by James Church
They said the truck didn't even apply its brakes. The incident happened just inside our jurisdiction, and Pak had insisted that we start an investigation, even though we weren't equipped to deal with traffic accidents.
The day after I called around for information on the truck's unit, Military Security moved in, took over, and told us to drop the case. They never shared their findings, but Pak found out through his own channels that the truck driver was not disciplined and, six months later, received a promotion.
We closed the case, and I forgot about it. Pak, it was clear, did not.
He had kept the files active, feeding in bits and pieces of information, mostly from sources I'd never heard of. I dumped the folders back and dug around for the key. It was buried in a corner, under a pile of pamphlets from Japanese travel agencies. Folded up with them was the front page of an edition of the party newspaper from a year ago. It carried a government statement on improving relations with Japan. Pak had underlined a few sentences in pencil, and at the bottom of the statement he had written, "Reckoning." There was another article, from a Japanese newspaper. I couldn't read it, but there was a picture of a small boy holding a cat.
For all these years that Pak and I had worked together, sometimes seven days a week for months at a time, I had fooled myself into thinking we knew each other's rhymes and rhythms perfectly. Yet here, in his desk, was evidence I didn't know him very well after all. He never said anything about it, but all these years he had been focused on Japan.
Why? "All hell is about to break loose," that's what he said to me on the phone. He hadn't mentioned Japan, but Kang had. Solving "old problems"
in return for overdue blood money. Pak was dead. Japan had something to do with it.
After I unlocked it, the second drawer on the desk rolled open smoothly without a sound. I felt along the bottom and then the underside.
Nothing. I pulled the drawer out, turned it over, and looked for a slight irregularity in the grain. Nothing. There was no compartment.
Then I spotted it, along the back panel--not a compartment, really, just a slit, barely enough for a thin sheet of paper. I looked around for something sharp to slip inside and pull out whatever Pak had kept there. It wasn't a single sheet but an envelope, made of a sort of thin, fine paper I'd never seen.
A jeep braked sharply; doors slammed. There was a loud exchange as our guards blocked the way. Another car pulled up, and I heard the gate clank open. I quickly replaced the drawer and locked it. I opened the file cabinet, threw the key into the back, and picked up the first thing I saw, a small notebook. The first few pages had some rough entries about the Finn at the Koryo, but otherwise it was blank. Worthless.
That's why Pak had put it on top: wouldn't fool anyone but might slow them down. In the very back of the file drawer, there was a soft blue cloth bag. I pulled it open. It contained two bundles of hundred dollar bills. What was Pak doing with so much U.S. currency? All of us kept a little bit, to use in the market or at the diplomatic store, but not like this. I jammed both bundles in my pocket, then put one back in the drawer, closed things up again, and scrambled to my office. Just as I sat down, two men burst through the door. A moment later, Colonel Kim strolled in.
"We seem to be meeting quite often these days, Inspector. Restaurants. The countryside." Kim looked around my office without interest, as if he'd been there before. "Please remain seated. We are going to remove your chief inspector's files. He won't be needing them." He stopped to watch me. I felt the blood go to my face and a crazy urge to kill him, right then, but instead I sat there without speaking, controlling my heartbeat. "By rights, you should come with us for questioning." He smiled at the word. "But for some reason, you have a curious, protected status. It won't last long, I assure you. In the meantime"--I could feel him measuring every detail of how I sat, when I blinked, the way I breathed--"you are free to go to back and forth between your apartment and this office. You understand, I'm sure."
I decided if I didn't answer he would think I was scared, so I said, "You have no control over me, Kim. Until I'm told otherwise by the Minister, I don't take orders from you. And I have work to do. Now, if you don't mind ..." I picked up the sandpaper on my desk and began to sand the piece of wood for the bookcase that Pak had said I would never build. Kim turned to go, but before he did, I saw the knives in his eyes sharpen with anger. At least I had to hope that's what it was. Anger would make Kim stumble, and the more he stumbled, the angrier he would get. He would lose his focus; I'd seen it happen before with people like him. It was only when he was cold and restrained that he was deadly.
