The Iron Sickle

— 11-

The murdered GIs were identified as Specialist Four Anthony Ertagglia of Queens, New York, and Private First Class Roosevelt Hargis of Mobile, Alabama. Back in the Command tent there was zero sympathy for the fact that Ernie and I had been up all night. As soon as we arrived, we were badgered for as many answers as we could give in our depleted state. Eventually, Ernie took over the jawboning and I was given some time to type out my report. I slipped away and sat at a wooden field table with a Remington typewriter, rolled a sheet of paper into the carriage, and got all the facts down while everything was fresh in my mind-or as fresh as could be expected under the circumstances.

Miss Shin Myong-ok had told us the man she called the “kind gentleman” had appeared out of the weeds on the far side of the encampment.

“Did anyone else see him approach you?” I asked.

She didn’t think so.

He’d been very polite to the mama-san and even bowed to her. She’d made a place for him on the largest blanket, and they’d sat and Miss Shin had been the one to serve him tea from the large thermos.

“Did you ever share your tea with GIs?” I asked.

“Never,” she replied, shocked at the idea.

The mama-san thought at first that he was the type of Korean man who liked to partake of the charms of GI business girls. Mostly, the girls who hung out with American GIs were shunned for fraternizing so shamelessly with foreigners, but there were always a few perverts around who craved forbidden fruit. As it turned out, that wasn’t what he had in mind. What he wanted, he said, was help in approaching a couple of Americans who worked in the signal truck atop the hill. He had a business proposition he wanted to make to them. He was vague about what the proposition was, but he implied that it had to do with the valuable equipment in the truck, equipment not available in Korea. He wanted to purchase it from the Americans for cash and, although he didn’t say so, it was obvious to Miss Shin and the mama-san that he’d sell the equipment on the black market at a huge mark up. Everyone would profit. The GIs could claim the equipment had been stolen and the American military would replace it. However, due to military security, he couldn’t get near the American GIs to make this very sensible business proposition. That’s where Miss Shin came in.

He offered the mama-san enough money to cover Miss Shin’s earnings for the entire evening. Her job would be to accompany him to the top of the hill and approach the Americans. With her pleasing smile and the help of a couple of bottles of soju, she would gain access to the truck and then ease the way for the gentleman to join the party.

According to Miss Shin, the mama-san didn’t believe a word of it. She believed the man was up to no good, but on the other hand he was offering cash, twice as much as Miss Shin could’ve expected to earn in one evening. The mama-san accepted. Miss Shin had no choice but to go.

I asked her if she thought this man might hurt her.

No, she didn’t think so, because he appeared to be such a kind gentleman.

I asked her if she thought the mama-san cared one way or the other if she was hurt or not.

She lowered her eyes and wouldn’t answer.

These girls are literally purchased from poor farm families. The mama-san and the other girls in the group then become their new family. As in all Confucian families, the young owe unquestioning obedience to their elders. The elders, in turn, are required to make wise decisions on the behalf of the young. To hear it suggested that in her “family” this sense of responsibility ran only one way filled Miss Shin with shame.

The climb up the hill had been grueling. When they finally reached the top, the kind gentleman had been very solicitous to her and fetched her water to wash up. He encouraged her to walk alone the last few yards to the signal truck. He handed her the brown sack with the two bottles of soju and told her to bow and smile and when she gained entry to the truck to open the door after twenty minutes or so. He’d be waiting outside.

“He promised me extra money,” she said.

“For what?”

“For getting inside and for opening the door for him.”

“Did he want you to tell the Americans he was there?”

“No. He was very clear about that. His entrance into the truck had to be a surprise. He told me not to worry about that part. He would take care of everything.”

“Did he?”

Again, she lowered her head.

