The Iron Sickle

by Martin Limon

  Some of the soldiers raised their weapons as if preparing to return fire. As fast as I could, I clambered out of the truck and crouched low.

  I heard shouting. Major Rhee’s voice. Another voice shouted back at her, one I recognized. Mr. Kill. They were speaking so quickly and both of them were so enraged that I couldn’t understand everything they were saying, but I picked up enough. Somehow, the KNPs knew I was there. They wanted to take custody of me and return me to 8th Army. Major Rhee was having none of it. I was in her custody now and that’s how it would stay. Neither side was backing down.

  I wasn’t too crazy about being argued over as if I were chattel, and I was also worried that whoever I ended up belonging to would lock me up. I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but it was clear that the ROK Army and the Korean National Police were each determined to control the situation in their own way.

  My memories of what Major Rhee had done to me when she’d been posing as a Senior Captain in North Korea made up my mind. I didn’t want that to happen again. With as much dignity as I could muster, I marched forward, stiff-legged, lurched past Major Rhee’s jeep and started to walk toward Mr. Kill.

  She grabbed me in a neck lock. I was too weak and off-balance to resist. She pulled me back and somehow a pistol appeared in her hand. The bolts of a dozen KNP M-16 rifles were released and clanged forward. Behind me a smaller number of ROK Army rifles did the same.

  “He’s mine,” Major Rhee screamed.

  Her face barely peeked over my left shoulder. The pistol grazed against the right side of my chin.

  I willed my mind to concentrate, to try to parse what they were screaming at each other. Mr. Kill was shouting that he knew her game. She wanted the man with the iron sickle to keep murdering Americans because she wanted the US to leave the Korean peninsula. Major Rhee shouted back that it would be good riddance.

  Without thinking, I threw myself backward. She wasn’t expecting it, and she wasn’t strong enough to keep from crumbling beneath my weight. The KNPs surged forward. The next thing I knew Mr. Kill had ripped the pistol from Major Rhee’s hand, and she was screeching at him a long list of invectives. Many of the words in Korean were completely new to me. Three of the KNPs jerked me to my feet and dragged me toward one of their waiting vehicles. I half expected a round to burst into my back, but in the end everyone held their fire.

  As we drove of, Major Rhee was still screaming.

  “I need a radio,” I shouted at Mr. Kill as we raced away. “Or a telephone.”

  “We have one.”

  He sat in the passenger seat of the small sedan, his assistant, Officer Oh, driving. He flicked a switch and stretched a cord toward me in the back seat.

  “Touch the button when you want to talk,” he said. “Who do you want me to contact?”

  The CID office in Seoul didn’t have a radio but the MP station did.

  “The Eighth Army MP station,” I said.

  He punched in some numbers. A staticky speaker crackled to life.

  A familiar voice said, “Eighth Army Headquarters, Military Police.”

  “Grimes,” I said, “they took you off guard duty.”

  “Sueño?” He sounded as if he was amazed. “Where the hell are you?”

  “With Mr. Kill, heading toward Seoul. You have to relay a message to Riley at the CID.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Be sure to let Agent Bascom and Captain Prevault know I’m safe, and I’m on my way back to Seoul. If they were searching for me they can stop.”

  “Got it.”

  “And also let them know that they have to get someone out to Walker Hill.”

  “Walker Hill?”

  “Right. The resort area on the eastern end of Seoul. There’s a threat to the Korean War veterans who are out there.”

  “What kind of a threat?”

  “The man with the iron sickle. He’s after one …” I tried to continue talking, but we were behind a line of hills now and the connection had been broken. I handed the microphone back to Mr. Kill.

  “Walker Hill?” he asked.

  “The man with the iron sickle and his accomplice, Madame Hoh, they’re on their way now.”

  “What do they want?” he asked.

  “Revenge.”

  When we emerged from the hills, Mr. Kill managed to make contact with KNP headquarters in Seoul. He gave crisp instructions, and I had no doubt that within minutes the resort hotel at Walker Hill would be swarming with cops. Whoever this American veteran from the 4038th Signal Battalion was, he’d be safe.

