by Ian Slater
He opened the interrogation folder. Another NKA infiltrator caught south of Munsan near the west coast. As usual, he’d refused to talk. The report stated the prisoner had “fallen down stairs.” Even so, he had still not revealed the specific target of his mission — they never did — and so he was put on the train for the prison camp on Koje Island in the Southeast. Tae hoped that these days Koje was more secure than during the Korean War, when the American guards had been so accommodating in assuring prisoners’ rights under the Geneva Charter that the NKA had actually managed to kidnap an American general and stage a massive breakout. Even so, Tae wasn’t naive enough to think the present ROK guards hadn’t been infiltrated by “sleepers,” NKA agents already “in place” in the event of hostilities. For every NKA agent they caught, Tae suspected there were at least four or five who managed to slip across the DMZ undetected. Only one thing of interest had emerged from Tae’s quieter, more democratic interrogation of infiltrators captured in his zone that week, and it wasn’t until after three sessions involving the usual cursory examination of the prisoners’ possessions that he’d even noticed it and decided to add a note to his daily report to Seoul. He had observed that the chopsticks the NKA infiltrators had on them when captured — no Korean would travel without them — were seven inches long instead of the standard nine.
Tae typed his SITREP, situation report, quickly, for he knew that as soon as the general had finished inspecting “nighttime readiness” of the local U.S.-ROK fortifications, he and his aide, Jordan, would leave for the more civilized environs of Seoul HQ.
CHAPTER FIVE
Shortly after 10:00 p.m., heading back to Seoul, Jordan decided to take a chance. He’d been thinking about it ever since the farce in the joint security enclosure. “Ah, General—” he began hesitantly.
“Yes?”
“Ah — I’ve got a buddy — a pilot — stationed down south at Osan. They say he’s a real genius with aerial reconnaissance, camera-to-speed ratios — all that sort of hi-tech stuff.”
“So?”
“I was just wondering, sir — say we got a really small Nikon and one of those big kites, like the ones they have in some of the temples…”
“For Chrissake…” said Cahill.
“Well,” began Jordan defensively, “it was just a thought. We can’t see what they’re up to at night. They could be tunneling — again. Our infrared overflights didn’t detect any of those we found last year.”
“We found them, didn’t we?” challenged Cahill.
“Yes, sir, but more by good luck. An infiltrator spilled the beans, but normally they never reveal…”
“We’ve got seismic probes,” replied the general. “Ground sensors.”
“Yes, sir, but the problem is the moment the NKA go on maneuvers, we can’t distinguish a tunnel being dug from any number of other noises — heavy trucks, road-working equipment. All we get is tremor graphs.”
“You’re worrying too much,” said Cahill. “Winter-maybe — when the ground is hard enough for their armor. But not now in the monsoons. Rice paddies all flooded. Everything’d bog down.”
They were now completing the U-turn near the “Bridge of No Return.” On their left, a U.S. army truck sat fully gassed, motor running twenty-four hours a day, ready to back up and block the bridge. To their right stood the Y-shaped tree that had been trimmed for a clearer view across the DMZ and where thirty-one NKA regulars had come across in ‘76 to club and hack two Americans to death.
“Anyway,” continued Cahill, “we’re constantly patrolling the DMZ. We’ve got minefields right up to the wire. Fighter Command’s on a moment’s notice. Attack choppers are ready. Isn’t like it was in fifty, Dick. Moment Kim or any other gook puts his cotton-pickin’ finger over that ribbon, I’ll chop the goddamned thing off. What’s our G-2 say?”
“No unusual movement.”
“There you are.”
“But,” Jordan pressed, “there is this report from Major Tae. The ROK intelligence officer up here…”
“Yes, yes,” said Cahill impatiently. “I glanced at it before we left. Goddamned chopsticks aren’t as long as they used to be. Timber in Korea’s in short supply — always has been — so he figures all the wood saved goes into building more chiges— A-frame backpacks. Infantry buildup.”
“Yes, sir. We know their infantry, like the Vietcong used to, carries everything on their backs.”