By mid-afternoon, Mr. Kill, the Chief Homicide detective of the Korean National Police, had arrived at 8th Army Headquarters South, as had Major Rhee Mi-sook of the ROK Army. Major Rhee commanded a lot of GI attention in her exquisitely tailored fatigues as she strutted down the metal slat walkways lain in the mud. The Provost Marshal entered into a private conference with her, then, separately, did the same with Mr. Kill. Both of them wanted a copy of my report and access to the signal truck, which they were provided. Neither Ernie nor I were allowed to talk to either of them as the Provost Marshal wanted to handle this sensitive issue himself. Eighth Army was both embarrassed and enraged that two American GIs had been murdered right under our noses. There was even some whispering that the CG was considering relieving Colonel Brace as 8th Army Provost Marshal. But that was just talk. Nothing official had come down.

Both Major Rhee of the ROK Army and Mr. Kill of the Korean National Police inquired as to why the two lead CID agents on the case, me and Ernie, were pulling guard duty rather than continuing our investigation. At least, that’s the word I got from Riley. The Provost Marshal would have never told us such a thing directly.

The reason we’d been put on guard duty was that the entire 8th Army was on move out alert. That meant, in military parlance, that everybody was required to participate. Everyone had to check out a rifle from the arms room, pack up their field gear, pitch in to hoist portable equipment onto the back of trucks, and be prepared, for once in our rear-echelon lives, to act like soldiers. The very few people excepted from this team effort were excused only because they were next in line on the duty roster-Staff Officer at the headquarters, medics at the emergency room, a skeleton crew back at the 8th Army Commo Center, and a handful of MPs assigned to physical security around Yongsan Compound. Other than that, no matter how important your regular job at 8th Army headquarters might be, you were doing the duffel bag drag and heading for the field along with every other swinging dick assigned to the command. No exceptions. And if the 8th Army Commander and the 8th Army Chief of Staff and the 8th Army Provost Marshal had to go, then a low ranking schmuck like a CID investigative agent was definitely going. For 8th Army to have allowed Ernie and me to stay behind and continue with the investigation would’ve been tantamount, in their minds, to admitting that our jobs were more important than theirs. This would never happen in a hierarchical military organization. That is, until the man with the iron sickle struck again.

That’s when the 8th Army honchos were overruled. The special relationship between the Republic of Korea and the Unites States was in danger, and the 8th Army Commander better do something about it. The word came down from on high; maybe from the Ambassador, more likely from the US Army Pacific Commander himself: get your people out there and arrest the man with the iron sickle.

What the Provost Marshal did in response was send Ernie and me back to Seoul, with specific orders to cooperate with both the ROK Army and the Korean National Police to capture or otherwise put out of commission the man who was causing so much disruption.

Or, as he put it, to “Pop a cap into the son of a bitch.”

Ernie and I were booked a ride on the next thing smoking. In this case, it turned out to be an empty fuel truck headed for Seoul. Ernie and I sat up front with the driver, our duffel bags stored in a narrow compartment behind the seats.

“Free at last,” Ernie said.

“Free to have our butts busted if we don’t find this guy.”

“Don’t sweat the small stuff, Sueno.”

Ernie never worried about anything, not that I could tell. I admired him for it because I was a constant bundle of anxieties; anxieties he never failed to tease me about.

“Why do you think the Provost Marshal wouldn’t let us talk to Mr. Kill?” he asked.

“Because Eighth Army had already lost enough face. The PM didn’t want to make it worse by letting a VIP talk to a couple of enlisted pukes.”

“And Major Rhee?”

“He wanted her all to himself.”

“They all do.” As soon as she’d arrived, the Chief of Staff and half the officers who worked for him found time to join in the conference.

We were heading back to the world of electricity, hot showers, clean clothes, and chow you didn’t have to spoon out of a can. That was good enough to make Ernie happy.

Me, I was happy about that part, too, but I was still thinking about Specialist Four Anthony Ertagglia and Private First Class Roosevelt Hargis and what they looked like when we stumbled over their bodies in that signal truck. Blood everywhere. Grey tubes sticking out of their necks. And I was thinking about what the Chief of Staff was going to say when he wrote to their next of kin. I hoped he’d be able to say that the man who murdered their son or their husband or their brother was under arrest and rotting in a Korean prison.

