A night watchman approached us. When he came closer, I could see in the glow of one of the red bulbs that he was Korean. I could also see that an M1 rifle was slung over his right arm. I greeted him and asked, “Where are the Eighth Army warehouses?”
We could’ve flashed our CID badges and probably been all right, but we didn’t even need to do that. American officers had become so much a part of the daily working life of Koreans over the years that most of them never questioned our motives. He pointed toward the end of the row. I thanked him and nodded slightly, and he returned my nod and continued his rounds. Between the warehouses and the wharf was a long expanse of about twenty yards of blacktop. Canvas-covered pallets were laid out like square checkers on a board. Ernie started pulling up the canvas and checking the writing on the boxes underneath. Finally, he stopped and called me over.
“Look,” he said.
I shone my flashlight on the cardboard boxes beneath the canvas.
“Falstaff,” I said.
“Our favorite,” Ernie replied. “Need we go further?”
“Yes,” I said. We went down a row of pallets, lifting canvas, seeing all kinds of imported American beer: Pabst Blue Ribbon, Schlitz, Miller High Life. What we weren’t seeing was Colt 45.
I switched off the light and studied the warehouses around us. “Anything?” I asked.
Except for the dim red bulbs, all was darkness. Behind us, the smell of the sea crept across the blacktop, picking up the scent of burnt diesel before seeping into our nostrils. Nothing moved. We listened.
“Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“It sounded like a moan.”
“Where?”
“Over there. That fenced area.”
A smaller building, like an administration annex for the warehouses, was separated off by itself. Surrounding it was a four-foot-high cement-block wall topped by chain-link and, above that, rusted concertina wire. Staying as far from the glow of the dim light as possible, we approached the fence.
Then we heard it again, a faint moan, almost like the sighing of the wind.
When we reached the fence, we glanced at one another, coming to an immediate unspoken agreement. Ernie crouched, cupped his laced fingers in front of me, and I stepped my right foot up into his hands. I grabbed the top of the fence and pulled as he hoisted me over. I slid over as quietly as I could and, once on the other side, slid as unobtrusively as I could along the edge of the fence and unlatched the small gate. Ernie slipped through, closing the gate behind him.
A small courtyard was lined with what appeared to be rusted moving equipment. The front door of the small building was made of heavy wood. We slipped quietly through the darkness.
And then we heard a scream.
– 14-
Ernie kicked the wooden door in.
At first we couldn’t see anything in the darkness but I pulled out my flashlight and pointed it toward a stairway that disappeared into the darkness. We clambered down the narrow passageway. At the bottom, another door was shut tight. We twisted the handle and shoved but it wouldn’t open. Ernie stepped backed and kicked.
“Ow!”
It rattled some but didn’t open. I shoved him out of the way, braced myself against the opposite wall, and raised my foot and lunged forward with the same movement. The door slammed open.
Moonlight streamed in through a window above us.
I waved the flashlight back and forth. We were in a basement, the walls lined with stacks of cardboard boxes that almost reached the ceiling. Some were rectangular with jazz city ale logos printed on them and others labeled colt 45. Nearby were yet more square boxes with the logos of various American-made brandies. Ernie stepped off to my right, still searching the dark, his hand on the hilt of the .45 inside his jacket. So far, nothing moved. Ahead of us sat a rumpled bed with ropes that had been cut. Beyond was a short flight of steps leading to an open window.
I jabbed my finger toward the dim light. Ernie nodded and moved forward. But before he did, a stack of boxes near the steps started to tilt, and that was when I realized that all the crates of liquor and cases of beer were stacked like gigantic dominoes. The top box fell and crashed toward the floor.
“Watch out!” I shouted.
Ernie leapt back out of the way, but a large figure darted across the top of the stairwell and the stack on the opposite side of the steps began to topple too. Suddenly, tons of cased beer and brandy and malt liquor were crashing down upon us. I leapt for the center of the floor. A small desk sat off to the left; I grabbed the closest leg and jerked it toward me. As one case fell onto my leg, I coiled up beneath the desk, and within seconds Ernie was crouching there next to me. Inkstones and coils of paper and writing brushes rolled on the floor beneath us.
What seemed like huge pyramidal stones thundered down around us. The little desk was hit hard more than once but held up admirably. Within seconds, the last case of beer had tumbled onto the floor, and Ernie and I pushed the desk away and stood up.
Amidst the dim light of the red bulbs outside, shadows moved through the window above us. I tried to climb toward it, but there was too much of a jumble beneath me and every time I hoisted my weight forward, more crates fell down around me. By the time I reached the stairwell, whoever had climbed out the window was gone.
Ernie returned to the doorway but it was blocked with crates of liquor. He started to shove some of them out of the way but stopped when he realized it would take an hour or more to clear a pathway. Meanwhile, climbing over the cardboard jumble, I had made some headway toward the window. Ernie followed. Outside, a heavy truck engine-maybe a quarter-ton-started up and roared away.
By the time I’d clawed my way over half a dozen crates, I shoved the window fully open and peered outside.
Nothing moved.
“Son of a bastard,” Ernie said.
With some effort, we were able to climb out the window. A back door in the fence that circled the small annex building was wide open. We passed through into the open space between the warehouses and ran back to our jeep. When I asked the gate guard, he said someone had left-“Migun,” he said, American soldier-but he didn’t know who. And no, he hadn’t jotted down the truck’s unit designation because that wasn’t part of his job. He did confirm, however, that it was a quarter-ton truck, US Army-issue. A GI was driving, but he hadn’t seen anyone else in the cab.
“Then who screamed?” Ernie said.
We returned to the annex building for one last quick search. No one there. No trap doors, no secret closets, no dungeons beneath the floor.
“He took her with him,” I said.
“Crouched down in front of the passenger seat,” Ernie said.
“Easy,” I said. “The gate guards wouldn’t have seen her because they weren’t looking.”
All they wanted was to get through their shift and draw their pay. Whatever the crazy Americans did was up to them.
When we drove off from the 71st Transportation Company warehouse area, the gate guard was glad to see us go.
“Demoray aced us on that one,” Ernie said.
We were already back on the main highway between Inchon and Seoul, exceeding the posted speed limit by at least fifteen kilometers per hour.
“How can you be sure it was Demoray?” I asked.
“Who else? The girl screaming, the writing desk with the ink and brushes, a Chinese wall of Colt 45. The Ville Rat sent us down there, but Demoray was probably tipped off by that damn gate guard. And he had his little escape plan set up for just such an eventuality.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Yeah. So we’re headed back to Seoul because I don’t know where else to go. Got any ideas?”