Mr. Kill

15

An American staff sergeant in tailored green fatigues stood before us, his fists pressed against his hips, a pistol belt wrapped around his narrow waist. His jump boots gleamed with black polish, and a floppy green beret sat snugly atop his head. He was a muscular man, built low to the ground, making it seem impossible for anyone-or anything-to knock him over. He grinned at us.

“Welcome,” he said, “to the greatest training facility in the world.”

His name tag said Warnocki. I showed him my badge and told him why we were here, explained that we wanted access to the unit morning reports, the daily count of personnel strength.

“You suspect one of us?” he asked, jamming a thick thumb into the center of his chest. “You think a Green Beret could be the Blue Train rapist?”

“We suspect everybody,” Ernie said, “until they’re cleared.”

Warnocki’s grin grew even broader. “Man, I’m going to enjoy seeing you explain that to Colonel Laurel.”

“How about the morning reports?” I asked.

“No way is this staff sergeant going to give you access to Official Use Only information.”

“We have an open writ,” I told him, “backed up by the Provost Marshal of the Eighth United States Army.”

“Well, la-dee-da.”

“You could come up on charges, Warnocki, for obstructing an official investigation.”

He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “You’ll have to talk to Colonel Laurel about all that. If he tells me to die, I die. If he tells me to show you the morning report, I show you the morning report.”

“Okay, then,” Ernie said. “If that’s the way you want it. Let’s talk to him.”

“You know how to swim?” When neither Ernie nor I answered, Warnocki continued, “That’s where he is right now. Swimming. Or, more exactly, diving. With the haenyo.”

Ernie and I glanced at each other.

“That’s right,” Warnocki said. “Between training cycles, that’s how he relaxes.”

“Fine,” I said. “Take us to him.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

Warnocki shrugged again. “Okay,” he said. “Your funeral. Follow me.”

We followed him out of the guard shack and onto the main compound, across the broad expanse of gravel where three poles stood bearing the flags of the United States, the Republic of Korea, and the United Nations. Beyond that were half a dozen Quonset huts.

“No cycle in right now,” Warnocki said. “An artillery unit from the Second Division is supposed to be flying in tomorrow. We have a week to take them through rappelling, mountaineering, commando intercept, interrogation resistance, and patrol tactics, and, if we have time, a little waterborne survival training.”

“That’s where the diving comes in?”

“Colonel Laurel’s an expert at it.” Warnocki grinned again. “Without equipment.”

“Where’s the rest of the cadre?” I asked.

“In the motor pool,” Warnocki replied. “Pulling maintenance on our vehicles.”

“Don’t you have Koreans to do that?”

“Yeah. But somebody has to supervise.”

“How many other Special Forces personnel do you have here?”

Warnocki grinned again. “You’ll have to talk to Colonel Laurel about that.”

Three jeeps sat at the edge of the motor pool, along with an army puke-green bus and a two-and-a-half-ton truck. No other American personnel-or Koreans, for that matter-were visible.

Warnocki hopped into the nearest jeep and said, “All aboard.”

I sat in the passenger seat, Ernie in back. Warnocki started the engine and spun around in a U-turn, and soon we were heading out the back gate of the Mount Halla Training Facility; a listless Korean security guard pushed it open for us, and then we were barreling downhill on dirt roads, too fast for comfort.

Unconcerned, Ernie gazed at the craggy peaks in the distance and the ocean glimmering blue in glimpses below. I turned in my seat and looked back. Above the training facility, a communications tower teetered on the edge of a precipice; beyond that, wisps of smoke rose steadily out of the caldera of the volcano known as Mount Halla. I breathed deeply of the fresh sea air, thinking of the mystery man who’d brought an ancient fragment from so far away, thinking of the woman who’d been murdered, thinking of her crying children. Thinking of what the Blue Train rapist had next on his checklist.

Before we’d left Hialeah Compound, Marnie Orville had complained because Ernie wouldn’t be seeing her that evening.

“But you’re the one who got Ernie in trouble,” I told her. “You didn’t tell the truth about what happened between him and Freddy Ray Embry in Taegu. You said Ernie started it.”

