The Iron Sickle

— 16-

I returned to Yongsan Compound.

Ernie and Captain Prevault had also returned by now, and we met at the CID admin office. Despite the rawness of my physical presence, Captain Prevault hugged me.

“We searched everywhere for you,” she said. “The KNPs didn’t help at first but then when Ernie insisted Mr. Kill in Seoul be notified, they started to cooperate.”

“How’d you find out I was okay?” I asked.

“I called Riley,” Ernie said. “The MPs got your radio message.”

Riley said, “The Provost Marshal wants to talk to you, trooper. Now.”

“Shouldn’t I change first?”

“Now!” Riley repeated, pointing down the hallway.

I bowed to the inevitable. Before I left, Ernie said, “Give me the keys to your wall locker. I’ll go to the barracks and get you a change of clothes.”

I checked my pockets. “I lost them. But Mr. Yim has a set. And there’s an extra pair of boots under my bunk.”

“I’ll get ’em,” he said and hurried away.

Captain Prevault squeezed my hand. “Good luck in there,” she said.

It was a routine ass chewing. Even the Provost Marshal realized that if Ernie and I hadn’t broken free of his controlling hand, we never would’ve flushed out the man with the iron sickle like we had. Still, now the 8th Army faced the problem of having a civilian murdered right under its nose.

“Where are they?” Colonel Brace demanded.

“Maybe they’ve returned to Mia-ri,” I said. “Madame Hoh has contacts there.” I thought of the thugs who’d chased me. “Mr. Kill already has the KNPs checking that out.”

“Where else might they have gone?”

“After that, they could be just about anywhere, sir. I’m sorry I blew it.”

If Ernie could hear me, he’d accuse me of brown-nosing. Apologizing to a field grade officer is something he’d never do. But I did feel regretful. At every step so far the man with the iron sickle had outsmarted us.

“What’s wrong with your nose?” he asked.

“A cold,” I said.

“And your feet?”

“My boots are too tight.”

The Provost Marshal shook his head. “Get some rest,” he said. “Change clothes. Then get back here and be prepared for whatever we have to do.”

I stood up and saluted.

As I limped down the hallway, I was thinking of a long shower and a change of clothes and a nap in a bunk with clean sheets. But instead when I reached my desk, I opened the top drawer and pulled out the hand-carved radio dial that had been left beneath the totem. I wasn’t sure but I believed I knew now why it had been left for us to find.

I stepped toward Riley’s desk. “Who do you know at the Signal Battalion?” I asked.

“To do what?”

“To give us information. Old information. Somebody whose been around a long time.”

“Grimaldi,” Riley said. “That old DAC has been here since MacArthur was a boy scout.”

“Call him.”

Riley did. Then he handed the phone to me. Mr. Grimaldi was the Department of Army Civilian who ran the signal battalion repair shop. I described the carved dial to him and he explained that when signal equipment was lost or destroyed during the Korean War it was often replaced by jerry-rigged items. And then I described the numbers on the dial and the deep notch at a certain frequency.

“Armed Forces Radio,” he said. “They were the only outfit broadcasting during that first winter of the war. Everyone was listening to it, hungry for news. Knowing where the Chinese were-or weren’t-could save your life.”

“Thanks, Mr. Grimaldi,” I said, not knowing what good this phone call had done me. But before I hung up he said, “After we re-took Seoul, they set up a permanent station for a while.”

“Permanent? They weren’t in mobile trucks?”

“Not for a while at least.”

“Where’d they set up?” I asked.

“In one of the few buildings in Seoul left standing. The Bando Hotel.”

I thanked him and slammed down the phone.

Ernie returned and I changed into a dry set of fatigues and a polished pair of combat boots.

“You still stink,” he told me.

“Thanks.”

We hopped in his jeep. “You need some rest,” he told me.

“Yeah, but first we’re going to the Bando Hotel.”

“What’s wrong with the barracks?”

I explained it to him.

“Sort of a long shot,” he said.

