"Start the goddamn bus, Ernie!" I yelled.
"There's some trick to this ignition," he shot back.
Lady Ahn ran through the bus, slamming every window shut. Monks started to climb up the walls. Ernie twisted something, pushed a button, turned the key. Nothing happened. He cursed and tried it in a different order this time. The engine roared to life. Ernie jammed the bus into gear, let out the clutch, and it lurched backward.
Reverse. The engine died.
Swearing, Ernie started it again. He rejammed the gears, and this time we leapt forward. The two monks banging on the door had to step back. Others still clung to the side of the bus.
"Shake 'em off, Ernie! They're still hanging on."
"Can do easy," he said.
Pedestrians leapt out of the way as we swerved through the park. Up ahead loomed a great stone gate with an upturned tile roof. The five-hundred-year-old entrance to the Doksu Palace grounds.
A low wire fence spanned the round arch. Behind it stood rows of uniformed schoolchildren, lined up patiently behind fluttering banners. Ernie honked the horn. People glanced at us, but no one moved.
Ernie pounded his palm on the horn. "Move, goddamn it! Move!"
Ernie swerved around more pedestrians, and the wheels of the bus squealed. Finally, schoolchildren pointed and started to step out of the way.
Instead of bursting right through the center of the arch, Ernie aimed the bus for the two-yard-thick stone wall. The monks still clinging to the bus realized what was going to happen. Ernie was going to scrape them off the side. One by one, they dropped off the bus like fleas abandoning a mutt.
Ernie kept blasting his horn. Panicked schoolteachers waved their arms and blew their whistles, trying to shoo children out of the way.
We slammed into the side of the arch with a great crunch. The metal partition in front of us shot forward like shrapnel from a grenade. The last of the schoolchildren screamed and scurried out of the way.
The bus swerved through the open blacktop area in front of the entranceway. Turning the steering wheel madly, Ernie careened into traffic.
Horns honked. Tires screeched.
"Anybody left hanging on?" Ernie asked.
I looked back. One lone monk clung like a pinned moth to the rearmost window.
"Just one," I said.
I walked back, pulled down the window, and punched the monk in the face.
He fell back, bounced twice on the asphalt, and rolled until he slammed up against the concrete curb.
"No more monks," I called back to Ernie.
"Pesky devils," Ernie said.
Lady Ahn sat on a vinyl seat in the middle of the bus, rocking the jade skull, cooing to it softly.
As if it were her own precious baby.
22
It was almost dark by the time we reached the outskirts of Itaewon and found a spot to ditch the bus. We hoofed it through the narrow back alleys. The sight of a beautiful Korean woman with wet hair clutching a burlap bag as if it were stuffed with gold dust and two American GIs still shaking mud and lily pads off their butts was enough to make every pedestrian we encountered gawk in wonder.
Going to Herman's hooch was out of the question. I figured the kidnappers would be watching. Our job was to exchange the skull for Mi-ja. Not just turn it over to them.
Instead, we found a tiny yoguan hidden in a narrow alley. After paying for a large room with bath, we washed, sent out for bandages, and patched ourselves up as well as we could.
Lady Ahn had suffered the fewest cuts but still she was impatient with my careful washing and disinfecting.
"An apo," she objected. It doesn't hurt.
Ernie was okay and so was I. Scratches, bruises, hurt pride, but that was it.
"There're two things we have to do," I told Ernie. "First, we set up a meet with the kidnappers so we can trade the skull for Mi-ja."
Ernie nodded. "Right."
"And second, we collar the guy who beat up the little nun so Eighth Army can turn him over to the ROKs."
Ernie scowled up at me. "What's wrong with those dorks over at the CID Detachment? Why didn't they pick him up?"
"You know how they are. Take an MP escort with them when they go down in the ville. Wear their suits and ties so the First Sergeant won't accuse them of screwing off. They scare the hell out of everybody they need to talk to."
"Yeah," Ernie said. "Nobody tells those dickheads shit."
"So apparently this guy who beat up the nun has found out that we're looking for him and he's decided not to make it easy."
"He can't leave the country. Not without a phony passport, and he probably doesn't have any idea about how to buy one of those. We'll pick him up eventually."
"But we can't wait."
"Why not?"
I told him about the nun.
Ernie almost leapt out of his chair. "You're shitting me! She's going to toast herself?"
"The day after tomorrow. In downtown Seoul. In front of the TV cameras and everything."
"She's too young!"
"Right. So let's find the jerk who mugged her. Lock his ass up."
"Okay."
"And we have to get Mi-ja back."
Ernie paused. "You're right. Should we have chow first?"
From a public phone in a back-alley store, I made a call to the pharmacy near Herman's hooch. The pharmacist's daughter answered. She told me that Slicky Girl Nam was at home being cared for by the old women from the neighborhood. The kidnappers hadn't called and no, she didn't know how to locate Herman. I told her I'd call back every hour until the midnight curfew.
Just before the witching hour, the pharmacist's daughter still hadn't seen Herman and she still hadn't received a call from the kidnappers. They wouldn't call after curfew. Movement through the streets of Seoul is impossible once the police shut down the city.
On the way back to the yoguan, I gazed up at the rain clouds scudding past the monsoon moon. The silver orb was almost full. Only a sliver of darkness along its edge held the difference between life and death for a small girl named Mi-ja. But tomorrow, even that slender hope would be gone. The moon would be full. And we would have our last chance to save her life.
Back in the room, I spread out a sleeping mat and, without taking my clothes off, plopped down on the floor next to Lady Ahn. Looking back on it, Ernie and 1 should have taken turns pulling guard duty, but nothing bad happened that night. God must watch over fools.
At dawn I washed my face and shook Lady Ahn awake. When I tried to pry the jade skull out of her grasp, she shoved my hands away.
"You no touch," she said.
I tried to remain calm, explaining to her that two powerful sects of Buddhist monks were now after the skull and it wouldn't be safe here in the yoguan. She couldn't protect it by herself. Ernie and I had to return to the compound and find the mugger of Choi So-Ian. Otherwise the little nun would burn herself to death and Korea, too, would erupt in flames.
Lady Ahn shook her head. "Nuns have burned themselves before. We Koreans are used to it. Whatever Choi So-lan does, she doesn't get the jade skull."
I stared at the burning fierceness in her eyes, waiting for it to die. It didn't. I spoke anyway. "What about Mi-ja?"
She took a deep breath, turned away. "You can save her somehow. Without the skull."
I let that sit, allowing the silence to grow, until we both knew her statement wasn't true. Ragyapa and his Mongolian Buddhists were ruthless. I wouldn't be able to save Mi-ja. The kidnappers would stop at nothing until they had the skull.
"We only need the skull for a few hours," I said. "Once we make the exchange, and have Mi-ja back, Ernie and I will make sure that Ragyapa doesn't leave the country with the skull. I promised you in Taejon, we'll get it back for you. We won't let the Korean police know about it. We won't let Eighth Army know about it. No government official will confiscate the jade skull. We'll get it back for you. No matter what we have to do."