“Now you got it.”
“And he won’t make general.”
“Right.”
“And he’ll have a case of the big ass.”
“Right again,” I said.
“At us.”
“Correct.”
“So I should keep my mouth shut?”
“Correct again.”
About two minutes later the First Sergeant came back into the room and sat down across from us.
“Good news and bad news,” he said. We waited. “The good news is that you’re free to go.”
That made sense. There were no criminal charges that could be filed against us. And the Provost Marshal wouldn’t try to trump any up. It would make him look as bad as us.
“The bad news,” the First Sergeant said, “is that you’re off the case. Burrows and Slabem will be taking it over.”
“Those two dorks?” Ernie said. “Out in Itaewon, they couldn’t find their way to the latrine.”
“They’re good investigators,” the First Sergeant said.
“But the Koreans don’t trust them and won’t tell them shit.”
The First Sergeant raised his voice. “At ease, Bascom! The decision’s already been made.”
Ernie draped his elbows over his knees and shook his head. The First Sergeant continued.
“Until further notice, you two will be assigned to the black market detail. Unless, of course, Burrows and Slabem dig up something about this meeting you had with Whit-comb. You two want to tell me anything more about it?”
Neither one of us answered. The fact that we’d been paid fifty thousand won to deliver the note would never cross my lips.
“The Provost Marshal expects you to keep your noses out of the Whitcomb investigation,” the First Sergeant said. “Bascom, you still have that request for extension pending. Don’t forget about it. Not if you want to stay in Korea. And you, Sueno, you can still be sent back to the DMZ. If you have an aching need to walk the line again, staring across the wire at those North Korean Commies, it don’t cut no ice with us.”
He stared at us long and hard, searching for a wise remark. When he heard none, he clapped his hands. “That’s all then. Report to the office at zero eight hundred tomorrow.” Outside, Ernie and I trudged toward South Post, neither one of us speaking.
There was still no snow falling, but the temperature had dropped and the drifts and mangled tufts of ice had frozen into crazy shapes that glistened in the moonlight. Freezing wind bit into my sinuses.
Finally, Ernie said what we were both thinking.
“We’re not really going to let Burrows and Slabem handle this thing, are we?”
“Of course not. They’re not the ones who convinced Cecil Whitcomb to show up out in Namdaemun that night. We are.”
“So it’s our responsibility?”
“You definitely got that right.”
“So we’re going after that slicky boy tonight?”
“Sure,” I said. “They’re filing SOFA charges against us now. That means that the slicky boys are nervous, on the run.”
“We gotta keep ‘em that way.”
“Absolutely. Keep ‘em off balance.”
Ernie had left the jeep at 21 T-Car for some fender work, so we had to hoof it. My blue jeans were almost dry. But not dry enough that they didn’t start to stiffen in the frigid breeze blowing out of Manchuria. We crunched across a frozen sheet of snow, heading toward the 121 Evacuation Hospital.
14
The I2I is a sprawling complex with a little snack stand out front-closed and shuttered at this hour-a horseshoe-shaped one-story hospital behind that, and a half dozen warehouses scattered about. We waited outside until just before zero one hundred, one in the morning. All the while I wished I had worn about three more layers of sweaters. Once we started moving 1 was happy about it.
When the army plans for injuries, they think big. The emergency room behind the 121 had not only a helipad but also a huge loading dock and a small fleet of ambulances.
Just let those North Koreans come south. We’re ready for them.
We found a dark spot beneath a naked elm tree near one of the warehouses. We didn’t have to wait long.
A blue-smocked medic emerged at about ten minutes before one. He was average height and average weight and would’ve been difficult as hell to identify because he wore a tight-fitting blue medical cap and a gauze mask over his nose and mouth.
“The masked marauder,” Ernie whispered. He was enjoying this.
In the medic’s hand, nearly hidden behind his body, was a plastic bag stuffed with what appeared to be small boxes and vials.
He slipped out of the floodlight glare behind the emergency room and into the darkness near a line of square metal Conexes. They were padlocked and probably loaded with medical supplies to be airlifted where and when the need arose.
Each Conex was a complete, self-contained unit. Their foundation was two layers of hollow ribbed corrugated metal. The medic knelt in front of one of the Conexes and shoved the plastic sack into an opening in the foundation. From somewhere he grabbed a broom handle and, bending lower, he probed carefully with the stick, shoving the plastic farther beneath the Conex. Soon he had reached in almost all the way to his elbow.
“He’s pushing the bag to the other side,” Ernie said.
I nodded.
The medic placed the broom handle back where he’d originally stashed it, stood, and brushed the snow off his knees. Looking around, he scurried back up onto the loading dock and into the Emergency Room.
“Neat trick,” Ernie said.
“Let’s work our way over to the other side of the Conexes and see what happens.”
“Let’s.”
We searched for another concealed spot, this time farther away because we figured the slicky boy would be tougher to fool than the medic. We finally settled on a row of bushes against the cement-block perimeter fence. I squatted down in the snow. Ernie edged in next to me. We had to hold back the sharp branches with our hands.
“Hope this doesn’t take long,” Ernie said.
My legs had already grown numb when we heard the boots of the perimeter guard crunching toward us. He wore his big gray parka with his hood pulled over his head and an Ml rifle slung over his shoulder. When he walked past, he looked straight ahead, not even glancing in our direction.
About twenty yards away, directly behind the Conex where the medic had stashed the plastic bag, the guard stopped. He slipped off his gloves, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a cigarette. The scratch and hiss of his wooden match was loud in the darkness.
For a moment his bronze face was illuminated in the glow of the flame. I looked at Ernie. He nodded. This was the guard we had paid the twenty thousand won.
The guard took a deep drag, coughed, stomped around a bit, and before he was through with his cigarette tossed it down in the snow behind the Conex.
After he trudged off toward his remaining rounds, the night became quiet again.
Finally, I heard it. Not much more than a scratching. Suddenly there was a thump and Ernie elbowed me. He pointed.
There, along the wall, about ten yards past the Conex, I saw it. A dark spot in the snow. I couldn’t believe it. The cement block wall was almost ten feet high and it was topped by metal spikes and coiled barbed wire. Yet somehow, in a matter of seconds, someone had climbed it, making no more sound than a cat crossing a coffee table.
I stared at the blank spot in the snow and started to doubt my judgment. Nothing moved. Was it just my eyes playing tricks on me? Or was there actually a human being lying there?
Suddenly it moved.
Like thought, the shadow drifted across the snow and came to a halt behind the Conex. There was some sound now. Plastic rubbing on metal? An instant later, the shadow was moving back toward the wall.
Ernie elbowed me again. “Let’s go.”
We were up and moving but my legs were so knotted that I stumbled twice and had to shove myself back up with my arms. Ernie was ahead of me, running at full tilt. Shouting.