by Martin Limon
“It’s not normal procedure,” Mr. Kill said.
We were in downtown Seoul at the KNP headquarters, after having parked near our usual friendly pindeidok dealer.
“I know,” I replied. “But our only forensic analysis team is in Camp Zama, Japan. The Provost Marshal would never authorize bringing them here on a hunch of mine.”
Inspector Kill called in Officer Oh, who drew me a map of where to take the vehicle and told me when to bring it. We were scheduled for eight p.m. this evening.
When we picked up the green army sedan, we found another surprise. Beneath the front seat was a hatchet. Mr. Shin, Colonel Jameson’s driver, told me he used it sometimes to hack ice off the car in the winter. I placed it in a plastic evidence bag and asked the KNPs to analyze that, too.
Strange wasn’t happy. He didn’t like me and Ernie showing up at his place of business.
“You’re blowing my cover,” he whispered through gritted teeth and iron bars. He worked in a heavily fortified cage in the center of 8th Army Headquarters. Not ten yards down the carpeted hallway was the mahogany entrance to the suite of offices that housed the 8th Army and US Forces Korea and United Nations Command Commanding General, a job originally held by Douglas MacArthur.
“What do you want?” he asked.
I told him.
“Not easy to get.”
“I’ll owe you.”
“That you will.” He grinned a hideous grin and waggled his cigarette holder.
Two days later, the report came back from the KNP forensic lab. I showed it to Ernie.
Miss Kim was back in the Admin Office. Nervous and undergoing therapy, both physical and psychological, but hanging in there. She had a brace around her right ankle where she’d damaged some tendons from kicking the hell out of Captain Blood. She was forced to use aluminum crutches to get around, but still wore a nice dress and a high heel on her left foot.
Ernie handed the report back to me. We knew what we had to do.
“He’s on temporary duty back home,” Ernie told me.
“When will he be back?”
“Tomorrow. The flight’s due in at zero six hundred hours.”
“We’ll be there.”
“I’ll gas up the jeep.”
The Military Airlift Command passenger terminal at Osan Air Force Base was Spartan. A small snack bar with hot coffee and a short order grill sat at one end of the building, an information counter and rows of benches filled the big central waiting room, and at the opposite end, arriving passengers came in and were inspected by both the US Air Force security personnel and a small contingent of bored-looking ROK customs officials.
He was carrying a briefcase, standing tall in his khaki uniform and smiling broadly when he emerged into the main lobby. Apparently he’d expected his driver, Mr. Shin, to be waiting for him. As full colonel and Commander of 8th United States Army J-2 Military Intelligence, Colonel Emmett S. Jameson was authorized a green army sedan and a full-time Korean civilian driver. But Mr. Shin had been ordered to stay home today; Ernie and I would be picking up Colonel Jameson. He’d been traveling on TDY, temporary duty orders to Fort Hood, Texas, for two reasons: to escort the body of Major Frederick Manfield Schultz home to his grieving wife and children, and also to attend intelligence briefings with the commander of Fort Hood and his staff. Strange told us that the briefings were mostly bullshit—authorized by the 8th Army Chief of Staff to provide an official reason for the travel, but actually intended to give Colonel Jameson enough time to make sure that Major Schultz was properly buried and that the needs of his surviving family were taken care of.
For whatever reason, the task didn’t seem too onerous. Colonel Jameson was smiling and in good spirits even after a long military flight on a C-130 cargo plane. His smile disappeared when he saw us.
We wore our dress-green uniforms, and our CID badges were prominently displayed on our jacket pockets. Both of us were outfitted with web belts, holsters and Army-issue .45s.
“Colonel Jameson?” I said.
“You know who I am,” he said. “Where’s my driver?”
“We’ll be escorting you back to Seoul,” Ernie told him. “Please drop the briefcase and place your hands on this table.”
“What’s the matter with you two? Have you gone crazy?”