  I leaned back in the seat, completely exhausted.

  Officer Oh handed me a small can of guava juice. I thanked her and tore off the pop top and drank the contents down in two gulps. Then I closed my eyes. The siren was on now and we were making excellent time back toward Seoul. We’d be there in an hour, I thought as I fell asleep.

  The Sheraton Walker Hill Hotel was completely surrounded by armed Korean National Police. A line of black Hyundai sedans was parked behind the sentries, and I figured a few ROK government VIPs were there, probably making speeches to the American veterans. We pulled up in front and a liveried doorman opened my door. He jerked back when he saw me. I looked like what I felt like, a mountain man who hadn’t washed in a week. As we clambered out of the car, I noticed a white van with a red cross emblazoned on it. An elderly American was having his blood pressure checked. They really were treating these guys like royalty.

  Mr. Kill escorted me through the glass door. My muddy boots slapped on polished tile. We walked up to the long check-in counter, and a number of gorgeously made-up young women bowed to us. When Mr. Kill flashed his credentials, a black-suited duty manager appeared in front of him, almost as if by magic. Mr. Kill deferred to me and I started to talk.

  “Amongst the American guests,” I said, “there is a veteran whose unit during the Korean War was the Forty Thirty-eighth Signal Battalion. We must locate him immediately.” Without being told, one of the young women in a business suit produced a check-in register and flipped it open on the counter. The list of American names was traced with polished nails. In the right column were their unit designations.

  “Walton,” the manager said. “Mr. Covert P. Walton. He’s in room sixteen fifty-two.”

  Within seconds, Mr. Kill, Officer Oh and I were in the elevator punching the 16th floor button. When we arrived, Officer Oh took the lead, pulling her small pistol out of her waistband as she did so. The door to Room 1652 was open. We barged in. Two maids, both with white bandanas tied around their heads, looked up from snapping sheets. Their mouths fell open. Officer Oh asked where the American guest was.

  Terrified, the two women said they didn’t know. They’d reached this room about ten minutes ago, and the sign asking for room service was dangling from the outside handle.

  Officer Oh ordered them to drop everything and to step outside. They did. She checked the room, in the bathroom and even under the bed, but Mr. Covert P. Walton was nowhere to be found.

  We went back downstairs to the lobby. Mr. Kill called some KNP officers over and gave them instructions to search the foyer and the dining room and the shopping boutiques and to check the identification of every foreigner they encountered. As soon as they found Mr. Covert P. Walton, they were to escort him back to the main lobby. When they bowed and scurried off, Mr. Kill and Officer Oh and I looked at one another.

  “You should sit down,” Officer Oh said.

  But something was bothering me, I wasn’t sure what. When we had reached the main lobby, I’d glanced outside through the big glass doors and seen the reassuring presence of the doormen and the KNPs standing guard. For some reason, something seemed missing. And then I realized what it was.

  “Come on,” I said.

  Mr. Kill and Officer Oh followed me outside. Her sedan was still parked there, in a place of privilege only allowed for the vehicle of the Senior Homicide Inspector of the Korean National Police. Mr. Kill stared at me curiously, as did Office
r Oh. Everything looked normal; everything except one thing.

  “The Red Cross van,” I said. “There was a woman inside, wearing a nurse’s uniform. I only saw her back. I imagine there was a driver up front and I spotted an elderly American in back.”

  “They’re gone,” Officer Oh said in English.

  Mr. Kill cursed. He ran toward his sedan, flung open the passenger door, and leaned in and switched on the radio. Immediately, he was ordering an all-points bulletin for the missing Red Cross van. Officer Oh questioned the doormen and the KNP officers standing guard. They all confirmed the same thing. As soon as we’d stepped inside, the back door of the van had closed, and they’d driven off.

  “Did the American get out?”

  Not everyone had been watching but the few who did said he hadn’t. They’d assumed he needed medical attention and he’d been taken away for that reason.

