“Is this the entrenching tool you're talking about?” Jenkins asked.
“It might be,” Vern replied. “I came to you first, before going to the M.P.'s, because I'm giving you a chance to do the right thing. I'm giving you a chance to turn yourself in.”
Jenkins raised the entrenching tool and Vern stepped back quickly. Jenkins didn't follow. As Vern walked away, Jenkins cursed and flung the shovel at Vern. In landed in the dirt about five yards behind Vern.
Vern turned and hurried toward the battalion headquarters.
* * * *
As Vern told his story, Major Orting, the operations officer, sat next to Lieutenant Colonel Schuster, the commander of the 2nd of the 17th Field Artillery. When Vern was finished, Colonel Schuster lit the cherrywood tobacco he'd leisurely stuffed into his pipe. After puffing a few times and filling the small office with a cloud of sweet smoke, he spoke to Vern, staring directly at him.
“You have no evidence,” Colonel Schuster said.
“There's the mud on the tires of the staff duty vehicle,” Vern replied, “the mileage log, and if we survey Sergeant Jenkins's field gear chances are we won't find a tent half. By now, it's probably floating somewhere in the Yellow Sea.”
Colonel Schuster frowned. He wasn't used to being contradicted.
“Everything checks out,” Vern continued, “the timing, the vehicle, the fact that the 50 mm ceremonial cannon wasn't fired, and in all the confusion of an alert, no one noticed that the staff duty NCO was missing for a few minutes. Staff Sergeant Jenkins was jealous because Specialist Rolandson was marrying his old yobo, a woman he'd shacked up with on a previous tour. It's that simple. Jealousy. The oldest motive in the world.”
“Or,” Major Orting interjected, “what happened was what the official report says happened. Rolandson was wandering along the banks of the Imjin River, slipped off a rock, and fell in. The current is strong along there.”
“The current is strong everywhere along the Imjin,” Vern said. “But who wanders along the edge of a treacherous river at zero four hundred hours? Besides, his yobo will testify that he was with her and left only after the alert siren went off.”
“How do you know?”
“Someone I trust has already interviewed her.”
Colonel Schuster puffed on his pipe. No commander wanted to invite criminal investigators into his unit. And no commander wanted to admit that any of his men would resort to murder. Especially soldier-on-soldier murder.
Major Orting had one last objection. “We've never had a murder before in the 2nd of the 17th.”
He said it while glaring at Vern, as if it were Vern's fault.
Just then, while the two officers pondered the horribleness of it all, the bookcase behind Colonel Schuster exploded into a thousand pieces.
* * * *
“A beehive round,” Vern said.
He and Major Orting were crouched behind sandbags. Twenty yards away, at another gun emplacement, Staff Sergeant Jenkins stood next to his 105 mm howitzer, his hand gripping the lanyard. The barrel was pointed directly at what was left of battalion headquarters. The weapon was locked and loaded with another round, probably another beehive. High explosive rounds are lobbed from a distance and are designed to destroy bridges, buildings, armored vehicles, and anything unfortunate enough to be within their impact zone. Beehive rounds, however, are designed for direct fire. That is, they are aimed directly at an attacking enemy. After leaving the barrel of the howitzer, the beehive round explodes into thousands of tiny, razor sharp metal shards, designed to rip through human flesh and anything that stands in their way.
Vern peeked over the sandbags and shouted. “Let go of the lanyard, Jenkins! Back away from the gun.”
“I want to see her,” Jenkins shouted back.
“Who?”
“Miss Kim. She's the one who started all this.”
“Oh, for God's sake,” Major Orting growled, still crouched behind the sandbags. “He murders a fellow soldier, blows up his battalion headquarters, sends Colonel Schuster to the hospital, and all for some camp—following whore.”
“That's love for you,” Vern replied.
“What are we going to do?”
“What else can we do?” Vern said. “Comply with his request.”
Vern stood up, holding his hands over his head. “Okay, Jenkins. You win. I'll go get Miss Kim for you.”
