by Martin Limon
They were much more aggressive than I’d been, shoving their way through the crowd so quickly that they knocked a few people down. But they got away with it, because no one wanted to get in the way of a half dozen enraged men.
They were only ten yards away now. I searched the seafood stands on either side of us for weapons. Finally, I saw something.
Shirkey and I staggered up to a man cooking at a stove. Startled, he turned just as I reached him and the band of thugs wrestled their way beneath the canvas overhang, Shirkey crouched, and the Sea Dragons ran straight toward us. I grabbed a wok filled with sizzling peanut oil, burning my hand on the metal handle, and tossed it into the face of the first man.
He screamed, clutching his eyes.
Shirkey, I believe, bit another of them in the leg.
I leapt over the counter and landed atop two of the men, who went down under my weight but then began squirming like eels. Someone else kicked my side, and another person was pounding my back. I jumped up, regained my footing, and started jabbing with my left and winging roundhouse rights, mostly into the air.
There was no way we’d win, but I wasn’t about to go down without taking a few of them out first.
A grizzly bear entered the eatery. He swung a nightstick and knocked one of the Sea Dragons down, then another. The three gangsters still on their feet stared at him, wide-eyed. And then I realized who the human grizzly was: Palinki. He began brandishing the nightstick indiscriminately, at which point the last three thugs ran back out through the entrance.
Palinki turned to me. “You okay, bro?”
“Yeah.” I pointed at Shirkey. “Would you take a look at him?”
Palinki nodded and knelt down to examine Specialist Shirkey.
The man who’d received the full brunt of the peanut oil writhed on the ground, still clutching his eyes. I felt guilty about possibly blinding him, but it had been a last resort. I crouched beside him and tried to get him to pull his hands away from his eyes. When he wouldn’t, I poked around behind the counter and found a bottle of mokkolli. I poured the milky rice beer between his fingers, gradually coaxing him to open his eyelids, and when he did, I tilted the bottle carefully and dribbled a little of the rice beer directly into his eyes. I managed to wash out most of the oil that had collected there.
When the KNPs arrived, I tried to wave them off. The last thing I wanted to do was to be locked up by a corrupt Inchon police force. I didn’t speak to them in Korean, but instead listened to them talk. They helped the half-blind thug to sit up, and seemed more solicitous of him than anyone else who’d been hurt in the cluster.
Ernie and Riley entered the stand. The place was getting crowded.
“About time you two showed up,” I said.
“Where the hell you been?” Riley growled.
More KNPs arrived and conferred amongst themselves in whispers. Ernie glared at them, hand on the hilt of his .45.
I translated the snippets I could hear. “They want to take us all in to the Inchon Police Station,” I said. “Sort this out.”
Just then, Chief Homicide Detective Gil Kwon-up entered, followed by Officer Oh. The highest-ranking KNP on the scene bowed to Mr. Kill, and the two held a quiet conversation. Seconds later, Kill motioned for us to follow him. The sign outside above the stall read daewang sei-u tuikim, Great King Fried Shrimp. Revelers and workers stood gawking as we walked down the middle of the pier, a line of handcuffed Sea Dragon thugs being pulled along behind us by the KNPs. Several of the observers cheered, and the braver ones taunted the gangsters.
I was surprised that they applauded even us, American MPs. Staff Sergeant Riley hooked his thumbs in front of his canvas web belt, stuck out his bony chest, and strutted smugly in front of us, waving to the cute girls in the crowd. If they’d had flowers, he certainly would’ve been the one to receive them.
-21-
Several of the Greek sailors involved in the Eros Nightclub melee had been arrested by the KNPs, but were later released without charges. A dozen or so of the Sea Dragons who’d been involved were being held in custody, pending a conspiracy investigation headed by Mr. Kill and buttressed by the expert interrogation techniques of Mr. Bam.
Most of the Sea Dragons had stayed behind at the estate and had managed to slip away, as had Gui-mul, not to mention the gumiho herself.
