The Iron Sickle

by Martin Limon

  At the bottom of the hill, we rounded the corner. Ernie stepped on it, and in a few seconds we’d reached the MSR. Ernie turned right and really let it rip, slamming on the brakes when he had to, giving it the gas when he could, showing the skills he’d developed during his years in Asia. Within seconds, we passed Hannam-dong and turned right until we reached Chamsu Bridge. Ernie crossed it heading south, and soon we were on the wide open roads running parallel to the Han River in the district known a Gangnam, literally River South. There were a few high-rise apartments along the waterfront but not many. Straw hatted farmers worked the fields that stretched on the long inland plains to distant hills. It was as if by just crossing the bridge, we’d been transported back in time. I even spotted a tired-looking ox pulling a plow.

  I turned in my seat and studied the road behind us. From here, I had a clear view of Chamsu Bridge.

  “No jeeps,” I said, turning back around.

  “We lost ’em,”

  “You lost them,” I said, “with the help of a few business girls.”

  “I have always depended,” Ernie said, “on the kindness of business girls.”

  We found Mr. Kill three stories below ground in the interrogation room of the Korean National Police headquarters. When he emerged, his tie was loose and his sleeves were rolled up. He looked exhausted.

  “What do you want?” he said.

  “The National Mental Health Sanatorium. What happened? Every patient there was arrested.”

  “Not arrested,” he said. “They were just taken in for questioning.”

  “Like the other witnesses were taken in for questioning?”

  He shrugged.

  “Have they been released yet?”

  “Some of them.”

  “How about the director, Doctor Hwang?”

  “He’s been particularly uncooperative.”

  “Why shouldn’t he be?” Ernie said. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  Mr. Kill looked down the hallway and then back at Ernie. “This isn’t the States. We do things the Korean way.” He pointed his forefinger at Ernie’s nose. “We do things our way.”

  Ernie bristled. I stepped between them.

  “Okay,” I said. “We can’t talk you into releasing these people but you can at least tell us what you’ve learned from them.”

  “Not much. Other than they’re all a bunch of Communists.”

  “You mean literally members of the Communist party?”

  “No. I mean in the way they obstinately oppose the goals of President Pak Chung-hee.”

  “That’s it?” Ernie said. “That’s why you’re holding them?”

  Mr. Kill placed his hands on his hips and his face hardened. “How about your investigation? What have you found?”

  “Not much,” Ernie said.

  Mr. Kill nodded, as if that was the answer he expected. “So if you’ll excuse me.”

  He returned to the interrogation room. We watched him go. Silently, we turned and trudged back up the steps.

  “Nobody really seems to want to solve this thing,” Ernie said. “They’re just using the iron sickle murders as an excuse to resolve old grudges.”

  “Mr. Kill could solve it if he wanted to,” I said. “He has all the resources of the Korean National Police at his disposal and yet he continues to concentrate on peripheral issues.”

  “So what does that tell us?”

  “It tells us that they want us, Eighth Army, to solve it.”

  “Why?” Ernie asked.

  “Because the KNPs don’t want to touch it.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “Because they’re afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “There’s only one thing in this world the Korean National Police are afraid of,” I said.

  Ernie looked at me, waiting for the answer.

  “Politics,” I said.

  We passed the information desk in the main floor lobby. A few uniformed officers stared at us, and there was a lot or murmuring.

  “I don’t like it,” Ernie said. “Maybe Eighth Army put the word out to be on the lookout for us. Let’s get out of here.”

  I agreed.

  Without incident, we reached the jeep in the parking lot and rolled into the busy streets of Seoul.

  Ernie swerved past a careening kimchi cab. “Should we go see Major Rhee?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. For all we know Eighth Army’s charged us with the crime of absconding with classified documents.”

  “The Bogus Claims File isn’t classified.”

  “No, not officially. But they might be pissed off enough not to worry about legal niceties.”

