The Iron Sickle

— 2-

The 8th United States Army was on lockdown.

I stood with an MP named Grimes on a low hill overlooking a drainage ditch that slithered darkly beneath jumbled concertina wire. The hour was zero six hundred on the morning after the attack. Grimes shifted the weight of his M-16 rifle in the crook of his arm, took another long drag on his cigarette, and stared beyond the chain-link fence at the shadows that enveloped the Yongsan district of Seoul.

“Commies,” he told me. “They want to chase us out of Korea, so when we ain’t looking, they kill as many of us as they can find.”

“You think that’s it?” I asked.

“Course that’s it.” He exhaled resolutely. “But we ain’t going.”

Already the general assumption was the man with the sickle had been an agent for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea. The honchos of 8th Army were convinced the assassin was a trained professional who had been sent south to create mayhem and drive a wedge between the US and our South Korean allies.

“They’re tricky, those Commies,” Grimes said.

My name is George Sueno. I’m an agent for the 8th United States Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. My partner, Ernie Bascom, and I had been drafted, along with every other CID agent and MP Investigator on the compound, to perform the duties of Sergeants of the Guard around the five-mile perimeter of the 8th Army headquarters compound. It was our job to patrol the fences and the gates every half hour to make sure the MPs and the contract-hire Korean gate guards were alert. We couldn’t have another attack like the one at the Claims Office.

“Seen anything unusual?” I asked Grimes.

“If I did,” he responded, “don’t you think I’d report it?”

“I guess you would.”

Without saying goodbye, I continued my rounds, strolling past the now-dark brick buildings of the headquarters complex, stopping to talk to the pacing Korean guards heavily bundled in hooded parkas, M-1 rifles slung over their shoulders. No one reported seeing anything unusual. All quiet on the Yongsan front. This extra security was a classic case of shutting the barn door after the horse has escaped. Many of us thought it was a waste of time. But the brass didn’t, and in the army, only the opinions of those with eagles or stars on their shoulders truly count.

After finishing my circuit, I made my way back to the MP station and pushed through the swinging double doors. Ernie was already back, lounging on a wooden bench, a copy of the Pacific Stars and Stripes in front of him; this morning’s edition, just flown in from Tokyo. With the back of his hand, Ernie slapped the paper.

“Nothing in here about the murder,” he said.

“They haven’t had time,” I replied, shrugging off my field jacket. “Their deadline was something like noon yesterday.”

“Barretsford was dead before that,” Ernie said. “They knew about it.”

Ernie was right. The editors at the Stripes office in Tokyo must’ve known about the brutal attack on C. Winston Barretsford before they went to press, and yet they’d chosen not to print the story. So far, our only source of information had been chatter amongst law enforcement personnel and the tight-lipped briefing we’d received when assigned to our sections along the perimeter. The radio and television outlets of the Armed Forces Korea Network had been completely mum about the man with the iron sickle. It was as if he hadn’t existed.

“They’re shutting the case down,” Ernie said. “Total blackout. I bet even AP and UPI won’t be able to pick up on it.”

“Maybe not.” I drew myself a mug of coffee out of the big metal urn the 8th Army chow hall had set up for us. It was barely warm but I’d been out in the cold so long it tasted good.

“No maybe about it,” Ernie replied. “And you can bet the Korean papers won’t say boo, not if the ROK government doesn’t want them to.”

The military dictatorship of President Park Chung-hee kept a tight control on their own news outlets: print, radio, and television. So tight they occasionally arrested a reporter without trial and threw him in jail to rot for as long as the regime saw fit.

“Okay,” I said, sitting down on the bench next to Ernie. “So Eighth Army’s keeping it buttoned up. That doesn’t make Barretsford any less dead. And it doesn’t make the guy with the sickle any less out there.”

“That’s my point,” Ernie said. “So far we haven’t found zilch. No evidence that would lead us to this guy. Not even any clue as to his motive. With publicity, maybe somebody who knows something would drop a dime on him.”

“You mean ten won.”

“Okay,” Ernie replied. “Ten won.”

I picked the paper up off the bench, sipped my coffee, and started reading the front page story about two cub reporters who were giving President Nixon hell. It was fun to read, like a soap opera, and it took my mind off our current troubles. After finishing my coffee, I put the paper down, slipped back into my field jacket, and trudged out into the still, dark morning to make my final round of the perimeter. When I returned, I waited until Ernie had finished his inspection tour on the far side of the compound, and we marched over to the 8th Army movie theater. Colonel Brace, the Provost Marshal, was giving a briefing for law enforcement personnel at zero eight hundred, and our attendance was not only requested but mandatory. At the entranceway to the theater, a colorful movie poster announced the upcoming re-release of Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen in The Sand Pebbles.