Ernie grabbed the colonel’s arm and twisted him around. I yanked the briefcase away, and within seconds his hands were handcuffed behind his back. The Korean customs officials, the Air Force security officers and the few passengers loitering around the Arrival Gate went completely still.
I read him his rights.
“What’s this all about?” he asked, moisture filling his eyes.
“You know what it’s about,” I said.
“I don’t, dammit,” he said, stamping his foot. And then he spit at me.
That did it. Ernie grabbed him and shoved him, face first, up against the cement-block wall. I wiped the saliva from my face.
Commander Ku, or “the octopus lady,” as she was known to Riley, had purposely dropped a dime on Colonel Jameson. At first, I’d asked myself why. If he was on the North Koreans’ payroll, as Captain Blood had been, they would’ve wanted to protect him and, after the 501st fiasco blew over, reestablish contact. They had to have a very good reason for throwing away such a well-placed turncoat. Then it dawned on me. In Commander Ku’s eyes, Jameson had proven himself unreliable—he’d risked the entire operation by acting irrationally. The murder of Major Frederick Manfield Schultz had led to further scrutiny of the 501st, and Commander Ku believed Jameson had committed the deed for personal reasons; namely, his own relationship with Schultz’s wife. Now the North Koreans wanted Jameson out of the way, prosecuted as a killer so he’d lose all credibility. But why not just cut him off, take him off their payroll quietly? Too volatile. He knew too much, and the situation could blow up if he turned against them. If, however, Colonel Jameson was proven to be a murderer, 8th Army wouldn’t want to publicize it, and wouldn’t want to compound the damage to their own prestige by admitting that he’d also worked for the North Koreans.
But it had also occurred to me that this could all be disinformation. Commander Ku might be trying to throw a monkey wrench into the smooth functioning of 8th Army headquarters by casting suspicion on our highest-ranking intel officer. That’s why I’d asked Mr. Kill to help us prove Jameson’s involvement in the murder one way or the other.
Ernie still held Colonel Jameson pressed up against the wall.
“What you did,” Ernie told him, “is eliminate a rival. You’ve been after Schultz’s wife for years, and when you heard about the complaint he filed against Miss Jo, you figured this was your chance. You could eliminate him and make it look like she was the one who did it.”
“You’re crazy,” Colonel Jameson sputtered.
“Not crazy,” Ernie said. “The beauty of your plan was that you knew whoever looked into the murder would be suspicious of the Five Oh First after Schultz’s inspection threw heat on them. And they’d see how volatile Captain Blood was. So you had two red herrings to throw us off.”
“I’ll hire a lawyer,” he said, “and have you brought up on charges for defamation of a superior officer. I’ll ruin your careers.”
“Go ahead,” Ernie told him. “There’s not much to ruin. We also have a forensic report on your vehicle. And testimony from your driver, Mr. Shin, that you kept the keys that evening, and even though he drives you to all your official functions, you told him to take the night off. You picked up Major Schultz to go to the Eighth Army Officers Club together. But you never got there. Instead, you argued about his wife. He knew what was happening between you two, which is why he resorted to paying for a night with an Itaewon business girl. You had a hatchet under the driver’s seat. Mr. Shin had it for protection, but also to get rid of ice in the middle of the winter. You used it on Major
Schultz. You also used the ceremonial bayonet you keep behind your desk. Both of them were checked out by the KNPs and have traces of his blood type. And Mr. Shin says that the next day, when he realized that the sedan had been soiled and cleaned by someone, he was too afraid to mention it.”
Colonel Jameson was silently bawling now. Ernie shoved him forward, but halfway out of the terminal, he dropped to his knees and started screaming, rolling his eyes and gnashing his teeth. “I didn’t want to do it,” he said. “He made me. Fred made me do it. He wouldn’t leave her alone, even when he knew we loved each other. He wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“His wife, you mean?” I asked.
Jameson stared at me with wide eyes. “Yes. She’s the one who caused all this.”
I didn’t see it that way, but this was no place to argue. The crowd inside the terminal had backed away from the three of us as if we had the plague.
