by Glen Robins
The fog and the noise of the jets must have masked our deadly sparring match. No one approached the scene. Without further thought, I raced to the baggage loader, intent on retrieving that bag. I had no idea how I would find it, but I knew I had to try.
I ignored the baggage handlers as they yelled at me and climbed onto the conveyor belt. I hopped over luggage and ran upward into the massive hull of the 747. The cargo hold was almost as big as a high school gymnasium, though not as tall. The two guys working inside looked surprised. The Caucasian started to shout at me that I didn’t belong there or something along those lines. Being fixated on my objective, I moved past him and went in search of the bag like a hungry dog who knows there’s a steak in the vicinity.
When two big Tongan guys blocked my way, I tried my best to explain to them quickly and succinctly what I was searching for and why. My English is not perfect, but I am good enough to carry on a conversation at almost any level with a native speaker. Despite my proficiency, I could see a complete lack of comprehension on their faces.
That’s when I noticed a third man in the cargo area. He stiffened as he finished shoving a medium-sized black suitcase into place. It seemed to have required significant energy to maneuver, so I knew it was the one. The way he straightened and turned his head when I started to speak caught my attention. He was Asian and roughly my height. When I glanced at him, our eyes locked briefly, and a look of recognition passed across his face before he ducked behind the loaded luggage holder.
One of the Tongans, who seemed to be the boss, either didn’t understand what I was saying or didn’t care. His gloved hands were planted firmly on his hips and his eyes blazed with indignation. I pointed to the bag the Asian man had just put loaded on the rack and began moving toward it. The Tongan boss-man said simply and powerfully, “Don’t move another inch.” His voice conveyed authority and distrust.
I halted immediately, though I desperately wanted to remove the bag and inspect its contents to prove my point.
I tried slowing down and explaining in more detail. “If you’ll just let me check that bag right there, I’m sure we can resolve this issue.”
“No way. Not on my watch. That is a violation of Federal Aviation law,” said the Tongan boss. He had to be twice my size. “I could lose my job.”
As he spoke, several other workers joined in, entering the aircraft while I was busy talking. They formed a circle around me inside this hollowed aluminum hull. I don’t know where they came from, but each one of their facial expressions was serious and menacing. Brows were knit, mouths pulled tight. The words were terse. My mission was nose-diving toward failure as they looked at me like I had tried a comedy routine at a funeral.
“I’m telling you,” I continued. “There is something suspicious in that bag. Is that a chance you want to take with the lives of your passengers? I will accept responsibility for whatever happens. I’ll take the blame. Just let me look inside, I’m begging you.”
As I continued to plead my case before this rough and tumble crowd of baggage handlers, the LAPD Airport Division showed up. Two cars screeched to a halt just outside, under the wing. Four doors opened, one after the other. I could hear them announce themselves and ask for everyone to show their hands. Then they wanted to know where the suspect was. They entered the plane the same way I did, guns drawn.
I stopped and stood still with my hands in the air, palms facing the group as a show of trustworthiness, pleading for someone to take me seriously and search that black roller bag. “Please, somebody just open that one bag.” I pointed to where I had seen the Asian guy put it. It was gone, and so was he.
They all glared at me and stepped forward, some raising an eyebrow at me like I was certifiable.
The four police officers spread out, quickly taking control of the situation. The lead baggage handler pointed at me and said, “Out of the blue this lunatic just climbs up our loader and starts talking about a black suitcase that he has to look through. Says there’s something suspicious about it. He points over there, you know, and says it’s right there.” The guy indicates the empty space where the bag was. “Problem is, Officer, I got a lot of black suitcases in here and they’ve all been through the scanner. This guy’s nuts.”
As the officers moved in, I grew frantic, knowing take-off was fast approaching. Knowing my sixteen students would be boarding soon. Knowing I wouldn’t be with them and they would be confused. Hoping my assistant, Jin Sook, would do the right thing.
I had answered the call to vigilance. Now I would answer to the local authorities for it.
Chapter 4
Los Angeles International Airport Police Station
June 6, 12:08 p.m.
I sat waiting, a song I had heard on the radio playing in my head. I liked it. Sung by a duo of popular artists from different musical genres, their voices blended beautifully. The tune was upbeat, rhythmic, and catchy. It repeated a line several times that I found fitting for this occasion because it talked about not getting caught up in the middle of it and how not saying anything is sometimes the best thing to do.
Maybe that would be the best thing for me to do in the situation in which I had found myself.
I was in a jail cell, roughly two and a half meters wide by three and a half meters long. The mattress on the lone bed that resembled a large steel shelf cantilevered from the left-hand wall was thin and stained. The paint on the walls dull but clean. Not the worst place I’d ever been, but not where I wanted to be in that moment. Thankfully, I was alone with my thoughts. A chance to do the reflecting I had planned to do earlier, but it took forced concentration to get back in the mood to ponder my life.
Thinking was difficult because I was starving. I hadn’t eaten anything since I left home.
