by Martin Limon
“Off to the right a bit,” I replied.
Then he spotted it. A communications beacon. And next to that, a squat building.
“That’s American?” he asked.
“Must be,” I replied. “How else is Colonel Laurel going to stay in touch with the honchos at Eighth Army?”
“I don’t think he gives a shit about the honchos at Eighth Army.”
The old woman brought two steaming bowls of ramian noodles, and then she slid the yakimandu between us. Ernie stared at the fare sourly.
“Where’s the kimchee?” he asked.
“You likey?”
“I likey.”
The woman smiled and in short order delivered one plate each of pickled cabbage and pickled cucumber and a bowl of water kimchee. As she set them on the table, the sharp tang of vegetables fermented in brine bit into my nostrils.
Ernie smiled and ordered a Seven Stars Cider. I stuck with the barley tea.
The cab driver wound around one sharp bend after another. The road was narrow, just wide enough for one vehicle. There were only a couple of bypass areas where a vehicle could move off to the side to make way for another.
“What happened to the jillions of dollars Eighth Army spends improving roads?” Ernie asked.
“I guess they spent it elsewhere. Must not expect many visitors up here.”
The cab driver’s name was Mr. Won. He had been introduced to us by the woman who owned the Nokko-ri Yoguan. I think he was her brother-in-law or something. Mr. Won leaned forward, both hands gripping the steering wheel, concentrating on his driving, ignoring us completely. Ernie sat in the front passenger seat. I sat in back. Below were rock-strewn valleys with little vegetation. Every now and then, I glanced back and saw the Mount Halla Training Facility and the village of Nokko-ri, growing ever smaller as we moved higher up the mountain. In the distance, the sea stirred placidly.
Finally, we rounded one more switchback turn, straightened out along the edge of the mountain, and there, on a plateau-like ledge, sat the squat green building I’d seen from the comfortable environs of the Nokko-ri Chophouse. Spiraling straight up was the metal edifice of the red-and-white communications tower.
Mr. Won stopped the car and immediately turned off the engine. His shoulders slumped forward and for a moment he bowed his head to fists still clenched on top of the steering wheel.
“Yogi kidariyo?” I said to him. You’ll wait here?
He nodded. As we’d agreed, he’d receive the bulk of his money once we were returned safely to the Nokko-ri Yoguan.
The small communications compound was surrounded by a high chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. It was all rusted out as if it hadn’t been replaced in years. A sign hung near the single gate in the fence: Chulip Kumji. And below that: Authorized Personnel Only.
Ernie strode up to the gate, studied it for a moment, and then pressed a buzzer. There was a rusty speaker next to the buzzer, but we heard no response. He pushed the buzzer again, and then again.
Finally a voice erupted from the speaker. “Yeah?”
“Who’s this?” Ernie asked.
“Vance.”
The voice sounded sleepy, as if we’d just woken him up.
“What’s your rank, Vance?” Ernie asked.
“Spec Four.”
He was waking up now and becoming a little nervous.
“My name is Agent Bascom. I’m from the Eighth Army CID in Seoul. My partner here is Agent Sueno. We want you to open the gate so we can talk to you.”
“CID?”
A slight sense of panic now.
“Yes. But we’re not here about the black market. We just need some information.”
“I’m not allowed to open the gate when I’m alone.”
“Alone? How many people are stationed up here?”
“Supposed to be three. A lieutenant, an NCO, and me, a technician. But we haven’t had a lieutenant since I been here.”
“How long is that?”
“Six months.”
“And where’s the sergeant?”
“Parkwood?”
“Yeah. Parkwood.”
“He’s on a supply run.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
There was a hesitation. “Sometimes he stops in the ville.”
Ernie slipped his badge out of the inner pocket of his coat and held it over his head. “Specialist Vance, from where you’re at, can you see my badge?”
There was a pause. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to ask my partner to show his badge too.”
I held mine over my head.
“Do you see them both?” Ernie asked.