“Sort of,” I agreed.

Before we pulled out of the parking lot, Captain Prevault hopped into the back seat. “You’re not leaving without me,” she said, “not after all this.”

We didn’t have time to argue.

The concierge at the Bando Hotel held his nose as he talked to me but when I explained what we wanted he led us into an elevator and took us straight to the top floor. From there we walked up a flight of stairs that opened onto the roof. The Bando was ten stories high and during the Japanese occupation it had been the tallest and most luxurious hotel in Seoul.

“Here,” the man said, motioning with an open palm. “We set it up as a tourist attraction. A shrine to the only radio station functioning during the Korean War.” He frowned. “Now see what they’ve done.”

Equipment was smashed, along with a glass display case, and photographs had been ripped from the wall.

I picked up a placard written in English and Korean. It explained that after the Inchon landing, the 8th United States Army had re-taken Seoul and the first Armed Forces Korea Network radio station had been set up atop the Bando Hotel. It was from here that General Douglas MacArthur broadcast his call for Kim Il-sung and the leadership of Communist North Korea to lay down their arms and surrender. Unfortunately, they hadn’t, and once the Chinese entered the war, Seoul had been retaken by the enemy and the war had dragged on for almost three more years.

“When did this happen?” Ernie asked.

“Maybe one hour ago. Many people come and go through lobby. Somebody come up here, do this.”

All remnants of this glorious little shrine had been ripped to shreds. I thought I knew why. During those horrible days with the Lost Echo, the one link the suffering GIs would’ve had was the AFKN radio broadcasts. Even the Koreans would’ve heard it constantly, since all civilian radio stations had been abandoned because of the war. Just listening to it must bring back horrible memories for them.

I described Madame Hoh and the man with the iron sickle to him and then asked if they’d seen these people with an elderly American.

He thought about it. “Maybe.”

We rushed back downstairs. Two staff members remembered seeing three people who matched that description, about the time the AFKN shrine had been trashed.

“How about the older American?” I asked. “How did he look?”

“Frightened,” the front desk clerk said, “but I thought it was just because he was not used to Korea.”

We walked outside and stood on the busy sidewalk.

“So where are they now?” Captain Prevault asked.

A big PX Ford Granada taxi pulled up and two Americans climbed out. Then I thought of something-what the man with the iron sickle had said to me, about people would be “shown.” Before the cabbie left, I leaned in the passenger window and asked if there had been a party of three, two Korean and one American, picked up here within the last hour. He didn’t know but Ernie flashed his badge and made him call dispatch. After some discussion, the dispatcher confirmed that a party matching that description had been picked up in front of the Bando about a half hour ago.

“Where’d they go?” I asked.

“Yongsan Compound,” the driver said.

“Where on Yongsan Compound?”

He conferred with the dispatcher. He clicked off and looked at us and said, “The AFKN Club.”

We ran to the jeep.

AFKN, the Armed Forces Korea Network. They’d long ago stopped broadcasting from downtown Seoul and now had their own studio complex near 8th Army headquarters on Yongsan Compound.

“They have an American with them,” I told Captain Prevault, “so that and being in a PX taxi will get them through the gate.”

“Don’t they check everybody’s ID?”

“Yes, supposedly. But the gate guards are aware of the veterans in country. They’re given special privileges.”

“The other two can be signed in as guests,” Ernie told her, “unless they already have phony ID.”

“Won’t the guards know to be looking for Mr. Walton?”

“Maybe,” I told her. “But it’s unlikely that word has reached the gate guards yet. Besides, nobody’s expecting them to head for the compound.”

Captain Prevault sat back with her arms crossed.

“So what are they going to do at the AFKN club?”

“All their suffering had to do with signal, with communications, with broadcasting,” I said. “Now they have one of the signalmen who was a member of the same battalion as the Lost Echo. Madame Hoh and the man with the iron sickle know they’re going down. They just want to go down big.”

“In a blaze of glory,” Ernie said.

