The Ville Rat

– 4-

“Attention to orders!”

All the JAG officers and the clerks and the MPs and the Criminal Investigation agents stopped their milling about and snapped to attention. Colonel Walter P. Brace, the 8th Army provost marshal, stood at the front of the judge advocate general’s conference room, and next to him were two of our fellow CID agents, Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem. Margaret Mendelson, a female second lieutenant, read the citation, mimicking perfectly the slow drawl of 8th Army officialese. I’d seen her before, a new JAG officer. She had long, reddish-brown hair that she tied atop her head when she was in uniform. She wore the knee-length skirt and tight green jacket of the US Army female dress-green uniform and most of the men in the room were happy to watch her rather than the Sad Sacks who were being honored.

Burrows and Slabem were brownnosers from the word go. Everybody knew it, but their career strategies seemed to be paying off. What they’d done was spend the last three months auditing 8th Army’s Non-Appropriated Fund activities-NAF, for short-in a comprehensive review required by an act of Congress every ten years. They’d looked at the records covering the post exchange, the commissary, the Central Locker Fund, the Defense Youth Activities center, and both the 8th Army officers’ club and the half-dozen or so NCO and enlisted clubs.

“Mainly they audited the steam and cream,” Ernie whispered to me. He was referring to the on-base massage parlors also run by Non-Appropriated Funds, but he said it loud enough for a few frowning faces to turn and glare at us.

The DPCA, the Director of Personnel and Community Activities, stepped up to present the award: the Meritorious Service Medal. Not bad for a couple of junior enlisted men. Although as CID agents our ranks were technically classified, everyone knew that both Burrows and Slabem were staff sergeants, the same rank as Ernie. But Burrows and Slabem had been slated for promotion to sergeants first class, something that pissed Ernie off royally.

“All they do is shuffle paper,” Ernie’d told me, “and make sure they get the results the honchos want.”

And in their review of what amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of NAF activity, the only anomaly Agents Jake Burrows and Felix Slabem had found was the misappropriation of the football pool by one of the part-time bartenders at the officers’ club. The total dollar value of which was less than seventy-four dollars.

“For this they get an award?” Ernie asked.

I elbowed him to shut up. Reluctantly, he did, scowling around the room as if he wanted to choose somebody to pop in the nose. Lieutenant Mendelson’s voice droned on. When she was done, the DPCA pinned the medals first on Jake Burrows and then on Felix Slabem. Then he shook their hands. When the ceremony was over, most of the attendees stood in line to congratulate the two honorees. We didn’t. I caught Riley outside and told him what I needed.

“A civilian?” he asked.

“I think so.” I described the guy to him. About five-foot-eight or nine, one hundred and thirty-five pounds, reddish hair that he wore in some sort of Afro bouffant.

“How long?”

“How long ago did we see him?”

“No. How long was his hair?”

“Only a couple of inches.”

“But too long for him to be military.”

“Right.”

“So maybe he’s a DAC.” A Department of the Army Civilian.

“Right. Or maybe he’s not affiliated with the military at all.”

“Then what would he be doing up in the Division area?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I want to ask him.”

The few civilians who ventured to South Korea on business stayed mainly in Seoul or the other large cities. They seldom ventured toward the DMZ. Especially since the North Korean Commando raid on the presidential palace a few years ago and the taking of the USS Pueblo crew. And tourism to the Republic of Korea was almost nonexistent. Too many people around the world still remembered the newspaper photos that depicted the death and suffering during the Korean War and the millions of refugees. Nobody thought of the ROK as a fabulous vacation spot.

Riley thought it over. “I’ll check with Smitty over at data processing. And there’s another possibility.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll get you a list of deserters.”

“We still have deserters at Eighth Army?”

“Not many, but a few.”

The reason there were few deserters, if any, from the 8th United States Army was not because of an excess of loyalty but because of border checks. There was only one international airport, at Kimpo near Seoul, and everyone going out or coming in was checked and rechecked by the paranoid Korean officialdom. You couldn’t just go and buy a ticket to fly back to the States. Before you boarded a plane, you’d have to prove who you were and what you’d been doing in Korea. And the one seaborne international departure port at Pusan was watched just as carefully. Since Korea is a peninsula, you can leave by sea or by air, but leaving by land is even more restricted. If you traveled north, you would run into the Demilitarized Zone bordering Communist North Korea. There were 700,000 Communist soldiers on the northern side, 450,000 ROK Army soldiers on the southern side, and tens of thousands of land mines in between. Try walking across that.

So if you deserted from 8th Army, you were stuck in Korea.

“So you’ll check for me?”

Riley promised he would. Then he thrust his right thumb over his shoulder. “The provost marshal wants to see you two. Now.”

I turned to Ernie. “I told you not to mouth off during the ceremony.”

“It’s not about that.”

“What is it, then?”

“You’ll find out.” Riley stormed off.

We found Colonel Brace outside the conference room, still conferring with the DPCA. When they were finished, he turned to us, crooked his finger, and said, “You two, follow me.”

Ernie and I followed him down a long, carpeted hallway. Ernie chomped on his gum as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Me, I was bothered by the crooked finger. In Korea, it’s an insult to beckon someone like that. The polite way is the wave downward with your flat palm. I told myself that Colonel Brace didn’t know the Korean custom, that I was becoming too immersed in Korean culture and that I should forget it. Still, it bothered me. We stepped into a small office. Lieutenant Mendelson, the young woman who’d read the award citation, rose from behind a small mahogany desk.