“Yeah.”
“Open the gate, Vance.”
“But I was told… ”
“What you were told doesn’t matter,” Ernie said. “We have a warrant, we’ve traveled all the way from Seoul, and it’s important.”
There was a long pause. Finally, the gate buzzed. Ernie pushed it open.
The place was a dump. What you’d expect from two lonely bachelors living alone. There was a small reception area and then a large air-conditioned room filled with metal units as big as refrigerators, covered with buzzing lights and wires. A number of work consoles blinked at us and beeped. Beyond were a storage room piled high with crates of army C rations and a kitchen jammed with dirty dishes. In the largest room, piles of dirty laundry were draped atop armyissue bunks, unshined shoes, and combat boots. One cowboy boot poked its toe out from beneath green blankets spread in sweat-matted disarray.
“No houseboy up here?” Ernie said.
“I wish,” Vance replied.
Specialist Vance was a smallish man, with a slouch to his shoulders and a hangdog expression enhanced by-or maybe caused by-drooping jowls. His skin was clear and his dark brown hair had not a hint of gray, but somehow he carried himself with the aura of a person who, at a very young age, had already been defeated by the world.
“Get down to the ville much?” Ernie asked.
“Only when we have a reason to drive the truck down there. Parkwood usually goes.”
“He’s the ranking man.”
Vance nodded. “There’s supposed to be at least two of us here at all times, but without a lieutenant that’s impossible. So sometimes, like now, it’s down to just me.”
A bell on one of the consoles started to ring.
“Excuse me,” Vance said.
He sat down at a keyboard and tapped on a few buttons until a printer came to life and started rat-tat-tatting on a sheet of paper. As it rolled off the printer, I read it. Military acronyms. Routine stuff, about deadlines for supply reorders.
“This isn’t for you,” I said.
For the first time, Vance looked up at me. “Naw. We get a lot of stuff that’s on general distribution to all units in Eighth Army. We send it down to the training facility anyway in case they have a need to know. Some of the traffic, on those machines over there, is strictly for relay. You know, microwave stuff that we pass on to the next commo site north of Pusan.”
“Horang-ni?”
“Yeah. Horang-ni. How’d you know?”
I shrugged. “And they relay it on up to the line to Seoul?”
“Right.”
Ernie strolled around the work area, staring at somebody’s short-timer calendar. A naked lady was half covered with red ink. He turned away from the calendar and as he did so his shoulder brushed against a half-dozen clipboards hanging on a nail. Four of them clattered to the ground. Onionskin papers scattered across the tiled floor, and Ernie stooped to pick them up.
“What are these?” he asked.
Specialist Vance helped him pick up the reports, reorganized them, and put the clipboards back on their nail, one by one. “IG results,” he said.
“The Eighth Army Inspector General stopped here?”
“Naw. Just the Long Lines Battalion IG.”
Ernie gazed around the cluttered work area. “Whoever he was, he must’ve ripped you guys two new ones.”
“Yeah,” Vance said. “It’s been a mess with no lieutenant and me doing most of the work. You know, all the routine stuff like maintenance reports, microwave alignments, checking telecom circuits. I do most of it.”
“But not enough,” Ernie said.
“No, we flunked the IG. They’re even threatening to bar Parkwood from reenlistment.”
Ernie peeked inside a couple of filing cabinets. “Don’t you have any booze around here?”
“Naw. We used to. But neither Parkwood nor I drink.”
“But there used to be someone who drank?”
“An old sergeant, before Parkwood arrived. That’s all he did.”
“My kind of guy,” Ernie said.
“So you relay traffic down to the training facility,” I said.
“That’s one of our main jobs,” Vance replied.
“Do they relay stuff up here?”
“Of course. And then we send it on.”
“Like their morning report?”
“Yeah. We send it over to Sasebo in Japan.”
“Not up to Eighth Army?”
“No. The training facility’s under a separate command.”
“Do you keep records here of that morning report?”