“Something like that.”

“But why?” Captain Prevault asked.

I didn’t have time to explain all I’d learned in that cave. “They have reason,” I said.

Ernie flashed his badge to the gate guards and gunned the engine of the little jeep all the way along the winding road that led to the top of the hill above the Yongsan Main PX where the AFKN complex sat. Besides the television and radio studios, AFKN also had a barracks and a small Quonset hut set aside as their all-ranks restaurant and nightclub. The AFKN Club.

By the time we barged into the main ballroom, the AFKN Club was mostly empty. The lunch hour rush was over. We made our way to the far side of the building and crossed a well-tended lawn to the main broadcast facility. We walked down a hallway lined with radio broadcast booths, checking each one as we went, getting startled looks from at least one GI disc jockey with earphones enveloping his head. Finally, we reached the TV studio.

A bulb atop the big camera glowed red. The lights on the sound stage were on, bright and hot. Slumped behind the camera was a GI in fatigues, his throat cut, lying in a puddle of blood. On the stage, sprawled over the news anchor desk, lay a man I recognized. He was the one who read the officially-sanctioned world news to us every night in a deep monotone. The side of his face rested in a puddle of gore.

“Back here,” Ernie shouted.

The engineer at the broadcast control panel was still alive. With paper towels she’d grabbed along the way, Captain Prevault stanched the blood on the side of his neck.

“The bleeding isn’t arterial,” she said. “He’ll live.”

He croaked something. I leaned closer. “What?”

“The camera,” he said.

“What about the camera?” I asked.

“Turn it off. It’s on. We’re broadcasting live.”

Broadcasting death was more like it.

The MPs shut the compound down. Nothing moved but I had little hope that we’d find them. A quick inventory by the AFKN First Sergeant revealed that one of their mobile broadcast trucks was missing. I immediately called Mr. Kill and left a message with Officer Oh. She’d relay a description of the truck, and the license number, to the KNPs.

“Do they still have Mr. Walton?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered, “as far as we can tell.”

I was exhausted but Captian Prevault kindly brought me a cup of hot coffee from the AFKN Club. Ernie and I allowed a gaggle of MP investigators to start interviewing anybody who might’ve seen anything.

“Okay,” Ernie said. “They’ve made their statement. First with Mr. Barretsford, then with Collingsworth, and again with the two GIs in the signal truck.”

“Now they’ve graduated to live TV,” Captain Prevault said.

“So where are they now?” Ernie asked.

“Koreans don’t watch it,” I said.

Captian Prevault touched my forearm, concerned.

“Don’t watch what?” Ernie asked.

“They don’t watch AFKN. Not during the day anyway.”

On weekdays, the two Korean television stations weren’t allowed by the government to start broadcasting until five P.M.

“Okay,” Captain Prevault said slowly. “The Koreans, most of them, aren’t watching.”

“They didn’t see the murder,” I said.

“No, they didn’t.” She squeezed my arm tighter. “You need rest.”

“That means,” I continued, “that they’ll want a big venue where the Korean public will be watching.”

“Like a Korean TV station?” Ernie asked.

“Maybe. But I don’t think so. Not now. The KNPs will be alert for that.”

“Then where?”

“Someplace big,” I said. “Someplace grand.”

Captain Prevault tore open a small bag of saltine crackers for me. “Eat,” she said. I did. Before I had finished chewing, she brought me a cup of water. I drank it down.

An army sedan pulled up outside. Somebody ran through the front door. Boots tromped down the hallway.

“They found them,” Riley said, pushing through the double swinging doors of the broadcast station. I’d never seen him so excited or his face so flushed, except when he was halfway into a fifth of Old Overwart.

“They found who?” I asked.

“The man with the iron sickle. And that broad. They’ve got the old goat, and they’re threatening to kill him.”

“Where?”

Riley looked at a pad of paper he held in his hand. “Someplace called Kong Ha Moon.”

“In downtown Seoul?”