  We checked with the hotel manager and asked who had authorized the Red Cross van. He didn’t know. He assumed it had been part of the government effort to provide first class service to the visiting Americans. He made a few phone calls, and everyone he talked to denied having authorized the van. Within minutes the posse of KNP officers returned from their search of the hotel. They’d talked to many foreigners, most of them veterans there for the conference and they’d checked every passport, but none of them was Mr. Covert P. Walton.

  -16-

  I returned to Yongsan Compound.

  Ernie and Captain Prevault had also returned by now, and we met at the CID admin office. Despite the rawness of my physical presence, Captain Prevault hugged me.

  “We searched everywhere for you,” she said. “The KNPs didn’t help at first but then when Ernie insisted Mr. Kill in Seoul be notified, they started to cooperate.”

  “How’d you find out I was okay?” I asked.

  “I called Riley,” Ernie said. “The MPs got your radio message.”

  Riley said, “The Provost Marshal wants to talk to you, trooper. Now.”

  “Shouldn’t I change first?”

  “Now!” Riley repeated, pointing down the hallway.

  I bowed to the inevitable. Before I left, Ernie said, “Give me the keys to your wall locker. I’ll go to the barracks and get you a change of clothes.”

  I checked my pockets. “I lost them. But Mr. Yim has a set. And there’s an extra pair of boots under my bunk.”

  “I’ll get ’em,” he said and hurried away.

  Captain Prevault squeezed my hand. “Good luck in there,” she said.

  It was a routine ass chewing. Even the Provost Marshal realized that if Ernie and I hadn’t broken free of his controlling hand, we never would’ve flushed out the man with the iron sickle like we had. Still, now the 8th Army faced the problem of having a civilian murdered right under its nose.

  “Where are they?” Colonel Brace demanded.

  “Maybe they’ve returned to Mia-ri,” I said. “Madame Hoh has contacts there.” I thought of the thugs who’d chased me. “Mr. Kill already has the KNPs checking that out.”

  “Where else might they have gone?”

  “After that, they could be just about anywhere, sir. I’m sorry I blew it.”

  If Ernie could hear me, he’d accuse me of brown-nosing. Apologizing to a field grade officer is something he’d never do. But I did feel regretful. At every step so far the man with the iron sickle had outsmarted us.

  “What’s wrong with your nose?” he asked.

  “A cold,” I said.

  “And your feet?”

  “My boots are too tight.”

  The Provost Marshal shook his head. “Get some rest,” he said. “Change clothes. Then get back here and be prepared for whatever we have to do.”

  I stood up and saluted.

  As I limped down the hallway, I was thinking of a long shower and a change of clothes and a nap in a bunk with clean sheets. But instead when I reached my desk, I opened the top drawer and pulled out the hand-carved radio dial that had been left beneath the totem. I wasn’t sure but I believed I knew now why it had been left for us to find.

  I stepped toward Riley’s desk. “Who do you know at the Signal Battalion?” I asked.

  “To do what?”

  “To give us information. Old information. Somebody whose been around a long time.”

  “Grimaldi,” Riley said. “That old DAC has been here since MacArthur was a boy scout.”

  “Call him.”

  Riley did. Then he handed the phone to me. Mr. Grimaldi was the Department of Army Civilian who ran the signal battalion repair shop. I described the carved dial to him and he explained that when signal equipment was lost or destroyed during the Korean War it was often replaced by jerry-rigged items. And then I described the numbers on the dial and the deep notch at a certain frequency.

  “Armed Forces Radio,” he said. “They were the only outfit broadcasting during that first winter of the war. Everyone was listening to it, hungry for news. Knowing where the Chinese were—or weren’t—could save your life.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Grimaldi,” I said, not knowing what good this phone call had done me. But before I hung up he said, “After we re-took Seoul, they set up a permanent station for a while.”

  “Permanent? They weren’t in mobile trucks?”

  “Not for a while at least.”

  “Where’d they set up?” I asked.

  “In one of the few buildings in Seoul left standing. The Bando Hotel.”

  I thanked him and slammed down the phone.