Either that or rotting in hell.

I decided that as soon as we arrived on Yongsan Compound, I’d head straight for the Military Police arms room and exchange this unwieldy M-16 for a.45 automatic. Whatever it entailed, the work we would be doing in the next few days, or maybe the next few hours, wouldn’t be done from a secure distance. It would be up close and personal. Of that much, at least, I was sure.

The 8th Army Staff Duty Officer was Major Woolword. We knew him briefly because he’d appeared on the MP blotter reports a few times for being drunk on duty. The only reason he hadn’t been kicked out of the service with a bad conduct discharge was because the 8th Army Chief of Staff had a soft spot for him. They’d served together in the same unit in the Korean War. Woolword still had a few months to go until he could retire at his full rank of major. Knowing he was useless, the honchos had moved him up on the duty roster and left him behind at the almost deserted 8th Army headquarters in Seoul. He was being assisted by an efficient Staff Duty NCO by the name of Ervin, whose main job was to make sure that Major Woolword stayed sober. The third soldier assigned to staff duty was a KATUSA driver. KATUSA stood for Korean Augmentation to the United States Army, and they were usually rich Korean kids whose parents paid for a cushy assignment for them during their mandatory three-year tour in the military.

Ernie and I waited outside 8th Army headquarters until Sergeant First Class Ervin left the building for evening chow. When he was two blocks down the road he turned left, heading toward the 8th Army mess hall. We’d already been there to catch some chow ourselves. The usual waitress service was cancelled, and only two cooks manned the shorter-than-normal serving line. But they had a grill turned on, the chow was hot, and the coffee was steaming.

Ernie and I emerged from the bushes and approached the main door of the 8th Army headquarters building, flashing our badges to the two security guards. We were back in civilian clothes, but not the coat and tie normally required. Since there was no one around to keep an eye on us, we’d changed into our running the ville outfits: blue jeans, sneakers, a long-sleeve shirt with collar, and a nylon jacket with fire-breathing dragons embroidered on the back.

Major Woolword sat at his desk watching the Armed Forces Korea Network on a portable television. Some sort of game show, a rerun from about ten years ago. He looked up as we entered. In the corner, the KATUSA driver put down a Korean comic book, looking guilty.

Ernie and I came to the position of attention in front of Major Woolword’s desk and saluted. We knew he liked being treated with respect rather than as the hopeless drunk he really was. Ervin wouldn’t be gone long, so I got right to the point.

“We need the keys, Major, to the Office of the Secretariat, SOFA Committee.”

I knew he was confused by the acronyms but his sagging, wrinkled face tried to look serious. And sober.

“Keys,” he growled. “What for?”

“An investigation, sir,” Ernie said, trying to appear as obsequious as possible, which wasn’t easy for him. “The Chief of Staff sent us to check out some files, and he told us to talk to you personally.”

“Fred? How is the old son of a bitch?”

“Fine, sir. And he speaks very highly of you.”

“He ought to. I pulled his butt out of enough trouble. Did I ever tell you about the fire fight we ran into down near Gongchang-ni?”

We had to find the keys and get what we needed quick, before Ervin came back from chow. Nobody could enter a secure building and take classified files without express written permission. We’d considered coming back at night and actually breaking into the SOFA office, but that would be too risky. Korean security guards periodically patrol the halls at night, and the fact that the files had been stolen would be obvious once 8th Army returned from the field. Better to take them clean. Even copy them if we had time. What we were hoping for was to befuddle Major Woolword’s booze-fogged mind.

I interrupted his reveries. “I’ll find it in the key box myself,” I told him.

“Sure,” Major Woolword said. “Right over there.”

Ernie leaned toward him. “You were in command of an infantry unit, sir?”

“No,” Woolword replied. “Not infantry, a supply unit. But believe-you-me, in those days when the Pusan Perimeter was collapsing all around us, everybody was an infantry soldier.”

“Even the Chief of Staff?”

