Ping-Pong Heart

– 21-

As Ernie sped north through the heavy traffic of downtown Seoul, I studied our copy of Major Schultz’s inspection report alongside my map of Kyongki Province.

According to what Miss Kim just told us, Specialist Fenton had first started bothering her about a month ago. That would’ve been shortly after Major Schultz launched his inspection of the 501st. It made sense. Captain Blood must have believed that a thorough inspection of his operation might lead to criminal charges and, if so, such a high-level classified inquiry wouldn’t be handled by the MPs. It would be handled at a higher level, by the 8th Army Criminal Investigation Division.

“So he decided to cover himself,” Ernie said, “just in case. Get himself a spy inside our organization.”

“So he had Fenton go after the most vulnerable person,” I replied. “A woman who was terrified of losing her job.”

“Maybe that’s what he thought. But he didn’t bargain for someone as brave as Miss Kim.”

“No.”

We drove in silence. Finally, when we passed Songbuk-dong and the last remnants of the ancient northern wall, Ernie said, “How many branch offices does the Five Oh First have?”

“Five, north of Seoul.” Which figured, because most US Army base camps sat between the capital city of Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone, which sliced across the Korean Peninsula about thirty miles to the north. On the far side of the DMZ, 700,000 North Korean Communist soldiers waited impatiently for the orders to flood south. So far, since the Korean War twenty years ago, they hadn’t, other than small-scale incursions and the occasional commando raid or stray artillery round. The South Korean Army averaged one fatality a month at the hands of the North Koreans; the US Army, about one per year. Of course, our commitment was much smaller than the ROK’s: 50,000 soldiers to their 450,000.

“So which one are we going to hit?” Ernie asked.

“Uijongbu,” I said. “They’ve busted three GIs in the last year and a half.”

Ernie whistled. “Busy little beavers.”

It was unlikely that the compounds as small as those surrounding Uijongbu had one American GI selling secrets to the North Korean Communists, let alone three in eighteen months. But according to Major Schultz’s inspection report, that was how many arrests had been made there. The GIs had been ferreted out by the excellent counterintelligence work of a certain Sergeant Leon Jerrod of the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion. One of the accused had faced military court-martial, in camera, been convicted, and was now serving a twenty-year sentence at the Federal Penitentiary in Fort Leavenworth. The other two had taken bad-conduct discharges and left the military with no pay or benefits. Better, at least, than rotting in federal prison. An appendix to the report had the dates of the proceedings and the names of the witnesses who had testified against the GIs. It was a long shot, but I was hoping to locate one of those witnesses and, after interviewing them, use the information they gave us to pressure Sergeant Jerrod into spilling his guts.

Until we knew what was really going on at the 501st, we couldn’t determine the likelihood that Captain Blood or anyone else there had a motive to murder Major Schultz. They certainly had the means: These were trained soldiers who’d already demonstrated a willingness to use force. And they had a three-quarter-ton truck that could easily transport a body to Itaewon, even after curfew, and dump it behind the Dragon King Nightclub. But had there been more at risk than receiving a bad inspection report?

And that’s why we were avoiding the Provost Marshal. Unless we came to him with concrete evidence, he’d never let us go forward with an investigation against a military unit and a fellow officer who could be promoted to field-grade rank within a year.

And whether or not the Provost Marshal would believe Miss Kim’s story about being threatened and ordered to spy by Specialist Fenton was impossible to tell, even though she was our trusted office assistant. Ernie and I believed her absolutely. But the honchos at 8th Army had a different standard of belief based not on a person’s integrity, but whether the report would reflect poorly on themselves or the Command. And having a rogue counterintelligence unit threatening innocent women and railroading GIs into prison just to acquire power and funding wasn’t likely to be well received by the honchos of 8th Army. We’d need proof. The same type of proof that Major Schultz had apparently been after. At least, according to the inspection report Strange had pilfered for me. The inspection was thorough and backed up by facts, figures, and dates. If I were doing something illegal, I wouldn’t want Major Schultz after me.

“Our mistake was,” Ernie said, “we didn’t kill that guy Fenton when we had the chance.”

“We don’t need to kill him, Ernie. We’ll just send him to jail. That’s good enough.”

