The Iron Sickle

— 13-

We crossed the Chonho Bridge heading south, Ernie driving, Captain Prevault bundled in a cold weather parka in the back seat. I pointed the way as Ernie wound up through wooded hills and finally pulled into the gravel parking lot in front of the home for the criminally insane. Three white-uniformed staff members were waiting for us on the stone steps.

They took us to Miss Sim Kok-sa’s cell and explained how the man and the woman had arrived in a kimchi cab and the driver had waited for them. They claimed to be relatives, and then without permission pushed their way to Miss Sim’s cell. When the attendant refused to unlock it, the tall man pulled a wickedly-sharpened sickle from beneath his coat and threatened to slice the attendant’s throat. The man unlocked the door, and to everyone’s surprise, the girl seemed to recognize the two people. Her eyes widened and she started to scream. That’s when the fancy woman slapped her, told her to shut up, and barked orders at her to stand up and do as she was told. Amazingly, Miss Sim complied, docilely, as if she were accustomed to taking orders from the woman. Like a convict on her way to the gallows, she followed them up the stairs, and when the head attendant confronted them, Miss Sim dropped her doll and, at the fancy woman’s orders, attacked him fiercely.

They showed us the rag doll.

“She left this?” Captain Prevault asked.

“She didn’t want to but the fancy woman ordered her to leave it.”

“But previously she would fight anyone who tried to take it away from her?”

The staff nodded.

Captain Prevault turned to me. “She knows them,” she said.

“Who?”

“The people who took her. Miss Sim knows them and feels she has no choice but to follow their orders.”

“Why would she feel that?”

“I’m not sure. But it probably has something to do with the trauma that landed her here in the first place.”

“What are they going to do with her?”

“God only knows.”

I thought of what they’d done to Mr. Ming and to Collingsworth and to the two GIs in the signal truck and to Mr. Barretsford.

“We have to find her,” Captain Prevault said.

I agreed.

One of the staff members had the presence of mind to jot down the license plate number of the kimchi cab that had carried them away. They’d given it to the KNPs but my guess was it wouldn’t do much good. Most likely, the pair had the driver take them to some densely populated area of downtown Seoul, and from there they’d either catch another cab or hop on a train or a bus. Still, I would’ve liked to talk to the driver, but that would mean contacting Mr. Kill, locating the investigating officers, and making an appointment, and all that would take time. Also, I no longer trusted Mr. Kill’s motives. I trusted him as a man-if he promised me something, he’d deliver. But notably, so far in this case, he’d promised me nothing. I believed he was working under tight orders from his superiors. What exactly those orders were, I couldn’t be sure. But I suspected someone higher up in the government was monitoring every move we made and when-and if-we found the man with the iron sickle, then the next step would be taken out of our hands. I discussed this with Ernie.

“Screw them,” he said. “We can take this guy down on our own.”

I agreed with him. I wasn’t too anxious to lead anyone-even a serial killer of American GIs-to an ROK Army or Korean National Police slaughterhouse.

Ernie, Captain Prevault, and I drove back to Itaewon. At a noodle house near the edge of the nightclub district, I spoke to the proprietor, and paid her 500 won for the use of her phone. It took only about ten minutes to reach the 8th Army telephone exchange where I gave the operator the number. Riley answered on the first ring.

“Where the hell are you?” he asked, as usual. “I’ve been waiting here past duty hours for your call.”

“Nice of you.”

“I’m a considerate kind of guy. I checked with the Eighth Army Historian’s office about this Forty Thirty-eighth Signal Battalion. It turns out they were disbanded shortly after the Korean War because there was some sort of a scandal involving a subordinate unit of theirs, namely Echo Company. It appears that during the fighting, when the two million or so Chinese ‘volunteers’ swept down the Korean peninsula, Echo Company was separated from the main body of the battalion. They broadcast for a while, relaying signals, but then their transmissions became intermittent and eventually they stopped transmitting altogether. They were called ‘the Lost Echo.’ Even their equipment was lost and never recovered. The official history carries the entire unit as being lost in action.”