“You’ve met?” Colonel Brace asked us.

“Once,” I said. It was when she’d come through the office as part of a JAG conference with the colonel.

Ernie didn’t answer, just stared at her, chomping his gum.

“You’ll be working with her,” Colonel Brace told us, “on a case that’s about to go to court-martial. I’ll let her brief you.”

He started to walk out of the room.

“Sir,” I said, “I thought we’re assigned to the case up at Sonyu-ri, working with Inspector Gil.”

He stopped and turned and studied me and then Ernie.

“Yes,” he said, “you still are. As it happens, the case Lieutenant Mendelson is working on happened right up in the same area. You’ll be assigned to both at the same time.”

A murder case and something else? Ernie’s face twisted, probably in reaction to our time being wasted by being called back to Seoul in the first place, but I spoke before he could open his mouth. “We’ll need an advance on our expense account, sir.”

“Yes, of course, see Riley.”

He burst out of the room as if happy to get away from us.

Ernie frowned. “Why didn’t you ask for an increase?”

“Didn’t think of it.”

Ernie gazed down the hallway wistfully. “That’s why he was in such a hurry to un-ass the area. Thinks he’s getting over on us.”

Lieutenant Mendelson coughed.

Ernie turned, as if noticing her for the first time. “Something wrong with your throat?”

“No,” she said, “I’m fine.”

“You a smoker?”

“No.”

“That’s good,” Ernie said, sitting on a padded vinyl chair. “I hate smokers. Their mouths smell like ashtrays.” He steepled his fingers in front of his nose and studied her. “What is it you want us to do?”

“Agent Sueno,” she said, motioning with her hand. “Sit down.” When I hesitated, she said, “Please.”

Nice of her. So I did.

Lieutenant Mendelson explained the case and the information she wanted us to gather. I’d heard about the incident, but not in any detail. It sounded ugly and sordid. A black soldier in Charley Battery, 2nd of the 17th Field Artillery, had shot a white senior NCO-the chief of Firing Battery, commonly referred to as the “chief of smoke.” The wound had been serious but not life threatening, and the victim had been transferred to the 121st Evacuation Hospital in Seoul. The accused perp was a young soldier by the name of Clifton Threets, rank of private first class. He was being charged with attempted murder and violation of the Civil Rights Act, since the murder was seen to be racially motivated.

“I thought that case was wrapped up,” Ernie said, “witnesses and everything.”

“It should be,” Lieutenant Mendelson said, “but the officer appointed to defend him is claiming self-defense because the chief of smoke had been discriminating against Threets and assaulting him on a regular basis.”

“In the Second Division?” Ernie said, raising his eyebrows. “I’m shocked.”

Lieutenant Mendelson studied him, still trying to figure him out. Her eyes sparkled as she did so. Regaining control, she fell back on her paperwork. “Here’s the report,” she said, shoving it across the desk. “Read it and ask some questions while you’re up there, about this alleged harassment.”

I picked it up. “Has the Division provost marshal been informed?”

“Yes. And since it’s coming down from the Eighth Army head shed, you’ll have full access to all Division facilities. Colonel Brace is looking out for you. That way, you can work on the other case without being harassed by Division.”

Ernie snorted a laugh. “That’ll be the day.” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“When he’s ‘looking out for us.’”

“Well, he is.” She seemed shocked by our attitude. But she was young, a new officer, and thus far in her military career she probably had always been treated well. Most often, newly minted lieutenants had no inkling of the abuse that enlisted men could sometimes be subjected to. I saw no point in going there.

“Anything else, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“No, that will be all.” Then she smiled. “And please call me Peggy.”

I nodded. “Peggy it is,” I said.

Ernie saluted her with two fingers.

She started to raise her hand to return the salute but then thought better of it.

Outside, I tried to hand the report to Ernie. “Don’t palm that off on me,” he said.

“The colonel’s trying to help us,” I said.

“Fat chance.”

“You’re too cynical.”

“No, I’m not. There’s something behind this.”

“Maybe.”

“No maybe about it.”

“Should we ask Riley?”

“Forget it,” Ernie said. “If Riley knows anything, which he probably doesn’t, he’ll be in on it too.”

“Anyway,” I said, “we have to get back to Division.”

While at the CID office I’d made a call to Mr. Kill’s office in downtown Seoul. He wasn’t in, but a message had been relayed that he wanted to meet us at the Munsan police station at noon.

“We can make it if we hurry.”

“We’ll make it,” Ernie told me. “But first we have to talk to Strange, get him to do some research for us.”

Ernie unlocked the padlock of his jeep and I climbed into the passenger seat. “Strange? Why Strange?”

“Colonel Brace is helping us work with the KNPs on a case that could prove embarrassing to Eighth Army. Smoothing the skids for us up at Division.” He shook his head. “That’s just not how things work. Something’s wrong.”

“What makes you think Strange can find out anything?”

“He’s a pervert. He knows everybody in Eighth Army and everybody knows him. Besides, he’s in charge of Classified Documents. All he has to do is lift up the cover sheet and peek.”

A pervert in charge of secrets. It made perfect sense when you thought about it.

We went to find Strange.