"Don't forget to lock Pak's cabinet when you're done," I shouted after him. "And don't mess up the notes about that Finn. We only just put things in there." I heard Kim shout some orders; furniture crashed on the floor, there were footsteps, and then the hall door slammed shut so hard it rattled the windows. After the jeep pulled away, there was silence, then soft footsteps in the hall. Kim stopped as he reached my door.
"Very good, Inspector." He stepped into my office. "Just sit. It will make things easier. Most people bolt like rabbits, or die of fear at their desks."
"You got what you needed, I assume."
"Yes, I have what I came for."
"That's good." I pushed the envelope across my desk. "Don't forget this."
"And what is that?" He wasn't curious, he was angry. He pointed at my desk as if there were something insulting on it.
I had no idea what was in the envelope, and if Kim even imagined that for an instant, I was dead. He would kill me right here, on the spot.
I put my hand on the paper, touched it as if it were completely familiar to me. I couldn't let a muscle be out of place; Kim would sense it. Every movement had to tell Kim that he was in the one in danger, not me, that I was the one in charge, not him--and that this paper held his fate.
"We both know that important things are happening, Colonel. If they break your way, you can deal with me later. But if the situation breaks my way, and something has happened to me in the meantime, something with your fingerprints on it, you're finished. And they'll make sure it hurts." I didn't expect him to look worried or even thoughtful. I just wanted to keep talking, to keep touching the envelope, getting the connection established in his eyes and his ears. That envelope was his fate. Not mine, his. I put the envelope down again and moved my hand from it, as if I'd done that before, as if it weren't the first time I'd had it on my desk.
"Curious-looking paper. I didn't know your Ministry had anything like that. Special issue?"
"That's not for you to know. All you have to do is keep it safe.
Surely you can do that, Colonel. I don't much care about the rest of the files, but this you deliver, safe and sound. It's sealed. That's how it stays.
That's how you deliver it."
"I could just take it and you'd never know what happened. I could take it back and have my people open it, then seal it up again."
"You could also shoot yourself between the eyes. It would be quicker."
"I could kill you right now, you know, say you tried to run." He didn't sound troubled.
"Not now, Colonel. Later, if you like."
He took a polished gold case from his breast pocket, a remarkably thin case that fit perfectly in his hand. He removed a cigarette, looked at it thoughtfully, then struck a match on the side of my desk. The match flared; the sound seemed to grow beyond the flame, then stopped abruptly as he dropped it on the desktop, near the envelope. We both watched as the match consumed itself.
I could see that Kim was not sure of his next move. The envelope was not something he'd planned for. He looked around the room, then up at the ceiling. "Too bad."
"What?" I thought he meant that the envelope hadn't burned.
He struck another match and lit the cigarette, inhaling slowly so the tobacco at the tip glowed for a long time. "Too bad you'll never know what that molding was meant to be." He coughed, dropped the cigarette to the floor, and
ground it under the heel of his boot.
I picked up the envelope and lazily fanned the cigarette smoke away from the desk. "Take it, Kim. Deliver it to one person and one person only."
"Are you giving me orders, Inspector? I think not." But there was no edge to his tone.
"A simple chain of custody. From me to you. From you"--I paused and then heard what I knew I'd say all along--"to my brother."
Kim's lips pulled back in a half snarl. "I don't work for you. And I don't work for your brother."
I dropped the envelope onto the desk. Kim stood there, rigid, his mind tumbling as he tried to regain his balance. He picked up the envelope with a quick motion. "What's in it?"
"Names, dates."
"Meaning you don't know."
"If I were you, Kim, I wouldn't start to gamble so late in my career."
Kim was waiting. He was waiting for me to swallow too hard, breathe too deep, blink my eyes too fast--anything that would tell him that I was nervous, that I was lying, that I was a dead man.