“Where?”

“Where what?”

“Where were they lost? What was their last known position?”

Paper rustled. I imagined Riley shuffling through his notes. He was angry with me for keeping him from the bottle of Old Overwart in his wall locker, but when Staff Sergeant Riley did a job he was thorough.

“Here it is,” he said. He read off the coordinates.

I jotted them down. “Where the hell is that?”

“Somewhere in the Taebaek Mountains. About thirty klicks inland from the port of Sokcho, which is where the Forty Thirty-eighth was disembarked from a Navy transport ship.”

“Thanks, Riley. Anything else?”

“Only that the guy at the Historian’s office says if you find any artifacts concerning the Lost Echo, don’t get any bright ideas. They’re official war relics protected under the Status of Forces Agreement. They have to be surrendered to Eighth Army as soon as they’re found.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Any time.” I was about to hang up when Riley shouted, “The Provost Marshal wants your butt in here tomorrow morning at zero eight hundred.”

“That might not be possible.”

“Might not be freaking possible? You better make it possible, Troop. That’s a direct order from your commanding officer.”

“We have a lead.”

“What kind of lead?”

“Maybe the final lead. I have to go somewhere. I’ll call you when we get there.”

“Where? Where the hell are you going?”

I hung up on him. I didn’t want to take any chances that the Korean National Police Liaison Officer would be notified as to our destination-or worse yet, that Major Rhee Mi-sook would. I pulled out my notepad and started to write down what I knew.

Sim Kok-sa wasn’t her real name. She’d been named for the Buddhist Monastery that sat on the slopes of Mount Daeam, where she’d been found after chopping two elderly people to death with a hoe.

The landlord of the Inn of the Crying Rose had told me that Madame Hoh, the proprietor of the Crying Rose, was originally from the east coast province of Kangwon-do.

“The Lost Echo” had disappeared thirty kilometers inland from the port of Sokcho.

Finally, the file we’d pilfered from the Status of Forces Secretariat office contained a claim having to do with a military unit in the Taebaek Mountains; one of the claims that 8th Army, and the ROK government, had tried so desperately to suppress.

I explained this to Ernie and Captain Prevault. “I believe they’ve gone to the Taebaek Mountains,” I said. “They’re taking Miss Sim back to where they came from, to where all this started.”

“Why?” Ernie asked.

“The man with the iron sickle wants us to know all this killing has to do with the Lost Echo.”

“He also wants us to know,” Captain Prevault said, “that he’s desperately angry about something.”

“Like what?” Ernie asked.

“Whatever happened up there in the mountains. Whatever happened to cause this young girl, Miss Sim Kok-sa, to go mad and chop two people to death with a hoe.”

“And for the man with the iron sickle to kill four Americans.”

“And one Chink,” Ernie said.

We stared at him. “One Chinese,” Captain Prevault corrected.

Ernie shrugged.

“That brings up a good question,” I said. “The earlier victims were all Caucasian. In fact, he studiously avoided hurting the Korean MP on the ville patrol with Collingsworth. So why murder Mr. Ming, a fellow Asian?”

“He wasn’t Korean,” Captain Prevault said.

“But he came here as a child and grew up here and spoke Korean fluently and acted like a Korean.”

Captain Prevault shook her head. “Still not the same. These people, the man with the iron sickle and the ‘fancy’ woman, for whatever reason, have a set of rules. Koreans aren’t harmed, foreigners are. This Mr. Ming was, in their eyes, a foreigner.”

“They did hurt the ROK Army MP in Itaewon,” Ernie said, “and the attendant who tried to stop them from taking Miss Sim.”

“Not fatally,” Captain Prevault.

“But either of those attacks could have been fatal,” Ernie replied. “In fact the attendant was hurt pretty badly.”

We all nodded. No question these people were dangerous to anyone they encountered.

“It won’t take the KNPs long to come to the same conclusions we have,” I said.

“They don’t know about the Lost Echo,” Ernie said, “or about the Bogus Claim File.”