“But that wasn’t my fault,” she whined. “I had to protect Freddy Ray.”

“Protect him?”

“If he gets kicked out of the Army,” she continued, “how is he going to pay his child support?”

“Marnie,” I said, staring directly into her pale blue eyes, “when we first met you, you said that Freddy Ray wasn’t paying his child support.”

“That was just a little white lie.”

“A little white lie? The Army takes these things seriously.”

“I just wanted to find him so I could tell him that he ought to take his responsibilities as a father more seriously. Casey misses him, and she keeps asking me why her daddy never comes to see her.”

“You caused all this trouble just for that?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “Just for that. My daughter is important to me.”

I had said the wrong thing and now she was indignant. Still, I soldiered on.

“When he showed up at your BOQ at Camp Carroll in Waegwan,” I said, “you suspected Freddy Ray of being the peeper, didn’t you?”

Marnie crossed her arms. “I’m not sure.”

“That’s why you sent him away without talking to him,” I continued. “It suddenly dawned on you that maybe he was the one following you from compound to compound, the one stealing small items. Isn’t that what you thought, Marnie?”

“You’re the detective,” she snapped. “Why don’t you find out?”

“Maybe I will,” I said, “once I have a little time.”

Marnie snorted. “We’re not important enough.”

There wasn’t much point continuing to talk to her. Instead, I said good-bye, then said good-bye to the other ladies of the Country Western All Stars and told them I hoped we’d be back from Cheju Island soon enough to catch their act again. Shelly, the lead guitar player, stepped forward and hugged me. Then she leaned away, smiling, and squeezed my hand.

Marnie followed me outside, where the others couldn’t hear. “I don’t think Freddy Ray’s the peeper. I did, but I don’t anymore,” she said.

I turned. “Why not?”

“Because of what he did last night in Taegu. He came for me. He didn’t sneak up or peep through a window, he knocked on the door like a man.”

“And punched out Ernie.”

Marnie shrugged and turned and walked back into the Quonset hut.

Lieutenant Colonel Ambrose Q. Laurel looked spindly in his head-to-toe black wet suit, a tremendous contrast to the burly Warnocki. About a dozen women sat on rocks on the beach, the hoods of their wet suits pulled back, revealing suntanned faces and moist black hair. The sea was blue close in, then gray, fading into a solid wall of mist about a hundred yards offshore. Most of the women were working on equipment-netting, flotation devices, sturdy-looking wooden-handled knives-and while they worked, they smiled at us, amused to have so much G.I. company.

“You dive with these ladies?” I asked Colonel Laurel.

“That’s right,” he said, staring directly at me, his gnarled face without expression.

He was not a tall man, five six or five seven, and he couldn’t have weighed more than 140 pounds. His grim expression was partly caused by the awkwardness of his situation. The full-length photo I’d seen in his personnel folder showed him standing proudly in his dress green uniform, shoulders thrust back, chest dripping with medals. But what wasn’t hidden, neither in his photos nor in this personal encounter, was the savage wound to his chin. Much of the jawbone had been blown off. It was partially reconstructed now, but still protruded only slightly below his mouth, an oddly shaped mass, not the pugnacious square jaw that a military man covets. He shoved his misshapen face out at me, and at Ernie, as if he were ready to fight.

“We’re here to check your morning reports, sir,” I said, “for the last two or three weeks, however far back we have to go. We’d like to know who in your unit was on leave, temporary duty, or who has otherwise left Cheju Island and traveled to the mainland.”

“Why?” he asked.

I told him.

“None of my men,” he said slowly, enunciating every word, “would ever be involved in such a thing as a rape or a murder.”

Then he stood silent, daring us to speak. I dared.

“Nevertheless, we have to check. It’s our duty.”

Something told me that long, involved explanations were not going to work with this man. Get right to the point. Stand your ground. Ernie stood at my side, unmoving. The haenyo sensed the tension between us, and the clinking of equipment grew more sporadic.

Colonel Laurel’s intelligent blue eyes held mine. Was he wavering? I couldn’t be sure. The thin lines of his lips were unreadable. Finally, he spoke.

