is toast if the honchos decide to burn him. Nothing new in that.”

  We both stared at Strange. From his smug expression, it was clear he had more information to trade.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Him,” Strange said, nodding toward Ernie. “When he’s finally done with that goddamn sandwich, I want him to go to the latrine and rinse his mouth out, then come back here and talk at me.” Meaning tell him a story about the “strange” Ernie’d gotten lately.

  “No way,” Ernie said. “Not unless you have something good.”

  “Oh, it’s good,” Strange replied.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “Tell us.”

  Strange stared down at his empty cup of hot chocolate. After a brief silence, I said, “I’ll get you another.”

  At the stainless-steel serving counter, I pulled a steaming cup of hot chocolate, and when I placed it in front of the middle-aged Korean cashier, she looked at it and said, “No marshmallow?”

  So even the cafeteria staff was familiar with Strange’s peculiarities. I retreated down the line and plopped two marshmallows into the hot drink, then returned to her cash register. She smirked as I handed her my quarter.

  When I set the hot chocolate in front of Strange, he smiled, which was unpleasant to see. But then he leaned in closer, glancing around to make sure no one was listening.

  “There’s been some weird shit going on up at the JSA. One document making the rounds in the head shed says that Colonel Brunmeyer was getting too chummy with the Commies. Especially the head honcho on the North Korean night watch.”

  “Junior Lieutenant Kwon?” I said.

  “Yeah.” Eyebrows lifted from above the shades. “How did you know?”

  “We’re not stupid,” Ernie said. “Go on. What else did the document say?”

  Strange waggled his cigarette holder and continued. “There were even reports of the North Koreans bringing a couple of bottles of Red Star soju and Colonel Brunmeyer and this joker Kwon sharing a tipple or two.”

  “They had a détente,” I said.

  “Yeah. Like Kissinger. But the JSA guards aren’t diplomats. They’re there to hold the line against those Red bastards, and instead they’re smoking and joking with them.”

  “But they’re supposed to communicate, aren’t they?” I asked. “To make sure there are no misunderstandings. That nothing flares up into an incident serious enough to ignite a war.”

  Strange shook his head. “No, they’re not supposed to talk. That’s the MAC’s job.” The Military Armistice Commission. “The MAC officers decide on what positions to take in those meetings. It’s their job to deal with the North Koreans. The JSA guard unit’s only job is to protect the physical integrity of the JSA and anyone we send up there. It’s not their job to make nice with the North Koreans.”

  “And the MAC doesn’t want them doing that,” Ernie said.

  “The MAC doesn’t want anybody making nice,” Strange said. “They want to keep the North Koreans back on their heels. They want them afraid of our superior airpower and naval power, and most of all our overwhelming nuclear power. They want those Commies shivering in their boots. And they sure as shit don’t want anybody at the JSA having happy hour with them.”

  He paused for hot chocolate while Ernie and I absorbed this. I averted my eyes as he slurped up a half-dissolved marshmallow.

  “Because if the North Koreans are worried about our military strength,” I said, “and in the dark as to our intentions, they’re more likely to come to the table and accept our terms.”

  “Exactly,” Strange said.

  “So why didn’t the MAC speak directly to Brunmeyer?”

  “I told you, he’s going to be a general one day. They don’t want to step on his toes. An officer of his rank and his responsibility is supposed to know how to conduct himself at the JSA. Nobody should have to tell him.”

  Strange was silent again.

  “There’s more,” I said.

  “Yes. That’s why the document was classified Top Secret.” Strange’s gaze moved slowly around the Snack Bar. The crowd was starting to thin out, with lunch hour almost over. “The report speculated that Lieutenant Colonel Rudolph M. Brunmeyer might have communist sympathies.”

  “Rudolph?”

  “Yep. Rudy to his friends.”

  “We didn’t get that close,” Ernie said. “But you’re kidding, right? About ‘communist sympathies’?’”

  “No.” Strange shook his head.

  “So what?” I added. “Everyone has political views. It’s a free country, even in the Army. As long as those views don’t interfere with you doing your job.”

  “It’s worse than that,” Strange said. “The head shed is starting to worry about his courage.”

  “Courage?” Ernie said, incredulous. “This morning, he walked right in front of a line of pissed-off North Korean guards who were armed with pistols.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “Not that kind of courage,” Strange said.

  “There’s another kind?” Ernie asked.

  “
Yes. The kind where you don’t buckle under pressure.”

