Ping-Pong Heart

– 35-

When Fenton’s first three-quarter-ton truck had been totaled trying to run us down after we’d left Miss Lee’s kisaeng house, the KNPs had taken it into custody. Since it was a military vehicle, they were generally supposed to turn the wreck over to the US Army right away, but in this case, they waited. I had asked Mr. Kill to have his forensic team analyze it to test my theory: that it had been used to transport Major Schultz’s body to the alley behind the Dragon King Nightclub in Itaewon.

Two days after the incident at Camp Arrow, Ernie and I sat in Mr. Kill’s office as he broke the news.

“No traces of blood, hair, or anything else that would indicate a human body was transported in that truck.”

“So it wasn’t the Five Oh First who murdered Major Schultz?”

“I’m not saying that,” he replied. “I’m only saying they didn’t use that truck to transport his body to Itaewon.”

“But what else could they have used?” I was thinking out loud now. As far as I knew, it was the only truck they had signed out, but I could double-check that. Kill didn’t bother to answer. Then something else struck me. “How’s Nam holding up?” I asked.

“Not well.”

“You set Bang on him?”

“Yes.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, trying not to think of the torture Interrogator Bang was inflicting on Mr. Nam.

After Blood’s corpse had been found in the smoldering remains of the three-quarter-ton, I told Kill that the 501st commander had been about to receive a massive payday from the North Koreans in exchange for classified, top-priority information.

We settled on nuclear-tipped missiles. There’d been a lot of speculation in the European and Japanese papers about the US bringing nuclear weapons to the Far East, both in the form of land-based tactical missiles and guided missile systems aboard the ships of the US Navy’s 7th Fleet. Every time a US aircraft carrier pulled into a Japanese port, a group of anti-nuclear demonstrators was gathered there to greet them.

But the US military’s policy was to neither confirm nor deny such rumors. In Korea, the Pak Chung-hee regime simply didn’t allow anti-nuclear demonstrations. And they censored the subject in the press, so the Korean public was largely unaware of the controversy. Nobody in the US was particularly interested. But the North Koreans were, and they routinely accused the US of bringing nuclear missiles into South Korea. There was no doubt that the US had brought in regular tactical missiles.

Raytheon was the subcontractor for the Department of Defense’s missile maintenance contract; I’d even played poker with a couple of their civilian technicians. But even in those private games, with plenty of beer and liquor flowing, no one was gauche enough to ask the Raytheon techs about the weapons they were installing. Such things simply weren’t discussed during a civilized game of chance.

But this theory gave me something to look for when I searched the 501st records. I soon discovered a close connection between Captain Blood and a half-dozen officers of the missile command near Chunchon, which gave credence to the idea. Would all of these officers have willingly divulged classified information? Probably not. But if he was there under the guise of a counter-espionage investigation, he could probably have learned a hell of a lot-for instance, whether the missiles were in fact nuclear-tipped. And if so, where they had been deployed, how many there were, whether they were moved periodically. This information would be worth a small fortune to the North Korean Communists.

But we didn’t have time to construct an airtight case against Blood. Besides, he was dead, and as far as 8th Army was concerned, any crimes he’d committed could just as well remain hidden. The honchos were already constructing the cover story of the roadway accident that took his life. If they stuck with that, he’d receive an honorable posthumous discharge and someone-it was unclear who-would inherit his Serviceman’s Group Life Insurance. Most importantly, of course, 8th Army wouldn’t be embarrassed.

Meanwhile, our North Korean spymaster, Commander Ku, was almost certainly spooked. We had to work with what we had and act quickly.

“Maybe we can convince Mr. Nam to cooperate,” I said.

“He’s more afraid of the North Koreans than he is of us,” Kill replied. “If they discover he’s compromised, they’ll kill him on sight.”

“Unless he has something to offer.”

Ernie crossed his arms and studied me. “Wait a minute, Sueno. This spy stuff is not our department.”

“Whose department is it?” I asked.

“The Five Oh First, but . . .”

“Captain Blood’s gone, and we don’t know who else in their squad was involved in this mess. It’s up to us now.”

Kill’s eyes narrowed. “What do you have in mind?”

“Set Mr. Nam free. When the North Koreans come after him, he can offer them a deal.”

“What deal?”

“He can offer them access to somebody new. Somebody who knows about the missiles.”

“And who would that be?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I told him. “But I’m working on it.”

It took two months. During that time, Nam was released, and he immediately set about liquidating his real estate holdings and other business interests. After paying his debts, he was as poor as a church mouse, but it was worth it to him-the Korean government had agreed to let him off with less than a year of jail time if he cooperated in the capture of Commander Ku. From an outside perspective, it looked like the KNPs had let him out so he could raise enough money to pay off everyone involved; the cops, Mr. Kill, and the judge overseeing the case. Nam no longer had any way of contacting Commander Ku directly-all the old phone numbers to Ku’s go-betweens had been disconnected-but we figured that Ku and his operatives would be watching. When they saw that he was rapidly selling everything for cash, they’d reason that he needed the money to pay his way out of trouble.

Mr. Kill set up a liaison between Nam and himself, an incredibly dangerous job. Officer Oh had taken it on voluntarily. She’d be temporarily relieved of her regular duties as Kill’s assistant, and would masquerade as a bargirl named Pei in Yongju-kol, one of the largest and most raucous GI villages in Korea.

Miss Lee Suk-myong, Nam’s girlfriend and erstwhile kisaeng, had been found, arrested and placed in solitary confinement, away from the action so she wouldn’t inadvertently spill the beans.

Nam began to lead a progressively more dissolute life, convincing even his family that he’d fallen on hard times and was spiraling downhill fast into drink and despair. Kill had several operatives keeping an eye on him, and they said that Nam was playing his part so well that he might become the first Korean Oscar-winner.

Commander Ku eventually nibbled. Not directly, but via one of his men.

Nam was beaten to a pulp.

It was Officer Oh, or Miss Pei, who found him facedown in the mud in a back alley. The man who’d done the beating had been waiting for her. As “Miss Pei” knelt in her high heels to help Nam up, the huge thug stepped out of the shadows. She reached for the knife that she kept in her purse.

Instead of attacking her, the man simply pointed at Nam and said, “Saturday at midnight. Tell him to be at the Sejong Inn in Munsan. If he’s not there, we’ll come looking for him. It won’t be good.”

With that, the man tromped away into the darkest part of the alley, splashing mud on Miss Pei’s nylons.