Off to the left, the newly built skyscrapers of Seoul blinked at us with a smattering of lights in windows. Straight ahead, across a five- or six-mile-wide valley, Namsan Mountain rose dark and imposing to the brightly lit signal tower atop. To the right, strings of light were strung like sparkling necklaces across the Han River Bridge.
“How much did Rick Mills have to pay for this view?” Ernie asked.
“Peanuts, according to Strange, when he first bought it.”
“Smart guy. Back in those days, most GIs just wanted to get the hell out of Korea and make it back to Japan. Or better yet, the States.”
“Rick Mills saw what Korea would become.”
“It’s still poor.”
“Yeah, and for a lot of people, it’s still hell.”
We studied the mansion. It was dark and silent except for a light in the northern wing.
“That’s where he must be,” Ernie said. “Do you think he has servants?”
“He has to, to run a house this big.”
“But does he let them go home at night or do they live in?”
“I think we’re going to have to assume that with a house this big, at least some of them live in.”
“But I don’t see any other lights.”
I searched. “Neither do I.”
“So how we going to get in?”
“There doesn’t appear to be an alarm system.” They were rare in Korea and often didn’t work. Even when they did work, they only sounded a local alarm and weren’t hooked up to the KNP station.
“Or dogs,” I said. Guard dogs were not popular in Korea. Not only was there limited space in most homes, but most people didn’t want to go to the expense of feeding and caring for an extra mouth.
“And no foot patrols,” Ernie said. That’s how most wealthy people in Korea guarded their riches, with old-fashioned manpower. It was Korean custom that if someone was home and not sleeping, thieves would usually leave them alone. Crimes against property, if someone was poor and desperate, were understandable, if not completely tolerated. But physically overpowering a homeowner was considered a horrendous crime, a crime against society, and would more often than not land a perpetrator in prison for many years.
“So Rick Mills lives alone,” I said, “and probably figures he can protect his home by himself.”
“He probably can,” Ernie said. “He was an NCO, remember, during the war.”
“Okay,” I said. “We wait until the lights go out, then we come back here and climb the wall.”
“Using what?”
“We’ll find something.”
We left our perch, walked past the shrine again, and returned to the jeep. Two hours later we were back, parking the jeep in the same place, passing the shrine again, and taking our perches on the brick wall.
“Lights out,” Ernie said.
“Early to bed, early to rise.”
We jumped off the wall and made our way along a drainage ditch until we reached the granite back wall of Rick Mills’s mansion. I handed a grappling hook to Ernie.
“How do you use this stuff?”
“The hook’s padded,” I told him. “Makes less noise that way. Toss it up to the top of the wall. When we have purchase, we pull ourselves up.”
“Christ,” Ernie said, but he didn’t argue. “Where’d you get this stuff?”
“Palinki.”
“He keeps it in the armory?”
“Along with a lot of other equipment. Like these.” I held up a ring of picks and oddly shaped keys.
“Oh, great.”
Ernie stepped back and tossed the grappling hook toward the top of the wall. His first toss was too short, but the second reached the top and slid toward the far side. When it didn’t find purchase, the hook slid back down the slanted wall. We tried again and again. Finally, on the sixth try, the hook caught. Ernie pulled, testing his weight against it.
“Must be a pipe or something. I think it’ll hold.”
He climbed up first, not having to put all his weight on the rope because the toes of his sneakers clung to the craggy breaks in the slanted wall. For a moment he halted and I thought he was going to tumble backward, but he regained his balance, leaned forward, and continued to climb. Finally he reached the top, lay down flat, and, after checking the purchase of the grappling hook, flashed me the thumbs-up. Reassured by Ernie’s success, I climbed more rapidly and joined him atop the wall in a matter of seconds.
I pulled the rope up and recoiled it on the flat stone. As I did so, we both gazed into the darkness below. The drop was about eight feet. Beyond that rose the back wall of the mansion, with a narrow walkway between. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I realized that the sheds nearby were probably byonso, outhouses. Ernie realized it too.
“He doesn’t have indoor plumbing?” he whispered.
“We’ll find out.”
We hopped down, landing on a flagstone surface, and after waiting and not hearing anything, we walked toward the old wooden sheds. Ernie sniffed. No hideous odor. When we reached the first one, I opened the door and peeked inside. The floor had been covered with lumber, and cleaning and gardening supplies leaned against splintered walls. This byonso wasn’t used any longer, which meant indoor plumbing had been installed. Since the end of the Korean War, it was becoming more prevalent. Especially in the homes of the rich.
We proceeded to the end of the wall, ducked down, and peered ahead. A wooden porch led up to a door. Above it, a metal pipe jutted out, twisting immediately skyward.
“The kitchen,” Ernie said.
It made sense. Across a short walkway sat a brick building with a closed wooden door, probably the pantry.
We approached the back porch. I climbed up and peered in through the window. Nothing but darkness. I knelt and pulled out the burglary tools Palinki had given me. While I worked, Ernie stepped to the front of the building and peered around the corner. When he gave me the all-clear sign, I pulled my penlight from my pocket and went to work. Palinki’s instruction had been thorough, but he was more experienced than I was, manipulating the delicate tools in his huge fingers like a maestro caressing the frets of a Stradivarius. I was clumsy. After ten minutes, Ernie became impatient, but just as he wandered onto the first wooden step of the porch, the back door lock clicked open. I turned the handle and shoved it slowly forward. Nothing moved. Quickly, Ernie and I stepped into darkness.
We were right. It was the kitchen. I shone the penlight on a floor covered in tile. There were two stainless-steel refrigerators, one bench-like freezer, and an industrial-sized stove with a scaffolding of gleaming copper. All the equipment was professional grade with brand names that seemed to be Swedish or Germanic. Ernie and I gazed at the huge kitchen in awe; it must’ve cost him a fortune to import all these things, because they clearly weren’t manufactured in Korea and I doubted that the PX bothered to import them. There’d be no demand, not a legitimate one anyway.
Beyond the kitchen was a serving counter, and beyond that, double doors that led into a carpeted dining room. The table was made of gleaming mahogany and it was long enough to seat at least twenty. The walls were lined with artwork that didn’t look like anything in particular other than splashes of bright color. We were probably coming close to the front entranceway and therefore the main living room, or whatever the room would be called in a big house like this. We were impatient to find the dungeon, or at least the basement, where young women would be held against their will. That’s how I imagined it. At the closed entrance door to the dining room, Ernie and I paused, listening. Still no sound. We’d been quiet, but I hoped Mills was a sound sleeper. I pushed through the door.
A light flashed in my eyes.
A voice shouted, “Freeze, motherfugger!”
I froze. And then I was staring into the unforgiving end of a double-barreled shotgun.