“Right in the heart of downtown Seoul.”

Riley meant Guanghua-mun, the Gate of the Transformation of Light.

Ernie and I hurried outside to the jeep. Captain Prevault slipped in the back seat.

“You can’t go!” Ernie shouted.

“I’m going!” she said.

He cursed and slammed the jeep in gear, and we were heading out of Gate Seven, turning left toward the road that leads through Namsan Tunnel.

In the last few days, while I’d been wandering around the Taebaek Mountains, the secret of the man with the iron sickle had seeped out to the Korean public. The story hadn’t appeared in official news outlets but word of mouth had spread, especially amongst those groups who, against all pressures, opposed the military regime that ran the country.

Sejong-ro, the main road leading down the center of Seoul, past the towering statue of Admiral Yi Sun-shin, was lined with protestors. Up ahead loomed the huge edifice of Guanghua-mun. Many of the protestors waved signs saying “Yankee Go Home” and other things written in Korean having to do with stopping the rape of Korea and not allowing foreigners to abuse our people any longer. They might not know the exact details of what had happened with the Lost Echo but they could read between the lines. Similar incidents had occurred at other places during the war and the man with the iron sickle was making it abundantly clear that he wanted the Americans to leave. The KNPs were having trouble holding back the crowds but regular traffic had been rerouted. Ernie had to flash his CID badge at the KNP roadblock. Still they wouldn’t let us through. I explained in Korean that Mr. Kill would be waiting for us. Someone radioed ahead and within a couple of minutes, a whistle blew and the white-gloved KNP pulled back the barricade.

An AFKN mobile broadcasting van sat at the foot of the three-story stone gate known as Guanghua-mun. In granite relief, valiant masses of workers, farmers, and soldiers strove toward the light above that was freedom. A rope ladder with wood slat footholds hung in front of the inspiring fresco. A platform used by painters and cleaners had been pulled out of reach all the way to the top. Above it, peering down at us, stood the man with the iron sickle and next to him, crouching, smoking her usual cigarette, was Madame Hoh.

We parked and climbed out of the jeep. Captain Prevault looked up. “They’ll fall,” she said.

“Better if they do,” Ernie replied, “when you consider what the KNPs will do to them.”

Mr. Kill walked up to me. “You can’t see him because he’s tied up and lying down. But they used the platform to haul the American up there. We’ve spotted him from our helicopter. It’s an elderly man who matches the description of Covert P. Walton. They’re saying they want a copy of their original claim published in the Chosun Ilbo, this afternoon’s edition, or they’ll toss him off.”

“They already told you that?”

“Yes.”

“Is the government going to allow it?”

“Impossible. But the ROK Army is lobbying hard for it.”

“The ROK Army?”

“Why do you think Major Rhee has been tailing you all this time? Her faction in the command structure wants the Americans out. And this story, this ‘Lost Echo’ atrocity, is just the sort of thing to turn public opinion in their favor.”

“But we support the ROK Army,” I said. “Why would they want us out?”

“So they can go north.”

Then I understood. The ROK Army wanted to be free of the controlling influence of the American government so they could convince the people of South Korea that they should invade the communist north and reunite the country.

“So Major Rhee could’ve stopped this guy,” I said.

“Maybe.” Mr. Kill nodded. “We think she knew more than she was letting on.”

A massive intake of breath erupted from the crowd. We looked up. Leaning precariously off the stone edge was a young woman.

“Miss Sim,” Captain Prevault said. Her real name, as I had learned from Madame Hoh in the cavern, was Ahn, but I didn’t have time to explain that now. The man with the iron sickle grabbed the girl by the scruff of her neck and leaned her out into the air. The crowd screamed but he held on and pulled her back to safety.

“He’s threatening to drop her first,” Captain Prevault said, her face screwed up in anxiety.

“It’s a bluff,” I said.

“How can you be sure?”