“The men in my unit have no need of rape. Women flock to Green Berets.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sure that’s true. Still, we’d appreciate it if you’d give Sergeant Warnocki here permission to show us the records.”

Colonel Laurel stared at us for what seemed like a long time. The only sound was the gentle washing of waves on the beach, the occasional swish of thread through netting, and the steady cawing of sea birds. Finally, Colonel Laurel spoke.

“You think you can come to Cheju Island and just decide that you’re going to poke your noses into the personal records of the brave men of the Special Forces?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You think I’m some nervous career officer who falls apart at the sight of a couple of CID badges? You think you frighten me? You think that prissy-ass, no-combat-experience Provost Marshal up there at Eighth Army scares me?”

Colonel Laurel paused. Ernie took the opportunity to roll his eyes and stare up at the sky, clicking his gum loudly. Laurel turned his attention to him.

“Am I boring you?” he asked. “You think I’m just being difficult? You think that if you dial up some chief of staff back in Seoul that I’m going to roll over and allow you access to the movements of my men?” Laurel stepped toward Ernie, his arms akimbo, an enraged rubberized scarecrow.

“I think, sir,” Ernie replied, keeping his voice steady, “that I know what they used to say in Nam: the Special Forces take all the glory while the grunts do all the dying.”

For the first time, Warnocki stopped grinning. He stepped closer to Ernie, as if to take him down from behind. I moved closer to Warnocki. By now, Ernie and Colonel Laurel were nose to nose, glaring at one another. Ernie’s nose was about half a foot higher. The haenyo sat immobile.

“You get anywhere near my unit morning reports,” Colonel Laurel told Ernie, “or anywhere near my compound, and I will personally plant my army-issue combat boot up your rear-echelon ass.”

“Why wait, Colonel?” Ernie replied. “You can try it now.”

With a motion that was too fast for me to stop, Warnocki grabbed Ernie’s left wrist and, in some deft twisting motion, rotated the forearm upward. Involuntarily, Ernie bent forward at the waist. Without thinking, I hopped forward and slammed Warnocki with a straight left to the side of his head. The tough man staggered, didn’t go down, but released his grip on Ernie.

Ernie swiveled on Warnocki, raising his right fist when Colonel Laurel shouted, “At ease!”

The sound was so loud, and so jarring, that all of us-me, Ernie, and Warnocki-froze in mid-motion.

“Assume the position of attention,” Colonel Laurel commanded.

We did.

Laurel walked up to Ernie and stood there for a long time, letting the strength of his authority seep into our overheated minds.

“You will not,” he said finally, “under any circumstances, have any more conversations or associations with any of the men in my unit. And you will not, under any circumstances, access the records of my unit’s personnel strength or of my men’s comings and goings. Not unless,” he added, “I release the information myself. Is that understood?”

Ernie nodded.

“Is that understood?” Laurel shouted.

“Yes, sir.”

“Warnocki,” Laurel said, spinning away, “take the jeep back to the compound.”

Warnocki nodded, grabbed his beret, which had fallen into the sand, replaced it on his almost-bald head, saluted Colonel Laurel, and trotted off toward the jeep. On the way, he grinned at me broadly. It wasn’t a friendly grin. More like being laughed at by a skull.

After Warnocki disappeared, Colonel Laurel turned back to us.

“If you mess with my men again,” he told Ernie and then me, “I won’t stop him next time.”

“Stop him?” I said. “You were about to lose one muscle-bound staff sergeant.”

Laurel stared at me, his face once again unreadable, looking very much like a sinister puppet. Without saying anything further, he turned and marched across wet sand. The haenyo stood as he approached.

Together, the rubber-clad troupe of females followed Colonel Laurel to a boat with an outboard motor. All of them climbed aboard except for two sturdy women who shoved the boat out toward the breakers, turned it around, and then pulled themselves aboard. Laurel jerked on a hemp lanyard and the engine of the old boat coughed to life. He and the women bounced over the waves and then, after about fifty yards, faded into the mist.

Ernie dusted sand off his trousers.

“‘About to lose one muscle-bound staff sergeant,’” he mimicked. “Man, Sueno. That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Women have been raped,” I said, “in front of children. One of them brutally murdered, in front of children. To me, all this macho posturing is less than nothing.”

