I checked out the metal cap. “You forgot to have him open it,” I told Ernie.
Startled, he stared at the soju and ran back to the old man, holding the bottle out and pointing at the cap. The old man grinned, stopped his cart again and reached deep into loose pants pockets to pull out a bottle opener. He popped the cap and handed it to Ernie. Ernie thanked him again and hurried back to where I was standing at a dark wall beneath a cement power pole.
“That’s what I like about you, Sueno,” he said. “Always thinking.”
He glugged a swig of the powerful rice liquor, then offered the bottle to me. I took it out of his hand, wiped the rim, knocked back a sip or two, grimaced, and handed it back.
“Rotgut,” I said.
“Gets the job done,” Ernie replied.
I wasn’t worried about Ernie getting wasted. We’d spent most of the day at KNP headquarters going over the plan with Mr. Kill and Officer Oh. They had three or four rookie cops lined up to act as customers in the Dancing Lady Scotch Corner when the meeting went down and plenty of backup in the surrounding alleyways.
Officer Oh showed us the latest technology in recording equipment. I expected something from Japan, but she pointed proudly to the label. “Dokil,” she said. Germany. Korea was inundated with electronics from Japan, which was a little surprising because the Japanese colonization from 1910 to 1945 still conjured up resentment, sometimes even hatred. Still, the price and quality of Japanese products was hard to beat. There was talk of new Korean electronics companies that would one day equal or surpass Japanese technology, but I thought that a very ambitious goal. Officer Oh must’ve gone out of her way to find something made in Germany, which possibly said something about her family history. Some families had done better under Japanese colonization than others-and those who’d refused to knuckle under had suffered for it.
Inspector Kill told me earlier that Nam had only reluctantly agreed to set up the sting. What he’d been threatened with to force his compliance, we didn’t know, but it couldn’t have been good.
There was a secret communication system in place. First, Nam reached out to Blood. They had previously arranged a signaling mechanism: Nam visited one of the branch offices of the 501st outside of Seoul during certain times and used a code word to indicate that he wanted to parley with Blood. The 501st agent on duty contacted the captain through normal channels and used another password, and then Blood would leave the compound. At a randomly selected phone booth, he would call Nam directly at his bokdok-bang-real estate office-in Tongduchon to set up a time for the meeting. Inspector Kill had somehow managed to reroute this number to KNP headquarters in Seoul.
Nam had told Captain Blood that Commander Ku was nervous about a few things-namely me and Ernie poking our noses into their business-and wanted to discuss them with Blood. Blood had rejected Nam’s earlier suggestions for a meeting place and only relented when Mukyo-dong was thrown into the mix-it appeared he liked his bars exclusive and discreet. The rendezvous was set up for 10 p.m. at the Dancing Lady Scotch Corner.
Then Nam contacted Commander Ku. This method was more complicated, utilizing blind drops and several other steps standard to international spy craft. One of Ku’s representatives called Nam, also at the number that was supposedly his bokdok-bang, and referred to everyone involved in cloaked terms as if they were part of a typical real estate deal. Nam claimed that Blood had requested the meeting. He hadn’t, of course, but Nam was Commander Ku’s only connection to Blood, so there was no way to verify the claim. Ku had agreed to tonight’s meeting at the Dancing Lady Scotch Corner.
Ernie sipped his soju.
“We need to move farther away,” I told him.
“Is it ten already?”
“Twenty minutes till.”
“Okay.”
Although foreigners-mainly businessmen, English teachers, and a smattering of tourists-did frequent Mukyo-dong, Mr. Kill had warned us to stay away from the action. Nearly the entire nightclub had been wired with Officer Oh’s recording devices. The four rookie cops would be scattered around the premises, and as soon as Captain Blood and Commander Ku started talking business-and Inspector Kill decided there was enough evidence to make the arrest-a KNP squad a few blocks away would be notified and proceed to sweep in. Ernie and I were there not just to observe, but to have the honor of formally arresting Captain Blood when the time came.
The Provost Marshal would probably pop a gut when he found out about this operation, mainly because we hadn’t informed him. But once Captain Blood was under arrest for espionage and the evidence was presented, Brace would have no choice but to go along with us. The next step would be for him and the Chief of Staff to jockey over how to split blame for the case-and credit for the arrest.
At first, Nam had been reluctant to even mention Commander Ku’s name. But Inspector Kill had persuaded him with the assistance of a ham-fisted interrogator named Bang, who seemed to enjoy roughing people up. I couldn’t ascertain whether Bang was his real name or not, but he was apparently a legend in the interrogation circles of the Korean National Police. Nobody could resist his persuasion for long. Eventually, even though there were no visible bruises on Nam, he’d revealed everything he knew about Commander Ku.
Ku was a North Korean agent, as we’d figured. But he’d somehow managed to operate successfully in South Korea for over a decade without being caught. He’d entered the country in 1962 during the chaos of the riots that would evolve into the eventual overthrow of the Syngman Rhee regime, and had remained for the dozen years since. You’d think that in all that time, a North Korean Communist might have been persuaded to change sides, but these guys were brainwashed. As far as they were concerned, the people running South Korea had betrayed the country by collaborating with the brutal colonization of the Japanese military. Even the current President, Pak Chung-hee, had been trained at the Manchukuo Imperial Japanese military academy. According to Nam, Commander Ku was dedicated to his Great Leader, Kim Il-sung, and would be happy to murder anyone who stood in his way.
When Nam was asked what Commander Ku looked like, he claimed he’d never actually seen him face-to-face. On the phone, he’d always conversed with subordinates who were supposedly in near proximity to their commander. But he had neither seen nor spoken to Commander Ku, so we weren’t sure who exactly we were looking for.
Ernie and I climbed the steps of an office building to a door marked chilsung import company. We knocked and it opened. We were quickly ushered into a dark room. On the far wall, the window was open, but everyone stood about six feet back from it. Officer Oh sat on a stool at a small table with a telescope sitting on it. She motioned for us to look. I went first, and then Ernie. With all the ambient light from street lamps and blinking neon, the telescope provided a clear view of the front door of the Dancing Lady Scotch Corner. From a speaker on a desk, the clink of glassware and the murmur of conversation sifted through knitted cloth.
“Nice equipment,” Ernie whispered.
“Way better than what we’ve got,” I replied. Which was next to nothing in the MP Supply Room. When we needed a tape recorder we went down to 8th Army Audio-Visual and checked the equipment out, which involved a hassle of updating signature cards and the like. If the equipment was even available.
Officer Oh resumed her seat. The other KNPs shuffled around the room nervously. Twenty minutes later, Officer Oh waved her hand, leaned back, and motioned for me to take a look.
Captain Blood, wearing a navy suit and red tie, entered the front door of the Dancing Lady Scotch Corner. A few minutes later, I thought I heard someone say a few words in English through the speakers, but they were drowned out by the general hubbub of conversation. Officer Oh stepped over to the glowing radio-control-like device next to the speaker and fiddled with a knob before the conversation came across more clearly.