I thought again about vigilance and wondered why it had tapped me on the shoulder. Why me? Why that morning?
Vigilance had pulled my attention away from my deep reflections upon my chosen path in life, my marriage, my destiny, and my shattered career. I had hoped to use that hour near the departure gate and the thirteen hours on the plane to gain some perspective. Instead, I was filled with dread at the prospect that my hunch may have been right, and those three fellow Koreans had somehow managed to hide a bomb onboard the plane that my students would soon be boarding.
I feared that I had made some critical mistakes. Maybe I should have trusted the local authorities to handle this. Maybe I should have called them when I first noticed the two guys. And maybe I shouldn’t have gone full force on them. Keeping them conscious so they could answer questions probably would have been a better thing to do.
Two other things that kept interrupting my brooding over these mistakes was that flash of recognition in the eyes of the Asian guy in the cargo hold and the one phone call the law allowed me to make, which hadn’t gone well.
First, I tried to figure out if that look of recognition was really that. Why would he know me? Had we met before? It was odd, like the two guys I had followed, the two that started this whole nightmare. Something about him gnawed away deep in my subconscious. Something in those eyes conjured up a memory that I couldn’t quite pull out. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind for the time being.
Instead, I thought about the second occurrence more intently, trying to sort out what went wrong and how I could have handled that conversation better. My one phone call had been squandered, I felt. Jin Sook Lee, my assistant coach at the Do Jang I owned in Costa Mesa, was young, dynamic, and sincere. He really enjoyed his work and cared about the students. In a word, he had the kind of qualities that allowed him to connect well with the teenagers. He was a great coach and the kids loved him. Beyond that, he was relatable and a source of inspiration for things beyond Tae Kwon Do. He was a living example to them of one who had successfully navigated the dangerous waters of being a first-generation Korean. He was a twenty-five-year-old master’s candidate at the University of California–Irvine, studying Microbiology. Tough, smart, and a born leader,
I both trusted and distrusted Jin Sook. I trusted him to teach the kids well and show them how to live the principles we taught. The distrust came from his penchant for taking more credit than was his due and being bullheaded about doing things his way. He had an impetuous streak a mile wide.
When I called him, I told him that our students would have to bow out of the competition in Seoul and go home because something had come up that required my full attention for the foreseeable future.
He was understandably shattered and expressed strong feelings about my decision and asked me over and over, “Where did you go? Why did you just leave like that?”
I tried explaining that something came up, an emergency that I had to take care of, but he wasn’t buying it.
“The ajuma’s saw you go through a door next to the convenience store,” he said in our native tongue, referring to the students’ mothers. “Then there were the police cars. Then I get this call from a number I don’t recognize in the 310-area code, and it’s you. There’s something going on that you’re not telling me.”
This kid was smart. Not that I ever underestimated him, but it surprised me how quickly he put the pieces together.
“Listen,” I said as calmly as possible. “I’ll explain everything later. Right now, I just need you to call the shuttle service back and have them come pick you all up and take you all home.”
“After all their hard work, you’re going to dash their hopes at the last minute like this?” He was speaking through clinched teeth. “That’s just cruel. It’s mean, and it’s not right. This is completely not OK. How could you even think to do something like that?”
“No, it’s not about dashing their hopes. It’s about preparing to fight another day.” I had to be careful with my words. I had been warned by the cops that I was not to raise any alarms with my “made-up” story about the mysterious bag. Warning my students of an unverified threat could trickle out to others and eventually lead to widespread panic that could spin wildly out of control, upsetting the delicate sense of security necessary to keep the traveling public traveling. Saying anything that could potentially lead to a disruption of airport operations for an extended period of time would not bode well for my situation, they told me before the call. Making a false threat was a felony and opened me up to not only criminal, but also civil prosecution that could make me liable for the airlines’ lost income. Probably a staggering amount that I could never wrap my head around, so I agreed to play nice.
A Korean American police lieutenant stood nearby, listening in to our conversation to ensure my compliance.
“Is this your fear of failing again coming out?” Jin Sook’s tone was derisive. He was not good at hiding his displeasure when met with unexpected disappointment. We had been working on his reactions to such things in the year and a half since I had hired him, but still had a way to go.
I tried to calm his temper and make him understand that boarding that plane was not a good idea. “I will explain the situation in full later, when the time is right. Right now, I need you to get our group back home and keep them calm.”
Jin Sook sucked a breath through his teeth. “How can I do that? What would I say to the kids?”
“You need to be a strong leader right now,” I said. “They will listen to you if you say it with conviction. Trust me. It’s the right thing.”
Another long pause before he spoke again. “What happened to you? Where are you, anyway?”
“It’s long and complicated. I’ll explain later, I promise.”
“I can’t tell these kids we’re going home with a promise to ‘explain things later.’”
He was right, but his tone and his obstinance frustrated me. The fact that he didn’t trust me implicitly and obey without question made my blood boil. “Look, something very important came up and I couldn’t ignore it.” My tone was firm and authoritative, but it didn’t back him down.