“Like a fox,” Ernie said.
Under Mr. Kill’s close supervision, the Inchon KNPs remained on the lookout at nearby hospitals, waiting for more Sea Dragons to check in for treatment of injuries. But none sought medical attention, at least locally.
The next morning, Ernie, Riley, and I returned to 8th Army compound. After washing up in the barracks and putting on clean clothes, we returned to the CID Admin Office. I sat at the field table, typing up my report on an Olivetti manual. Miss Kim brought me a cup of oolong tea and patted me gently on the back.
I took out Korean Folk Tales and offered the book to her.
“No, Georgie,” she said. “You keep. You need to know these things.”
I supposed I did. I thanked her and shoved it back into my jacket pocket.
I’d heard that she’d been the one who’d forced Ernie and Riley to search for me. If they hadn’t shown up in Inchon with Mr. Kill, Officer Oh, and Palinki, the Sea Dragon Triad would almost have certainly made me and Shirkey disappear.
Luckily, we were okay, and the Inchon KNPs were still undergoing their top-to-bottom overhaul, approved by officials at the head of the ROK government.
Led by Mr. Kill, a KNP detachment from Seoul located the gumiho’s estate and performed a thorough search. The place had been hastily abandoned, its furniture and household items left untouched but not a soul on the entire property. When I asked about the komungo, Mr. Kill gave me a strange look.
“You saw someone playing one?” he asked.
I nodded. Apparently, the long-stringed zither had also disappeared.
Corporal Albert Shirkey of the cold storage unit on Hialeah Compound was being treated at the 121st Evacuation Hospital here in Seoul, and was expected to make a full recovery. As soon as his doctor deemed him well enough, Ernie and I went to interview him. He was more lucid this time, and we weren’t under nearly as much stress.
I asked him about Werkowski.
“He was still there when I arrived,” Shirkey told us. “But when they brought me into the tomb and chained me to the platform, Werkowski attacked the bodyguard.” He shook his head. “It was a mistake.”
“The guard stabbed him?” I asked.
Shirkey nodded. “Ran him through, like in an Errol Flynn movie. But he was still alive and screaming, so I figured the blade had missed his vital organs. Then they dragged him outside, and that’s the last I saw of him. I was hoping they’d taken him to the hospital.”
“They tossed him in the ocean,” I said.
This all fit with the autopsy report from Camp Zama, which had established drowning as Werkowski’s cause of death. Though Werkowski had been severely malnourished and grievously wounded by the gumiho’s guard, he’d been alive when they tossed him into the Yellow Sea.
“What about Corporal Holdren?” I asked.
“He was definitely alive when they took him away,” Shirkey replied. “They left the door open, and I could hear him struggling. They dragged him toward the cliff, and awhile later, I heard a boat engine from far off.”
“So they transported him somewhere.”
“Pusan,” Shirkey said. “I think they took him to Pusan. It was the only word they repeated that I could understand.”
This was the lead Mr. Kill needed. After I relayed the information to him, he passed it on to his chief interrogator, Inspector Bam.
Mr. Kill called me back in short order. One of the Sea Dragons had broken down and confirmed that Corporal Kenneth P. Holdren had been transported down the western coast of the Korean
Peninsula to the southern port city of Pusan. But he had no idea why.
“Apparently, he’s still alive,” Mr. Kill told me. “But to save him, we have to move fast.”
“Pusan is massive. How are we going to find one person in two million?”
“Bam will continue to request cooperation from the Sea Dragon men,” Kill said over screaming in the background. “If we find out something new, I’ll call you.”
Early the next morning, Miss Kim called me to her desk and handed me the phone. It was Inspector Kill. “Have you ever heard of Oruyk-do?” he asked.
“No.”
“It’s an island, just outside the Bay of Pusan.”
“Are you going to send the Pusan KNPs there?”
“No,” he said emphatically.
So he didn’t trust them any more than he trusted the Inchon KNPs. I didn’t press him on the issue.
“Then who?” I asked.