I didn’t have time to tell her all I’d learned in the Taebaek Mountains, about how these three people had suffered at the hands of the men of the Lost Echo and about how I believed they would always stick together. The man with the iron sickle was just trying to increase the pressure to publish the story of the Lost Echo atrocity and thereby permanently destroy the legitimacy of the American presence in Korea.

I didn’t believe he’d murder Miss Sim but I had no doubt he’d murder Covert P. Walton.

“I’ll climb up there,” Ernie said.

Mr. Kill looked at him in horror. “They’ll kill you.”

“We can’t just stand here,” Ernie said. “They have an innocent American up there. We have to do something.”

“What about the helicopter?” I asked. “A sniper could take them out.”

“We thought of that,” Mr. Kill said, “but once we start firing it would be an almost impossible shot to kill them both instantly. And if we don’t, the survivor will throw the American off.”

“So we have to deal.”

“Yes, but my President won’t deal. He never deals with terrorists.”

I knew that to be true. North Koreans commandoes had put similar pressures on the ROK government in the past to no avail. Civilian casualties were just part of the deal as far as the ROK government was concerned.

Captain Prevault grabbed my muddy sleeve and stepped close to me, completely unheeding of my rank odor. “You have to save her,” she said. “We know now what we’re dealing with. A program of treatment could cure her. She’s so young.”

Ernie walked toward the rope ladder dangling about ten feet above the ground.

“I’m going up,” he said.

Mr. Kill snapped his fingers and three KNPs hustled over toward Ernie, standing between him and the ladder.

“What is this shit?” Ernie said. “Somebody’s got to do something!”

“I’ll go,” I said.

“What good will it do?” Mr. Kill asked. “They’ll just kill you along with the people they already have up there.”

“I have my forty-five,” I said, patting the shoulder holster Ernie had given me before we left Yongsan Compound.

“You’ll never get a round off.”

“I’ll reason with them,” I said.

“How?”

“I talked to them before,” I said, “two nights ago in the Taebaek Mountains.”

“And they let you live?”

“Yes. I believe they have much they want to say to the world. If I can convince them their story will get out, maybe they’ll listen to reason.”

“But the government won’t let their story get out,” Mr. Kill said.

“It’s already out,” I said, motioning toward the protestors lining the street, “at least partially, and I’m an American. I can get their story out.”

“Your superiors will court-martial you.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it,” Ernie chimed in.

“It’s worth a try,” I said.

Mr. Kill thought about it. He looked up at the top of the Gate of the Transformation of Light. Finally, he turned to me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I must,” I said. “After what the soldiers of the Lost Echo did, someone has to make it right.”

“No one can ever make it right,” Captain Prevault said.

“We can try.”

Mr. Kill nodded and the KNPs stepped away from the ladder. I walked toward it, wondering if it would hold my weight. Maybe. Maybe not. Only one way to find out. I jumped as high as I could, grabbed onto the lowest wooden crossbar, and pulled myself up.

My feet slipped more than once. They hurt like hell and the feeling in them hadn’t completely returned. Mucus dripped from my stinging nose. I did my best to place the soles of my combat boots squarely on the center of the wooden steps, but the nerves that should’ve relayed sensation were faulty. To compensate, I held onto the crossbar above me for dear life. I kept at least one foot and one hand firmly gripped to something at all times. I refused to look down, but by looking up I could tell I’d made progress. I was already about halfway up the three-story wall. Occasionally, a face peered down at me. Once it was the man with the iron sickle, then it was Madame Hoh. They knew I was coming. If they decided they didn’t want to talk to me, all they had to do was take that razor sharp sickle and cut the rope. But they didn’t. Not yet.

I was about three quarters of the way up when the ladder slipped. I dropped about six feet and at first I was sure I was going to plummet all the way to the ground but suddenly the rope jerked to a halt. I held on with both hands but my gimpy feet slipped off into space.

The crowd below screamed. I managed to regain my footing and breathe deeply and steadily for a few minutes before daring to look back up. Now they were both looking down at me, the man with the iron sickle and Madame Hoh. She’s the one who cupped her hand around her mouth and shouted.