Ernie watched as I climbed the sand dunes and marched toward the two-lane highway that paralleled the beach. Then, as if remembering something, he hurried and caught up with me.

“What do you mean, we can’t force Colonel Laurel to show us his morning report?” I asked. “What kind of nonsense is that? He’s a military man, isn’t he? He takes orders like anyone else.”

I sat on the front edge of the ondol floor of the living room of the woman who owned the Nokko-ri Yoguan. Her family lived just behind the reception counter. She kept a bright red phone on a knitted yellow pad and charged me five hundred won for the call to Hialeah Compound in Pusan.

“They’re stovepiped,” Riley told me, his voice coming in scratchy over the line. “They don’t take orders from Eighth Army. Only from Special Operations Command in the Pentagon.”

“So we have the Provost Marshal contact Special Ops,” I told him. “Tell them to order Colonel Laurel to let us see his morning reports.”

“That’ll take time,” Riley replied. “The Special Forces always stalls. First the Pentagon weenies will contact Colonel Laurel, and then they’ll wait to hear back from him, and then they’ll have a conference, and finally, after typing everything up in triplicate, they’ll respond to Eighth Army.”

“We don’t have time,” I shouted. “The Blue Train rapist could strike again at any moment.”

Riley didn’t answer. He wasn’t wasting his breath. He was just giving me time to let it sink in: the military bureaucracy moves at its own pace, and no one, with the possible exception of a four-star general, can hurry it up.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll find another way.”

“Be careful with those guys,” Riley said. “I wouldn’t want my two favorite investigators to come up missing.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a volcano up there, isn’t there? They could drop you in.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I hung up on him.

It had only taken a half hour for Ernie and me to hitchhike our way back from the beach. People were curious about two American G.I. s in civvies standing alone on a lonely road. A three-wheeled truck loaded with garlic pulled over and gave us a ride all the way to the intersection that led to Nokko-ri. From there, we caught a ride with a Korean contract trucker carrying a load of heating fuel up to the Mount Halla Training Facility. He let us off right in front of the Nokko-ri Yoguan. In both cases I offered the drivers money, but in both cases they smiled and waved it off. Once you get away from the hustlers who congregate outside the gates of military compounds, Koreans are generous to a fault.

There was a chophouse just twenty yards in front of the main gate, and in English they advertised ohmu rice and yakimandu and ramian noodles. Ernie and I sat at one of the rickety wooden tables, and the old woman who ran the place approached, wearing a white apron and a white bandanna wrapped tightly around gray hair.

“When do the G.I. s start coming out of the compound, Mama-san?” Ernie asked.

“Maybe five o’clock,” she replied. “After cannon go boom and flag come down.” She thought about that and added, “Tonight skoshi G.I., tomorrow taaksan.”

Only a few G.I. s tonight. Tomorrow plenty. The merchants in Nokko-ri were well attuned to the comings and goings of Colonel Laurel’s training cycles.

We both ordered ramian and split a plate of the yakimandu fried dumplings. Ernie was about to add a liter of cold OB beer to his order when I stopped him.

“We have work to do,” I said.

“Work? Like what?”

“Like finding somebody who knows what’s going on inside the Mount Halla Training Facility.”

“They’re all Green Berets,” Ernie said. “They’re not going to tell us nothing.”

“I’m not talking about Green Berets,” I said. “Somebody else.”

“There ain’t nobody else.”

“Yes, there is.”

I pointed through the dirt-smudged window of the Nokko-ri Chophouse. Ernie followed my finger and gazed up the side of Mount Halla.

“Smoke coming out of the volcano,” he said. “So what?”

“Off to the right a bit,” I replied.

Then he spotted it. A communications beacon. And next to that, a squat building.

“That’s American?” he asked.

“Must be,” I replied. “How else is Colonel Laurel going to stay in touch with the honchos at Eighth Army?”

“I don’t think he gives a shit about the honchos at Eighth Army.”

The old woman brought two steaming bowls of ramian noodles, and then she slid the yakimandu between us. Ernie stared at the fare sourly.

“Where’s the kimchee?” he asked.

“You likey?”