“You. Holdren is an American. My superiors don’t want to be accused of handling the case incorrectly if something goes wrong.”
Politics as usual. There was no time to argue about it.
“I’ll schedule a chopper,” I said.
Within an hour, Ernie, Officer Oh, and I were in a helicopter heading toward Hialeah Compound on the outskirts of Pusan. What worried me most, as I explained to Ernie, was that the Sea Dragons were planning to exchange Corporal Holdren as a commodity.
“What do you mean?” Ernie asked.
“He’s a product to be sold,” I said.
“That’s nuts. Who’d want to buy a GI?”
“Someone who needs one.”
“Who the hell needs a GI?”
“Maybe the Reds.”
“Huh?”
“Communist China. An American soldier would be a hell of a bargaining chip.”
“For Christ’s sake, Sueño. You’ve been reading too many spy novels.”
“Maybe. But I can’t think of any other reason they’d bother to transport him down there.”
When we arrived at Hialeah Compound, we checked in with the local MPs and caught a kimchi cab to the US Army Port of Pusan, a small compound on the seaward side of town. Sergeant Freeline, the NCO in charge at the operations desk, thought he was dreaming: Standing before him were two law enforcement agents in coat and tie and a uniformed female officer of the Korean National Police.
“This is like one of those cop programs on AFKN,” he said. The Armed Forces Korean Network. “Maybe The Mod Squad.”
“Cut the crap, Freeline,” Ernie told him. “We need a boat. Now.”
Freeline swallowed as he pushed his horn-rimmed glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose. I slapped my CID badge onto the counter; I’d had a new one issued in Seoul, along with a new military ID card. Freeline swallowed again, picked up a heavy black phone, and dialed five numbers. It rang for a second before someone on the other end picked up.
“Lieutenant Cochoran?” Freeline said. “Sir, you’re not going to believe this.”
“Tell him we need a boat,” Ernie said, “and a driver.”
I turned to him. “You don’t drive a boat.”
“Then what do you do with it?”
“You steer it. Or sail it. Or navigate it, or something.”
“‘Drive’ is good enough for me,” Ernie said.
A half hour later, we were chugging in a small craft across choppy seas, leaving the curved spit of headland on the southern edge of Pusan. All three of us—Officer Oh, Ernie, and myself—checked our weapons, keeping the barrels pointed toward the sky as we made sure they were loaded and ready to fire.
The sun was high overhead when we landed on the island of Oryuk-do. According to Mr. Kill’s informant in Seoul, the Sea Dragon Triad had a warehouse near the fishing village of Sangmul-ri. Boats traveled in and out regularly, and from there transferred goods either to other islands south of the Korean peninsula or—if they didn’t run into interference from the Korean coast guard—turned right and continued across the Yellow Sea to the coast of China. I suspected Corporal Holdren was one of the items awaiting transport.
“They’re haggling over price,” I told Ernie. “What with all the trouble up in Inchon, the Sea Dragons have fallen behind on their income projections. Mr. Kill agrees that an American soldier would help to make up the deficit.”
“How much are they demanding?” he asked.
“According to what Mr. Bam beat out of the informant, sipman bul.” A hundred thousand US dollars.
“Damn,” Ernie said. “Do they want me instead?”
Officer Oh apparently understood what we were saying. She stared at Ernie as if he’d lost his mind.
“What about the gummy whore?” Ernie asked.
Bam had pursued the topic repeatedly, trying every trick he could think of, but not one of the captured Sea Dragons budged. There was no reaction whatsoever to the word gumiho or the name Moon Guang-song.
The warehouse sat on a small hill overlooking the fishing village of Sangmul-ri. Down by the quay below us, men secured boats to wooden stanchions.
“Fishermen,” Officer Oh said. Returning, apparently, from their morning foray.
The warehouse appeared completely dark, even abandoned. We approached from the rear. There was no back door—only a window, high up on the second floor.