“The gun,” she said. “Drop the gun.”

I felt the.45 tucked snugly in my shoulder holster. I looked back up at them. Both were scowling. There was no question; if I didn’t drop the gun they would cut the ladder. I didn’t even have time to scurry back to the ground. I was too high and it would only have taken them a few seconds to slice the rope that stood between me and sudden death. For the first time I looked back down. Ernie and Captain Prevault and Mr. Kill were gazing up at me with worried looks on their faces.

With my free hand, I undid the buckle in front of my chest. Then I shrugged and let the leather holster slide into the air. I watched it fall.

When I had first opened the door to the Lost Echo signal truck, an odor had hit me that I’d never before encountered. Certainly, it was the odor of death, of that there was no doubt. And it was of a musty nature that told of ancient things crumbling to dust. I pulled the door fully open and stepped inside. The control panel on the right was slathered in mildew. How it lived in there, I didn’t know. Where did it get moisture? And then I realized where: from the five men sitting on steel chairs, some of them with their heads tilted down in shame, some leaning back and gazing up at the roof. Nothing more than papery skin and brittle bone, their fatigue uniforms hanging off them in strips. Teeth poked out, no longer hidden by lips or even flesh on the face. Eye sockets were filled with desiccated cobwebs. The floor beneath their feet was dark, stained. Some of their neck bones had been sawed almost in half. From the scraped mud it seemed that the men had been dragged in there, one by one. Probably the survivors of the winter of starvation, those who’d managed to feed themselves. But they’d been hunted down, one by one, and lined up in the truck like the good signalmen they were. Finally they were no longer a threat to the good people of the Taebaek Mountains.

I pushed my way through them all the way to the back and hunted amidst the bones for the chips of imprinted metal I knew I’d find: dog tags, with their names, ranks, blood types, and religions on them. I stuffed the clinking tin into my pocket.

Someone, somewhere, would like to know. And then I left.

Ernie and Mr. Kill backed away as the.45 clattered to the ground.

I looked up. Satisfied, the two faces disappeared.

When I reached the ledge, there were no hands to help haul me to safety. I reached out as far as I could on the flat stone surface. Pushing up with my legs, I leaned forward, hoping my weight would tilt me to safety, and then I slithered onto solid stone. I hugged the flat surface, feeling the firm body of the ginseng plant pressing against my chest. I wriggled forward until I was sure I wouldn’t fall. Then and only then did I look around me. At the far end of the long stone rectangle squatted the man with the iron sickle. Behind him sat Madame Hoh and Miss Sim. Behind them, bound, gagged, and bug-eyed, lay Mr. Covert P. Walton.

“Let him go,” I said. “You can keep me instead.”

The man with the iron sickle shook his head. Madame Hoh lit another cigarette.

“You’ll never get out of here alive,” I said. “What’s the point?”

“The point is,” Madame Hoh said, “the world must know what happened on Daeam Mountain.”

“They’ll know now,” I said, motioning toward the growing crowd of demonstrators below us.

“Pak Chung-hee won’t let it appear in the Chosun Il-bo.”

“He can’t stop it from appearing in American newspapers. Stringers from AP and UPI are already down there interviewing people.”

“AP?”

I explained about international wire services. When I was finished, Madame Hoh said, “How do you know they’ll write about it?”

“Because of him.” I pointed at Mr. Walton. “They’ll interview him, and he’ll talk about it, and then they’ll interview me, and I’ll tell them everything I’ve seen.”

“Your army will let you do that?”

They wouldn’t but I lied. “Yes. I’m an American. Our rules are different.”

The man with the iron sickle, apparently, understood enough of what we were saying to be skeptical. He shook his head and said, “An dei.” No good.

“You’ve accomplished what you need to accomplish,” I said. “The story of the Lost Echo will be in every newspaper in the world before the day is out. Let her go, at least.”