“They’ll figure it out soon enough. Everything this man with the iron sickle has done is designed to lead us to the Taebaek Mountains.”

“So aren’t we walking right into his trap?”

“Maybe.”

Ernie frowned, thinking it over. Captain Prevault looked back and forth between us, sensing our indecision. “We have to go,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because of Miss Sim.”

“What will they do to her?”

“I’m not sure. I’m not sure why they even want her. But whatever the reason, it’s important to them. What they’re doing is commonly called ‘acting out.’ They’re trying to teach us something, teach the world something, and Miss Sim is about to play an important part in this drama.”

“As a sacrifice?” Ernie asked.

Captain Prevault hugged herself. “God, I hope not. Not now. Not when we’re on the verge of finding the key to her mental illness, the events that precipitated her trauma, and therefore a possible cure. If we don’t rescue her now, she’ll be lost forever.”

“Either that,” Ernie said, “or dead.”

At the BOQ, Captain Prevault packed a duffel bag with her winter field gear and returned to the jeep in record time. We drove to the other side of the Yongsan Compound, and Ernie parked at the far end of our barracks, where the floodlights had long ago sputtered out. We told Captain Prevault to wait quietly, and we’d be right back.

There weren’t many GIs in the barracks, just a few hanging around the beer machine, dropping in thirty-five cents, and watching greedily as a cold Falstaff fell out. They didn’t even notice us as we walked past. Ernie pulled out his key and entered his room, and I continued down the hallway to mine. I flipped on the light, found my duffel bag and shook it out, and started stuffing wool fatigues, a field jacket, and a parka into the bag. I debated about whether or not to bring my Mickey Mouse boots, inflatable severe winter foot gear, but in the end decided against it. Combat boots and rubber overshoes would give me more mobility. When I figured I finally had everything, I tossed the bag over my shoulder, relocked the door, and hurried down the hallway. Ernie was waiting for me. We exited the barracks and stepped into darkness.

I should’ve been expecting it, but, like an idiot, I wasn’t.

The fist caught me on the side of my head. Reflexively I crouched and moved to my left. More punches came at me, but now I had raised my hands and was able to deflect most of them. In the glare of light from the fluorescent bulb in the hallway, I glimpsed a contorted face coming at me-pasty skin and a pug nose under the black helmet: Moe Dexter.

Ernie was shouting and other voices were shouting and then the thunderous report of a round from an automatic weapon echoed into the night. For a moment, everything was quiet. The punches stopped raining down on me. I used the time to brace myself against the cement-block wall of the barracks, to balance myself in an upright position, to try to focus my eyes. Ernie had his flashlight out now, shining it into the faces of Moe Dexter and the three other MPs in fatigue uniform who stood behind him. Ernie’s.45 was out and he was pointing it right at them.

“Back off,” he growled. “Back off or I’ll plug you where you stand!”

Dexter raised his hands to his sides, grinning. “What’s the matter, Bass Comb? Doesn’t your boy Sweeno want to play fair?”

“You’ll play fair when I pop a fucking forty-five round in your face,” Ernie told him. “Back off!”

The four MPs did.

Ernie helped me to the jeep. Captain Prevault still sat in the back seat. “I tried to warn you,” she said, “but two of them held me here. One of them put his filthy hand over my mouth.”

“Drive!” Ernie said.

It took her a moment to understand. She climbed into the front seat. Ernie pulled the passenger seat forward, and I dove into the back seat, still dizzy from the initial blow. Ernie lowered the front seat and sat down, all the while keeping his flashlight and the barrel of his.45 pointed at the MPs. Captain Prevault wasn’t sure where the ignition was. Ernie pointed it out to her.

“I’ve never driven a stick shift before,” she said.

“Move the seat forward.”

She did.

“Now put your left foot on the clutch.” She seemed confused. “That pedal to the left of the brake. That’s it. Press down on it.” Ernie shifted the gear shift into first. “Now let up on it slowly.”