  “So what’s our next move?”

  I thought about the totem we’d found at the Inn of the Crying Rose. KNP forensic technicians had removed the head of Mr. Ming and taken samples of the blood and other shreds of flesh that had fallen to the floor. The totem itself was made not of wood from produce crates, as I’d originally assumed, but of sturdier stuff. Unlike when we’d first seen it at the Itaewon Market, I had a chance, finally, to study it closely. The wood seemed old and brittle and it was stenciled with faded black lettering, in English: 4038 SIG BN (MOB), which meant, in military bureaucratese, the 4038th Signal Battalion (Mobile).

  “Let’s make a few phone calls,” I said.

  “Where?” Ernie asked.

  In downtown Seoul there weren’t many places to park. And if we did find a public phone I’d need ten won pieces to pay for the call; the wait to be transferred to the 8th Army telephone exchange could be as long as twenty minutes.

  “Let’s go to the RTO,” I said.

  There, at the 8th Army Rail Transportation Office at the Seoul Train Station, we’d not only have access to phones that were already hooked up to the 8th Army telephone exchange, we’d also have access to Western-style toilets and a small PX snack stand where we could grab a cup of hot coffee.

  Ernie nodded.

  Five minutes later we rolled up to the brick façade of the 8th Army RTO just to the right of the huge dome of the Seoul train station. No one paid any attention to us as Ernie made a break for the latrine and I grabbed the receiver of the government phone on the ticketing counter. Next to it, chained to a metal pole, was the 8th Army phonebook. I didn’t need to look up a number. I dialed Riley.

  “Where the hell are you?” he said.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “Whadda you mean ‘who wants to know?’ You know who wants to know. The freaking Provost Marshal.”

  “We’re working on the Barretsford case.”

  “You’ve got leads?”

  “A few.”

  “So what were you doing in the SOFA Secretariat’s Office last night?”

  “Was that us?”

  “According to Major Woolword it was.”

  “That old drunk?”

  “Hey, it’s in his log, and Sergeant Ervin and a couple of MPs are backing him up.”

  “So why’s everybody so worried about us being in the Secretariat’s Office?”

  “You weren’t authorized to be there.”

  “Who gives a rat’s butt about that? You want this guy with the iron sickle caught, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but the Provost Marshal don’t like you two snooping around in places you’re not supposed to be.”

  “So he sicced Moe Dexter on us.”

  “He didn’t sic nobody on you. He put out the word that he wanted to talk to you.”

  “So there’s no warrant for our arrest?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Doesn’t it seem odd to you they’re making such a big deal out of this when we have a killer on the loose?”

  Riley was silent for a while. “I suppose it does,” he said, his voice subdued, sounding almost reasonable for a moment.

  “I need you to look something up for me. The Forty Thirty-eighth Signal Battalion Mobile. Who are they? Where are they stationed? Anything you can find out about the
m.”

  “Why?”

  After he promised to keep it under his hat, I told him.

  “A totem?” he said.

  “That’s what I’m calling it.”

  “Left at the site where Collingsworth was murdered and also this Chinese guy.”

  “I told you to keep it under your hat.”

  “Oh, I can do that. For now.”

  I hung up on him. Ernie was back, rummaging around the PX snack stand, asking the cashier if they had any ginseng gum. They didn’t. I reached in my wallet and pulled out a slip of paper with Captain Prevault’s office number on it. It rang and rang.

  I set the phone down, walked over to the snack stand and ordered a cup of coffee. Before I could pay for it, the big swinging doors burst open. Two ROK Army soldiers in combat fatigues entered, M-16 rifles leveled, both of them crouched, narrow-eyed, swiveling the barrels of the rifles from side to side.

  The American NCO behind the ticketing counter burst out of his office.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “No ROK personnel allowed in here. This is Eighth Army. You arra? Eighth Army. You bali bali karra chogi!” Leave quickly.

