“We run a tight little compound here and we don’t need this shit.”
“I don’t care what you need or don’t need,” Ernie told him.
I stepped into the guard shack and pulled a handle that released the crossing bar. Ernie swiveled away from Campione, jumped back in the jeep, shifted it into gear, and rolled across the threshold. I jogged to the side of the jeep and jumped in. As we drove onto the compound, Campione glared at us for a moment, then hurried back into the guard shack, lifted the phone, and started dialing.
“He’s calling reinforcements,” I said.
“Screw them,” Ernie said, still fuming. “A bunch of freaking supply clerks trying to tell us where we can and can’t go.”
Trees lined the road, fronting well-tended lawns. Behind them were yellow bulbs illuminating signs that labeled the stone and brick buildings: logistics planning; 34th supply and maintenance battalion; shipping and import control; highway and bridge construction. The compound was a square about a half-mile on each side; we cruised around in the jeep, not quite sure what we were looking for.
“Cushy assignment,” Ernie said. “Looks like a college campus.”
We rolled past a well-lit sign that said: far east district compound club, all ranks welcome. They weren’t big enough to have their own officers’ club, and besides, to the best of my knowledge, the handful of officers assigned to the Far East District Compound were quartered five miles away on Yongsan South Post and commuted here every day. They would mostly use the 8th Army officers’ club. There was only one barracks on the Far East Compound, a two-story cement-block building housing about three dozen enlisted men. What must’ve been half of them stood on the broad cement steps in front of the club, searching the night, staring in our direction. One of them pointed.
“Looks like Campione alerted his buddies.”
“Yeah, and they don’t like strangers,” I said.
Ernie snorted.
We continued to cruise through the compound, searching for a warehouse with a back entrance that might match what the little kisaeng had described. The place where a late-night poker game had been held; where several young girls had been trucked in against their will and one-a talented calligraphist who called herself Miss Hwang, her real name perhaps lost indefinitely once her corpse turned up on the banks of the Sonyu River some twenty-five miles north of here-had been purchased by an American.
“How about that?” Ernie said, pointing.
The sign out front read: central locker fund, far east compound annex.
We drove around back. There was indeed a back entrance. Ernie parked the jeep.
“How are we going to get in?” I asked.
Ernie reached in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys.
“Where’d you get those?”
“From Strange. They’re the extra set of keys kept by the Eighth Army staff duty officer.”
I shone my flashlight at the thick steel ring. A metal tag was imprinted with the words far east district compound. It was a large ring holding about three dozen keys of various shape and age. Some had cryptic numbers and letters scratched on or written in permanent marker, and others had paper tags Scotch-taped to them. I shone the flashlight steady on the lock on the back door while Ernie knelt and methodically tried each key. About halfway through the ring, the door popped open. Ernie turned the handle and shoved it forward as the heavy door creaked open.
“Class Six Heaven,” Ernie said and shone his flashlight into the darkness.
Before I closed the door behind us, I peered outside at the small asphalt parking area. No movement. Beyond the walls of the compound, traffic purred, lights in tall buildings blinked on and off, and the pulsing life of the massive city of Seoul beat with the steady rhythm of a prehistoric beast; a beast ready to reach down and chomp us with its yellow fangs.
I closed the door.
“Over here,” Ernie shouted.
We strolled past pyramids of cardboard cases of beer and soda, then long rows of all types of liquor-gin, vodka, scotch, bourbon, rum-arrayed neatly on ten-foot-high metal racks. After a short section of brandy and liqueur was the wine, and behind everything was an accounting office near the huge roll-up metal door that opened onto the loading dock.
I followed the sound of Ernie’s voice, off to the side past the latrine and a supply cabinet for mops, brooms, and cleaning supplies. Finally I found him by a cement door with another padlock on it.
“Air-raid shelter,” Ernie said. “You grab a case of booze, run downstairs with some dolly, and wait for the shooting to stop.”
“Great way to survive World War Three.”
It was a weak joke, but with some truth to it. Many observers thought that the Korean peninsula was a prime candidate for the starting point for World War III. After all, Korea was a country bitterly divided between the Communist north and the capitalist south, and was surrounded by three great powers: Red China, the Soviet Union, and Japan. And the most powerful country in the world, the United States, was heavily committed to the defense of South Korea, not only stationing 50,000 US troops here, but also sending squadrons of Air Force bombers on patrol out of Okinawa and Guam and keeping the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet in Japan and in the waters nearby. Meanwhile, of course, we had plenty of booze and party girls-to soothe our worried brows.
Once again, I aimed my flashlight while Ernie knelt and studied the lock. He touched it, heard something rattle, and then gently pulled the hasp away from the wall.
“It’s phony,” he said. “Just here for show.”
He grabbed the metal handle of the door and tugged. It didn’t move. “Stuck,” he said. He braced himself and pulled with two hands. The heavy door slowly slid open, swinging in a ponderous arc, cement scraping on cement. Ernie reached inside and fumbled along the wall until he found a switch. Below, down a short flight of steps, a weak yellow bulb switched on, glowing inside a metal mesh cage.
“Prop the door open with something,” Ernie said.
I stepped toward the nearest rack, hoisted a case of triple sec from its shelf and set it on the floor up against the open door.
Clutching his flashlight, Ernie led the way.
The stairway turned back on itself. Down one more flight, Ernie found another light switch. This time, an overhead fluorescent bulb sputtered and blinked to life, exposing a large room. It was square, about ten yards on each side, and empty for the most part. Tile flooring had been swept clean. Cement walls, no windows, but what appeared to be ventilation fans overhead. On the far wall was a large steel sink, like those found in restaurant kitchens, and two faucets, one of them dripping patiently as if waiting for us.
In the unlit corners, Ernie’s flashlight found large slabs of varnished lumber leaning against the wall.
“What the hell is this?”
“Dividers,” I said. “Hinged. You can separate the room with these. Maybe make a kitchen area over here, a serving area over there.”
“No chairs,” Ernie said.
But he was wrong about that. In a far corner, covered by a sheet, was a stack of straight-backed banquet chairs. I pulled the sheet off.
“Okay,” Ernie said. “Plenty of beer and booze. Chairs. A place to make snacks in. What about a table?”
That’s what was missing: a poker table. But why would anyone move one, unless they were trying to cover their tracks?
We searched. No table. But in a corner near a trash can, Ernie found shards of splintered wood. He picked up one of the pieces. Hanging from its edge, apparently glued, were a few strands of something green. Ernie fondled the material. “Felt,” he said.
“Then there’s more,” I said.
“Outside?”
We hurried upstairs, turning off the lights and closing the doors behind us. On the far side of the asphalt lot, a row of metal drums sat atop a long wooden pallet; standard trash disposal at 8th Army. Every few days, a truck full of Korean workmen came by, hoisted the cans up and dumped the trash into the back of the truck. Primitive, but at least it provided jobs.