moment he bowed his head to fists still clenched on top of the steering wheel.
“Yogi kidariyo?” I said to him. You’ll wait here?
He nodded. As we’d agreed, he’d receive the bulk of his money once we were returned safely to the Nokko-ri Yoguan.
The small communications compound was surrounded by a high chain-link fence topped with concertina wire. It was all rusted out as if it hadn’t been replaced in years. A sign hung near the single gate in the fence: Chulip Kumji. And below that: Authorized Personnel Only.
Ernie strode up to the gate, studied it for a moment, and then pressed a buzzer. There was a rusty speaker next to the buzzer, but we heard no response. He pushed the buzzer again, and then again.
Finally a voice erupted from the speaker. “Yeah?”
“Who’s this?” Ernie asked.
“Vance.”
The voice sounded sleepy, as if we’d just woken him up.
“What’s your rank, Vance?” Ernie asked.
“Spec Four.”
He was waking up now and becoming a little nervous.
“My name is Agent Bascom. I’m from the Eighth Army CID in Seoul. My partner here is Agent Sueno. We want you to open the gate so we can talk to you.”
“CID?”
A slight sense of panic now.
“Yes. But we’re not here about the black market. We just need some information.”
“I’m not allowed to open the gate when I’m alone.”
“Alone? How many people are stationed up here?”
“Supposed to be three. A lieutenant, an NCO, and me, a technician. But we haven’t had a lieutenant since I been here.”
“How long is that?”
“Six months.”
“And where’s the sergeant?”
“Parkwood?”
“Yeah. Parkwood.”
“He’s on a supply run.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
There was a hesitation. “Sometimes he stops in the ville.”
Ernie slipped his badge out of the inner pocket of his coat and held it over his head. “Specialist Vance, from where you’re at, can you see my badge?”
There was a pause. “Yeah.”
“I’m going to ask my partner to show his badge too.”
I held mine over my head.
“Do you see them both?” Ernie asked.
“Yeah.”
“Open the gate, Vance.”
“But I was told… ”
“What you were told doesn’t matter,” Ernie said. “We have a warrant, we’ve traveled all the way from Seoul, and it’s important.”
There was a long pause. Finally, the gate buzzed. Ernie pushed it open.
The place was a dump. What you’d expect from two lonely bachelors living alone. There was a small reception area and then a large air-conditioned room filled with metal units as big as refrigerators, covered with buzzing lights and wires. A number of work consoles blinked at us and beeped. Beyond were a storage room piled high with crates of army C rations and a kitchen jammed with dirty dishes. In the largest room, piles of dirty laundry were draped atop army-issue bunks, unshined shoes, and combat boots. One cowboy boot poked its toe out from beneath green blankets spread in sweat-matted disarray.
“No houseboy up here?” Ernie said.
“I wish,” Vance replied.
Specialist Vance was a smallish man, with a slouch to his shoulders and a hangdog expression enhanced by- or maybe caused by-drooping jowls. His skin was clear and his dark brown hair had not a hint of gray, but somehow he carried himself with the aura of a person who, at a very young age, had already been defeated by the world.
“Get down to the ville much?” Ernie asked.
“Only when we have a reason to drive the truck down there. Parkwood usually goes.”
“He’s the ranking man.”
Vance nodded. “There’s supposed to be at least two of us here at all times, but without a lieutenant that’s impossible. So sometimes, like now, it’s down to just me.”
A bell on one of the consoles started to ring.
“Excuse me,” Vance said.
He sat down at a keyboard and tapped on a few buttons until a printer came to life and started rat-tat-tatting on a sheet of paper. As it rolled off the printer, I read it. Military acronyms. Routine stuff, about deadlines for supply reorders.
“This isn’t for you,” I said.
For the first time, Vance looked up at me. “Naw. We get a lot of stuff that’s on general distribution to all units in Eighth Army. We send it down to the training facility anyway in case they have a need to know. Some of the traffic, on those machines over there, is strictly for relay. You know, microwave stuff that we pass on to the next commo site north of Pusan.”
“Horang-ni?”
“Yeah. Horang-ni. How’d you know?”
I shrugged. “And they relay it on up to the line to Seoul?”
“Right.”
Ernie strolled around the work area, staring at somebody’s short-timer calendar. A naked lady was half covered with red ink. He turned away from the calendar and as he did so his shoulder brushed against a half-dozen clipboards hanging on a nail. Four of them clattered to the ground. Onionskin papers scattered across the tiled floor, and Ernie stooped to pick them up.
“What are these?” he asked.
Specialist Vance helped him pick up the reports, reorganized them, and put the clipboards back on their nail, one by one. “IG results,” he said.
“The Eighth Army Inspector General stopped here?”
“Naw. Just the Long Lines Battalion IG.”
Ernie gazed around the cluttered work area. “Whoever he was, he must’ve ripped you guys two new ones.”
“Yeah,” Vance said. “It’s been a mess with no lieutenant and me doing most of the work. You know, all the routine stuff like maintenance reports, microwave alignments, checking telecom circuits. I do most of it.”
“But not enough,” Ernie said.
“No, we flunked the IG. They’re even threatening to bar Parkwood from reenlistment.”
Ernie peeked inside a couple of filing cabinets. “Don’t you have any booze around here?”
“Naw. We used to. But neither Parkwood nor I drink.”
“But there used to be someone who drank?”
“An old sergeant, before Parkwood arrived. That’s all he did.”
“My kind of guy,” Ernie said.
“So you relay traffic down to the training facility,” I said.
