Buddha's money gsaeb-3

by Martin Limon

  "If I step into the yoguan, she will die anyway," I said. "If you want the jade skull, you will have to bring her out here and get it."

  I knelt slowly, watching the M-l rifle move with me. I reached into the bag and pulled out the jade skull. I held it high in the air and ripped off the dirty cheesecloth.

  The light of the Seoul afternoon filtered through the intricately carved jade and brought the skull gleaming to life. It was like some precious emerald, filled with the grinning spirit of an ancient phantom of evil.

  Ragyapa gasped. His gunman lowered his rifle.

  "Put it down," Ragyapa hissed at me. "They will see it."

  "If you don't want anyone to see it, you must come out here and take it. And bring Lady Ahn with you…" I gestured at the demonstrators behind me. "… or I disappear into their midst."

  Ragyapa nodded, greed overcoming him. "Yes. Yes. Keep it lower. I will be right there."

  He barked some incomprehensible order. From the darkness a hand emerged and handed him a white cloth. Hurriedly, he unraveled his turban, exposing his hideously scarred bald head. Then he wrapped the white bandana around his forehead and slipped off his coat. Suddenly, he had transformed himself into someone who, in the confusion of the afternoon, could pass for a student. I saw his plan. Once he had the jade skull, he could slip it under his arm and disappear into the vast legions of student demonstrators.

  Okay by me, as long as he turned Lady Ahn over to me first. After that, we'd try to capture him in order to keep our promise to the nun. But Lady Ahn came first.

  Ragyapa strode forward, tugging Lady Ahn after him. I lowered the skull and held it in front of my chest, hoping the M-l marksman would think twice before pulling the trigger.

  Moving my eyes as little as possible I searched for Ernie. Where the hell was he?

  About ten feet from me, Ragyapa stopped. He shoved down on Lady Ann's shoulders. Like a trained dog, she knelt at his feet.

  Had he broken her will? After days of torture, it could happen to anyone. No matter how strong.

  "Now," Ragyapa said. "The jade."

  "Let her crawl forward."

  "First you place the jade skull on the ground between us."

  I thought it over. Probably as good a deal as I was going to get. And if Ernie popped a slug into the rifleman in time, maybe I'd even live through it.

  "Okay," I said.

  I had just set the jade down and Lady Ahn started to crawl forward when two things happened simultaneously. I heard a great grinding of gears and a woman's scream. Off to the left a vehicle careened through the dense crowd. Demonstrators, screaming, dove out of the way.

  Over to the right, the officers in charge of the riot police had apparently become fed up with the students badmouthing their president. With helmets and face screens, shields and batons, the ranks of the riot police pressed forward. A Roman legion clearing the rabble.

  Ragyapa snapped his head between the converging riot police and the madly rampaging vehicle.

  Suddenly, I realized what it was. Ernie's jeep. But it wasn't Ernie at the wheel. It was Herman the German, holding his hairy arm high over his head, still handcuffed to the roll bar.

  Somehow, he'd managed to scoot over far enough to wedge himself behind the steering wheel and start the engine. The chain welded to the floorboard was still preventing him from steering, but Herman didn't seem to care. Every time he ran into something-a lamppost, the wall of a building, an iron railing leading to the subway-he backed up, stepped on the gas, and rammed forward. Like that, turning the wheel only a few degrees at a time, he had managed to zigzag all the way down the hill.

  The radiator of the jeep looked as if it had been chewed by an iron-fanged dinosaur.

  Herman butted into the last obstacle between him and Ragyapa: a stone pedestal that during normal afternoons supported a traffic cop. He rammed into it, backed up, turned the wheel as much as he could, then stepped on the gas again. This time he cleared it.

  Making a long graceful loop, he swung through the crowd. Students cursed and leapt out of the way. The jeep picked up speed. Suddenly I realized what he was doing. He was heading right toward us.

  I dived toward Lady Ahn and tried to lift her to her feet. As I did so a bullet rang out and ricocheted on the pavement behind me. The M-l rifleman.

  Meanwhile, the students had been preparing their response to the slow-motion onslaught of the riot police. In about a half dozen spots, flames ignited amongst the crowd of students. Upon a barked command, burning wicks attached to bottles filled with gasoline catapulted gracefully through the sky. Three crashed into the helmets of the riot police; each exploded on contact.