Ernie and I grabbed Colonel Jameson under the armpits and hoisted him to his feet. Outside the terminal, we threw him in the back of Ernie’s new jeep. He tried to climb out, so we were forced to shackle the steering wheel chain to his handcuffs. All the way back to Seoul he leaned forward, rattling the chain, arms outstretched, like a penitent praying for forgiveness.
-38-
We still didn’t know the whereabouts of Miss Jo. Nor did we know the identity of the two men who had helped her escape from us in Itaewon. This remained a mystery for just over a week after the arrest of Colonel Jameson. The prosecution was going smoothly. As promised, he’d hired a Stateside lawyer, and so far he hadn’t said anything, which was smart of him. If more evidence couldn’t be gathered, it was possible he’d get off with a lesser charge, like manslaughter, but that wasn’t up to me and Ernie. We’d done what we could.
We’d also started the ball rolling on the possible exoneration of Staff Sergeant Hector Arenas and the other GIs who’d been railroaded by the 501st MI. All of the 501st-inspired prosecutions in the last few years were being quietly reviewed by the 8th Army JAG office. In addition, Sergeant Leon Jerrod, the 501st agent in Uijongbu, and some of the other operatives were under investigation. From what I’d heard, they were all sweating bullets.
■ ■ ■
I moped around the office after duty hours, trying to work up the courage to call Leah Prevault. But what would I say to her? My situation hadn’t changed. I was still in doubt as to what to do. And then the phone rang.
It was a female voice, one that I recognized: Miss Jo Kyong-ja, no longer on the KNP’s most wanted list. “Ten p.m.,” was all she said. “The Double Oh Seven Club. Come alone.”
Then she hung up.
I felt a chill go through me. For a moment I considered not going, or at least having Ernie follow and watch my back, but in the end, I really didn’t have much choice. If I ever wanted to figure out who had rescued Miss Jo and why, I had to be there. We’d exonerated her, so the danger in my going alone was somewhat limited.
When I arrived at the Double Oh Seven Club, I ordered a beer. I sat alone at a table for about twenty minutes, nursing it. GIs and business girls gyrated on the dance floor, a Korean rock band clanging behind them. Finally one of the business girls approached me.
“You want dance?”
“No, thank you,” I said, trying to smile. “I don’t dance.”
“Then go to OB Beer hall. Drink one beer. When finish, go outside.”
In a whiff of perfume, she left.
■ ■ ■
The OB Beer Hall was a stand-up bar just off a large bus stop, with counters and small round tables at elbow height. Waitresses in white bandanas brought mugs of OB draft to tired Korean businessmen who were reading newspapers and waiting for their municipal buses to pull up. I stood alone at a table and quaffed down a frosty mug of OB. I saw why they’d told me to come here. The entire front was wide open, the room well-lit, and from across the street, anyone standing in the darkness could see who was inside. When I finished my beer, I zipped up my jacket and walked out into the cool night air. A cab pulled up. In the back sat Miss Jo Kyong-ja, staring straight ahead. I opened the front passenger door and climbed in. The cabby zoomed off.
Neither one of us talked. Finally, the driver came to a stop in the Mapo area of Seoul, in front of a pool hall sitting atop a noodle shop. Miss Jo spoke.
“You pay,” she said, and climbed out of the cab. After handing the fare and a small tip to the driver, I looked around. I didn’t see her. I walked a few paces from the noodle shop and looked back into a narrow alley between buildings. She stood about ten yards in, huddled in her long coat. When I followed her into the darkness, she turned and started walking. Fast. We wound through alleyways and narrow pedestrian lanes for what seemed like twenty minutes. Finally, she stopped and pointed. “There,” she said. “Go upstairs and wait.”
“How long?” I asked.
But she didn’t answer, instead just turning and hurrying off. I scanned the dark passageways. There didn’t appear to be any danger yet, so I walked in the direction Miss Jo had pointed and climbed a rickety flight of wooden stairs. At the top was a door. I opened it and walked in without bothering to knock. A dim yellow light glowed into some sort of storage room beyond, reeking of mold and rust. I crossed the room and stared out of a dirty window. More buildings, more filthy apartments, more of the squalid life of Seoul.