  “What kind of pressure?”

  “The ever-present North Korean threat to incite war if you don’t do what they want you to do.”

  “And the head shed thinks Brunmeyer was playing nice with the North Koreans because he was afraid they’d cause trouble if he didn’t?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Sounds to me,” Ernie said, “like he was trying to protect his men.”

  “How’d that work out for him?” Strange asked.

  Ernie looked away. “Not well. At least for Corporal Noh.”

  “So maybe they were getting too chummy,” I said. “Maybe Noh had a buddy on the North Korean side, and when he went by himself to talk to him, totally unarmed, Lieutenant Kwon took advantage of the opportunity and offed him.”

  “That’s what they’re thinking at the head shed,” Strange said. “That something went wrong. Too much fraternization. Brunmeyer let his guard down.”

  “Maybe,” Ernie said.

  “Apparently,” Strange continued, “the Noh family is taking the news pretty hard.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I asked.

  “Yeah. The Korean officer who officially informed them of their son’s death was trapped at the family home for over an hour, and one of the uncles was so enraged that ROK Army MPs had to be called in to fight him off.”

  “Did the officer get out okay?”

  “Just a few bruises and cuts,” Strange replied, sipping his hot chocolate. “And a concussion.” He set the cup down. “Should’ve worn a helmet.”

  When we left the Snack Bar, Ernie asked me, “Ready for the MAC?”

  “Not yet.”

  “They’ll be angry if we put it off.”

  “Yeah, so what else is new? We’re in the middle of an investigation. That comes first.”

  “Yeah,” Ernie replied. “They can bite me.” We climbed into the jeep. “First stop?”

  I pulled out the piece of paper Strange had slipped us just as we’d left. On it, written in English, was a Korean address. Since the English alphabet doesn’t correspond directly with the Korean alphabet, it’s sometimes difficult to glean the meanings of Korean words written in English and vice versa. I pulled out my map of Seoul and located Inui-dong, the district where the address was.

  “It’s on the way to East Gate,” I told Ernie. “Let’s go there and I’ll ask around.”

  “And what’s the family going to tell us?”

  “Maybe nothing,” I said. “Maybe everything.”

  Ernie switched on the ignition and shoved the jeep in gear. “Sort of an awkward time for a visit. Especially considering what they did to the notifying officer.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. The Noh family was probably suffering the single worst day of their lives. They’d just lost a son; their only son, according to Strange. Still, when you’re investigating a murder, the first twenty-four hours are vital. The culprit can’t be allowed time to gather his wits or tamper with evidence. I still wasn’t convinced that the North Koreans had perpetrated this murder, although everyone was in a rush to say so and close the book on it. We had to talk to Corporal Noh Jong-bei’s family—now.

  And that’s what we would’ve done if three jeeploads of MPs hadn’t pulled up in front of us. The senior man, Staff Sergeant Grimes—whom I’d worked with before—climbed out and pulled his .45 from its holster.

  “Don’t make me use this thing, Sueño,” he said.

  “What the hell’s with you, Grimes?” I asked. “Threatening us?”

  “No, I’m promising you. You were already told at the back gate, so we’re not playing games this time: I’ll pop a cap in your butts if you don’t come along right now.”

  “Where to?”

  “MAC headquarters,” he said. “The Military Armistice Commission wants to have a little chat with you.”

  “Tell them to go screw themselves,” Ernie said.

  Grimes raised his .45 and pointed it at Ernie’s forehead. “You tell ’em,” he said.

  Ernie grinned. “Okay, since you put it that way.”

  -4-

  Ten minutes later, Ernie and I walked through the big swinging double doors of the Military Armistice Commission building. After our presence had been so desperately sought, we were made to wait.

  “Payback,” Ernie whispered as we sat in two folding metal chairs in the center of the entrance foyer. A field table had been set up a few feet in front of us with a vinyl-upholstered swivel chair behind it. Odd, I thought. Why wouldn’t we be ushered into someone’s office? But the Army was the Army. You did what you were told, unless you could get away with not doing what you were told.

  It was almost thirteen-hundred hours, one p.m., when a bald man in dress-green trousers and a brown poplin shirt loosened at the tie trundled out of a back room. He dropped down heavily in the swivel chair and placed his elbows on the flimsy table, showing off rolled-up cuffs that revealed hairy arms. He leaned forward, eyeing us as if we were a particularly loathsome specimen of insect larvae.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  Ernie shook his head.