“I likey.”

The woman smiled and in short order delivered one plate each of pickled cabbage and pickled cucumber and a bowl of water kimchee. As she set them on the table, the sharp tang of vegetables fermented in brine bit into my nostrils.

Ernie smiled and ordered a Seven Stars Cider. I stuck with the barley tea.

The cab driver wound around one sharp bend after another. The road was narrow, just wide enough for one vehicle. There were only a couple of bypass areas where a vehicle could move off to the side to make way for another.

“What happened to the jillions of dollars Eighth Army spends improving roads?” Ernie asked.

“I guess they spent it elsewhere. Must not expect many visitors up here.”

The cab driver’s name was Mr. Won. He had been introduced to us by the woman who owned the Nokko-ri Yoguan. I think he was her brother-in-law or something. Mr. Won leaned forward, both hands gripping the steering wheel, concentrating on his driving, ignoring us completely. Ernie sat in the front passenger seat. I sat in back. Below were rock-strewn valleys with little vegetation. Every now and then, I glanced back and saw the Mount Halla Training Facility and the village of Nokko-ri, growing ever smaller as we moved higher up the mountain. In the distance, the sea stirred placidly.

Finally, we rounded one more switchback turn, straightened out along the edge of the mountain, and there, on a plateau-like ledge, sat the squat green building I’d seen from the comfortable environs of the Nokko-ri Chophouse. Spiraling straight up was the metal edifice of the red-and-white communications tower.

Mr. Won stopped the car and immediately turned off the engine. His shoulders slumped forward and for a moment he bowed his head to fists still clenched on top of the steering wheel.

“Yogi kidariyo?” I said to him. You’ll wait here?

He nodded. As we’d agreed, he’d receive the bulk of his money once we were returned safely to the Nokko-ri Yoguan.

The small communications compound was surrounded by a high chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. It was all rusted out as if it hadn’t been replaced in years. A sign hung near the single gate in the fence: Chulip Kumji. And below that: Authorized Personnel Only.

Ernie strode up to the gate, studied it for a moment, and then pressed a buzzer. There was a rusty speaker next to the buzzer, but we heard no response. He pushed the buzzer again, and then again.

Finally a voice erupted from the speaker. “Yeah?”

“Who’s this?” Ernie asked.

“Vance.”

The voice sounded sleepy, as if we’d just woken him up.

“What’s your rank, Vance?” Ernie asked.

“Spec Four.”

He was waking up now and becoming a little nervous.

“My name is Agent Bascom. I’m from the Eighth Army CID in Seoul. My partner here is Agent Sueno. We want you to open the gate so we can talk to you.”

“CID?”

A slight sense of panic now.

“Yes. But we’re not here about the black market. We just need some information.”

“I’m not allowed to open the gate when I’m alone.”

“Alone? How many people are stationed up here?”

“Supposed to be three. A lieutenant, an NCO, and me, a technician. But we haven’t had a lieutenant since I been here.”

“How long is that?”

“Six months.”

“And where’s the sergeant?”

“Parkwood?”

“Yeah. Parkwood.”

“He’s on a supply run.”

“When do you expect him back?”

“Don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

There was a hesitation. “Sometimes he stops in the ville.”

Ernie slipped his badge out of the inner pocket of his coat and held it over his head. “Specialist Vance, from where you’re at, can you see my badge?”

There was a pause. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to ask my partner to show his badge too.”

I held mine over my head.

“Do you see them both?” Ernie asked.

“Yeah.”

“Open the gate, Vance.”

“But I was told… ”

“What you were told doesn’t matter,” Ernie said. “We have a warrant, we’ve traveled all the way from Seoul, and it’s important.”

There was a long pause. Finally, the gate buzzed. Ernie pushed it open.

The place was a dump. What you’d expect from two lonely bachelors living alone. There was a small reception area and then a large air-conditioned room filled with metal units as big as refrigerators, covered with buzzing lights and wires. A number of work consoles blinked at us and beeped. Beyond were a storage room piled high with crates of army C rations and a kitchen jammed with dirty dishes. In the largest room, piles of dirty laundry were draped atop army-issue bunks, unshined shoes, and combat boots. One cowboy boot poked its toe out from beneath green blankets spread in sweat-matted disarray.