“You bet. But he got caught with his pants down.” Woolword started to laugh. In short order, his laughter turned to coughing, and he bent over, grabbed a metal trash can, and spit phlegm so hard it sounded like a BB ringing a bell.

I knew where the Staff Duty Officer’s key box was from pulling night duty. The idea was that every set of keys for doors and filing cabinets was numbered and listed in a log book, and a spare copy was kept in the Staff Duty Officer’s key box. That way, in an emergency, authorized personnel could gain access to any nook or cranny in the vast 8th Army headquarters. I opened the door and fumbled through the huge wall-mounted cabinet. Some of the keys were laid on the lowest shelf, not hanging from a peg as they should be. Others were obviously out of place. The box probably hadn’t been inventoried in quite some time. Not reassuring. I scanned the five typed pages of log, found the SOFA Committee, and located a ring of keys on the correct peg. Quickly, I stuffed it into my pocket.

So far so good. I hoped Ervin was a slow eater.

As I walked past Major Woolwoord’s desk, I flashed Ernie the thumbs up sign. He’d keep him talking. I’d try to find the file Strange had called the Bogus Claims Register.

According to Miss Shin, Specialist Ertagglia and Private Hargis hadn’t been interested in the soju, but they’d definitely been interested in her. She smiled and bowed, and they’d let her in, allowed her to sit on one of the stools, and even offered her some of the C-rations they were sharing. Fruit cocktail in a green can, she told me. They had a canvas cot wedged into the back of the van and that’s where she figured she’d end up, but for the moment they were happy to have somebody ooh and aah as they slipped on earphones and dialed knobs and went through their usual communications routine. The boys seemed to be maneuvering about who would be first with Miss Shin, and they hadn’t even worked their way around to offering her money yet when, after she figured twenty minutes had elapsed, she’d opened the door.

“He was different,” she said.

“How so?”

“He seemed taller. Bigger. He stood up so straight. And for the first time I saw the sickle in his hand. He didn’t hesitate. He pushed past me, and swung the sickle first at the dark one.”

“Hargis?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know their names. The GI was surprised, his mouth open when the blade slashed across his throat.” She covered her eyes with her hands.

“Did you scream?”

“I don’t know. I think so. So did the other GI, the white one. He tried to reach for something, something behind the blinking equipment, but his earphones jerked his head back, and he stumbled over one of the stools, and before he could grab whatever he was trying to grab, the man leapt over the dark one and sliced the blade across the white one’s throat.” She covered her eyes again. “I tried not to look. There was blood everywhere, and then he dragged me off the stool and pulled me outside. I fell down the steps. That’s when I hurt my arm.” She cradled her elbow. “I thought he would kill me, too. I kept trying to hide my throat.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No. He knelt beside me.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was calm. Very calm. As if he’d just completed some important job. And he had turned into the kind gentleman again, the one I’d known before, waiting for me to recover from my hysterics.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. I had no choice. I didn’t want him to kill me, too.”

“What did you do?”

“I asked him why he had killed them. He said they deserved it for what they’d done.”

“Did he explain what they’d done?”

“No. He told me he had to leave. He told me to wait there and someone would come. If it was a Korean, I should ask for their help. If it was an American, I should run because they would surely kill me. Then he did an odd thing.”

“What was that?”

“He wiped the blade in the grass and turned the handle of the sickle toward me and offered it to me.”

“You took it?”

“I had no choice.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want him to use it on me.”

“Did he say why he wanted you to have the sickle?”

“Yes. He said it was made in Korea. A traditional instrument used by our ancestors. If I used it with a pure heart, my ancestors would give me strength, and I would never be hurt.”

“And that’s why you used it on me?”

“I was frightened.”

“So was I.”

She looked away.

There were about a dozen keys on the large metal ring. I went through them quickly and opened the front door of the Status of Forces Committee Office of the Secretariat. I listened for footsteps down the hall. None. I closed the door behind me and used the flashlight sparingly, keeping it pointed to the floor. There was a reception area in front with some chairs and a small desk and behind that another room with another handful of desks. Off to the right a door opened into a conference room with seating for about a dozen. The office of the director was locked. I fumbled through the keys again and opened it. No file cabinets, only a desk bigger than all the others and a few leather chairs in front with a mahogany coffee table. To the left, ominously, was an unmarked door covered with an iron grate.