I pointed to Miss Sim. She snuggled closer to Madame Hoh. “Here,” I said. “I have something for you.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out the leather pouch. I placed it on the flat stone surface and slid it across to Madame Hoh. She picked it up, unlaced the bag, and the stem of the plant popped out. Reverently, she lifted the insam plant out of the pouch. Holding it with both hands, she showed it to the man with the iron sickle. He eyed it suspiciously. Then she turned back to me. “Where did you get this?”

“After you left, I escaped from the cavern and wandered down the mountain. I fell asleep and when I woke up, this plant was there at my feet. At first, I didn’t know what it was but Hunter Huk helped me harvest it.”

“You met Hunter Huk?”

“Without him, I’d still be in the mountains.”

“And you want her to have it?” She motioned toward Miss Sim.

“Yes. It will help pay for the treatment she needs. Captain Prevault, an American psychiatrist, has already arranged for her to be treated by Doctor Hwang Sun-won, one of the most famous doctors in Korea.” I didn’t know if this was true but it could be. “She needs to get out of here alive,” I continued. “And so does he.” I pointed at the terrified Mr. Walton. “They are innocent.”

Madame Hoh flicked her fingers at me, ordering me to back up. I did, crawling. She kept flicking her fingers until I was on the far side of the top of Guanghua-mun. She leaned toward the man with the iron sickle and whispered urgently. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, glaring alternately at me and then at the ginseng Miss Sim held reverently cradled in her arms.

They conversed, arguing, until finally it appeared they’d come to a decision. Madame Hoh motioned for me to return. I did, sliding on my butt as fast as I could. She opened her mouth and started to say something when her head exploded.

I leapt forward. Another sniper round zinged through the air, probably from one of the high rise buildings two or three city blocks away. It was a masterful shot but now Miss Sim was screaming, and Mr. Walton was bucking his body up and down like a terrified fish. The man with the iron sickle turned toward the rope ladder and started to hack at it.

I leapt at him. But I was too slow. When I shoved off with my lame feet they didn’t propel me forward with as much strength as I expected. He twisted back and raised his sickle. The blade caught my shoulder and dug deep through flesh into the bone. I surged forward, not yet feeling the pain. He tried to pull the sickle back but it was stuck now in the cartilage of my shoulder. I landed on top of him, and we slid closer to the edge. I jammed my forearm into his throat, and he leaned away from me and suddenly I was staring down into space and the screaming crowd some three stories below. He kneed me in the groin. I scrabbled back, grabbing at the wooden handle of the sickle, both of us pulling on it, the sharp blade burrowing deeper into my flesh. Finally it popped free and blood gushed out. The two of us had our hands on the sickle, rolling away from the edge but then tumbling together toward the opposite side. I planted my left foot on the smooth surface and his weight rolled over on it. The pain that jolted up from my foot almost blinded me, but we didn’t roll off the ledge. He’d managed to wrench the sickle from me now, and he raised the gleaming blade into the air, and then a white apparition appeared at his arm. Miss Sim. She grabbed his forearm just in time to deflect his swing, and I leaned to my right and the blade clanged onto hard stone. He turned back and stared at her in astonishment.

“No,” she said. “He’s good. He gave me this.” She was crying and clutching the insam against her chest.

He twisted his head and another shot rang out. This one caught him flush in the neck. He stared open-mouthed at Miss Sim for a split second, and then his eyes darted to me. He appeared confused. A crimson bubble of blood bulged out of the hole in his neck, spurted violently and then dwindled to a stream. I shoved him away and now he didn’t resist. His body tumbled farther than I had intended. Still clutching the iron sickle, he tilted over the stone edge of the Gate of the Transformation of Light and, his eyes locked on mine, plunged backward into space.

The crowd below screamed. I grabbed onto the hysterical Miss Sim and, holding her tightly, crawled toward Mr. Walton. I held one of the ropes that bound him and told him to breathe deeply.

“You’re safe now,” I told him and repeated the same thing to Miss Sim in Korean.