“Hurry. I won't wait too long.”
Jenkins's hand was quivering, and even though the morning was still cool, perspiration flowed off his forehead.
“Okay. I'll go get her. Where does she live?”
“In the village,” Jenkins replied.
“Where? There's a lot of hooches in the village.”
“Down the alley from the Kit Kat Club.”
“Come on, Jenkins,” Vern said. “There must be a hundred little alleyways winding behind the Kit Kat Club with hooches all piled up and jumbled behind them. It's like a beehive down there.” Vern stepped in front of the sandbags. “You'll have to draw me a map.”
“Okay,” Jenkins said. He patted his pockets. “I don't have paper and pencil.”
Major Orting, still squatting low, reached in his pocket and pulled out a small pad and a pen. He handed them to Vern.
“Here,” Vern said, holding them over his head. “I have something for you to write with.”
Vern walked toward Jenkins. When he was five yards away, Jenkins said, “Stop! That's close enough.” Still holding the lanyard, he said, “Toss me the paper.”
Vern did.
“Now the pen.”
Vern did that too.
Jenkins let loose the lanyard. While he wrote, he glanced suspiciously at Vern. “Don't try anything funny,” he said.
“I just want to find your girlfriend and get this thing over with,” Vern replied.
“Do you know her?” Jenkins asked gruffly.
“Never met her.”
“It's the second door on the left,” Jenkins said. Then his brow furrowed. “Or maybe the third.”
“What's her name?”
“Miss Kim.”
Vern sighed. “There are about a jillion women in the village named Miss Kim.”
Jenkins frowned. He wadded up the piece of paper and tossed it to Vern. Vern caught it on the fly. “You've got the map.”
Vern studied it. “But this doesn't make any sense,” he said, pointing at what Jenkins had scribbled. “After the first left, there are four hooches and then another road that goes right to a dead end, not left back toward the MSR. I know, I live not too far from there.”
Jenkins scowled at Vern. “Let me see.” He held out his hand.
As he did so, Vern stepped forward and handed the paper to him, then without stopping he sprang forward and leapt at Staff Sergeant Jenkins.
Frantically, Jenkins scrambled for the lanyard, but before he could reach it, Vern grabbed his neck and twisted with all his weight away from the howitzer. Both men landed on the ground with a crash.
Jenkins twisted his head downward and managed to reach Vern's forearm with his teeth. He bit. Hard. Screaming, Vern let go of his grip. Jenkins wriggled forward, reached up, and before Vern could recover the huge metal breech of the howitzer, he sprang backward and an enormous explosion erupted from the barrel, deafening Vern and emitting a small hurricane of acrid smoke.
Men screamed. Footsteps pounded forward, and then hands were on Jenkins and hands were on Vern and Vern was being punched and men were shouting and Vern was hoisted to his feet. Someone tripped and then they all fell in a jumble. Vern clunked his skull on the hot metal breechblock of the 105 mm howitzer.
* * * *
“I told you,” Pei Un-hui said to Vern, sitting beside his hospital bed. “You no army no more. You no go alert no more.”
They were in a four-man ward in the 121st Military Evacuation Hospital in the capital city of Seoul.
“Okay,” Vern said. “No more alerts.”
“And no more Sony
u-ri,” Vern's wife said. “We move Seoul. Everybody in Sonyu-ri taaksan mad. Lose face too muchey.”
“Why?”
“Because before Rolandson die, just accident. Now, murder. Not good for Sonyu-ri. Everybody feel bad. Korean police taaksan angry.”
“Why are they angry?” Vern asked.
His wife looked at him as if he were stupid. “Because you make them lose face.”
“I didn't make them lose face,” Vern answered. “Jenkins is the one who committed the murder. Lieutenant Noh is the one who refused to investigate.”
“He no refuse,” Pei Un-hui said. “You didn't file a complaint.”
“You didn't want me to.”
“No. I don't want you to. I want you stay in bed. No go alert.”