“No houseboy up here?” Ernie said.

“I wish,” Vance replied.

Specialist Vance was a smallish man, with a slouch to his shoulders and a hangdog expression enhanced by-or maybe caused by-drooping jowls. His skin was clear and his dark brown hair had not a hint of gray, but somehow he carried himself with the aura of a person who, at a very young age, had already been defeated by the world.

“Get down to the ville much?” Ernie asked.

“Only when we have a reason to drive the truck down there. Parkwood usually goes.”

“He’s the ranking man.”

Vance nodded. “There’s supposed to be at least two of us here at all times, but without a lieutenant that’s impossible. So sometimes, like now, it’s down to just me.”

A bell on one of the consoles started to ring.

“Excuse me,” Vance said.

He sat down at a keyboard and tapped on a few buttons until a printer came to life and started rat-tat-tatting on a sheet of paper. As it rolled off the printer, I read it. Military acronyms. Routine stuff, about deadlines for supply reorders.

“This isn’t for you,” I said.

For the first time, Vance looked up at me. “Naw. We get a lot of stuff that’s on general distribution to all units in Eighth Army. We send it down to the training facility anyway in case they have a need to know. Some of the traffic, on those machines over there, is strictly for relay. You know, microwave stuff that we pass on to the next commo site north of Pusan.”

“Horang-ni?”

“Yeah. Horang-ni. How’d you know?”

I shrugged. “And they relay it on up to the line to Seoul?”

“Right.”

Ernie strolled around the work area, staring at somebody’s short-timer calendar. A naked lady was half covered with red ink. He turned away from the calendar and as he did so his shoulder brushed against a half-dozen clipboards hanging on a nail. Four of them clattered to the ground. Onionskin papers scattered across the tiled floor, and Ernie stooped to pick them up.

“What are these?” he asked.

Specialist Vance helped him pick up the reports, reorganized them, and put the clipboards back on their nail, one by one. “IG results,” he said.

“The Eighth Army Inspector General stopped here?”

“Naw. Just the Long Lines Battalion IG.”

Ernie gazed around the cluttered work area. “Whoever he was, he must’ve ripped you guys two new ones.”

“Yeah,” Vance said. “It’s been a mess with no lieutenant and me doing most of the work. You know, all the routine stuff like maintenance reports, microwave alignments, checking telecom circuits. I do most of it.”

“But not enough,” Ernie said.

“No, we flunked the IG. They’re even threatening to bar Parkwood from reenlistment.”

Ernie peeked inside a couple of filing cabinets. “Don’t you have any booze around here?”

“Naw. We used to. But neither Parkwood nor I drink.”

“But there used to be someone who drank?”

“An old sergeant, before Parkwood arrived. That’s all he did.”

“My kind of guy,” Ernie said.

“So you relay traffic down to the training facility,” I said.

“That’s one of our main jobs,” Vance replied.

“Do they relay stuff up here?”

“Of course. And then we send it on.”

“Like their morning report?”

“Yeah. We send it over to Sasebo in Japan.”

“Not up to Eighth Army?”

“No. The training facility’s under a separate command.”

“Do you keep records here of that morning report?”

“No. I read it every day, though. Sort of gives me an idea of whether or not the ville’s going to be crowded.”

“Like when all the SF guys are on duty, they must have a training cycle in.”

“You got it. And those Second Division guys go nuts down in Nokko-ri. Drive the prices sky-high.”

“I thought you said you don’t go down to the ville often,” Ernie said, but he smiled as he said it.

Vance flushed red. “Only sometimes.”

“I don’t blame you for going to the ville,” I told him. “I’d go down there as often as I could if I worked in a remote place like this.”

Vance nodded but didn’t reply. I continued.

“So Sergeant Parkwood probably won’t be back until tomorrow morning, right? Not if he’s smart.”

“Maybe,” Vance said.

Ernie cut in. “Don’t worry so much, Vance. We’re not here about all that. We just want to know who in the last two or three weeks has been on TDY or in-country leave from the Mount Halla Training Facility.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all,” Ernie replied. “After we get that, we’ll leave you alone.”