  A half dozen more ROK soldiers burst through the door. Two of them hopped over the ticketing counter and shoved the irate American NCO back into his office. I heard scuffling, and then somebody went down.

  Ernie and I were both armed but neither of us reached for the .45s in our shoulder holsters. Instead, we stood with our hands out to our sides. More ROK soldiers searched the latrine, the small waiting area, and the other offices of the RTO. Once the area was secure, the word was passed back and then two soldiers held the doors open. I think I had been half expecting it to be Major Rhee Mi-sook who strode into the room.

  As usual, she looked smashing in her tailored fatigues and her highly polished combat boots. She surveyed the scene, grinned, and barked an order. Two straight-backed chairs were brought from the office behind the ticketing counter and set down in the center of the small waiting room. Major Rhee pointed a polished nail at them.

  “Sit!”

  A half dozen M-16 rifles were pointed at us, so we sat. Ernie crossed his arms and slouched. I maintained an attentive posture.

  “You boys have been busy,” Major Rhee said.

  “Idleness is the Devil’s handmaiden,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It’s good to be busy,” I replied.

  “Yes, it’s good. What have you found out so far about the man with the iron sickle?”

  “He’s a very bad boy,” Ernie said.

  “I didn’t ask you,” Major Rhee replied.

  Ernie shrugged and turned his head away. She looked back at me.

  “We believe he killed a Chinese man named Ming,” I told Major Rhee. “Apparently a woman who owned a bar in Mia-ri called The Inn of the Crying Rose was an associate of the man with the iron sickle. She’s gone now. Disappeared.”

  “What makes you think it was him?”

  “The MO,” I replied. When she stared at me blankly, I said, “The method of operation. In the previous murders he cut the throats of his victims. This time, he sliced the head off completely.”

  I didn’t tell her about the totem, nor about the Bogus Claims File. What I was telling her is what she could’ve found out from the KNPs on her own.

  “What’s your next move?” she asked.

  “Our next move,” Ernie said, “is to have a cup of coffee.”

  She smiled at this, a radiant smile. “May I join you?”

  “Naw. I like cream and sugar with my coffee. Not five fifty-six millimeter ammo.”

  “Oh, sorry about that.”

  Major Rhee barked an order. The combat soldiers arrayed around the RTO assembled in front of the swinging doors and then, as a unit, marched smartly outside.

  “A beautiful woman,” Ernie said, “should always make an impressive entrance.”

  Major Rhee ignored him. The three of us took seats at one of the two Formica-topped tables in front of the snack stand. The cashier, a middle-aged Korean man, scurried out from behind the counter, bowed in front of Major Rhee, and said, “Muol duhshi-gessoyo?” What can I get for you?

  This is something he never did for GI customers.

  She ordered green tea, but the man profusely apologized and told her they only had the American PX-bought tea called “Lipton.”

  She told him that would be fine and the cashier hurried off.

  “Hey!” Ernie said. “What about me?”

  He ended up getting his own coffee at the counter as usual. I already had mine. Once the three of us were reseated, Major Rhee lifted her steaming white Styrofoam cup and said, “Here’s to justice.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Ernie said. “Justice. That’s what we’re all about.”

  She gazed at me steadily. “Eighth Army is upset with you.”

  I sipped my coffee and stared at her unblemished face, reminding myself what she’d done to me while wearing the uniform of a North Korean Army Senior Captain. It hadn’t been pretty, and it had nothing to do with justice.

  “I understand you’ve been seeing a woman,” she said.

  Ernie cast me a wry grin.

  I stared at Major Rhee and raised one eyebrow.

  “A highly educated woman,” she continued. “A doctor. You seem to be partial to them.”

  “Why do you care who I see?” I asked.

  She raised and then lowered her tea bag. “Who you see is important to this investigation. You believe the killer with the iron sickle might have been at one time a psychiatric patient. You’re investigating that angle. You’re also investigating the various claims processed through the SOFA Secretariat. Good thinking, I’d say. Once you find an intersection, you might find your man.”