  Whistles blew. Enraged, the riot police charged forward.

  In the yoguan, I heard the sharp, compact blast of a. 45. Ernie! Three, maybe four rounds.

  As I lifted Lady Ahn to her feet, no more M-l bullets exploded in our direction.

  Ragyapa screeched and stumbled and crawled toward the jade skull. Lady Ahn seemed to come alive. She wrenched herself away from me and lunged for the skull. Using her foot, she tried to shield it from Ragyapa's grasp. His fingernails scraped along her leg like claws. She screamed and recoiled against me. Herman and the jeep were heading straight toward us. I pulled her back, out of its path.

  "Let me go!" she screamed. "The jade! I must have the jade!"

  But it was too late now. Ragyapa was clutching the ancient skull like a football. He scrambled to his feet and looked back at the jeep.

  I could see Herman's eyes. The flesh around them was contorted in rage. The mangled fender bore down on Ragyapa.

  At the last second Ragyapa dived, rolled, and bounded back to his feet. Herman ground the gears with a great gnashing of iron, backed up, turned the steering wheel, and started after Ragyapa again.

  Clutching the skull, Ragyapa took off like a hunchbacked football player. Herman roared through the crowd in his mad yet graceful arcs. People leapt out of his way. The battle between the riot police and the student demonstrators was in full force now. The noise was deafening. I'd tumbled down a rathole into hell.

  "The jade!" Lady Ahn screamed. "The jade!"

  I slapped her. "The hell with the jade. We don't need it."

  At the moment, I was most concerned with getting out of there alive. Molotov cocktails were flying, the riot police were moving inexorably forward swinging their heavy batons, and behind them loomed the beetle-backed cavalry of the riot control armored personnel carriers.

  A torrent of water lashed out into the crowd. Water hoses. A jet stream swirled past us, knocking us down. I yanked Lady Ahn to her feet again.

  "Come on!"

  Lady Ahn could barely walk. Ahead, I saw the canvas top of the jeep caroming madly through the crowd. We moved after it. I saw Ernie running out of the yoguan. Somehow, he spotted us above the sea of bandanaed heads.

  When he reached us, blood pounded through the veins of his neck and his face. "I offed me a motherfucker!" he reported.

  "The guy with the M-one?"

  "Yeah."

  "And the others?"

  "Scattered."

  "We have to get out of here."

  Ernie looked at me as if I were mad. "What about the nun?"

  I stopped. "Shit! I completely forgot."

  "Come on," Ernie said. "There's still time to save her."

  I started to move after him but Lady Ahn held me. "You go. I will stay here."

  We were pretty far from the riot police. She'd be fairly safe. "Okay," I told her. "But keep moving toward that line of buildings. Get out of this area."

  "Yes," she said. "I can do that."

  My fingers lingered on her cheek. Then I ran after Ernie. She worried me. I knew she'd been hurt, and hurt badly, by Ragyapa and his boys. But she was still beautiful. And as soon as she'd gained her freedom, she'd regained that spark of dignity that she always carried with her.

  People weren't even paying attention now to the fact that we were Americans. With the riot p
olice on the rampage, everyone was too worried about his own safety to worry about us. The students were tough, well organized, and fighting back valiantly.

  It took us two or three minutes to make our way past the ranks of the riot police to the area occupied by the Buddhists.

  They still knelt on the blacktop. A sea of tranquility in the violent chaos that raged around them. The little nun sat on a dais garlanded with flowers. A monk stepped forward, holding a can, and gingerly splashed gasoline over her bald skull. The little nun sat utterly still as the fluid soaked her robes.

  Pungent fumes billowed in the air as I bounded forward.

  "Eighth Army has released your attacker to the Korean police!" I called out in Korean.

  The nun opened her eyes. She looked at me, puzzled at first, but then broke into a broad smile when she spotted Ernie. He stepped forward, reached in his pocket, and handed her a stick of ginseng gum. Without thinking, she took it in her small hand.

  A disapproving murmur rumbled through the crowd of kneeling monks. The large, officious monk pushed in front of us.