“I don’t mind the company. Honest. It gets sort of lonely up here.”

“I can imagine. So tell us about the Green Berets at the Mount Halla Training Facility.”

“One guy’s due back tomorrow,” Vance said. “He went back to the States on a thirty-day mid-tour leave.”

“Who’s that?”

“Munoz. I think he’s Puerto Rican. At least that’s what his travel orders said, that he was going there, to Puerto Rico I mean.”

I jotted the name down in my notebook.

“Nobody else has been gone,” Vance said. “Except for maybe if they took the regular chopper run to Pusan on the weekend. But even that’s unlikely. There’s only nine Green Berets stationed there, not counting Colonel Laurel. And he insists on a CQ every night, so they pull a lot of duty.”

CQ. Charge of Quarters.

“They’re a strack unit,” Ernie said.

“Right,” Vance said admiringly. “Straight-arrow military.”

“So to the best of your knowledge,” I said, “only one guy has been gone from the Mount Halla Training Facility in the last few weeks.”

“As best as I can tell,” Vance replied.

“How about their ration-control cards?” I asked.

“Their what?”

“The ration cards. You know, like at the PX when your ration-control plate is anviled when you buy something like liquor or beer. They have a PX, don’t they?”

“A small one.”

“So somebody has to deliver their ration cards.”

“Yeah. I forgot about that. Sergeant Amos runs it up to Seoul every week.”

“What’s his full name?”

“Walker R. Amos, Sergeant First Class.”

I jotted the name down. “Why him? Why is he the only one to run it up every week?”

“Something about his profile,” Vance replied. “He’s older than the other guys. Can’t do all the physical training they do.”

“So Colonel Laurel makes him escort the ration cards up to Seoul each week. Sort of demeaning, isn’t it?”

Vance shrugged.

“So he takes the weekly chopper to Pusan. From there does he take the train?”

“I guess,” Vance replied. “I never heard of anybody traveling up to Seoul any other way. Unless they take one of the training flights that come in.”

“There’s an airport?”

“Yeah. The ROK Army has one.”

“Can you think of anyone else who’s left the compound recently?”

“No. That’s it. Not unless you count Colonel Laurel.”

“When did he leave?”

“Last week. I don’t remember the exact day. There was some sort of commander’s call in Seoul.”

When Ernie and I climbed back into the cab, I studied the ranks and names I had jotted down. The first was Munoz, a buck sergeant. That meant he was relatively young; maybe he’d gone back to visit his family in Puerto Rico. Lifers don’t travel that much. Once you’ve spent a decade or two in the army, your family tends to forget about you and you tend to forget about them. The second man, the one who’d delivered the ration cards to Seoul, was a sergeant first class, which meant he’d been around a while. The full name was Walker R. Amos. Could he be black? If so, and if it could be proven that Munoz had gone to Puerto Rico, I could eliminate both men and I’d be back to square one. I asked Specialist Vance, but he’d never met either man personally. But something told me that SFC Walker R. Amos would be white. Something told me we were close to the Blue Train rapist. Very close.

Mr. Won was even more petrified driving down Mount Halla than he had been while driving up. I didn’t like the way he kept jamming on the brakes, pressing the pedal almost to the floorboard. Ernie finally said something.

“When was the last time you put in new brake pads, Ajjosi?”

I shushed him. The man didn’t understand anyway. Best to let him concentrate on his driving and hope for the best. I actually thought of telling Mr. Won to stop so we could get out and walk the three or four miles downhill back to Nokko-ri, but I didn’t think he could stop this old cab now if he wanted to.

Ernie spotted it first. He pointed.

“Look!”

A puke-green quarter-ton truck, army-issue, chugging up the incline.

“Must be Parkwood,” I said, “coming back from his supply run.”

“There’s a bypass,” Ernie said, “closer to him than to us.”

“I hope he has the sense to use it,” I replied.

Mr. Won didn’t understand a word we were saying. He stared in terror at the winding road ahead, jamming on the brakes, both hands knuckled white atop the steering wheel.

I reached over and honked the horn.

If the man driving the truck below heard it, he gave no indication.