by Larry Bond
Books with titles like The Heartless or The Grass Roof didn’t have much appeal for Tony — his tastes ran more to murder mysteries and thrillers. He moved to the next rack and started thumbing through a translated Korean government publication called ‘An International Terrorist Clique — North Korea.” It seemed like pretty heavy-handed stuff, but then he didn’t have to live full-time in a country that had enemy commandos landing on its beaches.
A sudden increase in the noise coming from outside on the street broke Tony’s concentration. He looked up from the propaganda pamphlet to see the little Korean shopkeeper peering intently out through the blinds.
Then he heard the chanting and the muffled, coughing explosions of tear gas canisters. Tony went up to the front and looked out down the Insa-Dong to see a crowd that filled the street from one end to the other.
He had to look hard to see individual people. The first impression he got was one of waving arms and legs, white masks, and streaming vapor. They were just coming into view, but he felt he was close — way too close. Personal safety aside, the ops officer would ream him good if he got tangled up in this mess.
He nodded to the shopkeeper and headed for the door, only to feel the man’s hand on his arm. “Please, you should wait here. I think it’s not good to go out. You help me put up shutters and we wait here. You not like my books?”
Tony smiled and tried to decide, torn between the desire to get the hell out of there ahead of the crowd and the idea of lying low and riding it out. He looked down the street again. He should have time.
“Okay, brother. But let’s snap it up. Just where the hell are these shutters?”
The Korean pointed to a pile of heavy sheet metal panels stacked by the counter. Working quickly, they managed to hoist the shutters onto hooks set over the windows. The shopkeeper left one pair unfastened so he could see out.
Tony tapped him on the shoulder. “Is this going to be enough? I mean, shouldn’t you just lock up so we can both get out of here?” He could see other figures locking their doors and scurrying away ahead of the oncoming mob.
“No. I see this before. There are other crowds, more people other places. We run down street, might find another group. This over in two-three hours.”
Tony had to admit that the Korean made sense. Maybe sticking it out here was the best idea. He stood next to the man and watched through the shutters as the mob approached. As a pilot, Tony felt totally outside his element. He could feel his pulse speeding up. This was the kind of situation the groundpounders, the infantry, were trained for — not him.
The rioters were individuals now, and he could see green-uniformed Combat Police behind and mixed in with them. They were pushing the demonstrators up the street, clubbing anyone who stopped to fight. They were thorough. Anyone who tried to hide in angles or doorways was cornered and beaten senseless.
It was clear, too, that some of the “rioters” were actually people who had just been caught in the protest, swept up as the police moved in.
Jesus, it was getting really vicious out there. He could see rioters trying to throw tear gas canisters back at the police, and there were other things flying through the air — rocks, bricks, and bottles filled with flaming gasoline.
Several masked demonstrators converged on a policeman who’d gotten too far out in front of his fellows. They ripped his gas mask off, and one of them landed a punch on the man’s throat. Tony saw his mouth open in agony for a second before he went down under a flurry of kicking legs.
A patch of color caught his eye, and he saw a Caucasian woman running down the street just in front of the oncoming melee. She was wearing high heels that looked uncomfortable and were slowing her down. Tony had a quick impression of copper-colored hair and a green summer dress.
But the woman was coughing, and unless she ditched the shoes, she wasn’t going to get clear.
He didn’t stop to think. He just reached out and unlocked the front door. “Hold the fort, Mac. I’ll be right back.”
The shopkeeper put a hand out, startled, but Tony brushed past him and ducked out onto the street.
The noise and smell hit him first — and he stayed back against the building to make sure nothing else hit him. Christ, the smell. He could feel his eyes tearing up and his throat drying out. He had been caught by tear gas before, back in West Germany during an antinuclear protest outside the base where he’d been stationed. This wasn’t as bad, but that was a relative term.
The first groups of rioters were past him, and he could see rocks and bottles flying through the air in both directions. Nothing was aimed directly at him, and as far as he could tell, he hadn’t been noticed. He sprinted the hundred yards to the woman flat out. She had stopped, winded, on the sidewalk.
Tony skidded to a stop on the sidewalk in front of her — his eyes half on her and half on the brawl swirling up the street toward them. “Ma’am, come with me! I’ve got a place back there where we can hole up.” He jerked a thumb back toward the bookstore.
She looked at him without much expression at all. “Hole up?” She was breathing heavily and rubbing her feet.
“I mean where we can get out of this mess.” Christ, this wasn’t any time for an English lesson. He looked nervously over her shoulder as the mob closed on them. “Ma’am, I’d get rid of those heels if I were you. They’re nice, but they aren’t Nikes!”
She looked at him and then at the chaos behind her. Muttering “There goes one pair of stockings,” she kicked out of her heels, scooped them off the pavement, and ran down the street, shoes in one hand and a package in another.
Tony ran to catch up, shouting, “The bookstore on the left!”
This lady was fast. Even with the noise behind pushing him along, he caught up to her only when she slowed to find the shop front.
Tony banged on the door and it opened just long enough for them to duck inside. The Korean slammed it shut as if it were spring-loaded. He looked up at Tony. “This is good. You find your lady friend. Both now safe.”