  "Miguk salam yogi ei andei!" he scolded. Americans aren't permitted here.

  I bowed and spoke to him calmly in Korean. "Forgive me for intruding, sir. We are representatives from Eighth Army. Our Commander has recently seen the wisdom of your demands. The man who so cruelly attacked this nun has just now been turned over to the Korean National Police for prosecution and punishment."

  Prosecution and punishment. I was proud of the vocabulary. Earlier today, I'd found both words in the same chapter of my Korean textbook. In Korean, the words are never split up.

  The monk studied me. "It is too late. We do not have confirmation of this." He swiveled his head and spoke to the monk with the gas can. "Proceed."

  When the monk raised the can, Ernie hopped forward, grabbed the can, and shoved the man back.

  "Not on my watch you're not," he yelled.

  As if they were one body, the kneeling monks rose to their feet and began waving their fists and hollering. I leaned into Choi So-lan's face, wiping gasoline out of her eyes.

  "You don't have to die! The American who attacked you has been turned over to the Korean police. The man who paid him will be in our custody any minute. You are young. You must live. Buddha would want you to live."

  She bowed her head and began to sob.

  The head monk was sputtering now, waving his hands, yelling at his men to grab us. A few of the bolder monks pushed forward.

  Ernie didn't need to understand any of the language to figure out what was happening. He poured gasoline onto the ground, and tossed the half-empty can at the approaching monks. Then he grabbed the litde nun and jerked her to her feet.

  "Come on, goddamn it! Run!"

  And to my surprise, she did. Running along beside Ernie, sprinting away from the Buddhists, heading toward the maddening riot of the student demonstrators.

  I trotted behind them, covering their retreat. One of the monks grabbed me, but I swiveled and kneed him in the stomach. A rush of air exploded from his mouth and he keeled over.

  The other monks kept coming. I pulled out my. 38 and waved it in front of them.

  "Ha-jima!" I said. Don't!

  The monks stopped in their tracks. I turned and raced off into the melee, following Ernie and the nun.

  Around the perimeter, the advance of the riot police had stopped. More students streamed into the intersection in front of Guanghua-mun. The student leadership had probably held them in reserve. Their tactic worked. The tired police were being pushed back on all fronts. Some were down, others ran screaming, the flaming oil of the Molotov cocktails engulfing their heavily padded uniforms.

  We searched for what seemed forever, making our way toward the careening jeep in the distance.

  I ran next to Ernie. "Herman hasn't caught Ragyapa yet."

  "Doesn't look like it."

  Even above the noise of the screams surrounding us, we heard a thump. The roof of the jeep shuddered to a stop.

  "Maybe he's found him now."

  We shoved our way through the thickening, screaming crowd. The riot police behind us were in a panic, breaking ranks. Big armored vehicles, water hoses spraying, inched backward.

  By the time we reached the jeep it was engulfed in a sea of people who were rocking it rhythmically back and forth. The nun shouted at one of the bystanders.

  "What happened?"

  "Some dog-faced American hit one of our demonstrators. A woman."

  "Is she hurt badly?"

  "They've taken her to a hospital."

  People were ripping the canvas off the top of the jeep. Herman was inside, handcuffed to the roll bar, like a fleshy morsel inside a clam. He was screaming.

  Ernie pulled out his. 45. "They're messing with our prisoner."

  I grabbed him. "Damn, Ernie. You're going to get us killed."

  He swiveled on me. "They're going to kill himl"

  I had no answer for that.

  Choi So-lan shoved between us. "I will talk to them."

  Before we could stop her, she plowed forward into the mob, head down, and burrowed her way to the front of the jeep. Holding her gasoline-soaked robes, she clambered up on what was left of the hood and waved her slender arms over her head.

  "Listen to me, good people!" she called. The crowd continued to roar. "Listen to me!"

  Gradually, a few heads turned. People elbowed one another, pointed.

  "You all know who I am. I am Choi So-lan!"

  A murmur went through the crowd, the name repeated from person to person. As the student demonstrators recognized her they stopped rocking the jeep.

  "I am the woman who would be sacrificed today!"