  Ernie returned and I changed into a dry set of fatigues and a polished pair of combat boots.

  “You still stink,” he told me.

  “Thanks.”

  We hopped in his jeep. “You need some rest,” he told me.

  “Yeah, but first we’re going to the Bando Hotel.”

  “What’s wrong with the barracks?”

  I explained it to him.

  “Sort of a long shot,” he said.

  “Sort of,” I agreed.

  Before we pulled out of the parking lot, Captain Prevault hopped into the back seat. “You’re not leaving without me,” she said, “not after all this.”

  We didn’t have time to argue.

  The concierge at the Bando Hotel held his nose as he talked to me but when I explained what we wanted he led us into an elevator and took us straight to the top floor. From there we walked up a flight of stairs that opened onto the roof. The Bando was ten stories high and during the Japanese occupation it had been the tallest and most luxurious hotel in Seoul.

  “Here,” the man said, motioning with an open palm. “We set it up as a tourist attraction. A shrine to the only radio station functioning during the Korean War.” He frowned. “Now see what they’ve done.”

  Equipment was smashed, along with a glass display case, and photographs had been ripped from the wall.

  I picked up a placard written in English and Korean. It explained that after the Inchon landing, the 8th United States Army had re-taken Seoul and the first Armed Forces Korea Network radio station had been set up atop the Bando Hotel. It was from here that General Douglas MacArthur broadcast his call for Kim Il-sung and the leadership of Communist North Korea to lay down their arms and surrender. Unfortunately, they hadn’t, and once the Chinese entered the war, Seoul had been retaken by the enemy and the war had dragged on for almost three more years.

  “When did this happen?” Ernie asked.

  “Maybe one hour ago. Many people come and go through lobby. Somebody come up here, do this.”

  All remnants of this glorious little shrine had been ripped to shreds. I thought I knew why. During those horrible days with the Lost Echo, the one link the suffering GIs would’ve had was the AFKN radio broadcasts. Even the Koreans would’ve heard it constantly, since all civilian radio stations had been abandoned because of the war. Just listening to it must bring back horrible memories for them.

  I described Madame Hoh and the man with the iron sickle to him and then a
sked if they’d seen these people with an elderly American.

  He thought about it. “Maybe.”

  We rushed back downstairs. Two staff members remembered seeing three people who matched that description, about the time the AFKN shrine had been trashed.

  “How about the older American?” I asked. “How did he look?”

  “Frightened,” the front desk clerk said, “but I thought it was just because he was not used to Korea.”

  We walked outside and stood on the busy sidewalk.

  “So where are they now?” Captain Prevault asked.

  A big PX Ford Granada taxi pulled up and two Americans climbed out. Then I thought of something—what the man with the iron sickle had said to me, about people would be “shown.” Before the cabbie left, I leaned in the passenger window and asked if there had been a party of three, two Korean and one American, picked up here within the last hour. He didn’t know but Ernie flashed his badge and made him call dispatch. After some discussion, the dispatcher confirmed that a party matching that description had been picked up in front of the Bando about a half hour ago.

  “Where’d they go?” I asked.

  “Yongsan Compound,” the driver said.

  “Where on Yongsan Compound?”

  He conferred with the dispatcher. He clicked off and looked at us and said, “The AFKN Club.”

  We ran to the jeep.

  AFKN, the Armed Forces Korea Network. They’d long ago stopped broadcasting from downtown Seoul and now had their own studio complex near 8th Army headquarters on Yongsan Compound.

  “They have an American with them,” I told Captain Prevault, “so that and being in a PX taxi will get them through the gate.”

  “Don’t they check everybody’s ID?”

  “Yes, supposedly. But the gate guards are aware of the veterans in country. They’re given special privileges.”

  “The other two can be signed in as guests,” Ernie told her, “unless they already have phony ID.”

  “Won’t the guards know to be looking for Mr. Walton?”

  “Maybe,” I told her. “But it’s unlikely that word has reached the gate guards yet. Besides, nobody’s expecting them to head for the compound.”