The woman flushed red.
Tony glanced over at her, embarrassed, and then back to the shopkeeper. “I don’t know her. I just didn’t think we should leave her out on the street.
“I’m glad you didn’t. Thank you both.” She started to put on her shoes, and Tony reached out a gentlemanly hand to steady her. She stood gracefully on one leg and slipped on one shoe, then switched legs and repeated the process. Tony pulled his hand back before she noticed it.
Hell, she wasn’t just pretty — she was damned pretty. She had a nice figure, but what really caught his eye was a mop of curly copper-colored hair. She wore it shoulder-length, and combined with the pale, freckled complexion only redheads can have, she was a knockout. She was tall, only half a head shorter than Tony, and that much taller than the shopkeeper.
And that was an American accent if he’d ever hear one. He straightened his shoulders. “Ma’am, I’m just glad I could help.” He reached out again, turning the charm meter up to level three. “My name’s Tony Christopher.”
She took his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Christopher. I hadn’t counted on running into something like this.” She suddenly smiled. “I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Anne Larson.”
Tony was worried. Level three wasn’t a killer, but “Mr. Christopher”? Sheesh. He tried level five. “Call me Tony, please.”
Before she could reply, something or someone slammed off the bookstore’s shutters, making them all jump. Anne whitened. “They’re going crazy out there. What’s going on around here all of a sudden?”
Tony shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. This is out of my field. Ask me about MiGs or flying, but not this stuff.”
They could hear windows breaking across the street. He turned to the Korean shopkeeper. “Say, have you ever seen anything this violent before?”
“No, not before. But all riots bad. Criminals and communists and ungrateful children. They make too much trouble, and everyone suffers. My s
hop will smell of the gas for weeks.”
Anne said, “But the police, they’re clubbing people.”
The Korean’s face tightened. “They bring this on themselves. Protesting the government! They should see how I lived thirty, forty years ago. They go to school and instead of classes they march in the street and throw rocks! They should obey parents and use chance to go to school. I wish I could go to university. They could have better life, build country.” He shook his head slowly and gestured outside. “Instead, they tear things up.”
Tony peered through a crack between the window shutters. Groups of students and police were struggling — sometimes attacking, sometimes fleeing. He felt as if he were watching it on television, but the sounds were too real, and you couldn’t catch the gut-wrenching stench of the tear gas on television.
He could see several hundred people, mostly white-masked students with some other civilians mixed in, trying to make a stand in the street outside. But a solid line of green-uniformed Combat Policemen were working their way slowly up the street breaking heads.
Squads in phalanx formation charged knots of protestors as they tried to form, firing rubber bullets and closing with clubs. Behind the advancing police line, troopers handcuffed individual rioters, none too gently, and dragged them over to waiting security vans. At the same time, trucks with water cannon and grenade launchers fired at larger groups, driving the mass of people farther up the street. It was a well-organized operation, pulverizing a mass of organized demonstrators into dazed individuals, safely under control.
He and Anne both watched as the police line moved toward the bookstore. As the fighting got closer, details popped out. Two policemen handcuffed a glassy-eyed student, threw him to the ground, and kicked him savagely. Just a few feet away, another demonstrator picked up a tear gas grenade from the pavement and lobbed it back toward the police. He went down with blood streaming from his forehead, knocked senseless by a rubber bullet fired at near point-blank range.
Another had a spray can. As a riot trooper ran at him, the kid pressed the spray button, then held a lighter in front of it. Tony saw a flash and saw the student try to aim his improvised flamethrower at the oncoming policeman. But the helmeted trooper knocked the spray can away with a long billy club, then whipped the weapon down onto the student’s unprotected head — smashing the boy to the pavement with a series of short, vicious blows. The man ran on, leaving the kid huddled in agony on the ground.
Tony looked back at the Korean shopkeeper. He was sitting at his desk in the back, quietly working. He wasn’t accomplishing much though, since he glanced up every five or ten seconds. When he saw Tony looking, he quickly fixed his gaze on the papers in front of him and did not look up again.
Anne didn’t say anything. She just shivered occasionally.
Tony couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound ridiculously out of place. So they stood together, behind the shutters, watching silently as the South Korean riot police broke the demonstration into fragments.
It was over in minutes. Moving with steady precision, the line of police and armored cars advanced past up the block. Like water spraying from a hose, the crowd scattered onto other cross-streets, and as the fighting moved on, the noise outside fell away — leaving an almost eerie quiet in its place.
They waited a few moments more, unwilling to believe that the brutal street battle they’d witnessed had ended so quickly. But it had, and finally Tony looked over at Anne with a questioning look. Anne nodded, seeming almost afraid somehow to break the silence.
Tony looked out through the shutters again, craning to catch a glimpse of the streets down which the riot had flowed. It seemed all clear.
“Hold up for a second,” he said, and walked back to thank the bookstore owner for sheltering them. He also wanted to pay the man for the pamphlet he’d been holding crumpled in his hand for almost an hour. The man smiled, came with him to the door, and unlocked it.