She did. We lurched forward. The four MPs, including Moe Dexter, backed away. When we reached their jeep, Ernie told her to stop. He hopped out, still keeping his weapon trained on the MPs, and walked around the MP jeep and systematically shot out all four of their tires. As an afterthought, he shot out the spare bolted to the rear. Then he fired a round at them. They ducked and took cover.

Ernie hopped back into the jeep.

“Drive!” he said.

She did, haltingly at first, with the little vehicle shuddering and stopping and then speeding up. Finally, we were out in Seoul traffic.

“Don’t you want to take over from here?” Captain Prevault said.

“You’re doing fine,” Ernie replied.

Her small hands gripped the huge steering wheel. I would’ve felt sorry for her, driving her first stick shift at night in the maddening Seoul traffic, but my head was pounding too hard to worry much about driver’s ed. I lay down as best I could in the small canvas-covered seat. Somehow, amidst all the honking and commotion and swirling beams from headlights, I passed out.

Ernie leaned back from the passenger’s seat and shook me awake.

“Are you all right, pal?”

I sat up. “Where are we?”

“Out in the countryside. Not too far from the Taebaek Mountains, I don’t think.”

My head throbbed like a marching drum. “Dexter’s not following us, is he?”

“Naw. That asshole is only good on compound or in Itaewon when he’s got a bunch of MPs around him. If he hadn’t sucker punched you, you would’ve kicked his ass.”

“Right,” I said, although I didn’t believe it at the time. “Do you have any aspirin?”

Ernie didn’t but Captain Prevault, still driving, searched her purse. She pulled out a bottle of Tylenol. I thanked her and popped down four of them, dry.

“We should stop somewhere,” she told Ernie, “and have George checked out. He might be suffering from a concussion.”

“Him?” Ernie said. “He’s got the hardest head in Eighth Army.”

“It’s not a joke,” she insisted.

Ernie glanced around at the dark rice paddies surrounding us. “You see any clinics around here?”

Ernie told Captain Prevault to pull over to the side of the road. A good chance for a piss break, I thought, which is what we would have normally done, but with Captain Prevault there, I hesitated. She sensed what we were thinking.

“Go in those bushes over there,” she said. “I’ll stay near the jeep.”

So Ernie and I relieved ourselves about ten yards away while Captain Prevault squatted in front of the jeep. An occasional vehicle cruised by but no one paid any attention. In Korea, the natural functions of the body are seen as just that, natural functions. No one pays them any mind.

When we were done, we climbed back into the jeep. Ernie asked me if I wanted to drive, but I told him no. I wasn’t ready for that yet. We rotated into our usual positions: Captain Prevault in the back, Ernie driving, me in the passenger seat.

“You did a good job,” I told her, “getting us out of Seoul.”

“Thanks. It’s not something I want to do again.”

I pulled out the Army-issue maps I’d already stuffed in the glove compartment. Using a penlight, I studied them. The coordinates Riley had given me, the last known position of the Lost Echo, were only a few kilometers from the Buddhist Monastery known as Simgok Sa, the monastery that had been used to christen the nameless child Miss Sim.

“When we reach the town of Yang-ku,” I told Ernie, “we best see if we can gas up. I don’t think there’ll be much chance beyond that.”

“There’s not much out here already.”

As it turned out, about a dozen kilometers up the road, at an intersection of three country roads, a big neon sign flashed Sok-yu. Rock oil. A gas station. We stopped and I spoke to the attendant in Korean and asked him if there’d been any other people up here this evening from Seoul heading into the Taebaek Mountains. He looked at me as if I were mad. I didn’t press the issue. When I paid him, I flashed my badge and told him if anyone asked if Americans had come this way, he was to tell them no. He continued to stare at me blankly.

“Arraso?” I asked. Do you understand?

Finally, he nodded.

I don’t think I’d intimidated him, but I still believed he’d keep his mouth shut. Refusing to get involved, in the States, is seen as shirking your civic duty. In a police state it’s the smartest way, and sometimes the only way, to survive.

With a full tank of gas, the three of us hopped back into the jeep. Ernie checked the nonexistent traffic and we drove off into the night.