“What? Something more important than the competition we’ve all been preparing for since last Fall? Something that got you a ride in a cop car?” Instead, he was backing me down.
“I told you I can’t talk about it right now, but I will later,” I said. “It’s not what you think. I had something very important to do. I just did it the wrong way and the cops got involved. I’m sorry.”
“You decide now that there’s something more important to you than these kids and their dreams?” He breathed hard a few times, then continued. “That’s messed up. Whatever you did, you messed things up. Not just for yourself, but for me and for all of these kids and their parents.” He paused again, still huffing loudly as he breathed. “We’re going to be boarding that plane, with or without you.”
“Please don’t. Just do as I say.” My words were forceful, but that was the wrong tack to take in the heat of the moment. I had reverted to my role as a military commander where subordinates simply obeyed. I had issued an order when I shouldn’t have. Frankly, I was intellectually and emotionally incapable in that moment of using words alone to lead him in the direction I wanted him to go. I found myself in the familiar position of knowing more than I could share and yet trying to explain to someone who wasn’t allowed to know what I knew why they needed to act on information that only I had. I tried to soften the blow. “I’ll explain later. I can’t talk about it right now.”
My attempt to use words and logic and reason backfired on me. Again.
He did just what I would have done at his age. He told me I was crazy and that he would make sure that these kids had the chance to show the Tae Kwon Do world what they were made of. “You’re too afraid to be here with them. You’re afraid that they won’t win and that will reflect badly on you. Either that, or you’re afraid to face your father. Either way, these kids will feel that you don’t have the confidence in them that they deserve. But I will do everything in my power to give them the inner strength to triumph despite your fear of failure. I will lie to them this time and this time only. I will tell them you became very ill. It’s for their own good. And if you want to fire me, that’s fine. There are plenty of other Do Jangs that will appreciate my talents. I might even start my own.”
With that, he hung up.
That’s what I liked about him. He had the same fierce loyalty to “the cause” as I did in my earlier years. His cause at the moment was far different than mine was back then, but the fire inside was similar. But it was also the part about him that made me crazy. Even years after the end of my military career, I found myself incapable of tolerating insubordination.
First, my anger flared, and I cursed out loud as I slammed the phone receiver back in its cradle. I was furious that he wouldn’t obey me, that he wouldn’t listen to what I was saying. Then I thought about what I was saying and realized I gave him no reason to pull the plug on our long-anticipated trek to the world championship. He was justified in refusing to march those kids out of the airport and tell them they couldn’t go. He couldn’t do that without a good explanation. I couldn’t have, either. If our roles were reversed, I certainly would have done the same thing.
Then, as I remembered the overweight roller bag and its mysterious contents, my heart nearly stopped beating. I felt the blood drain out of my head and had to steady myself against the wall next to the relic of a phone I had just used.
Though the Asian baggage handler had removed the heavy suitcase from the cargo hold, I felt that I had failed. It seemed certain he would find a way to sneak it back onto the plane, the same plane where sixteen of my best students and four of their mothers and Jin Sook would soon be seated. I was helpless to save them. Sixteen sweet, innocent kids brimming with pride in their accomplishments, ready to show the world their skills and courage. Eager to compete. Eager to win. Eager to conquer whatever challenges life threw at them.
Except this one. They didn’t stand a chance against what I feared was in that bag.
Once again, words were my undoing. They didn’t come when I needed them most, when they were my only hope. Not on the phone
with Jin Sook. Not in the plane’s cargo bay with the cops. Not in front of the Army tribunal six years earlier.
This failure would be even more dreadful and would cost more than the lives of the eleven dedicated soldiers who died when I failed back then. This time there would be over four-hundred lives in peril because I could not seem to get anybody to listen to my words and believe what I was trying to tell them. And that didn’t include the devastation to the families, friends, and businesses that would be affected by their loss.
It had been forty minutes since Jin Sook hung up on me. I sat with my head in my hands, reviewing the events of the past ninety minutes and comparing them to the events six years earlier when a sharp clang brought my attention to the bars of the jail cell. The words of the song in my head stopped abruptly, just like on the radio, reminding me that sometimes it’s best to say nothing at all.
My back stiffened, and my shoulders squared out of habit. A military man must always maintain his composure, his sense of self, and understand his power to triumph.
“Mr. Noh,” said a calm and steely voice. “Come this way, please. The Director of the Transportation Safety Administration for Los Angeles International Airport would like to have word with you.”
Chapter 5
Costa Mesa, California
June 6, 12:12 p.m.
She knew something was wrong as soon as she saw Jin Sook’s name appear on her phone’s caller I.D. He should be on the plane with JT, thought Stephanie Noh, as she double-checked the time on the over-sized faux-retro clock, visible from the kitchen on the family room wall. They should have taken off by now.
Since her husband, Jeong Tae, had not called her to say good-bye before boarding, the tendrils of her nervous system were already sizzling with anxiety, like electricity through a downed power line. The tension from their early morning blow up was still hanging in the air.