“Don’t they ever get any new movies?” Ernie asked.

I didn’t answer. We pushed through the double doors.

Just past the empty popcorn machine, Staff Sergeant Riley, the Admin NCO of the CID Detachment, was taking roll. His thin body looked lost in the neatly pressed folds of his khaki uniform. As GIs passed, he checked names off a list on a clipboard.

“Fill up the front rows,” Riley growled. “The Colonel doesn’t want to shout.”

“Yes, Teacher,” Ernie said.

Riley pursed his thin lips and jammed his pen toward the front of the theater as if to say, “Keep moving.”

During the day when he was sober, Riley was one of the most efficient men I knew. At night, he pulled out a bottle of Old Overwart he kept hidden in the back of his wall locker and laid into it. After three or four shots, he was completely stupid, which was how he wanted to be when the sun was down anyway.

Contrary to Riley’s orders, Ernie and I took seats in the seventh row from the front. More CID agents and MP investigators filtered in. After about three dozen of us had taken our seats, the murmured conversation started to subside. Finally, Colonel Brace strode down the aisle. Riley shouted, “On your feet!” and we all stood at the position of attention.

Colonel Brace stared at us for a moment from the stage, then told us to be seated. Riley switched on an overhead projector and soon the Colonel was droning on about crime statistics and the progress the command had made since he’d taken over as 8th Army Provost Marshal. A couple of guys were starting to snore when he finally got to the point.

He informed us we were going to apprehend the man with the iron sickle.

“The Korean National Police think this is their baby,” Colonel Brace said, “but they’ve got another thing coming. I’ve just been in conference with the Chief of Staff, and he says this happened on our compound, to one of our own. A Department of Defense civilian, but still someone who those of us here are sworn to protect.”

He glared around the quiet theater, as if daring anyone to contradict him. No one did. All fifty thousand GIs stationed in Korea, their dependents, and the DOD civilians fell under our jurisdiction.

“The KNPs will be involved. We might need their help off compound, but it’s us who are going to catch this guy. Is that understood?”

A murmur of assent rose from the crowd. Then the Colonel started to give us our assignments. Most of the MP investigators were to start combing through the archives of the Claims Office, searching particularly for disgruntled applicants who’d had their claims denied and might still hold a grudge against Barretsford or against the 8th Army Claims Office in general. Some of the CID agents were to look into past cases of lost or stolen Korean employee identification cards. Others were assigned to track down forgery operations that might’ve provided the killer with a phony ID. Although they weren’t at this meeting, Colonel Brace told us a half dozen counter-intelligence agents would be joining the effort, shaking down their informants, trying to gather information on whether or not the man with the sickle had been sent by the North Korean regime.

An MP investigator raised his hand and asked what exactly the KNPs would be up to.

“The Korean National Police,” Colonel Brace replied, “are giving this case the highest priority. They’ve already started interrogating Korean employees and bus and cab drivers in the Yongsan area to see if they can discover how he reached the gate.”

Ernie and I had yet to be given an assignment, and as it became more apparent the meeting was closing down, Ernie began to fidget. When the Colonel asked if we had any final questions, Ernie shot to his feet.

“What about us?” Ernie said. “Me and my partner here, Sueno?”

“Oh, yes,” the Colonel replied. “See Staff Sergeant Riley after the meeting.”

Some wise guy in the second row said, sotto voce, “The black market detail.”

Everyone cracked up. Ernie flipped the guy the bird. The Colonel shouted, “Dismissed! Get out of here and get to work.”

As everyone stood and started to file out, Riley shouted, as best he was able through his whiskey-ravaged throat, “I want a progress report every day before close of business.”

Grumbles greeted the announcement. Colonel Brace marched out of the theater, and Ernie and I sat as the other investigators filed past. A few made snide remarks. To each one, Ernie raised his middle digit and replied, “Sit on it and rotate.”

Finally, after everyone left, Riley walked over to us.

“You two are staying on the black market detail,” he told us. “The Colonel doesn’t want the commissary and PX overrun with yobos while we’re chasing down the Barretsford case.”

Yobo means girlfriend, a term used to refer, impolitely, to the Korean dependent wives of American servicemen.

“Why don’t they want us on the case?” Ernie demanded.

“Colonel’s orders,” Riley said, jotting something down on his clipboard.