“No. I read it every day, though. Sort of gives me an idea of whether or not the ville’s going to be crowded.”
“Like when all the SF guys are on duty, they must have a training cycle in.”
“You got it. And those Second Division guys go nuts down in Nokko-ri. Drive the prices sky-high.”
“I thought you said you don’t go down to the ville often,” Ernie said, but he smiled as he said it.
Vance flushed red. “Only sometimes.”
“I don’t blame you for going to the ville,” I told him. “I’d go down there as often as I could if I worked in a remote place like this.”
Vance nodded but didn’t reply. I continued.
“So Sergeant Parkwood probably won’t be back until tomorrow morning, right? Not if he’s smart.”
“Maybe,” Vance said.
Ernie cut in. “Don’t worry so much, Vance. We’re not here about all that. We just want to know who in the last two or three weeks has been on TDY or in-country leave from the Mount Halla Training Facility.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all,” Ernie replied. “After we get that, we’ll leave you alone.”
“I don’t mind the company. Honest. It gets sort of lonely up here.”
“I can imagine. So tell us about the Green Berets at the Mount Halla Training Facility.”
“One guy’s due back tomorrow,” Vance said. “He went back to the States on a thirty-day mid-tour leave.”
“Who’s that?”
“Munoz. I think he’s Puerto Rican. At least that’s what his travel orders said, that he was going there, to Puerto Rico I mean.”
I jotted the name down in my notebook.
“Nobody else has been gone,” Vance said. “Except for maybe if they took the regular chopper run to Pusan on the weekend. But even that’s unlikely. There’s only nine Green Berets stationed there, not counting Colonel Laurel. And he insists on a CQ every night, so they pull a lot of duty.”
CQ. Charge of Quarters.
“They’re a strack unit,” Ernie said.
“Right,” Vance said admiringly. “Straight-arrow military.”
“So to the best of your knowledge,” I said, “only one guy has been gone from the Mount Halla Training Facility in the last few weeks.”
“As best as I can tell,” Vance replied.
“How about their ration-control cards?” I asked.
“Their what?”
“The ration cards. You know, like at the PX when your ration-control plate is anviled when you buy something like liquor or beer. They have a PX, don’t they?”
“A small one.”
“So somebody has to deliver their ration cards.”
“Yeah. I forgot about that. Sergeant Amos runs it up to Seoul every week.”
“What’s his full name?”
“Walker R. Amos, Sergeant First Class.”
I jotted the name down. “Why him? Why is he the only one to run it up every week?”
“Something about his profile,” Vance replied. “He’s older than the other guys. Can’t do all the physical training they do.”
“So Colonel Laurel makes him escort the ration cards up to Seoul each week. Sort of demeaning, isn’t it?”
Vance shrugged.
“So he takes the weekly chopper to Pusan. From there does he take the train?”
“I guess,” Vance replied. “I never heard of anybody traveling up to Seoul any other way. Unless they take one of the training flights that come in.”
“There’s an airport?”
“Yeah. The ROK Army has one.”
“Can you think of anyone else who’s left the compound recently?”
“No. That’s it. Not unless you count Colonel Laurel.”
“When did he leave?”
“Last week. I don’t remember the exact day. There was some sort of commander’s call in Seoul.”
When Ernie and I climbed back into the cab, I studied the ranks and names I had jotted down. The first was Munoz, a buck sergeant. That meant he was relatively young; maybe he’d gone back to visit his family in Puerto Rico. Lifers don’t travel that much. Once you’ve spent a decade or two in the army, your family tends to forget about you and you tend to forget about them. The second man, the one who’d delivered the ration cards to Seoul, was a sergeant first class, which meant he’d been around a while. The full name was Walker R. Amos. Could he be black? If so, and if it could be proven that Munoz had gone to Puerto Rico, I could eliminate both men and I’d be back to square one. I asked Specialist Vance, but he’d never met either man personally. But something told me that SFC Walker R. Amos would be white. Something told me we were close to the Blue Train rapist. Very close.