He ushered Tony and Anne out onto the street — bowing politely as they both wished him good luck. “Please, do not pay attention to this, this incident.” He gestured at the debris-strewn pavement. “Do not judge Korea by these hooligans. They are fools. They do not know what they do.”
As they stepped out onto the empty street, Tony half-expected to feel as if he were walking across a deserted battlefield. But the wind had blown the tear gas away and it felt strangely like an early morning, like those quiet, still hours just before people wake up and the stores open for business.
And Tony knew that the stores along the Insa-Dong would soon reopen. There had been a riot, but the police had restored order. At least that’s what they would say on the evening news.
Yeah, right. As far as Tony was concerned that was like calling a plane crash “an undesirable ground/air interface.”
He looked at his watch. Plenty of time to spare before his train left for Kunsan. Well, to hell with the shopping trip.
He wasn’t going to hang around waiting to get tear-gassed again. He glanced at Anne. She seemed uncertain, hesitant somehow.
“Look, can I get you a cab or help you find someplace? I’m not real familiar with Seoul, but I’ve got a pretty good map.”
Anne looked even less certain than she had before, if that was possible. “Oh, no. No, I don’t think so.” She paused. “I took the subway to get out here.”
Tony smiled. “No problem. I’m heading back that way myself. I’d be glad to see you to the station.” He was pretty sure he could find it again.
Anne kept her eyes fixed about the level of his shoes. Tony felt frustrated. Hell, he didn’t bite — at least not that often. And he couldn’t stand around here in the street forever, waiting for this woman to make up her mind about whether or not she wanted to keep shopping in a riot district.
Finally she glanced up at him, but only for a split second.
“Well …” Then in a rush, “Thank you, Mr. Christopher, I’d appreciate it.” She looked down the street. “I’d feel better with some company… to the station, I mean.”
He grinned. “Please. Call me Tony. The only time I’m called Mr. Christopher is when I’ve screwed up. It has negative connotations for me.”
That got her. Anne laughed lightly. “Okay, Tony, lead on.” He decided he liked the way she said his name. She gave it a musical quality somehow, or maybe it was just the faint hint of a Southern drawl.
Anne considered the man beside her as they walked. She didn’t particularly mind his putting the moves on her. He was a pilot, after all. She did mind his assuming that she’d automatically be charmed by his looks and his line.
Still, he had gotten her out of a bad spot, and he was being polite, almost courtly. As they talked, his manner changed her initial feelings. His freshness and honesty made it hard for her to hold anything against him.
They headed south down the Insa-Dong, walking past the still-shuttered shop windows at a rapid clip. Tony didn’t want to spend any more time in the area than he absolutely had to.
Anne didn’t have any trouble keeping up with him, and Tony found himself admiring her graceful stride out of the corner of his eye.
The streets were still quiet, but after a few blocks they began seeing a few other cautious pedestrians going about their business. Finally they came to a block where the shops were unshuttered, and Tony felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Without realizing it he slowed down.
He nodded at the store windows filled with beautifully painted screens and elegant furniture. “Hardly seems like we’re in the same country, does it?”
Anne followed his glance. “No. I don’t know how they can do it. How can they just pretend nothing’s happened?”
Tony shrugged. He liked the Koreans he’d met so far during his tour. They were tough, hardworking, and friendly. But there was no getting around the fact that they belonged to a completely different culture. Things that struck Americans as wildly out of kilter often seemed normal to Koreans and vice
versa. Take the time that Korean pilot had tried to persuade him to order marinated dog for example. Tony’s stomach, already unsettled by the tear gas, rebelled at the thought. Whoops.
Don’t lose it, son, he warned himself. He had a hunch he wouldn’t impress Anne very much by being sick all over the pavement in front of her.
And he suddenly realized, he did want to impress her. Well, why should that surprise him? After all, here he was ten thousand miles away from home, strolling along beside a pretty American woman. Hell, his wingman, Hooter, would probably have already gotten her address, phone number, and room key by now.
But then Hooter was a daredevil son of a bitch all the time — whether he was in the air or on the ground. Tony liked to think he was a bit more tactically minded.
They stopped at a cross-street, waiting for a break in the heavy traffic. That was reassuring. Where there were cars, there weren’t likely to be any demonstrations. Korean drivers didn’t like seeing their windshields smashed, and they seemed to have a sixth sense for staying out of trouble spots.
He heard a relieved sigh from Anne and smiled. “Yeah. I think we’re out of the danger zone now.” He paused, trying for just the right emphasis on the key words. “You know, I sure never expected a visit to Seoul to be more nerve-racking than a low-altitude dogfight.”
It was the second time that he had hinted about flying. She decided to rise to the bait. “Dogfight? Are you a pilot?”
They started across the street. Tony kept his voice casual. “Oh, yeah. I fly F-16s for the Air Force.” He waited, expectantly.
“Oh. That’s nice.” Anne looked both ways down the road, keeping an eye out for oncoming traffic.
That’s nice? That’s nice? Tony could hardly believe it. She sounded as if he’d just told her he was a plumber or something. But he had to laugh, mostly at himself. What did he expect her to do — faint dead away at being so near a real, live fighter pilot? Get a grip on yourself, guy.