“I’ll tell you why,” Ernie said. “They don’t want the truth. If they wanted the truth, they’d have us taking the lead. Sueno here is the only American investigator in the country who speaks Korean. I’m the only investigator who’s not a brownnoser with a corncob stuck up his butt. What Eighth Army wants is to have the honchos manage every detail of this investigation from start to finish because they’re afraid of where it might lead.”

“The Provost Marshal is committed to getting to the bottom of this murder.”

“As long as nobody’s embarrassed,” Ernie said.

Riley finished making notations on his clipboard and stuck his pencil behind his ear. “How long have you been in the army, Bascom?”

“Almost ten years.”

“Two tours in Vietnam?”

“That’s right.”

“Then you know you go along to get along.”

“Or better yet,” Ernie said, “you fuck up and move up.”

Riley ignored the insult. “Be at the commissary when it opens,” he told us. “Make your presence known. And Sueno …” He turned toward me. “Try to convince your partner here to keep his mouth shut for once.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Think quick,” Riley told me. “You, too,” he said, pointing at Ernie. He started to walk away.

“Who’s been assigned to look into Barretsford’s past?” I asked.

Riley stopped in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around and pointed his finger at me. “You’d better be quiet about that,” he said. “It’s already been decided that this had nothing to do with Barretsford’s personal life. This was an outside attack.”

“Decided by who?” I asked.

Riley shook his head. “Don’t you two get it? You ask too many questions. That’s why you’re off the case.”

He tucked his clipboard beneath his scrawny arm and stalked out of the theater.

Ernie and I sat in his jeep in the back row of the parking lot, sipping PX coffee we’d bought at the snack stand in front of the Yongsan Commissary. It was hot and tasted about as acidic as battery fluid. We watched customers, mostly Korean women, flow out of the commissary, trotting behind male baggers who pushed huge carts laden with freeze-dried coffee, soluble creamer, mayonnaise, concentrated orange drink, bottled maraschino cherries, and just about anything else that was imported and therefore highly prized on the black market.

Even twenty years after the devastation of the Korean War, Korean industry was still flat on its back. The government was working hard to rectify that situation, but for now they were concentrating on big ticket items like oil tankers, M-16 rifles, and the new Hyundai sedans that were zooming all over the city. Ladies’ nylons, stereo equipment, and washing machines were luxury items their industrial plant could not yet produce.

After the groceries were loaded into the trunk of one of the black Ford Granada PX taxis, the female shoppers tipped the baggers and climbed into the backseats.

“Which one should we bust?” I asked.

“Let’s finish our coffee first.”

“Okay by me.”

Earlier this morning, after leaving the 8th Army movie theater, we’d had no choice but to pass Gate Five. Without talking about it, we decided to loiter nearby beneath an old elm tree to watch the American MPs and Korean gate guards check people and vehicles as they came through. Manpower had more than doubled since yesterday: four MPs and five gate guards. Each piece of identification had to be taken out of its holder, handed to the gate guard, examined, and then, in turn, handed to the MP. If any anomaly was noted, an entry was made in a ledger with the time, date, name, and serial number of the ID card. Apparently, much of the Korean workforce had decided not to show up today. If they had, there would’ve been a line a half mile long. As it was, only about a dozen workers waited patiently to enter.

Again without talking about it, Ernie and I sauntered casually across the street, strolling behind the brick headquarters and down the line of cement block buildings until we reached the Claims Office. It was still roped off with yellow crime tape, and the front door had been barred.

“Yesterday it was raining,” I said. “If a guy arrived a little early and had to wait for the office to open, he wouldn’t want to stand here on the sidewalk.”

“No,” Ernie replied, “he’d wait in there.”

Behind us loomed the back entrance to one of the two-story brick buildings, this one belonging to the Logistics Command. Ernie and I stepped up on the porch and pushed through the door. Inside, a stairwell wound up to the second floor, and just past the foot of the stairs, a small snack stand had been set up. Most of the headquarters buildings had similar operations, sponsored by the PX.

An elderly Korean woman wore a loose smock and a white bandana enveloping her grey hair. A small man, maybe her husband, reached into a cardboard box and handed her wax-paper-wrapped rolls and doughnuts, which she set on display behind a plastic sneeze guard. The smell of percolating coffee gave the stand a homey air.

“Anyonghaseiyo?” I said in Korean.

The old woman bowed slightly and said, “Nei. Anyonghaseiyo. Myol duhsi-geissoyo?” What can I get for you?

I ordered a small coffee. Ernie bought a carton of orange juice.

After the old woman gave us our change, I said, “Yesterday, the man who waited here, did he order anything?”

Both of them stopped what they were doing, as if suddenly frozen by a cold wind from Manchuria. Finally, the old woman cleared her throat and said, “What do you mean?”