A rat scurried behind a mattress leaning against the wall. In the towering storage cabinets sat cobwebbed items that I preferred not to touch. I waited. What was all this about? I thought I knew. I hoped I was right. But it was like when Ernie had climbed that watchtower at Camp Arrow. We hope for the best, but we might get the worst.
Finally, the door creaked open.
Behind it was the best thing I could’ve hoped for.
-39-
They’d heard about Miss Jo, she told me, and the murder of Major Schultz.
“We pay attention to everything going on at the Eighth United States Army.”
“And also what’s going on with me?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Our sources already knew that people more powerful than Miss Jo were involved. Possibly the Five Oh First and the agent known as Commander Ku.”
“That’s why you sent those two operatives to save Miss Jo,” I said, “when we had arrested her in Itaewon?”
She nodded.
“Why was she so important to you?”
“Because we knew,” she said, “if you turned Miss Jo over to the KNPs, even though Inspector Kill might have his doubts, accusing her and prosecuting her for the murder would be too convenient. The South Korean government would want the motive for the murder of an American officer to be nothing more than greed and personal revenge. They wouldn’t want the American public to think his death might’ve been due to espionage.”
“Because that might hurt the Pak Chung-hee regime’s image in the West. And increase the call to bring our boys home.”
“And cut off your generous American aid,” she said.
Doctor Yong In-ja had once been chief of the Itaewon branch of the Yongsan District Public Health Service; she’d later been my very serious girlfriend and mother to our son, Il-yong. Moonlight filtered through the dirty window, illuminating her face. She looked beautiful. Ernie would’ve laughed at me for thinking so: She had a round head, wore round glasses and kept her straight black hair cut short. But she had flawless pale skin, and her broad smile lit up the world when she was happy. She was brilliant and, more importantly, dedicated to her cause. A cause that aimed to establish a third path in Korean government. Not Communism. Not authoritarian militarism, like the Pak Chung-hee dictatorship. But a way that was democratic and independent of foreign influence. Her contingent was well established and had roots all the way back to the resistance movements in South Cholla province during Japanese colonization. As such, both the North and the South Korean governments hated the group and, more
often than not, killed its leaders on sight.
“Our contacts in the police department,” she said, “told us that you visited Mokpo. It was discussed at our leadership counsel. Your presence in Mokpo made no sense. It didn’t advance your investigation. They couldn’t figure out why you’d come.”
“But you knew.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I knew. It was dangerous, to me and to our son.” She took a deep breath and continued. “We wanted Eighth Army to investigate the Schultz murder because we hoped you’d find the spies in your ranks.”
“Your plan worked.”
She stood and lifted the wooden crate upon which she was sitting, then placed it closer to me. She reached out and took my hand. “I am marked for death,” she told me. “Only a revolution here in South Korea can change that. You and I can never marry.” She paused, letting that sink in, and added, “That is our fate.”
I nodded.
“Every time you search for me, it puts me in danger. You must promise.” She squeezed my hand. “Don’t ever try to find me again.”
“It’s difficult,” I answered, stricken.
“Yes. But you understand why.”
“I understand. That pain I can bear. What I can’t bear is not seeing our son.”
“I know that.” Then she called out something in Korean. I was so confused by then that I didn’t realize what was happening. The door opened. The two Korean men who’d dropped from the roof in Itaewon were standing outside. Big guys. Tough. But they didn’t enter. Instead, one of them waved his hand and a very small person walked through the door. He hurried to his mother’s side. Through the skylight above, a moonbeam shone on his face. My son. Il-yong. The First Dragon.
-40-
I told no one except Leah Prevault, who held my hands tightly the entire time.
“So you don’t expect to see him again?”
I shook my head sadly. “Not until South Korea is a free country, not just free in name only.”