Before we’d left the Port of Pusan, Officer Oh had contacted the ROK Coast Guard, who promised to have one of their ships stop by Oryuk Island as they made their way out to regular patrol. They hadn’t arrived yet, but none of us wanted to wait. We walked around to the front of the warehouse, where the big double door for trucks was closed. A small side door that presumably led to an office was shut. I tried the knob—locked. Ernie motioned for me to move out of his way and then stepped back, took a deep breath, and bounded forward, kicking with his right foot. The door burst inward. Officer Oh entered first, weapon drawn. Ernie and I followed, separating to flank her. She switched on lights, and all that moved was a mouse scurrying into its hole in the corner. A forklift sat idle, and only a half dozen or so boxed electronics lined the wooden shelves. We searched the building meticulously, from the front loading platform to the byonso out back. No sign of Holdren or other life.
“The informant in Seoul lied to us,” Ernie said.
“Officer Bam will be angry,” Officer Oh responded grimly.
Disappointed, we emerged from the warehouse. Ernie started wandering downhill. Officer Oh and I followed until we reached the quay. An old man sat on a wooden stump there, deftly unknotting a tangled net. In front of him sat a box full of wriggling sardines. When he smiled up at Ernie, his entire sunburnt face seemed composed of wrinkles, like an intricate map of the surface of the moon.
“Anyonghaseiyo, halaboji,” Ernie said. Are you at peace, Grandfather?
The old man nodded, still smiling. When Officer Oh and I arrived, he spoke to her in Korean. “The warehouse up there is empty,” he said. “I could’ve told you that.”
“What we’re looking for,” she said, “is an American soldier.” She used the word migun.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Don’t you think I know everything that goes on in this village? I’ve lived here all my life.”
I wanted to ask him about his career on the ocean and what life had been like before the Korean War, during Japanese colonization, but there wasn’t time. Instead, I turned to Officer Oh and told her to ask him about the soldier.
So she did.
“I saw three Sea Dragon men drag him up to the peak yesterday.” He pointed a gnarled old finger toward the top of Mount Oryuk. “They came back without him.”
“So the American’s up there?” she asked.
“Must be.”
I prodded Officer Oh to ask one more question before we left. “I thought the Sea Dragons were going to sell him to the Chinese g
overnment. Why would they take him up there?”
The old man shook his head. “The Chinese aren’t interested in him.”
“Why not?”
“What would they do with an ugly American? One more mouth to feed. Don’t they have enough?”
Apparently, the deal had fallen through. The Chicoms had thought twice about poking the American eagle, and the Sea Dragons were left with a white elephant by the name of Holdren. We thanked the old man and hurried off. As might be expected, the view from the top of Mount Oryuk was beautiful. The thatched roof homes of the quaint village sat like an artist’s panorama, and the sea spread endlessly in all directions. A mist rose slowly in the distance, and I could just make out the dark hulls of fishing boats.
“There,” Ernie said, “the coast guard’s coming.”
A couple of miles away, the sleek ship, red lettering elegantly detailed onto its white body, glided through the waves.
We all turned and looked once again at what we’d found up on the peak.
Corporal Alfred P. Holdren, late of the 44th Engineer Battalion, Army Support Command, was nailed to a tree by his hands, his throat slit open. I hoisted Ernie up to listen for a heartbeat, though we already knew any remaining pulse had long since faded away. There wasn’t much blood, but the man had been so starved, his body almost seemed to blend into the wood.
Officer Oh was sick and crying. When we were sure Holdren was dead, Ernie and I managed to unhook his body and lower his corpse to the ground, then proceeded to react in kind. Ernie threw up, and I curled up on the edge of the mountain, holding my face in my hands.
The Sea Dragon Triad’s message was unmistakable. When we messed with them, they messed with us. But what bothered me most was the talisman stuck in Holdren’s belt. I plucked it delicately from him and held it in my hands. It was long and furry, an animal’s tail. I wasn’t sure, but I was willing to bet this had once belonged to a fox.
One down, eight more to go.