“We’ll see,” Ernie replied.

His knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and he cursed when a kimchi cab swerved in front of him, something he seldom did.

“Easy,” I said. “Nobody’s going to hurt Miss Kim now. We’ll make sure of that.”

“You’re damn right we will.”

The city of Uijongbu sits about fifteen miles north of Seoul, on the route known as the Eastern Corridor. Since Uijongbu is an important intersection with several major roads leading north and another slashing across mountains toward the Western Corridor, a half-dozen military compounds are located nearby.

The 501st kept their Uijongbu office manned by Sergeant Leon Jerrod at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars branch, or VFW, in a district known as Kanung-dong. The VFW was only a couple of hundred yards from the front gate of Camp Red Cloud, a compound that housed the headquarters that had been known as I Corps during the Korean War.

Ernie and I had been in this area before on other cases, and as we rolled up the MSR into the city of Uijongbu proper, I told him where to veer off. The side road led to a traffic circle that old-timers told me had been notorious during the Korean War. Truck drivers running supplies to and from the front lines stopped here and traded C-rations, heating fuel, medical supplies, and other military items for whatever their hearts desired: booze, drugs, women, you name it. Those days were over, but there was still a river of neon leading from the traffic circle through the Kanung-dong area and right up to the front gate of Camp Red Cloud. The VFW sat smack-dab in the middle of all the action.

“Nice place to be stationed,” Ernie said. “Away from the flagpole, plenty of creature comforts. What’s the name of the agent again?”

I checked the appendix to the report. “Sergeant Jerrod.”

Ernie didn’t ask the first name. We seldom used them in the military. As an old drill sergeant once told me, “Your first name is your rank, and your last name is printed on your name tag, in case you forget it. But don’t ever forget your rank.”

Ernie parked the jeep on a side street. We climbed out and walked toward the VFW.

When we pushed through the front door, a sleepy-eyed Korean woman behind the bar looked up. She had long black hair, sagging cheeks and the unperturbed air of someone who’d been bored for the better part of her life.

“What you want?” she asked.

“Jerrod,” I said.

She went back to the Korean film star magazine in front of her. “He not here.”

“When is he coming in?”

“How I know?”

“Where does he live?” Ernie asked.

She looked up, her eyes widening. “You buy drink, no buy drink? That’s my job.”

“That and charm,” Ernie replied.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

She glared at us and turned back to her magazine.

“Do any customers ever come in here?” I asked.

“Most tick they come,” she replied.

“When?”

She looked at me, greatly annoyed. “When they come, they come.”

I grinned at her. The time was about fifteen-thirty, three-thirty in the afternoon. She was right-it was still early for the bar crowd.

“Do you have happy hour?” Ernie asked.

“No happy hour,” she said without looking up.

“I didn’t think so,” he told her.

A hallway led toward the latrines out back. While Ernie waited with Miss Congeniality, I checked out both the men’s bathroom and women’s, just to be thorough. Both empty. I pushed through another door that led to a storeroom, then an alley out back. No sign of life. Although this place was designated as a Veterans of Foreign Wars official chapter, there wasn’t much to it. Just a bar. No meeting hall, no games of chance.

When I returned, I shook my head in the negative to Ernie. To the left of the bar, a stairway led up toward the second floor.

“What’s up there?” Ernie asked the barmaid.

“Not your business,” she said.

We both walked toward the stairs. Finally, she looked up from her magazine and said, “What you do?”

“We’re gonna leave a note in Jerrod’s office.”

“No can do. No can go up there.”

Our assumption was right. If the VFW was in this building, Jerrod’s office would be, too. We ignored her and climbed the stairs. On the second floor, a short hallway led to a window. I peered outside. Nothing below but an empty alleyway. The doorway on the right was stenciled in black letters: president, uijongbu branch, veterans of foreign wars. The doorway on the left had another sign: private.

I tried the handle of the office on the left. Locked.

“Did you bring your lock pick?” I asked Ernie.

“Yeah,” he said. “Got it right here.”

He backed up against the wall opposite the door marked private, raised his right foot, and leapt forward, throwing all his weight into it. The door crashed open.

