the long black overcoat like a scepter, the
naht
, the short-handled sickle with the wickedly curved blade.
And then the alley went dark and the man was gone, disappearing in an instant. The driver of the vehicle stepped on the gas, making hisengine roar. The headlights swung back toward me. I ducked behind the pickup truck, but it was too late. Whoever was driving pulled up on the far side of the truck, brakes squealed, and a door opened then slammed shut.
“Hold it right there!” An American MP appeared around the rear of the truck. He held a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other.
I froze, averting my eyes toward the alleyway.
He stared at me for a moment. “Sueño?” he asked.
I nodded.
“What the hell you doing up here?”
I didn’t answer, considering whether or not to call for backup and try to cordon off the neighborhood and maybe trap the man with the iron sickle. But it was too late. Such an effort would take at least a half hour to set up. He had too much of a head start and the catacombs of Seoul were vast. Instead, I sighed and answered the MP’s question. “It’s a long story.”
“Better be a good one. The Staff Duty Officer has a case of the big ass.”
“So do I,” I said. “Do you mind helping me check out that alley?”
I pointed to where I’d seen the man with the iron sickle. He aimed his flashlight. It was empty now, nothing but ancient brick and string-like cobwebs.
“You spot something down there?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
He followed me into the maze. We spent a half hour chasing our tails. No sign of anything.
“What the hell are we looking for?” the MP asked.
I could’ve told him I saw the man with the iron sickle but I’m not sure he would’ve believed me. Every MP craves glory. If I claimed to have seen the most wanted man in 8th Army and had no evidence to back it up, I would be thought of as either hallucinating or, morelikely, making up stories to make myself seem important. And I’d be asked the most embarrassing question of all: why didn’t you take him down?
“Forget it,” I said. “I thought I saw something. Guess I was mistaken.”
We returned to the compound.
“Abandoning your post,” the Staff Duty Officer said. “Absent without leave. Disobeying a general order. Need I go on?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“A call came in just before midnight,” I told him, “an MP under attack, bleeding, no one else was available.”
“Burrows and Slabem were on call.”
“By the time we got through to them and woke them up and they got dressed and found their vehicle and drove out to the ville, whatever was happening would’ve been all over.”
“It was all over when you got there,” he told me.
Not quite. The Korean MP was still alive and on his way to the hospital, and, as I found out later, the man with the iron sickle was still haunting the area. But instead of explaining, I kept quiet. When a military officer is angry, proving to him he’s wrong just makes matters worse.
First Lieutenant Wilson was the 8th Army Staff Duty Officer for the evening. A leather armband designating him as such was strapped around his left shoulder. He kept rubbing his forehead and pushing his garrison cap backward over his cropped hair, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“The Provost Marshal has been informed,” he told me. “Burrows and Slabem are out there right now at the Itaewon Police Station.”
“Waiting for the police report,” I said.
He studied me, suspicious of the insolence in my voice. “That’s their job,” he told me.
At their core, the Korean National Police are a political organization; their main reason for existence is to support the military dictatorship of President Park Chung-hee. Despite this fact, the honchos of 8th Army allow the KNPs to translate their own police reports into English. That’s what CID agents Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem were
naht
, the short-handled sickle with the wickedly curved blade.
And then the alley went dark and the man was gone, disappearing in an instant. The driver of the vehicle stepped on the gas, making hisengine roar. The headlights swung back toward me. I ducked behind the pickup truck, but it was too late. Whoever was driving pulled up on the far side of the truck, brakes squealed, and a door opened then slammed shut.
“Hold it right there!” An American MP appeared around the rear of the truck. He held a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other.
I froze, averting my eyes toward the alleyway.
He stared at me for a moment. “Sueño?” he asked.
I nodded.
“What the hell you doing up here?”
I didn’t answer, considering whether or not to call for backup and try to cordon off the neighborhood and maybe trap the man with the iron sickle. But it was too late. Such an effort would take at least a half hour to set up. He had too much of a head start and the catacombs of Seoul were vast. Instead, I sighed and answered the MP’s question. “It’s a long story.”
“Better be a good one. The Staff Duty Officer has a case of the big ass.”
“So do I,” I said. “Do you mind helping me check out that alley?”
I pointed to where I’d seen the man with the iron sickle. He aimed his flashlight. It was empty now, nothing but ancient brick and string-like cobwebs.
“You spot something down there?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
He followed me into the maze. We spent a half hour chasing our tails. No sign of anything.
“What the hell are we looking for?” the MP asked.
I could’ve told him I saw the man with the iron sickle but I’m not sure he would’ve believed me. Every MP craves glory. If I claimed to have seen the most wanted man in 8th Army and had no evidence to back it up, I would be thought of as either hallucinating or, morelikely, making up stories to make myself seem important. And I’d be asked the most embarrassing question of all: why didn’t you take him down?
“Forget it,” I said. “I thought I saw something. Guess I was mistaken.”
We returned to the compound.
“Abandoning your post,” the Staff Duty Officer said. “Absent without leave. Disobeying a general order. Need I go on?”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Well, do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“A call came in just before midnight,” I told him, “an MP under attack, bleeding, no one else was available.”
“Burrows and Slabem were on call.”
“By the time we got through to them and woke them up and they got dressed and found their vehicle and drove out to the ville, whatever was happening would’ve been all over.”
“It was all over when you got there,” he told me.
Not quite. The Korean MP was still alive and on his way to the hospital, and, as I found out later, the man with the iron sickle was still haunting the area. But instead of explaining, I kept quiet. When a military officer is angry, proving to him he’s wrong just makes matters worse.
First Lieutenant Wilson was the 8th Army Staff Duty Officer for the evening. A leather armband designating him as such was strapped around his left shoulder. He kept rubbing his forehead and pushing his garrison cap backward over his cropped hair, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“The Provost Marshal has been informed,” he told me. “Burrows and Slabem are out there right now at the Itaewon Police Station.”
“Waiting for the police report,” I said.
He studied me, suspicious of the insolence in my voice. “That’s their job,” he told me.
At their core, the Korean National Police are a political organization; their main reason for existence is to support the military dictatorship of President Park Chung-hee. Despite this fact, the honchos of 8th Army allow the KNPs to translate their own police reports into English. That’s what CID agents Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem were
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