Mr. Won was even more petrified driving down Mount Halla than he had been while driving up. I didn’t like the way he kept jamming on the brakes, pressing the pedal almost to the floorboard. Ernie finally said something.
“When was the last time you put in new brake pads, Ajjosi?”
I shushed him. The man didn’t understand anyway. Best to let him concentrate on his driving and hope for the best. I actually thought of telling Mr. Won to stop so we could get out and walk the three or four miles downhill back to Nokko-ri, but I didn’t think he could stop this old cab now if he wanted to.
Ernie spotted it first. He pointed.
“Look!”
A puke-green quarter-ton truck, armyissue, chugging up the incline.
“Must be Parkwood,” I said, “coming back from his supply run.”
“There’s a bypass,” Ernie said, “closer to him than to us.”
“I hope he has the sense to use it,” I replied.
Mr. Won didn’t understand a word we were saying. He stared in terror at the winding road ahead, jamming on the brakes, both hands knuckled white atop the steering wheel.
I reached over and honked the horn.
If the man driving the truck below heard it, he gave no indication.
16
When I was growing up in East L.A., freeways blossomed everywhere. The Santa Ana, the San Bernardino, the Pomona, the Harbor, the Long Beach, all were being renovated or widened or extended or planned or laid down. Overweight politicians in stiff business suits were constantly cutting ribbons. It was as if by paving the entire planet and drawing lane-change lines to the end of the earth, we’d finally find happiness. That was one of the reasons I’d been so smitten by Korea when I first arrived. Sure, there were roads and cars and trucks-and a new four-lane freeway was being built to run between Seoul and Pusan-but still, there were plenty of places for people to actually walk. Muddy lanes, dirt roads, cobble
stoned pathways, tree-lined avenues, streets with shops pressed up against one another-occasionally you’d even spot wooden carts pulled by oxen, a man leading the snorting beast, a woman and small children huddled together on wooden planks. Not all human movement had been turned over to the internal combustion engine. Even the Blue Train seemed more human to me than driving on an eight-lane freeway.
Every day of my youth in the Los Angeles Basin, my lungs had been involuntarily filled with smog. Now, on a remote volcano on the edge of Asia, it looked as if I were finally going to meet the fate of so many of my compatriots. I was finally going to become a statistic in a head-on collision.
“The asshole didn’t stop at the bypass!” Ernie shouted.
Mr. Won had both feet pressed on the brake pedal, but it wasn’t doing much good. The momentum of the cab was now carrying us downhill at about fifty miles per hour. Around the sharp curves, he was barely maintaining control, drifting toward the left edge of the lane, and the G.I. driver of the truck below seemed to have no idea that he was only a few seconds from impact.
I reached forward across Mr. Won and once again sounded the horn. Beyond a boulder, the truck loomed into view. We went screaming around a curve.
I crouched behind the front seat, covering my head. As I did so, Mr. Won screamed. He veered to the extreme left, trying to avoid a head-on with the truck. The wheels spun on gravel and the cab started tipping to the left. Out of the side window, I glanced down into the abyss. The wheels still had traction and we were moving forward-but two or three more inches to the left and we’d plummet to our deaths. I glanced forward just in time to see the quarter-ton truck barreling toward us. Ernie cursed, grabbed the steering wheel, and shoved it hard to the right. Won let go of the wheel and covered his eyes. Green iron grating flashed in front of me and then something slammed into the rear of the cab. We spun, three, four, five times; and finally, with a jarring thump, came to a shuddering halt in the ditch on the right side of the road.
I sat up. Dust rose around us in an enveloping cloud.
“You all right?” I asked.
“All right,” Ernie replied. He reached for Mr. Won.
“How about you, Baba Louie?”
Won uncovered his eyes, looked around, and started to moan. Ernie and I both climbed out of the cab and pulled him out of the driver’s-side door. We laid him on the edge of the road, searching as we did so for wounds. He didn’t have any.