I remembered my grandfather. I remembered the trees lining the road in front of our village. I remembered how, the first time the old man had taken me with him to Pyongyang, I'd watched the setting sun run alongside the train. It had turned red as it touched the horizon, then flared against the paddies so they sparkled like a jeweled necklace reaching to the hills. That calmed me. I could afford to blink my eyes.
Kim turned toward the window, maybe to give himself a moment to think. It was the wrong move, and he knew it right away. In the half second it took him to turn back to me, it was too late. The rhythm had changed. I wasn't about to let it shift back again. The only thing to do was to press him, change the subject slightly, make him respond to me.
"You made a mistake, Colonel. You thought you could scare me on that hillside."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You shot one of Kang's men, machine-gunned a wounded man.
First you blew up the Reunification Highway."
"Inspector, I'm surprised at you. I'm operating under orders. The blue car was illegal. It was coming from the south. It might have been an enemy agent for all I knew. Maybe even an assassin. We protected the leadership. You were a witness to that."
"No, I saw something else."
"Is that right? You and who else?"
"You know who. The local security man, Li."
"Yes, Li. Must have been a shock to him. He died not long after. It looks like it was a heart attack. You knew him? My condolences. And you, Inspector, you worked for a man who was killed in a firefight with an operations team performing its duty to arrest an enemy of the state.
Two enemies, actually."
"So, you finally made your move against Kang." I paused. It was time to double the bluff--and it better be convincing. "It may not be soon enough. A report on your car-smuggling operation is waiting to be passed up the line, along with evidence that it was carried out with the help of South Korean intelligence. Kang will gladly corroborate it.
When I hear from my brother that you have delivered this envelope to him, I tell someone to pull it back. If I don't give the word, the report is released twelve hours from now. And if that report is released, it doesn't matter which way events break. You'll be dead either way. Any questions?"
Kim turned abruptly, his boots thudded down the stairs, the door slammed, and then it was quiet. From my window, I saw him leaning against his car, catching his breath, putting the anger back where it wouldn't get in his way. He climbed in and shut the car door carefully, and when the car finally started, it moved down the street so slowly it barely got out of first gear. The big engine throbbed, a low, menacing sound. Kim wanted me to hear it--the restraint.
I sat still for another minute, then walked into Pak's office. The cabinet was open, all of the drawers pulled out onto the floor; the desk was a mess. On top were the folders about the Koreans from Japan, with the papers scattered everywhere. The blue bag was ripped open, and the money was gone. The notebook on the Finn hadn't been touched. Kim was furious. I didn't have any evidence that he was taking money from the south, but he didn't know that. I had bought myself twelve hours to find Kang and make him pay for Pak's death. After that, I didn't care if Military Security found me.
In late summer the rose blooms; The perfumed morning floats above the hills, And along the road where 1 wait, Again to hear the song of a voice that is gone.
-- Yang Hvong Jin (171 S-j 7.S6) I
decided to take Pak's car. There was enough confusion on the streets that I knew I could get out of the city. Once on the highway, I'd be vulnerable to any traffic policeman or sentry who spotted my plates and logged them in, but that was later. It was a shock to find Pak's parking space empty. It was a bigger shock to realize I'd forgotten that Pak had driven his car to meet Kang. It was probably still on the hill near the Chinese war monument. There was no time to get over there. Even if there had been, Kim's people would have set up a cordon to see if anyone approached the car. Or Kang might have taken it, leaving his ancient Nissan behind.
Both sentries posted at the front gate watched closely as I stood in the empty parking space. Neither of them belonged to the Ministry.
The sentries at our compound were assigned from the army, changed at irregular times and always from different units. It was a brilliant idea.
With the constant rotation, we never got to know the guards, and they felt no loyalty to us. Whoever thought of it was obviously a genius.
This was the sort of idea that received a bonus. Like all good ideas rewarded with a bonus, though, it was flawed.