I looked through the keys. Only one was long with an unusual shape. I tried that first. The heavy door swung open. I stepped inside, feeling I was far enough from the outer hallway to switch on the overhead light. A row of filing cabinets, all of them padlocked with an iron rod running through the metal handles of the drawers from the top to the bottom.

Which one?

I stooped and studied the labels. Numerical-the Army filing system, with numbers assigned to broad subjects like security or logistics or personnel. At the end of each fiscal year, most files were retired, placed in cardboard boxes, and retained on site for five years. After that, if protocol was followed, they were to be shipped to the main Army Records Center in St. Louis. The idea was that an entire history of US Army activities could be recreated by these well-maintained records. I stared down the long row. Where was the file I was after?

What had Strange called it? The Bogus Claims File.

Shuffling through the keys again, I unlocked the cabinet containing the security files. I slid it open. Rows of manila folders, each affixed with a typed label. I riffled through them. Nothing saying “bogus.” Maybe that’s not what they called it, not officially anyway. I searched through the other subject titles to see if anything matched. Nothing. Then it dawned on me. If 8th Army never wanted this file to see the light of day, and if they never wanted a permanent record made of it, then they wouldn’t keep it here. I was looking in the wrong place.

I left the room, relocking the door, and stepped behind the big desk. There it was. A small two-drawer cabinet made out of wood, not the government-issue grey metal like the other filing cabinets, but something more fancy, like maybe somebody had bought it out of the PX at their own expense. This one had a wooden peg in the top handle that said PRIVATE.

Again I fumbled with keys. None of them worked. It figured. If the officer in charge of the Status of Forces Committee Secretariat wanted to keep something away from prying eyes, he’d keep the keys himself.

I searched the desk, pulling open desk drawers and ignoring photographs, personal letters, a shoe shine kit, and the electric razor in the bottom drawer. Again nothing. I pulled out each desk drawer, looking under it. On the third one I found it, taped to the bottom with brown tape almost the same color as the desk. I ripped the key free, replaced the drawers, and tried it in the cabinet. It popped open. I pulled out the top drawer. I had just found the letter B when I heard voices outside and footsteps approaching down the hallway. Did they know I was in here? I couldn’t be sure. Nothing I could do about it now. I tried to ignore the rapidly approaching footsteps and concentrate on what I was doing. I was too close now to stop. I kept searching, and then I found it, exactly as Strange had predicted. A file marked: BOGUS CLAIMS, CONFIDENTIAL, EYES ONLY (DO NOT COPY).

My original plan was to copy the information and replace the file. That wasn’t going to work this time.

I pulled the file out. It was thin, thinner than I would’ve imagined. I relocked the cabinet, tossed the key in the top desk drawer, stood up, and stuffed the file inside my pants snug against my back. I tightened my belt to make sure the file didn’t fall.

Outside, the footsteps came closer. Subconsciously, I checked the.45 in my shoulder holster. Then I pulled my hand away. These people weren’t my enemies.

I walked around the large desk and reached for the door knob, pausing to listen. There was an argument of some sort. One voice was Major Woolword’s. Whose the other was, I couldn’t say, but I’d soon find out. I opened the door and stepped outside.

“Hold it right there!”

A black Sergeant First Class in pressed fatigues was crouching and holding a.45 automatic with both hands, pointing it straight at me. An overhead fluorescent bulb had been switched on and ambient light glimmered off a neatly trimmed mustache and a nametag that said “Ervin.”

I raised my hands to my side, slowly.

“There’s no need for this,” Major Woolword said.

“The Major’s right,” I said. “No need.”

I was working on keeping my voice steady. The gaping maw of the barrel of the.45 mesmerized me, a black hole trying to suck me in. Where the hell was Ernie? And then I heard his voice, down the hallway. Shouting. More footsteps and then two MPs were barreling toward us, Ernie at their lead.

