The Iron Sickle (4 page)

The military doesn’t trust intellectualism. The honchos of 8th Army only appreciate raw facts and actions based on those facts. Anyone who hunts for motive by delving into the recesses of the human mind is either laughed at or, more often, ignored.

I stood in a small office at the end of a long hallway in the western wing of the 121st Evacuation Hospital. The receptionist for Captain Leah Prevault was a punctilious Korean woman who’d probably been working in the hospital since before Christ was a corporal. She asked me if I had an appointment, and when I answered I didn’t, she told me I’d have to make one. I reached across the counter and, before she could react, twisted the appointment book in my direction.

“Captain Prevault is free until two thirty,” I said.

“Yes, but you still must make an appointment.”

I pulled my badge out of my pocket and showed it to her. “Tell her it’s a matter of life and death.”

It never fails. Having lived in a police state for all of her life, the woman’s face blanched and from somewhere in the folds of her skirt a handkerchief appeared. She swiveled on her chair and, holding the embroidered cloth to her nose, disappeared into a back room. Five minutes later, she was back.

“Captain Prevault will see you now,” she said.

Captain Leah Prevault stood with her back to me as I entered the room, studying a book from a shelf behind her desk. She wore the neatly pressed tunic and skirt of a US Army captain. She put the book away, turned, and motioned for me to sit. She was a slender woman, not particularly tall but with long legs and arms she seemed to have to work at keeping under control. She sat at the same time I did and stared at me intently through horn-rimmed glasses, reminding me of a precocious adolescent examining a water bug that had just crawled out of a sewer. Her long brown hair had been pinned back
so as not to interfere with her meticulous observation. She continued studying me, saying nothing.

The silence worked. I told her why I was there.

She cleared her throat and glanced briefly down at her Army-issue blotter. “I was wondering when you’d contact me,” she said.

“You mean
me
?” I asked, pointing at my nose.

“Not you specifically.”

“So no one else in law enforcement has bothered to ask you about the murder?”

“You’re the first,” she said.

I pulled my notebook out of my jacket pocket. Thumbing through it, I pretended to be reading from notes. I gave her the description of the Korean man who’d been seen waiting in front of the Claims Office.

“You think he’s the killer?” she asked.

“Most likely,” I said. “He matches the descriptions given by the workers inside the Claim Office, even down to the damaged lip.”

“Why do you say ‘damaged?’ ”

“It might’ve been a recent injury.”

“But the woman at the snack stand said it appeared to her to be a permanent deformity.”

“Thanks for pointing that out,” I replied. “But I’m here to ask your help. Are you the only psychiatrist here at the one-two-one?”

“Yes. And after I return to the States, there’ll be none.”

“Why?”

“Budget cuts.”

“Who will take on your case load?”

She shrugged. “The worst cases are shipped to Camp Zama. Or Tripler in Hawaii.”

“Do you have any patients who match the description of the man who murdered the Claims Officer?”

“We don’t do Koreans,” she said.

“Who does?”

“There are a few practitioners on the economy. Not many. Most of the criminally insane would be handled by the Korean health service.”

“You think he’s criminally insane?”

“Either that or he’s what everyone at the Officers Club says he is: a North Korean terrorist.”

“But in your professional opinion, anyone who did what he did would have to be insane.”

“Little doubt.” She placed her hands in front of her chin, touching the tips of the long fingers together. “The attack was too unexpected, too brutal, to be anything else.”

“Was he after Mr. Barretsford in particular, do you think?”

“Unlikely. If it was personal, between Mr. Barretsford and the killer, there would’ve been a moment of confrontation. A moment of taunting, a moment of blame, maybe even an attempt at humiliation. Instead, the killer went immediately to work, as if he wanted to blot Barretsford from the universe. The Eighth Army Claims Officer represented something to him. What exactly, I couldn’t speculate—not without a thorough examination.”

“Come on, Doctor. There’s no way we can examine him. I need you to stick your neck out a little. What do you think motivates this guy?”

“Unofficially?”

“Unofficially,” I said, nodding.

“Hatred,” she said, without hesitation. “This man has been traumatized, deeply and probably repeatedly. For some reason the Chief of the Eighth Army Claims Office represented to him everything he loathes, everything that has caused him to suffer. Even if he’s a North Korean agent, this is what motivated him. Hatred of a man who represented a system he’s been programmed to hate.”

I started to write that down in my notebook but she said, “Unofficial, remember?”

I stopped writing and stared for a moment at the blank page. “This Korean mental health service you mentioned, can you refer me to anyone there?”

“Wouldn’t the Korean National Police already have checked them out?”

“Maybe,” I replied, “but most of the thinking is the killer is a North Korean agent. Not a nut case.” I realized my mistake and felt my face flush red. “Sorry.”

Captain Prevault stared at me. Her face was narrow with a smooth complexion and not unattractive. If a GI stared at another GI like she was doing at me, he might get his nose punched. On her, it seemed normal. Disconcerting, but normal.

“They might be right,” she said. “Even considering the gruesomeness of the crime scene, a North Korean agent might’ve done the same, if he were trying to spread terror.”

“That’s what the brass thinks, yes. The more gore, the more panic.”

“But you don’t?”

“I try to keep an open mind.”

She smiled faintly. It was a nice smile. “An open mind is not good for promotion, not in this man’s army.”

“No,” I agreed.

“What’s the saying? Get along …”

“Go along to get along,” I corrected.

“Yes, which is why I’ll be getting out of the military soon.” She swiveled on her chair, pulled out a drawer at the bottom of her desk, and appeared to be thumbing through some files. She stopped, lifted a clump of paper, stared at it for a moment, and then dropped it back into the folder. Closing the drawer, she turned back to me.