One of the medics had told Vern that Colonel Schuster would soon recover from his wounds. Staff Sergeant Jenkins was locked up down at Army Support Command in Pupyong and would be facing court-martial soon.
While Un-hui thumbed through a magazine, Vern thought of Specialist Rolandson and wondered what he'd been like. Only twenty-four years old, about to be married, his whole life ahead of him. Despite what he'd told his wife, Vern didn't regret getting up for the alert.
Next time he'd get up even earlier.
Copyright © 2012 Martin Limon
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Fiction: BIG WATTS
by Doc Finch
* * * *
Art by Tim Foley
* * * *
I finished my morning beach run-jog-walk, climbed a dune, and stepped into my garage. It sits below the stilt house that's designed to allow the occasional hurricane to push waves through the garage instead of through the house. It usually works. I sloshed some kerosene onto a rag and wiped the tar off my feet, the legacy of yet another offshore oil well blowout. As I started up the twenty-something-foot stairs to the house deck I heard the phone start ringing.
The call was from George Taylor, an old Navy friend who is some sort of high-level decision maker for the Lower Brazos River Authority, a power company that most folks in South Texas call LoBRA. It had started in the thirties by putting low dams in the Brazos River and making electricity when the river flowed. Now they use everything—water, coal, trash, oil, gas, wind, and uranium—to keep the lights burning in Texas. They recently built the biggest nuclear power plant in the United States.
The plant didn't impress everyone, according to George. LoBRA got a call from a man who said he wanted a great deal of their money. He wanted it soon or he would be inclined to blow away their new nuclear plant, he said. They hung up on the nutcase and the next day their largest cooling lake blew up. When the nutcase called back they took the call.
“It's not just the lake,” George told me. “But we lose more than generating capacity. All those alligators are looking for new homes. Hell, I've had to double the security force. And get ‘em bigger weapons too.”
I admitted that I knew nothing about alligator control. Even hinted that I didn't want to learn anything. George kept trying.
“No alligator wrestling, but I remember that you did the industry some good back when that bunch stole a load of uranium fuel. I thought maybe you still knew how to talk to them.”
“You know who them are?”
“Well. No, but I figured you'd still know who—”
“No. I don't.”
“Well, shoot, why don't you just come on up for a little visit? Talk about old times and I'll buy you lunch in the company cafeteria. What say?”
“Can't. Got a houseguest to entertain.”
“You can bring the guest along, and I'll get you a consultant fee just to listen to the problem.”
“What time should we be there?”
* * * *
I'm Vlad Hammersmith and I live fifteen miles up the Bolivar Peninsula from Galveston and a one sand-dune walk from the Gulf of Mexico. Maria O'Grady was my houseguest. She's a stunning woman with long black hair, bright green eyes, and a quick mind. She works as a forensic specialist for the Oklahoma State Police and did me a great favor the last time I ran into problems up there. So I invited her to come down and enjoy the beach. I forgot to mention the oil, so when she came back up from her first walk on the beach she had a lot to say about the little tar balls that seawater turns oil into. They lurk on beaches and ruin swimsuits and flip-flops. After her initial outburst she was fairly quiet, which worried me.
This time she was silent all the way down the peninsula, quiet across the ferry to Galveston, mum up past the Texas City refineries, and downright uncommunicative across the flats up to the big nuclear plants at LoBRA. She didn't even mention the trees growing parallel to the ground, a common Gulf Coast topic. As the nuclear plant containment structures came into sight, she sighed and turned to me.
“Do you think the whole Gulf Coast has those little tar balls on it?”
I saw a flicker of daylight and ran for it. “Of course not. Why, South Padre Island is probably just as sparkling white as it's always been.”
“You think?”
I hesitated. I hadn't been to Padre Island in years. I had no idea if it was white, gray, or brown sand. “If not,” I said, “we'll just fly over to a Pacific beach.”
“Oh, that would be nice,” she said, and gave me that “gotcha” smile.
