Ping-Pong Heart

– 26-

The ROK MPs helped us back Ernie’s jeep out of the ditch, and after hoisting Fenton into the military ambulance, we drove back to Camp Casey. The steering was off, but Ernie managed to get us there in one piece. We were patched up at the Aide Station. No serious injuries, just bruises and superficial cuts. After a lecture by the on-duty doc about how lucky we were and a scolding on defensive driving, we were sent on our way.

The next morning, as I sat at my desk at the 8th Army CID office, I spoke to Mr. Kill by phone.

“Apparently,” he said, “the customers at the kisaeng house were directed by the staff to leave via another road out.”

“Meaning they were in on it,” I said. “They knew what was going to happen.”

“Yes, although they’re denying it, saying it was just the shortest route for customers returning to Seoul.”

“What about Miss Lee?”

“Nobody seems to have heard of her. She was gone by the time we arrived, as were most of the kisaeng. Management claims they’ve never heard of a Miss Lee Suk-myong.”

“What about Nam?”

“Unfortunately, they hadn’t heard of him either. However, thanks to your description of the sedan and, more importantly, the license plate number, we should locate this fellow, whatever his name is, soon.”

Highest priority had been placed on the all-points-bulletin for that sedan. Mr. Kill was later able to confirm that the owner’s name was indeed Nam, so we knew our mystery man wasn’t using a pseudonym. Still, after two days of waiting, there was no sign of the vehicle. Miss Lee Suk-myong seemed also to have vanished from the face of the Korean Peninsula.

Specialist Fenton’s injuries were serious enough that he was put on an air-evac chopper out of Division and was now recovering at the 121st Evacuation Hospital in Seoul. When we tried to interview him, Captain Blood interceded with the Provost Marshal, and after conferring in private session, Colonel Brace denied us permission to speak with Fenton.

“A sting operation,” Staff Sergeant Riley explained. “The Five Oh Worst has been working on it for months, hoping to round up a North Korean agent, and you two stepped right in the middle and screwed everything up. Congratulations.”

So all our work had come to nothing. Miss Jo was still at large, the clock ticking down to her unjust conviction. Vindication for Hector Arenas was dead in the water. No one at 8th Army wanted to hear about it, not without evidence more concrete than the alleged testimony of Arenas’s former yobo. Captain Blood rode high at 8th Army, and all our requests to examine other aspects of the case, including his inflated budget, were turned down by the Provost Marshal.

“No probable cause,” Riley told us.

The fact that the 501st had tried to kill us was written off as a figment of our overheated imaginations. I believed that Nam had called somebody from the Tower Hotel, who had in turn notified Captain Blood. Nam had led us on a merry goose chase to the isolated kisaeng house while Blood ordered Fenton up north in the three-quarter-ton truck with the express purpose of running us down and making it look like an accident. The only problem was, I couldn’t prove it. Not without interrogating Fenton. And even then, only if he slipped up or admitted what he’d done, which seemed unlikely.

The only good thing we’d accomplished was bringing Miss Kim back to work. Her hand lotion, box of tissue, and Black Dragon tea were all on her desk where they were supposed to be. She quietly went about her business, typing up reports, translating memos into Korean, patiently filing the massive amounts of paperwork that spewed from Sergeant Riley’s desk.

And no one was harassing her. At least, they didn’t appear to be.