Downstairs, I heard the front door open and the barmaid’s voice call “Koma-ya!” Boy! A few seconds later, there was a hushed conversation I couldn’t make out until a boy’s voice said, “Nei, nei.” Yes, yes. And then the door closed again.

Ernie and I walked into the office. It was Spartan. A grey Army-issue desk with a full in-basket and wooden filing cabinets behind and a black phone resting on a blue cloth at the edge of the desk. The filing cabinets each had a metal bar running vertically through the front handles, which were padlocked securely into place.

I started riffling through the in-box. Ernie checked the desk drawers. Sergeant Jerrod’s name was everywhere, along with the unit designation of Headquarters Company, 501st Military Intelligence Battalion.

“I think she sent someone to get him,” I told Ernie.

“Get who?”

“Jerrod.”

“You think he has a hooch nearby?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“With a cushy setup like this? Yeah, I probably would.”

The paperwork in the in-box and in the desk drawer was routine. Personnel matters, policy directives concerning unit training and physical fitness. The good stuff pertaining to the three counterintelligence cases Jerrod had brought recently were almost certainly in the locked file cabinets. Ernie and I stared at them in frustration.

“How are we going to get in?” he asked.

“You can’t kick that metal bar off?”

“Not without breaking my leg. Maybe the grumpy old broad downstairs has a crowbar.”

“Maybe. But I have a better idea.”

“What?”

“I think the guy with the keys is on his way. Maybe he’ll open the cabinets for us.”

“Maybe he will,” Ernie said, “if we ask him nice.”

Ten minutes later, footsteps tromped up the stairs.

Ernie and I had turned off the lights and re-closed the door. Of course, the lock was still busted, but there was nothing we could do about that. The footsteps slowed to a halt on the other side. “Anybody in there?” called a deep but unsteady voice.

Ernie and I sat on straight-backed chairs on either side of the room’s only entrance. We didn’t answer. Slowly, someone pushed the door open. Then a hand reached in and flicked on the light switch. The man waited a second, then burst into the room, quickly reaching the opposite wall and swiveling around. He held a .45 automatic in his hand. His eyes were wide, his face sweaty.

Sergeant Leon Jerrod was a stout man. Not fat, but pretty wide for his height, which was about five-foot-six. Still, he looked strong and had a low center of gravity, so fighting him wouldn’t be easy, and knocking him off his feet might be impossible. His hair was dark, trimmed short in a butch haircut that accentuated his round head. His eyes were round, too, bovine and wet. Of course, what Ernie and I noticed first was the barrel of his gun pointing at Ernie, then at me.

“Sorry about your door,” I said.

“Yeah,” Ernie added. “We were in sort of a hurry. And your charming hostess downstairs wasn’t much help.”

“In a hurry for what?”

“To talk to you,” I said, “about a couple of cases you closed in the last few months.” Both Ernie and I kept our hands motionless at our sides. Rule number one: never make an armed man nervous. “Can I reach in my pocket,” I asked, “and pull out my ID?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Agent Sueno, Eighth Army CID. He’s my partner, Agent Bascom.”

“Sorry for the intrusion,” Ernie said, smiling.

“Yeah,” Jerrod said, swiveling the gun between us and motioning with his free hand. “Let me see some ID.”

We both started to reach into our jackets but he screeched, “One at a time! You first.”

I pulled out my CID badge. “Slide it to me on the floor,” he said.

I did.

Crouching but still keeping the gun on us, he flipped open the leather holder and held the ID up to the light. Then he turned to Ernie. Ernie reached slowly into his coat and repeated the process.

“Okay,” he said, tossing the badges onto his desk. “What the hell is all this about?”

“You are Sergeant Leon Jerrod,” I asked, “aren’t you?”

He wasn’t wearing his uniform. Like us, he was wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

“I’ll ask the questions,” he said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Just paying a friendly visit,” Ernie said. “And looking for some backup information on that guy you put away.” He turned toward me. “What’s the name?”

“Do you mind?” I asked, motioning toward my jacket pocket again.

He nodded. I pulled out Major Schultz’s inspection report, thumbed toward the back pages and said, “Arenas, Hector A., Staff Sergeant. Convicted by general court-martial of espionage. Twenty years at Leavenworth.”

“Good job,” Ernie said, smiling even more broadly.