  The roar started to subside, the calls for vengeance against the foreign lout died down. Not everyone was paying attention, however. One man called for death to the big noses. Others shouted their approval. But people started to shush them, many wanted to hear what the famous nun had to say. The jeep's rusty springs gave out a final squeak. At last, the crowd quieted.

  "The Americans have turned over my attacker to the authorities!"

  A cheer went up from the demonstrators.

  The nun pointed at the huddled mass of flesh in the jeep. "This born-of-a-dog foreigner must be punished." Another cheer went up. She raised her voice as high as it would go. "But not like this! He must be put in jail and tried for his crimes. Let not the foreigners say that we Koreans are barbaric. Let them not say that we tore a man to pieces without a trial!"

  She pointed to the young men nearest the jeep. "You there, stand back! Allow the proper authorities to take this man into custody."

  I grabbed the handcuff keys from Ernie and darted for- ward through the crowd. Leaning my body across the jeep, I unlocked Herman's cuffs, keeping my head down, hoping that at least some of the people in the back of the crowd wouldn't realize that I was an American.

  "Keep your face down," I whispered to Herman, "and follow me. Don't say anything."

  "I didn't mean to hit that girl-"

  "Don't say anything, goddamn it, Herman. If they hear English it will just remind them that we're foreigners."

  I jerked him out of the seat, threw my arm protectively around his shoulders, and, both of us bending low at the waist, we crouched our way through the crowd.

  At just that moment a group of students managed to overcome the crew of one of the armored vehicles. Standing atop it, hollering, they turned the vehicle toward the line of riot police and started spraying them with water from their own hose.

  A cheer roared from the crowd. A knot of students hoisted the little nun on their shoulders and swept her toward the site of this momentous victory.

  Ernie joined Herman and me as we hurried through the crowd. "These kids think they're tough shit, but they're going to get their butts kicked," Ernie said. "They're just pissing off the man."

  "Yeah," Herman said. "They ought to calm down."

  Ernie slapped the side of Herman's he
ad. "What about you, moron! Driving that jeep while it was still chained."

  "I had to catch Ragyapa."

  "But you didn't. Did you?"

  "I came close. I clipped him a couple of times. And after I hit that girl he ran over here. Toward that yoguan."

  It was the same yoguan where the M-l shooter had hidden and fired on me. While Ernie and Herman were arguing, I'd been scanning the crowd, searching for some sign of Ragyapa. Some sign of Lady Ahn.

  It was Ernie who spotted them first. "Over there. Up the alley."

  They were under a lamppost. Lady Ahn on Ragyapa's back, clawing him like an enraged lioness.

  "She's kicking his butt." Ernie's voice was filled with admiration.

  "She ought to," Herman said. "By the time I got through with him, he could barely walk."

  I sprinted forward, but my progress was excruciatingly slow. I had to push through tightly packed clumps of shoving students. I felt as if I were running through glue.

  Another figure appeared in the light of the lamppost. A man. Holding a rifle.

  "I thought you took care of him!" I shouted.

  "Shot him in the arm," Ernie replied. "I didn't want to execute him."

  "What about the damn rifle?"

  "I took the magazine out."

  But Lady Ahn didn't know that. The wounded Mongolian thug pointed the muzzle of the M-l rifle into Lady Ahn's face. She stopped clawing and backed off, gasping for breath. Ragyapa hoisted himself to his feet. He started hobbling up the alley, clutching the jade skull. His hired gun covered his retreat.

  "They're getting away," Ernie said. "With the jade skull."

  "Let 'em go," I said. "Who gives a shit about it?"

  Lady Ahn stood motionless, breathing heavily. Then she stepped up the hill into the darkness, after Ragyapa and the man with the M-l rifle. After the skull.

  "She's got balls," Herman said.

  We finally shoved our way past the last of the demonstrators. The riot police were in total flight now. Their ranks had been broken. Many of them lay wounded and bleeding on the ground, their helmets and shields and batons scattered everywhere.

  I felt sorry for them. Sure, they were the symbols of oppression. But in reality they were just a bunch of farmers, beaten up by a bunch of rich students. No one in the government, until now, realized how much rage the assault on the Buddhist nun had released. And no one had been able to predict that the riot police would be outnumbered ten to one.