At the plant, I noticed a number of black, official-looking cars filling the NRC spots outside the front entry, and a car with black sidewall tires, black windows and an antenna on every flat surface. It was a Texas Ranger vehicle and it was parked in the middle of the driving lane. There was only one of them, but then, someone had only threatened to blow up one plant.
Plant security made us do the full routine. Everything out of pockets and into the X-ray, all metal off the body or they felt you up, walk through the metal detector, then the explosive sniffer device, and finally around the radiation detectors—those wevisit on the way out. Far off on the other side of the security area I could see George Taylor, with a tight little smile, watching to see if we'd make it or not.
Finally they gave each of us a copy of the security rules, a small dosimeter, and a gaudy visitor badge to hang around our necks. I wondered if the badges contained a GPS tracking unit within their thin plastic sheaths.
“Good to see you again, Vlad,” George said when we finally reached him. He shook hands with Maria then slapped his palm down on a recognition device, tripped the gate open, and told us he had to go ahead of us. “Sorry for the extra security today,” he said. “Some fellow huffed himself to death just before you showed up.”
“Spray paints, solvents, or fuel vapors?” Maria asked professionally.
George blinked and said, “Actually, it was helium.”
“Interesting,” she said. “That happen often?”
“Fairly common in the industry. Engineering sites generally have inert gases around, or helium for welding, and some guys just gotta try it—get high, talk like a Disney character. Down this way to the cafeteria.”
We were joined in the cafeteria by a man George introduced as Rick Hightower, the assistant plant manager. He was a skinny, cadaverous man with heavy frown lines in his face. Lunch was standard cafeteria fare, but there was a wide variety and plenty of it. We ate at a corner table, away from the rest of the crew, and George used the time to talk about the extortion problem.
“They want ten million, all in fifties, with nonsequential serial numbers,” said George.
“A lot of money,” I said.
“Four hundred and sixteen pounds,” said Maria, without missing a beat.
“Anyway,” George said, eyeing Maria. “After they got our attention, they gave us a week to get the money together and said they'd call with delivery instructions after that. We want to use that time to find them or make very sure they can't really blow up the plant.”
Rick looked up from his lunch and frowned, or frowned more. “Waste of time calling in a detective. Oughta just pay them—get ‘em
out of our hair. Too much at stake here to panic them into acting because they think we're trying to stop them.” He looked pointedly at me.
I looked at George. “That what they said? They would ‘blow up the plant'? It could be important.” I was thinking they could blow up another lake and call it the plant.
“Yes. They were quite specific. Said, ‘your big new unit.’ That would be Unit 3. Biggest in the country. Texas size.” George got a dreamy look in his eyes.
I leaned back and thought aloud for a minute or two. “They must know something about nuclear plants, so they probably know a high order nuclear explosion is impossible and a meltdown extremely difficult to orchestrate. Likewise, they have to know a steam explosion wouldn't do the job, so ... the security we saw this morning, it always on a par with that?”
“Best in the country,” said Rick. “But why take chances? Pay ‘em and get on with our work.”
George glanced at him and continued. “Pretty close. And it'll get tighter when I double the security shifts. And if you're thinking they smuggled a bomb in—delivery trucks are our specialty—nothing gets in without a complete shakedown and an escort until delivery is accomplished and the vehicle's gone.”
“So,” I continued. “No one's going to haul a bomb—or the parts to make one—into the inner perimeter. Could it already be here?”
George sat up straight. “You mean was it built in—put in when the plant was constructed. Man, you should've seen this place during construction. We had more inspectors and NRC overseers than we did laborers. No way anything non-standard or not on a planning document went into this plant.”
“What about high-pressure air or gas tanks, fuels, small construction explosives, hazardous materials?”
“Gases, especially flammable ones, are limited and tightly controlled. High-pressure air is in small tanks—like diesel starting air. Diesel fuel is in a bunker outside the perimeter and piped in to fifty-gallon day tanks for the diesel emergency generators. Hazmat is handled strictly in accordance with the federal regs, and the largest ‘small explosives’ on-site are ten-gauge shotgun shells, and they're held by the security people.”
AHMM, September 2012 Page 5