“So do ours, Dick,” said Cahill. “That’s why we call ‘em ‘grunts.’ You’d grunt, too, with eighty pounds weighing you down.” But the general knew what Jordan meant. “Yes, yes, I know,” he said irritably. “ ‘Red Army’s two legs better than Americans’ four wheels.’ Right?” The car had passed the Munsan checkpoint. Suddenly its brakes squealed, the car skidding sideways in an earsplitting screech, headlight beams roiling with talc-fine dust. As custom decreed, the driver was allowing an old man in traditional white “pajamas” to cross the road, the man’s tall, wide-brimmed stovepipe hat a symbol of his status of country gentleman.
“I hate those stupid hats,” said Cahill, venting his fright at the car almost hitting the old man. “Ever see anything so goddamned ridiculous in all your life? What’s it good for? Damned horsehair won’t keep out water — won’t keep off the sun.” Jordan made vague noises of assent but was more interested in getting the general to think about Tae’s hunch than elders’ hats. Cahill anticipated him.
“Lookit, if an attack comes — to have any hope, any hope at all — it’s got to be hard and fast. Right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, and all those backpacks of yours are going to be worth squat — all unless armor clears the way. Right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any sign of armor — visual or ground sensor?”
“No, sir.”
“No — because it’s too damn wet. Moment a tank goes off a road, it’s in rice paddy. Sinks in the mud.” He paused. “How about the canaries — they okay?”
“Far as I know, sir.” Cahill was referring to the tunnels the NKA had dug beneath the DMZ during the seventies, which were later found and cemented shut except for a small, wedge-shaped peephole in each cement bung. A few yards away from each bung there was an ROK machine-gun post manned around the clock, and right by each peephole, a canary in a cage. As in the mines, the bird’s death would be an early warning in the event of gas attack.
“Tell you what,” said Cahill. “I’ll issue a bulletin on KBS TV and radio announcing that despite tomorrow’s Independence Day celebrations, South Korean defense forces remain vigilant to any incursion of the North.”
“General!” said Jordan, happily feigning shock. “That’s using the airwaves for willful propaganda.”
“Damn right,” Cahill smiled. “It’s true, too. We’ll run a few tanks through town tonight. Keep you and Tae happy, and it’s a darned sight cheaper than a general alert.” Cahill smiled. “General Accounting Office’ll probably give me a medal — in addition to my KBM.” KBM was Seoul HQ’s acronym for “Kim Bullshit Medal,” awarded for patience and restraint “above and beyond the call of duty.”
Jordan laughed, but the worrier in him remained — as persistent as an allergy one can do nothing about. “So you think we should forget about the chopsticks?”
“Forget the chopsticks. There’s nothing to it,” said the general. “Chopsticks aren’t going to start a war.”
The general was right, chopsticks had nothing to do with it. The fuse that led to World War III would be lit by a misunderstanding over red ants.
CHAPTER SIX
Traditionally a Korean delicacy when slightly sautéed, the ants were sold downtown in glass jars by vendors scattered throughout the myriad alleys and side streets of Seoul’s brightly lit and bustling Myongdong district. Here, amid the spicy odors of kimchi (pickled cabbage) and the cooking of marinated meat, throngs of workers from late night shifts were hurrying home before the midnight curfew, past the variegated plastic canopies of the push
cart stalls, their owners hawking everything from soju (octopus) and pin daeduk (pork-and-vegetable-garnished mung bean pancakes), to the favored tangerines and oranges from the southern island of Cheju. The crowd’s shadows flitted through islands of fiercely burning carbide lamps that illuminated the vendors’ faces as if they were polished china, their voices rising, bartering becoming frantic in the race against the clock. Above the alleys, in the polluted and unusually cool summer air, neons flashed with accompanying urgency in the collective frenzy before the blackout drill, which tonight would precede the usual midnight-to-4:00 a.m. curfew, the blackout’s wailing of air raid sirens yet another reminder, as if any of the twelve million inhabitants of the city needed reminding, that they were only twenty miles from the border between North and South, and two and a half minutes from North Korea’s bombers, and within range of the NKA’s long-range artillery.