“I’ll make some inquiries,” she said. “Do you speak Korean?”

“Some,” I replied.

“That will help. If the person I’m thinking of consents to talk to you, I’ll let you know.”

“Just give me his name,” I said. “I’ll find him.”

She smiled a sad smile, as if I were hopelessly naïve. “That’s not the way it works. Not in the civilian world and particularly not in the academic world. But I’ll be quick about it. I understand the urgency.”

I stood and thanked her and handed her my card. Without glancing at it, she placed it in the center of her desk. I considered offering my hand to shake but when she just kept studying me, I decided against it.

As I was leaving, she said, “Agent Sueño.”

I turned.

“Did I pronounce your name right?”

She had pronounced the “n” as the “ny” in canyon.

“Yes. Very good.”

“I would like to go on a date with you.”

I fidgeted, unaccustomed to anyone being so direct.

She smiled. “I’m making you uncomfortable.”

“It’s just that I’m an enlisted man,” I stammered. “And you’re an officer.”

“But in the CID, your ranks are classified. No one will ever know.”

“I have guard duty tonight,” I said, hating myself for my tone of voice. It was as if I were conjuring up an excuse that was my last line of defense. And maybe I was. The thought of going out with an American female officer was something I’d never even considered. We were constantly being warned against fraternization between ranks.

Captain Prevault continued to stare at me evenly, but the smooth complexion of her face took on just the shadow of a frown.

“Perhaps some other time then,” she said.

“Perhaps,” I agreed, not knowing what else to say. “Some other time.”

I turned and fled from her office.

Grimes was surprised to see me.

“I thought they took you guys off of guard duty.”

“Back on again,” I said.

A steady drizzle spattered the mud around us. We wore army-issue rain gear: hooded plastic parkas over weather-resistant trousers that were held up by suspenders. We stared at the same filth-filled drainage canal we’d stared at the previous night, flushed now with rushing water. But instead of somber darkness beyond the concertina wire, there were rows of yellow lights about a quarter-mile in the distance and beyond them, flashing neon and cars whizzing through the rain.

“Curfew in less than an hour,” Grimes said, tossing a still-burning cigarette butt into the dirt. It sizzled in the mud and went out. “Gets boring around here after that.”

He was referring to the nationwide midnight-to-four
A.M
. curfew, slapped on by the ROK government supposedly to make it more difficult for North Korean spies to infiltrate the South. The real reason, I thought, was to provide a daily demonstration to the South Korean people that the military regime of President Pak Chung-hee was in complete control of their lives.

“We’ll do a midnight commo check to make your life more interesting,” I told Grimes.

Unconsciously, Grimes patted the walkie-talkie at his side. “Do that,” he replied.

I nodded goodbye and walked off toward the next stop on my rounds. My pullover plastic boots sloshed in the mud. I kept thinking about Captain Prevault. She was an attractive woman, at least to me. Ernie would think she was too bookish and too plain,
but he specialized in flashy women. I didn’t. Maybe I should call her tomorrow, let her know that once they take me off this night shift guard duty, I’d have more time and maybe we could get together then. Maybe I could take her to a Buddhist temple out in the countryside, somewhere that would be new and interesting to someone of her intelligence—somewhere without a thousand GIs staring at us.

As I was daydreaming, I thought of Dr. Yong In-ja. She had been in charge of the Itaewon District Health Clinic, treating the dozens of Korean business girls who needed her help every week. I’d worked with her on a cold case, a case involving an American GI who’d been dead twenty years. One thing had led to another and during the investigation, Doc Yong and I had become close. Very close. She landed in trouble with the Korean authorities, trouble so serious she felt compelled to flee to North Korea, the homeland of her parents. Later, I’d seen her again, when I’d been sent up there to try to search for tunnels that led south beneath the DMZ. While there I discovered she’d given birth to Il-yong, our son. When the three of us returned to the South, her troubles began to multiply, and eventually she’d taken Il-yong and disappeared. It had been months now, and I’d received no word from her.

I was a professional cop. I could’ve searched for her, and I believed that if I searched long and hard enough, I’d find her. The only problem was that in so doing the Korean National Police almost certainly would take note of my investigation. A KNP report would be passed up the chain of command and eventually would reach someone who’d realize that I was searching for a fugitive—a highly sought-after fugitive.

I couldn’t search for her because I couldn’t risk leading the KNPs to her. If I did, and she was arrested, she’d face the possibility—the probability—of spending the rest of her life in prison.

Ernie kept telling me that it was her responsibility to contact me. If she was very careful, she could do it. But if she wouldn’t make the
effort, it meant she was finished with me, and I was therefore free to see other women. It had been months now and I’d heard nothing from her. Ernie was right. It was time to emerge from my shell and start to live again.

As I wallowed deep in this morose reverie, something whistled through the air. Reflexively, I ducked. Whatever it was splashed into the mud on the pathway in front of me. I leapt backward, thinking it was a grenade. In a moment of panic, I realized I had nowhere to hide. This was it. I was done for. For a few agonizing seconds, I waited for the ordnance to explode, for a thousand metal pellets to zing through the air and rip into my body, slicing me into a tattered patchwork of bloody shreds.

Nothing happened.

I stared at the lump in front of me. It lay inert. I stepped forward, pulled out my flashlight, and knelt to study it. Just a rock, a jagged chunk about half the size of a brick. I stepped to the ten-foot-high cement block wall and with both hands, pulled myself up so I could peek over the ledge through the rusty concertina wire.

Nothing. A bare alley. I lowered myself back to the ground.

Maybe some kids had run by on their way home before curfew. Maybe one of them had seen the rock, picked it up, and thrown it. Still, I hadn’t heard any footsteps. No teenage giggling.