  “I’m Colonel Peele, Executive Officer here at the MAC. I’ve just been in conference with General Armstead, the MAC Commander himself.” He glared at us for a moment, letting that sink in. And letting us know how tough he was, judging by the glower above his sagging cheeks.

  A clicking sound emerged from Ernie’s mouth.

  “Are you chewing gum?” Peele asked.

  “I was,” Ernie replied. “Now I’m just grinding it between my teeth.”

  “Get rid of it.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ernie continued to stare at Colonel Peele, not moving, and then a lump slowly convulsed down his throat. He finished swallowing and stared at the colonel as if nothing had happened.

  Colonel Peele’s bulldog expression remained unmoved, but I noticed that his bald pate had turned red. He cleared his throat before continuing.

  “Do you have any idea,” he asked, “the shitstorm you caused up at the JSA this morning?”

  When Ernie didn’t speak, I ventured, “It was a difficult situation, sir.”

  “Difficult? Is that what you’re calling it? You damn near caused a war.”

  “We were ordered to investigate a crime, sir. And that’s what we did.”

  “You don’t investigate crime at the JSA.”

  I was taken aback until I realized where he was going with this.

  “Why not?” Ernie asked. “Murder is murder.”

  “Crimes at the JSA,” Colonel Peele said, “and all along the DMZ are to be investigated by the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. Not Eighth Army CID.”

  I looked at Ernie, who looked back at me. “We didn’t know that, sir,” I said. “The Staff Duty Officer told us to go, so we went.”

  “Don’t make excuses. You were operating outside of your jurisdiction. Do you realize that’s a court-martial offense?” When neither of us replied, Peele went on. “And while you were up there, you pissed off every North Korean in the DMZ.” His fists were clenched, and leaning in toward us with his large head and round face, he resembled a rottweiler about to break its leash. All he lacked was fangs. “You didn’t have to,” Colonel Peele continued, “make the North Koreans put seven of their divisions along the border on combat alert. There are two tank battalions rolling toward Panmunjom, thanks to you. And this only a week before our next MAC meeting—”

  Ernie stretched, arching his spine. Usually, he didn’t mind getting chewed out. Letting hot air go in one ear and out the other was something most junior enlisted men had turned into an art form. But this guy had set up a little impromptu stage and preplanned a speech systematically blaming Ernie and me for every sin perpetrated along the DMZ that morning, rather than acknowledging who was truly r
esponsible.

  Ernie cut him off. “You can’t pin any of that stuff on us, sir.”

  Colonel Peele’s eyes widened, and after taking about two seconds to recover from shock at Ernie talking back, he banged his fist so hard on the field table it almost broke. “Well, goddamnit, somebody caused it!” He closed his eyes for just a second, and then they popped open again, blue and bloodshot. “Those goddamn Commies murdered one of our boys, and by God we’re going to rub their noses in it. They’re going to pay for it however we want them to, at the time and place we say.” He pointed a forefinger at us. “And you two are to stay away from the Joint Security Area. Is that understood? You are to go nowhere near Panmunjom, nowhere near Colonel Brunmeyer, and nowhere near the troops at the JSA.” He paused to catch his breath. “I’ll put that in writing if I have to.”

  “You should, sir.” He seemed surprised that I’d responded. But I’d pictured Corporal Noh, a good soldier, and the hideous divot in the back of his head. “When we’re investigating a murder,” I said, “no one can pull us off that investigation except the Provost Marshal himself.” When he didn’t answer right away, I pushed on. “The officers on the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission are from Switzerland and Poland and other countries that don’t know the lay of the land here. What do they know about tracking down a killer locally? If they assume jurisdiction of this incident, it will turn into a political exercise—an attempt to keep both sides from going to war again, not a murder investigation.”

  He stared at me, dumbfounded, as if he’d just seen an orangutan recite the Declaration of Independence. Then he reclenched his fists and bowed his head, putting on a show of valiantly trying to compose himself. In a low voice, he spoke again. “You two are just like so many of the troops nowadays. You think you’re smart, too smart for the army. You think you don’t have to follow the orders of those above you. Well, I have news for you. The army and the patriots within it have been around for a lot longer than you’ve been alive. And we’ll be here long after you’re ground up into dust and flushed down the goddamn latrine.” He stood up, grabbed the field table by the edge, and lifted it about six inches into the air. “You got that?”