* * *
Only the night before, one of the South Korean patrols, continually on duty in the hills ringing Seoul, had clashed with six North Korean infiltrators. They had been intercepted while crossing the DMZ.
After a short, fierce firefight, not unusual along the DMZ, five of the infiltrators had been shot, one dying shortly after. South Korea’s CIOC (Counter-Infiltration Operations Command) was reasonably sure the six were from the NKA’s 124th guerrilla unit. It was this unit from which thirty-one North Korean commandos had penetrated the southern side of the DMZ on a bitterly cold January night during the infamous mission of ‘68, armed with AK-47 submachine guns and grenades, with express orders to assassinate President Park of South Korea. On the second day of the mission, four woodcutters saw them, notified local authorities, and the hunt was on. Even so, the guerrilla unit reached Pugak Mountain on Seoul’s northern outskirts, and charged the Blue House — official home of the president. Twenty-eight of the thirty-one North Koreans were killed in the ferocious gun battle that followed, rifle and machine-gun fire and bursting grenades echoing like strings of firecrackers in the hilly amphitheater around the city, causing several small brush fires. Two of the guerrillas managed to escape, but one, surname Kim, given names Shin Jo, no relation to the present General Kim, was caught. Trading his life against the certain fate of being shot as an infiltrator, Kim passed over to Chungang Chongbo-bu (South Korea’s Central Intelligence Agency) all the details of North Korean President Kim Il Sung’s plan to assassinate President Park, including the fact that at each of 124th Unit’s eight guerrilla bases in the North, there were three hundred volunteers.
This meant that since 1968, over two thousand North Korean agents were being prepared at any one time for further infiltration, agitation, and sabotage against the Americans and the South, that every day at least one agent was crossing the DMZ.
* * *
It wasn’t that the North Korean agent in the Myongdong area this evening before Independence Day had been badly trained. On the contrary, he had received high commendation from his base commander in Kaesong. Not only did he know the military dispositions, weapons, and insignia of all South Korean and American units, especially those along the eighteen and a half miles of the 155-mile-long DMZ guarded by elements of the U.S. Second Infantry Division, but in addition, before being sent south, he had been carefully instructed in those local habits and customs that can so often trip up an agent. He was made well aware, for example, of the new words and phrases creeping into the language. He was told to remember that even though South Korean men, like their North Korean counterparts, expected total obedience from their womenfolk, in the South one should no longer use the word sikmo, calling a maid a maid, but kajongbu—”homemaker” or “home manager”; in much the same way, his NKA instructor told him, as garbage collectors in America insisted on being called “sanitation engineers.” And the agent knew about the red ants. Savored by most Koreans, especially by those from the South, the insects were collected from their favorite habitat in the hills around Pusan and trucked to Seoul on the 270-mile highway that ran almost the entire length of South Korea. Once in Seoul, the ants, like so much other produce, were auctioned off to the highest bidders among the street vendors, who in turn sold them to shoppers off the fashionable Myongdong.
What better way for an agent to indulge his weakness for the delicacy that he could ill afford in the North and at the same time reinforce his cover as a genuine South Korean? Approaching the pushcart, he realized he had only forty-five minutes to get back to his safe, cheap yogwan, or “inn,” two miles from the city center, before the start of the midnight curfew and air raid drill. Still, he would have ample time if he used the subway. The misunderstanding that was about to occur was largely due to the fact that the agent, having only just slipped across the Han River near Kumchon fifteen miles northwest of Seoul the previous night, had been so busy avoiding ROK patrols and settling into the yogwan that he hadn’t yet had a chance to sit down and read a newspaper. This meant he’d missed the two-paragraph story in most of the dailies, except the Korea Times, which didn’t publish on a Monday, about the brush fires in the hills around Pusan, fires that had killed off large numbers of ant colonies. Reduced supply meant higher prices. Unaware of the sharp increase in price, the agent gave the vendor a ten-thousand-won bill, about ten dollars, for an eight-ounce jar. The vendor waited politely, the glass of red ants the customer asked for now costing twice the usual amount. His customer waited, expecting the jar of ants and at least two thousand won in change. Then he realized he hadn’t given the vendor enough. “Olmayo?”—”How much?”