“Hold it, Ervin,” Ernie said. “Put the gun away.”

When Sergeant Ervin saw the MPs he straightened up and, much to my relief, lowered the.45. Everyone was shouting at once. Apparently, as soon as Ervin returned from chow and the KATUSA driver told him that Major Woolword had allowed me to take some keys, he’d pitched a fit. Ernie told him to can it but couldn’t stop Ervin from pressing the alarm button on his desk, which alerted the MPs. When they arrived, Ernie did his best to head them off by explaining we were on official business, and while he was doing that, Ervin grabbed his weapon and, with Major Woolword in tow, made a beeline for the SOFA Office. Actually, he was just doing his job. Ernie and I had no business rifling through files without the express permission of the Chief of Staff or his designated representative. Our ace in the hole was Major Woolword. If he admitted Sergeant Ervin was correct and we weren’t supposed to be doing what we were doing, then he would look like the incompetent he was. Luckily, his exaggerated sense of pride kicked in.

“Hold on now, Sergeant Ervin. I authorized these men access to the SOFA Secretariat, and I believe my authority holds sway here.”

“No it does not, sir,” Ervin replied. “The Staff Duty Officer isn’t allowed to grant access to any of the offices in Eighth Army without the express permission of the Chief of Staff.”

“Fred? I’ll call him. I’m sure he’ll back up my judgment on this one.”

Ervin believed Major Woolword had been snookered, but he also realized the good Major wasn’t going to back down. Ervin grumbled about making an entry in his log, and I believed he would, and I also knew that by tomorrow morning the Provost Marshal would be aware of the entire incident. He’d want an explanation. One he wouldn’t get, not from me, because Ernie and I would be incommunicado by then. I handed the keys back to Major Woolword. He snatched them from my hand.

“Thanks for your cooperation,” I said.

Ernie saluted Major Woolword, who snapped to attention and returned the salute smartly. As we left, the MPs and Sergeant Ervin were still bickering amongst themselves.

“You think Major Woolword will sneak out now for a drink?” Ernie asked.

“After all this,” I said, “who could blame him?”

We knew we didn’t have much time. Cooler heads than Major Woolword would soon realize what we were after; namely, the Bogus Claims File. They’d be worried sick over what we’d do with the information and they probably would put out an all points bulletin for the MPs to take us into custody. What we’d done was illegal. We’d pilfered a personal file. Even though I hoped it would provide us with important leads, we hadn’t properly requested permission to search the files. Worse, we threatened to blow a hole a mile wide in the facade of integrity of the honchos of the 8th United States Army. Claims against the military are required to be adjudicated in an open and legally prescribed manner. To suppress claims was illegal under both US law and the Status of Forces Agreement. But in this case, the SOFA Committee itself had been the ones to illegally suppress certain claims they deemed too dangerous. Since the SOFA Committee is composed of both US and Republic of Korea officers, not only was the American side guilty of a cover up, but so were the ROKs.

Great. Now they’d both be pissed.

Ernie and I sat in a Bachelor Officer Quarters day room reading the file.

“Christ,” Ernie said. “We did all this?”

The file contained allegations of various types of mayhem that ranged from negligent to sadistic. For example, a three-year-old was run over and killed by a military convoy transporting top secret material up to Camp Page in the mountains near Chunchon. The convoy consisted of four huge trucks with canvas-covered cargo on flat-bed trailers. The fact that this claim was suppressed didn’t surprise me. It was widely rumored that nuclear-tipped tactical missiles were deployed near Chunchon. Of course, the 8th Army denied that rumor, so this case had been filed away. Whoever lost their three-year-old was just out of luck.

