granite. The tunnel ran about a hundred yards, then emerged onto a shelf overlooking a plateau. We turned and turned again, finally crossing a ridge and looking down upon a valley with a mountain stream. On the far edge of the stream, across a short wooden bridge, was a gate covered by an arch that said Mount Halla Training Facility, and in smaller letters, United States Army Special Forces, Cheju Contingent. The buildings were Quonset huts painted puke green, the roads between them covered with neatly raked gravel, broad enough for a squad of soldiers to march through. Closer to us sat a village of about thirty buildings. The ones on the edge were farmhouses covered with thatched straw. Closer in to the main road that ran across the bridge were a few two-story buildings.
“A G.I. village,” Ernie said. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”
A sign said Nokko-ri. Nokko village. The cab driver drove through the narrow roads and took us to the one yoguan in town. He waited patiently as I counted out his fare. Faces peeped out of windows, slender fingers parted beaded curtains. Ernie climbed out of the cab, stretched, and gazed around, tucking his shirt in his pants, chomping on ginseng gum.
We were something new to the people of Nokko-ri; G.I. s arriving on their own, in a fancy city taxicab, not in a military formation.
Ernie studied the unlit neon signs of two bars: the Sea Dragon Nightclub and the Volcano Bar.
“I think I’m going to like it here,” he said.
The owner of the Nokko-ri Yoguan was delighted to see Ernie and me and told me, in Korean, that she could order food in, or even a hostess if we wanted one. I thanked her but told her we didn’t need any of that right now. What we did do was rent a room, dump our overnight bags, and head back out toward the main gate of the Mount Halla Training Facility.
There were no MPs at the front gate, only surly Korean contract security guards. As soon as they saw our CID badges, they picked up the phone and called their superiors.
Ernie and I waited. After twenty minutes, Ernie was becoming increasingly antsy. “Who do these guys think they are,” he asked, “keeping us waiting like this?”
“Look at this place,” I told him. The facility was like the Special Forces’ own little fiefdom. Instead of a moat, a wooden bridge across a narrow stream. Instead of stone walls, chain-link fences. Instead of a castle, Quonset huts. “Way out here, whoever the commander is probably isn’t used to interference. When some honcho comes down to visit or an Eighth Army inspection team shows up, that Colonel Laurel gets plenty of warning. They’re not used to two CID agents dropping in unannounced.”
“Well, they better open the gate pretty soon,” Ernie replied, “or I’ll kick the damn thing in.”
After another five minutes of waiting, Ernie made good on his pledge. He kicked the wooden pedestrian gate.
15
An American staff sergeant in tailored green fatigues stood before us, his fists pressed against his hips, a pistol belt wrapped around his narrow waist. His jump boots gleamed with black polish, and a floppy green beret sat snugly atop his head. He was a muscular man, built low to the ground, making it seem impossible for anyone-or anything-to knock him over. He grinned at us.
“Welcome,” he said, “to the greatest training facility in the world.”
His name tag said Warnocki. I showed him my badge and told him why we were here, explained that we wanted access to the unit morning reports, the daily count of personnel strength.
“You suspect one of us?” he asked, jamming a thick thumb into the center of his chest. “You think a Green Beret could be the Blue Train rapist?”
“We suspect everybody,” Ernie said, “until they’re cleared.”
Warnocki’s grin grew even broader. “Man, I’m going to enjoy seeing you explain that to Colonel Laurel.”
“How about the morning reports?” I asked.
“No way is this staff sergeant going to give you access to Official Use Only information.”
“We have an open writ,” I told him, “backed up by the Provost Marshal of the Eighth United States Army.”
“Well, la-dee-da.”
“You could come up on charges, Warnocki, for obstructing an official investigation.”
He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “You’ll have to talk to Colonel Laurel about all that. If he tells me to die, I die. If he tells me to show you the morning report, I show you the morning report.”
“Okay, then,” Ernie said. “If that’s the way you want it. Let’s talk to him.”
“You know how to swim?” When neither Ernie nor I answered, Warnocki continued, “That’s where he is right now. Swimming. Or, more exactly, diving. With the haenyo.”
Ernie and I glanced at each other.
“That’s right,” Warnocki said. “Between training cycles, that’s how he relaxes.”
“Fine,” I said. “Take us to him.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Warnocki shrugged again. “Okay,” he said. “Your funeral. Follow me.”
We followed him out of the guard shack and onto the main compound, across the broad expanse of gravel where three poles stood bearing the flags of the United States, the Republic of Korea, and the United Nations. Beyond that were half a dozen Quonset huts.
“No cycle in right now,” Warnocki said. “An artillery unit from the Second Division is supposed to be flying in tomorrow. We have a week to take them through rappelling, mountaineering, commando intercept, interrogation resistance, and patrol tactics, and, if we have time, a little waterborne survival training.”
“That’s where the diving comes in?”
“Colonel Laurel’s an expert at it.” Warnocki grinned again. “Without equipment.”
“Where’s the rest of the cadre?” I asked.
“In the motor pool,” Warnocki replied. “Pulling maintenance on our vehicles.”
“Don’t you have Koreans to do that?”
“Yeah. But somebody has to supervise.”
“How many other Special Forces personnel do you have here?”
Warnocki grinned again. “You’ll have to talk to Colonel Laurel about that.”
Three jeeps sat at the edge of the motor pool, along with an army puke-green bus and a two-and-a-half-ton truck. No other American personnel-or Koreans, for that matter-were visible.
Warnocki hopped into the nearest jeep and said, “All aboard.”
I sat in the passenger seat, Ernie in back. Warnocki started the engine and spun around in a U-turn, and soon we were heading out the back gate of the Mount Halla Training Facility; a listless Korean security guard pushed it open for us, and then we were barreling downhill on dirt roads, too fast for comfort.
Unconcerned, Ernie gazed at the craggy peaks in the distance and the ocean glimmering blue in glimpses below. I turned in my seat and looked back. Above the training facility, a communications tower teetered on the edge of a precipice; beyond that, wisps of smoke rose steadily out of the caldera of the volcano known as Mount Halla. I breathed deeply of the fresh sea air, thinking of the mystery man who’d brought an ancient fragment from so far away, thinking of the woman who’d been murdered, thinking of her crying children. Thinking of what the Blue Train rapist had next on his checklist.
Before we’d left Hialeah Compound, Marnie Orville had complained because Ernie wouldn’t be seeing her that evening.
“But you’re the one who got Ernie in trouble,” I told her. “You didn’t tell the truth about what happened between him and Freddy Ray Embry in Taegu. You said Ernie started it.”
“But that wasn’t my fault,” she whined. “I had to protect Freddy Ray.”
“Protect him?”
“If he gets kicked out of the Army,” she continued, “how is he going to pay his child support?”
“Marnie,” I said, staring directly into her pale blue eyes, “when we first met you, you said that Freddy Ray