“Ee-man”—”Twenty thousand.” The customer dug deep into his jeans pockets, joking weakly that it would wipe out his subway fare. The vendor, though annoyed, did not show it and got a good look at the man, remembering the posters, as common as theater billboards throughout the city: “If you see a stranger who does not know the exact price of things, or spends a lot of money and hasn’t got a job, or calls you tongmu, which means ‘comrade’ or ‘friend’—grab him! He is a spy.”
Well, he mightn’t be, thought the vendor. Then again… The vendor had lost both parents when the NKA had invaded in 1950.
“Sorry,” apologized the customer. “I haven’t got enough.”
“That’s all right,” replied the vendor, already starting to pack up his stall with the speed and deftness of long experience. “I’ll still have some of these left tomorrow — or another consignment will come in.”
“Thanks,” said the man, taking his leave.
The vendor turned off the carbide lamp, quickly asked a colleague to watch his cart, and followed the would-be customer out onto Sejongro’s sixteen-lane-wide avenue, where he saw the man walking north, drawing level with the huge statue of Admiral Yi. The admiral, in ancient armor, left arm akimbo, right hand gripping his enormous battle sword, had also been vigilant in his time, the vendor recalled, alert to foreign invaders, defeating the great Japanese invasion fleet of 1597.
The vendor, however, while full of the spirit of Admiral Yi, couldn’t see the yellow light of a police station, let alone a policeman. Where were they when you needed one? — always sniffing around when they wanted free samples from the cart. The only official in sight, her smart blue U.S. Navy-style cap barely visible amid the Hyundais and the noisy red and white buses roaring past, was an immaculately dressed and beautiful woman traffic director, her white gloves moving with the suppleness of doves in flight. But the vendor knew by the time he weaved his way through the river of oncoming vehicles and reached her, the man might disappear. Seeing a taxi sign above the crowd, the vendor dashed out to flag it down. But it was brown, only for military personnel, so he had to wait a second until he saw a green cab approaching. Barging ahead of others in line, he jumped into the backseat, glimpsing the yellow-uniformed woman driver as a blur, quickly instructing her to have her dispatcher alert the nearest police cruiser to meet up with them. To the vendor’s alarm, he heard the flag drop and the meter ticking.
“What are you doing that for?” he asked. “This is a public du
ty.”
“So?” She shrugged. “Someone has to pay.” He was astonished, but she was very young, and he knew that the horrors of the Korean War, so vivid in his childhood memory, must be nothing more than dead history to her generation.
For an anxious moment he thought they’d lost the stranger as they turned right into Yulgog Street, heading east near Changdok Palace and the zoo, but the young woman told the vendor to relax. She still had the man in view and was going to pass him, just in case he suspected he was being followed.
“How could he know?” asked the vendor. “With so many people about?”
“If he’s an infiltrator, he’ll have been trained in such things.”
After a few more minutes, amid the usual honking and insults to various ancestors, a beaten-up, off-white Sinji sedan drew alongside the green cab — two KCIA agents, the one driving telling the cabbie they’d take over, the other asking the vendor to point out the stranger in the crowd. Suddenly the man disappeared into an alley off the Sejong a hundred yards behind them. Without hesitation the vendor told the cabbie to stop, got out, and headed back toward the alley, the agents swearing, pulling sharply into a no-parking zone and following suit. It was now 11:45—fifteen minutes to blackout.
Five minutes later, at the end of the alley as the air raid sirens began their wailing, the two KCIA agents caught up with the vendor, who was now gasping, out of breath. “We’re in luck,” said the younger of the two.
“How d’you mean?” asked Chin Sung, his older colleague, a shorter man in his midfifties.