“Just what I get paid for,” Jerrod said, but I knew he felt proud.

“Do you want to frisk us or something,” I asked, “before you put the gun away?”

He stared at the .45 as if just realizing it was clutched in his hand. “Oh, this. Yeah, sorry.” He switched on the safety and shoved the weapon beneath his belt. “You guys gave me a start.”

“Sorry about that,” I said.

He grinned at us like a guy hungry for companionship. Which he probably was. I’d seen the crowd at the VFWs and AmVets around the country, and they were mostly geriatric. Korean War and World War II veterans, few within a decade of Jerrod’s age. And as a counterintelligence agent, he wouldn’t be encouraged to socialize with the young guys on Camp Red Cloud. He had, after all, been sent here to spy on them.

“How about we have a beer downstairs?” he said.

“Sounds good to me,” Ernie said, slapping his knees.

“Me too,” I said.

Ernie and I stood, towering over Jerrod. He grimaced briefly, but then laughed and backed out of the door. We followed him downstairs and ordered a liter of cold OB and three glasses from the ravishing creature behind the bar. How she felt about serving us, no one could tell. Her face remained grim at all times; I thought she’d missed her calling as an undertaker. The first beer was followed by the second, and then Jerrod suggested a round of bourbon. Ernie and I heartily agreed. We sipped on the imported whisky, but since Ernie was buying, Jerrod kept putting single shots away, and then doubles, as fast as Miss Congeniality could pour.

The way I understood it, these barrooms operated under the charter of the American veterans associations while someone else, invariably a Korean, paid for the concession. So the barmaid must’ve been happy to see two big spenders from Seoul, although you’d never guess it from her facial expression.

By the time the regular drinking crowd showed up, Jerrod was looped. Ernie engaged him in animated conversation-something about how the counterculture wastrels were leaching our resolve to fight Godless Communism-and while they raved, I leaned against Jerrod and unhooked the keys that hung by a metal ring clasped to his belt loop. I excused myself to use the latrine, but when I returned, I passed the two guys arguing now about whether or not Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In had weakened our national fiber and, while the barmaid was busy serving some old vets, I slipped upstairs.

A single key opened all three cabinets. One of them was empty, and another held Jerrod’s military-issue field gear: fur-lined cap, parka, mittens, rain poncho, wet-weather overshoes. The central file had what I was looking for. The Arenas file was right up front. Behind it, farther back in the alphabet, I found the other two. I slipped the files into a large mailing envelope, then slipped the envelope beneath my belt in front. I zipped up my nylon jacket and slapped my stomach to make sure the entire package was secure. Then I relocked the cabinets, turned off the light and trotted downstairs. Ernie glanced over at me. I gave him the high sign and continued out the front door, walking quickly over to the jeep. By the time he approached, I’d already pulled the Arenas file and slid the other two files under the metal floor panel beneath the passenger seat where the jack, crowbar, flares and the other pieces of roadside equipment were stored, including a short-handled axe for chopping off ice during the brutal Korean winters.

“Got it?” Ernie asked.

“Got it,” I replied.

“And his keys?” Ernie asked.

“I left them in his top desk drawer.”

Ernie climbed behind the steering wheel. “He’ll be so hung over tomorrow, he won’t remember if he left them there himself or not.” Then he turned to me. “Where to?”

I retrieved the Arenas file and, using my flashlight, quickly thumbed through it. After a couple of minutes, I found what I was looking for. “There’s a bar in Songsan-dong called the Star Mountain Club.”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“That’s where Staff Sergeant Arenas’s yobo used to work.”

“They didn’t throw her in jail too?”

“No. Since she cooperated with the prosecution, the KNPs gave her a pass. Probably because they knew she had no real connection to Communist spies.”

“You’re assuming a lot.”

“Maybe. But if they thought she had a real connection, they would’ve never let her go.”

Ernie started the engine. “So where’s Songsan-dong?”

“On the other side of Uijongbu. We’ve been there before.”

“That village outside Camp Stanley?”

“That’s the one.”

“I like that place,” he said. “Nice and decadent.”

We rolled out onto the main road, turned left, and passed the VFW. No commotion. Apparently, our departure was going as we’d hoped. Unnoticed.