And I thought of tunnels.
Strange had said “tunnels.” Something classified in J-2 had been about tunnels.
Of course there were all sorts of tunnels. A new one for commuter traffic had been built beneath Namsan Mountain just south of downtown Seoul. There was one being carved beneath the city, the beginning of a subway system that should be finished in about twenty years. But most of all, I thought about the ones dug by the North Koreans and just discovered by our side about a year ago. Three of them. Right under the DMZ. With a track down the center and wide enough for three armed soldiers to march abreast. The newspaper stories had estimated that the North Korean People’s Army could move a fully equipped infantry battalion through each of these three tunnels in about two hours.
But what in the world did that have to do with this case?
Probably the whole thing-dust disturbed on the top of a filing cabinet, folders moved from the edge of the drawer to the center, the feeling that someone had tampered with their documents-was strictly the overheated paranoia of a bunch of half-nuts Security NCO’s.
If they were all like Strange, who could trust any of them?
1 watched a white crane wing slowly across a frozen field. What was he doing here this late in the winter?
A strange bird.
Everything I looked at-the distant hills, the huddled farm communities, the gently rolling rivers-faded into the bloodied body of the Nurse.
The trip took longer than we thought because the ROK Army was conducting war games in the hills just south of Taejon. The train screeched to a halt amongst the frost-covered peaks and soldiers hopped aboard, holding their Ml6 rifles pointed toward the sky, spot-checking identification and searching the baggage for evidence of enemy commandos.
It was all pretty silly, but in this country citizens put up with any indignity from the military. For one thing, they remember the horrors of the Korean War. For another, they don’t have any choice.
When an armed party approached us, Ernie opened one eye and growled at them. The soldiers must’ve thought that messing with an irate American would make their officer-in-charge unhappy, so they ignored us. After about forty minutes we started moving again.
When the train finally pulled into the big cement bulwark of the Pusan Train Station, it was already after eleven. Less than an hour until curfew.
We were both worn out, and at the moment I didn’t give a damn about Shipton or Whitcomb or the murder case-all I wanted to do was get my butt off that damn rattling platform. We slung our AWOL bags over our shoulders and plowed through the milling crowds to a long row of kimchi cabs outside. The drivers loitered in front of their cars, smoking, exchanging banter, hoping for one more good fare before the world closed up at curfew.
“Where to?” Ernie said.
It wasn’t as cold down here but still our breath billowed before us.
“Probably too late to get billeting at Hialeah Compound. Best we find a yoguan.”
Across the broad road that ran in front of the train station were rows of two- and three-story cement and brick buildings, some with blinking lights advertising warm floors and baths.
“Over there,” Ernie said. “Maybe they offer girls, too.”
“Maybe.”
Always thinking, that Ernie.
We trotted across the big road against the light and entered the maze of alleys between the buildings. Soju houses and soup joints were still doing a good business at this hour. Sandwiched between a teahouse and a dumpling shop was a doorway that led upstairs to the Hei-un Yoguan. Upstairs, an old woman sat on the floor in a little room watching a Korean comedy show on a TV that was turned up way too loud. She lowered it when she saw us.
I greeted her and asked about rooms, and she said she had two. After setting the price, we gave the money in advance and she gave us keys and pointed down the hallway.
Our rooms were small but comfortable enough. Each had a flat hard bed and a cylindrical bead-filled pillow and a bathtub with a nozzle on a long rubber hose for a shower.
Luxurious accommodations for a former field soldier.
Neither of us felt like going outside and elbowing amongst the natives for some chop, so we ordered Chinese food from the old woman. In about twenty minutes a boy brought a tin box filled with fried rice and sweet-and-sour pork and a plastic pot of barley tea.
After we ate, we shoved the plates and utensils out in the hallway. Despite Ernie’s protestations of wanting to find a girl, he didn’t do anything about it.
Shortly after midnight the city quieted down and I lay beneath my half-open window, moonlight streaming in, and pulled the covers over my head. A few minutes later, I passed out.
Something pounded on my door.
“George! Reveille! It’s oh-dark-thirty.”
Ernie’s voice. I looked around. He was right. It was still dark.
I climbed out of bed, unlatched the door, and let him in.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I want to get out of this roach coach, make it over to the compound, and find some real chow. You know-coffee, toast, all that shit. And read the Stripes.”
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
We had a lot of work ahead of us. No sense putting it off.
Ten minutes later we were outside. When we found a cab, I told him to take us to Hialeah Compound. The driver roared through broad, wide-open streets, not nearly as crowded as those in Seoul. The compound was farther inland than I thought. About five miles from the Port of Pusan.
The Japanese Imperial Army, for some reason, had been big on cavalry. The compound that is now Hialeah had been used by them to race horses. When the U.S. Army took it over, some wiseacre decided to call it Hialeah Compound, after the famous racetrack in the States. The name stuck.
A narrow road lined with shops and bars led straight into a dead end that was the front gate of Hialeah Compound. A big cement MP guard shack sat on the side, and barbed wire ran along the top of the closed chain-link fence. We got out, paid the driver, and marched into an open door marked “Pedestrian Entrance.”
A bored MP wearing a gleaming black helmet liner sat behind the counter. A stenciled sign behind him instructed us to show our identification and pass upon entering or leaving Hialeah Compound, by Order of the Commander.
Friendly place.
We showed him our ID’s and he gave us directions to the billeting office. Just outside the MP shack sat the NCO Club. Not open yet, but reassuring to know that it was there.
“Ice cubes and cold beer,” Ernie said. “Who could ask for more?”
The Korean clerk at the billeting office had us fill out a couple of forms, took copies of our temporary duty orders, and finally gave us the key to a section of a Quonset hut. He told us there were two bunks in there and we’d have to share. It didn’t bother us. We didn’t plan to spend much time there anyway.
After dropping off our bags in the room, we forgot about breakfast and went straight to the PX.
It was a good-sized building, which made sense because although the population of the compound was small-only about two thousand-there was still a big demand for the PX products off base, so everybody bought their full ration every month.
The front door was locked. We walked around back and found a door open at the loading dock. After wandering around for a while we found an administrative office and a Korean secretary sitting at a desk in front of a door marked “Manager.”
The manager was a small American man, a slight paunch under his business suit, and prematurely balding on top. He nodded enthusiastically when we told him why we were there. No, he said, the courier hadn’t picked up the ration control data cards from last night.