“I mean the Korean man who stepped in here yesterday morning to get out of the rain, just before eight o’clock. Did he order anything? Coffee maybe? Juice?”

The man and woman exchanged glances, and I guessed they must’ve worked together for many years.

“No,” the old woman said. “He ordered nothing.”

Bingo.

“Did he speak to you?” I asked.

“No.” The old man spoke for the first time, straightening up from his chores. “He said nothing to us. He just stood there in front of the door, staring at the rain.”

“What did he look like?”

Their description matched the one given by the employees of the Claims Office.

“Did you see him leave?” I asked.

“No, but I was glad when he did.”

“Why?”

“He just stared out the window. He didn’t move. Not one muscle the whole time he stood there.”

“There was one thing that moved,” the old woman corrected.

“What was that?” I asked.

“His lip. His lower lip. It was purple, puffed up, like something was wrong with it. The whole time he stood there it kept pulsating, like blood was pounding through it.”

“Is that it?”

“No,” she replied. “He kept sniffling, as if his nose were running. I kept thinking he was going to cry.”

I tried more questions but stopped when I realized they had nothing else to tell us.

On our way back to the barracks, Ernie insisted we ought to tell Riley that none of the vaunted investigators who’d been assigned to the Barretsford case had thought to interview the couple who ran the PX snack stand across the pathway from the Claims Office.

“You just want to rub it in,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Let’s wait for them to come to us.”

This crime wouldn’t be solved on the American compound. Like an avenging warrior, the man with the iron sickle had emerged out of the vast city of Seoul. Eventually, if Colonel Brace wanted Americans to solve this case, he’d have to enlist someone who spoke Korean and wasn’t afraid of snooping around back alleys and asking embarrassing questions. That would be us. Most of the other investigators were afraid to even venture off compound. They couldn’t read the signs, Korean addresses made no sense to them, and not enough people out there spoke English. If you ventured too far from compound, toilets were hard to find; and when you did find one, it was often nothing more than a stinking square hole in a dirty cement floor. If you weren’t limber enough to squat, you were in trouble.

And more importantly, most of our American colleagues were afraid to piss off their military superiors. Ernie and I sometimes tried not to piss off our superiors, but it rarely worked. Mostly we just didn’t give a damn.

We sipped on our coffee for a while, each lost in thought, until suddenly Ernie said, “Whoa! Who’s that?”

I glanced up. Barreling across the parking lot was an American woman, light brown hair uncovered in the drizzle. She was wearing only a long black dress covered by a grey sweater, and was dragging a little girl behind her who looked to be about eight or nine. The woman was thin but strong, as if she worked out regularly, and she was glaring at us, enraged. As she headed straight toward us, I realized who she was. Ernie did, too.

“Trouble,” Ernie said, quickly climbing out of the jeep. I popped out of the passenger side and walked to the front of the jeep.

The woman marched up to Ernie and slapped his chest with her free hand.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

Ernie stood with his mouth open, dumbfounded.

“You’re CID!” she shouted. “You’re supposed to be finding the man who murdered my husband. What are you doing here?” She glanced at the commissary, quickly turning back to us with an incredulous expression. “Are you worrying about the black market? Black market! At a time like this?” Her mouth hung open, and her eyes were scrunched in disbelief. “What is wrong with you people?”

This time she let go of her daughter’s hand and launched at Ernie in earnest, reaching sharp nails toward his eyes. Just in time, he grabbed her wrists and leaned away from the assault, but she continued to come at him, throwing a knee to his groin, pushing him back onto the hood of the jeep, screaming at the top of her lungs. The little girl, Barretsford’s daughter, Cindy, held both her hands to her mouth, her shoulders hunched in fear, crying.

I hurried around the jeep and grabbed Mrs. Evelyn Barretsford in a bear hug. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that people were beginning to congregate in front of the commissary, and a few of them were trotting across the parking lot. In the distance, I heard the groan of an MP siren. By then, Mrs. Barretsford had started to calm down, and we let her go. She knelt and hugged her daughter, sobbing and saying, “You should be looking for him. You should be looking for the man who slaughtered by husband!”

A few other military dependent wives gathered around her, comforting her and her daughter, all the while shooting evil looks at us.

When the MPs arrived on the scene, even they gave us the business. “What are you doing here?” one of them asked. “You’re CID. Maybe you should forget about the black market for a while and go out and solve some real crime.”

“Get bent,” Ernie told him.

The MP, a burly fellow, took a step forward, then stopped, apparently seeing the fire in Ernie’s green eyes. The MP hesitated, shrugged, and turned back toward Mrs. Barretsford.