I sauntered over to the guards, smiling, and pulled out one of Pak's hundred-dollar bills. The guards yanked their heads back, suddenly interested in the top branches of the trees across the street. I dropped the bill close behind the guard on the right, the one who looked more alert.
He moved his foot so his canvas shoe covered it, but he kept blocking what I needed, the phone to our duty driver. A moment later the phone rang. The guard reached back without turning his body, took the receiver from the hook, and held it out for me.
"Who is this?" The duty driver was speaking carefully. "I just received an order from the Ministry that no cars are to leave the compound."
"Good,"
I replied, loud enough so the guards could hear me without straining. "That means the duty car, too. Bring it around, so I can secure it."
"Inspector, is that you?"
"Just me."
There was a pause, and I could hear a chair scrape the floor. "Are you all right?" The bonus idea had another flaw. It covered the guards but overlooked duty drivers.
"I'm fine. Bring the car."
The phone clicked. The guard's hand appeared again, and I put the receiver in it. He was still looking at the trees, and said to no one in particular, "My stomach's bad. Must be the rice from overseas, they say it's been poisoned. Makes me have to go. I might need some relief." He gave a low whistle to the other guard, who nodded. Just then the sound of a car's engine came from around the corner. I reached into my back pocket for the pistol Kang had given me. If the car was a black Mercedes, I wasn't going to let them have the pleasure of taking me.
It was a Volvo--an old burgundy Volvo nosing down the street, its bad tires hissing on the pavement. I slipped the pistol back into place.
Pak had insisted we get a Volvo as a second duty car. "I don't want anything that even looks like a Mercedes," he said.
The car pulled up to the gate and waited. The guards stood at attention.
They gave no indication of seeing or hearing anything. You can't forget what you never saw, and there's plenty you might never see if there's a hundred-dollar bill under your left shoe.
I climbed in, and the car started rolling again. We didn't pick up speed until we turned the corner onto the main road. There were more army trucks running in pairs. Every few blocks, one was stopped, hood up, engine smoking, a mechanic leaning against the cab, his cap
pushed back, staring up into the sky and thoughtfully puffing on a cigarette.
The driver didn't say a word. I had the feeling he was worrying that with each passing minute, his fate was sealed tighter. I didn't need him and he didn't need me. "Pull over," I said, so suddenly it startled him.
"Get out. Tell them I held a gun to your head." I took the pistol from my pocket. "This one."
The driver swung down a small street to an empty lot overgrown with weeds and stopped. He shoved open his door but didn't move. It flashed through my mind that I had been set up. I turned to look out the back window. The driver shook his head. "Relax, we're by ourselves."
He tapped the gas gauge. "There is only half a tank, but I carry a spare can in the trunk. Pak told me it was against regulations, but he kept it off the books. The left rear tire is almost bald, and the high beams don't work except when it's foggy." I had thought he was scared, but his voice was steady. "I know what you think happened. Forget it.
Kang says to meet him in Hyangsan. If that doesn't work, the fallback is Manpo. Been nice knowing you, Inspector." He climbed out, put his hands in his pockets, and strolled back toward the main road.
For the first kilometer I had to dodge military vehicles, none of them paying attention to traffic laws, mostly using horns instead of brakes, but they thinned out when I got past the last big intersection at the edge of town. All but a few of the trucks were directed off to the right, toward the road that led out of town to a complex of army command bunkers. The traffic ladies were gone, replaced by soldiers wearing shiny helmets and carrying new automatic weapons. I went left onto an old road, over some railroad tracks, and then made a sharp turn up an embankment that formed the shoulder to the main highway. Either the left rear tire would last or it wouldn't. I thought over what the driver had told me. Why was he passing messages to me from Kang?
Who had slipped him into our operation? Maybe Kim and Kang were working together after all, and that's why Kang got away. They killed Pak. What did they want with me? If Kang was waiting at Hyangsan, we'd end the game right there.