  “And we might not,” Ernie said.

  It was Major Rhee’s turn to shrug. “That’s the risk one takes.”

  “What do you want from us?” Ernie asked.

  Major Rhee sipped from her cup, leaving a lipstick smudge along its edge. “I want to be there when you make an arrest. You’ll need me.” She jammed her thumb over her shoulder. “You’ll need the firepower I can provide. This killer has proven he is intelligent and ruthless. You need me and I need you to help me find him. I won’t take the credit. I’ll leave that to you. I just want to be there on the day when you take him down.”

  “You want to kill him,” Ernie said.

  Major Rhee jerked back in her seat. “Not necessarily,” she said. “If he comes peacefully, he won’t be hurt.”

  “You don’t want him to come peacefully,” Ernie continued. “For some reason the ROK Army wants him shut up. They don’t want a trial. They don’t want to hear what he has to say. They want him dead.”

  Major Rhee’s face flushed red. “Don’t you?” she shouted. “Don’t you want him dead? He murdered an American civilian, a fellow MP, and two innocent GIs in a signal truck. Isn’t that enough reason for you Americans to want him dead also?”

  The ranking sergeant of her infantry squad pushed through the double doors, holding his rifle pointed toward the ceiling.

  “Naka!” she shrieked. Get out! The man backed out the door.

  She stood and loomed over us, pointing her red-tipped forefinger first at Ernie and then at me. “Someday you will need me. Someday soon. And then you will be groveling and begging for my help.” She lowered her hand, stared at us, and turned and stormed out the swinging door. As lumber creaked on rusty hinges, I glanced at Ernie. Saliva bubbled at the corner of his mouth.

  “Whadda woman,” he said.

  We finished our coffee and prepared to go, and the NCO in charge of the RTO peeked out of his office behind the counter. When he saw the coast was clear, he walked up to the counter and said, “Next time you guys need to make a phone call, go somewhere else, okay?”

  I finally reached Captain Prevault at her office.

  “Thank God you called,” she said.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”


  “Remember Miss Sim, the woman at the home for the criminally insane, the one who panicked when we showed her your drawing of the totem?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “She’s been taken.”

  “Taken by who?”

  “By a very forceful Korean man. He barely said anything, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. And a Korean woman was with him. ‘Flashy’ is how the staff described her.”

  “They just walked in and took this woman who’d been there for years? Didn’t anybody try to stop them?”

  “Yes, one of the male attendants confronted them. Grabbed the girl on the front steps and wouldn’t let her go.”

  “What happened?”

  “As soon as he touched her, Miss Sim dropped her rag doll and scratched his eyes so severely he had to be taken to surgery. Then the three of them left.”

  “Have the KNPs been called?”

  “Yes. So far they’ve done nothing.”

  “I’ll go up there and check it out.”

  “Take me with you!” When I didn’t say anything, Captain Prevault softened her voice and said, “I’m sorry about what I did in the snack bar. It was wrong of me. I realize now that none of the arrests at the Sanatorium were your doing.”

  “What makes you so sure?” I said coldly.

  There was a long pause. Finally, she spoke in the voice of a little girl. “I know you couldn’t.”

  She was right about that.

  I sighed, turning my head so the sound of it didn’t reach the receiver. “We’ll need to move quickly.”

  Her voice brightened, becoming the old Captain Prevault again. “I’ll be waiting in front of the one-two-one.”

  I told her we’d be there in twenty minutes and hung up.

  -13-

  We crossed the Chonho Bridge heading south, Ernie driving, Captain Prevault bundled in a cold weather parka in the back seat. I pointed the way as Ernie wound up through wooded hills and finally pulled into the gravel parking lot in front of the home for the criminally insane. Three white-uniformed staff members were waiting for us on the stone steps.