Other claims had to do with secret maneuvers, special forces units on clandestine missions on or near the Demilitarized Zone or down south near coastal areas. One of the things that makes Korea different from the States is there are civilians everywhere. In the States we have huge military reservations in the badlands of Texas, in Oklahoma, in the deserts of Nevada and Arizona and California, places where civilians aren’t found-unless they’re an old sourdough with a burro. The military can pop off armaments with impunity. Korea, on the other hand, is an ancient country and every bit of arable land has long since been occupied. And since the devastation of the Korean War people have been so poor they’ve been willing to venture into live-fire exercises to collect the spent brass from bullets and artillery shells in order to sell it to metal dealers. When kids are hurt this way, it usually results in a claim being filed, but not when the exercise is classified. Not when its object is to violate the cease fire agreement between North and South Korea and infiltrate areas north of the MDL, the military demarcation line. Then the claim is crushed.

The file was composed of typed onionskin, stamped FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. There were probably a dozen sheets. Not much when you considered more than twenty years of military operations. Especially when you compared them to the hundreds, maybe thousands, of claims that had been processed.

As I read each sheet I handed them to Ernie. He soon tired of the exercise. “They got anything to drink around here?”

Ernie wandered down the hallway toward the kitchen. The BOQ was completely deserted. All of the officers were probably in the field at 8th Army Headquarters South. Ernie returned in short order.

“Nothing in the refrigerator but this.” With a thumb and forefinger he held up a cup of yogurt, glaring at it with lip-curled disgust. “Not even one freaking bottle of beer. This is a female BOQ, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Captain Prevault lives here.”

Ernie tossed the yogurt into the trash, making the metal can clang. “So you were hoping to see your girlfriend,” he said.

“No,” I replied. “I just thought her room would be a good place to leave the file. Here,” I said, handing him one of the onionskins, “look at this.”

Ernie grabbed the sheet and read it quickly. Then he whistled. “Damn. When did this happen?”

“The date’s up top there.”

He studied it. “During the Korean War.”

“Right. But the claim wasn’t filed until almost ten years after.”

“Why’d they wait so long?”

“Good question. Another good question is why did Eighth Army bury the claim?”

Ernie handed the sheet back to me. “You are so naive. Do you think they’re going to admit to this?”

“They didn’t do it. It was done during the war, by an isolated unit surrounded by the enemy. All bets were off.”

“In your opinion. Try selling that back in the States.”

Ernie was right. The public back in the United States would never understand such a thing. And at a higher level, the US government would never want to hand a propaganda coup to their Communist enemies behind the Bamboo Curtain. I pulled out my notepad and copied all the facts I needed off the Report of Claim. Then I ripped out a sheet of paper and wrote a note to Captain Prevault, asking her to keep the file in a safe place until we could discuss it. I placed all the onionskins, along with my note, back into the manila folder, then walked down the hallway to her room and slid it beneath her door.

Outside the BOQ, from the slightly elevated terrain of Yongsan Compound South Post, the bright lights of downtown Seoul glittered in the distance.

“What now?” Ernie asked.

The evening was still young, not even twenty-one-hundred hours.

“After what I just read,” Ernie continued, “a drink would do me good.”

“Then let’s do some more work at the same time.”

“Like where?”

“I’m armed now,” I said, patting the.45 under my jacket. “And I have back up. Namely you.”

“Who do you want to kill?”

“I don’t want to kill anybody. But maybe we should pay another visit to Madame Hoh, the beauteous gisaeng house owner in Mia-ri.”

“Sounds good,” Ernie said. “Booze and beautiful women. Just the kind of work I like.”

And just the kind of thing, I thought, to take our minds off the report we’d just read. It was stomach churning and unbelievable. Americans wouldn’t stoop to something so low, would they? Would anyone ever be so desperate? This crime was not a part of modern warfare, or at least I hadn’t thought it was.

When we hopped in the jeep Ernie drove faster than usual, zigzagging madly through the swerving Seoul traffic, following the signs past the Seoul Train Station, beyond the Great South Gate, around the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin and finally through the narrow roads that led toward the bright lights of Mia-ri. We were both quiet on the drive, trying not to think of what we could not stop thinking about: a crime as old as humanity itself.

Cannibalism.