CQ. Charge of Quarters.
“They’re a strack unit,” Ernie said.
“Right,” Vance said admiringly. “Straight-arrow military.”
“So to the best of your knowledge,” I said, “only one guy has been gone from the Mount Halla Training Facility in the last few weeks.”
“As best as I can tell,” Vance replied.
“How about their ration-control cards?” I asked.
“Their what?”
“The ration cards. You know, like at the PX when your ration-control plate is anviled when you buy something like liquor or beer. They have a PX, don’t they?”
“A small one.”
“So somebody has to deliver their ration cards.”
“Yeah. I forgot about that. Sergeant Amos runs it up to Seoul every week.”
“What’s his full name?”
“Walker R. Amos, Sergeant First Class.”
I jotted the name down. “Why him? Why is he the only one to run it up every week?”
“Something about his profile,” Vance replied. “He’s older than the other guys. Can’t do all the physical training they do.”
“So Colonel Laurel makes him escort the ration cards up to Seoul each week. Sort of demeaning, isn’t it?”
Vance shrugged.
“So he takes the weekly chopper to Pusan. From there does he take the train?”
“I guess,” Vance replied. “I never heard of anybody traveling up to Seoul any other way. Unless they take one of the training flights that come in.”
“There’s an airport?”
“Yeah. The ROK Army has one.”
“Can you think of anyone else who’s left the compound recently?”
“No. That’s it. Not unless you count Colonel Laurel.”
“When did he leave?”
“Last week. I don’t remember the exact day. There was some sort of commander’s call in Seoul.”
When Ernie and I climbed back into the cab, I studied the ranks and names I had jotted down. The first was Munoz, a buck sergeant. That meant he was relatively young; maybe he’d gone back to visit his family in Puerto Rico. Lifers don’t travel that much. Once you’ve spent a decade or two in the army, your family tends to forget about you and you tend to forget about them. The second man, the one who’d delivered the ration cards to Seoul, was a sergeant first class, which meant he’d been around a while. The full name was Walker R. Amos. Could he be black? If so, and if it could be proven that Munoz had gone to Puerto Rico, I could eliminate both men and I’d be back to square one. I asked Specialist Vance, but he’d never met either man personally. But something told me that SFC Walker R. Amos would be white. Something told me we were close to the Blue Train rapist. Very close.
Mr. Won was even more petrified driving down Mount Halla than he had been while driving up. I didn’t like the way he kept jamming on the brakes, pressing the pedal almost to the floorboard. Ernie finally said something.
“When was the last time you put in new brake pads, Ajjosi?”
I shushed him. The man didn’t understand anyway. Best to let him concentrate on his driving and hope for the best. I actually thought of telling Mr. Won to stop so we could get out and walk the three or four miles downhill back to Nokko-ri, but I didn’t think he could stop this old cab now if he wanted to.
Ernie spotted it first. He pointed.
“Look!”
A puke-green quarter-ton truck, army-issue, chugging up the incline.
“Must be Parkwood,” I said, “coming back from his supply run.”
“There’s a bypass,” Ernie said, “closer to him than to us.”
“I hope he has the sense to use it,” I replied.
Mr. Won didn’t understand a word we were saying. He stared in terror at the winding road ahead, jamming on the brakes, both hands knuckled white atop the steering wheel.
I reached over and honked the horn.
If the man driving the truck below heard it, he gave no indication.
16
When I was growing up in East L.A., freeways blossomed everywhere. The Santa Ana, the San Bernardino, the Pomona, the Harbor, the Long Beach, all were being renovated or widened or extended or planned or laid down. Overweight politicians in stiff business suits were constantly cutting ribbons. It was as if by paving the entire planet and drawing lane-change lines to the end of the earth, we’d finally find happiness. That was one of the reasons I’d been so smitten by Korea when I first arrived. Sure, there were roads and cars and trucks-and a new four-lane freeway was being built to run between Seoul and Pusan-but still, there were plenty of places for people to actually walk. Muddy lanes, dirt roads, cobblestoned pathways, tree-lined avenues, streets with shops pressed up against one another-occasionally you’d even spot wooden carts pulled by oxen, a man leading the snorting beast, a woman and small children huddled together on wooden planks. Not all human movement had been turned over to the internal combustion engine. Even the Blue Train seemed more human to me than driving on an eight-lane freeway.
Every day of my youth in the Los Angeles Basin, my lungs had been involuntarily filled with smog. Now, on a remote volcano on the edge of Asia, it looked as if I were finally going to meet the fate of so many of my compatriots. I was finally going to become a statistic in a head-on collision.
“The asshole didn’t stop at the bypass!” Ernie shouted.
Mr. Won had both feet pressed on the brake pedal, but it wasn’t doing much good. The momentum of the cab was now carrying us downhill at about fifty miles per hour. Around the sharp curves, he was barely maintaining control, drifting toward the left edge of the lane, and the G.I. driver of the truck below seemed to have no idea that he was only a few seconds from impact.
I reached forward across Mr. Won and once again sounded the horn. Beyond a boulder, the truck loomed into view. We went screaming around a curve.
I crouched behind the front seat, covering my head. As I did so, Mr. Won screamed. He veered to the extreme left, trying to avoid a head-on with the truck. The wheels spun on gravel and the cab started tipping to the left. Out of the side window, I glanced down into the abyss. The wheels still had traction and we were moving forward-but two or three more inches to the left and we’d plummet to our deaths. I glanced forward just in time to see the quarter-ton truck barreling toward us. Ernie cursed, grabbed the steering wheel, and shoved it hard to the right. Won let go of the wheel and covered his eyes. Green iron grating flashed in front of me and then something slammed into the rear of the cab. We spun, three, four, five times; and finally, with a jarring thump, came to a shuddering halt in the ditch on the right side of the road.
I sat up. Dust rose around us in an enveloping cloud.
“You all right?” I asked.
“All right,” Ernie replied. He reached for Mr. Won.
“How about you, Baba Louie?”
Won uncovered his eyes, looked around, and started to moan. Ernie and I both climbed out of the cab and pulled him out of the driver’s-side door. We laid him on the edge of the road, searching as we did so for wounds. He didn’t have any.
“He’s just shaken up,” Ernie said.
“He deserves it,” I replied, “for having such lousy brakes.”
On the road above us, the quarter-ton truck continued to churn its way up Mount Halla, oblivious, apparently, to our plight below.
The back of the cab was smashed in.
“You think it’ll still run?” I asked Ernie.
“Won’t know until we try. Give me a shove.”
He climbed into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and thrust the shift into a low gear. On three, he stepped on the gas and I stood behind the cab, pushing it forward. After rocking it three times, the back wheels caught and it climbed out of the ditch. Deftly, Ernie turned the cab around. I helped Mr. Won to his feet, led him to the cab, opened the door, and allowed him to lie down on the back seat. I sat up front with Ernie.
Using the lowest gear possible, bumping against earthen berms when possible, Ernie churned slowly down Mount Halla.