through a small mountain of coal, raising black dust as they did so.
“This is it,” Ernie said.
After rummaging around for less than a minute, both men returned, a coil of copper wire held in each hand.
Copper wire. Not manufactured in Korea. Imported at a big premium. But here it was, on an American army compound. Easy to sell at a good profit margin. Prime pickings for an experienced thief.
My guess was that someone inside the warehouse had slipped the four coils of wire out the back door during working hours yesterday. Not being able to transport the coils off-post through the heavily guarded gate, the crook had stashed his loot beneath the pile of coal.
The trash collectors, armed with this information, had been sent back to collect more than just trash.
Maybe the slicky boys did this every day. Four coils of wire at thirty or forty dollars each-every day-could soon produce a tidy sum.
The two men back at the truck had turned the empty metal drums back to the upright position.
“What the hell are those?” Ernie asked.
On the ground, where the empty drums had been, lay four metal discs.
The four coils of copper wire were dropped, one each, into the four empty metal drums. Then the four metal discs were tossed in after them.
“False bottoms,” I said. “The copper’s hidden beneath perfectly fitted sheets of metal.”
One by one, the workmen dragged the empty drums over next to the full ones. They lifted the full ones and dumped the contents into the drums containing the false bottoms and the copper wire.
“Ingenious,” Ernie said.
“Also a hell of a lot of work.”
He shrugged. “Hard work, they’re used to.”
Once the four drums with the copper coils and the false bottoms and the trash were loaded onto the bed of the truck, the workmen climbed back aboard and one of them- the smallest-hoisted himself into the cab, started the engine, and drove off.
Ernie looked at me. “We follow?”
“No. They’ve got nowhere else to go. We wait for them at the main gate.”
“Right.”
The trash truck must’ve had other stops because it took about twenty minutes for it to reach the main gate. The back of the truck was fully loaded now with overflowing drums of garbage. How many of them contained false bottoms and copper wire, I couldn’t be sure.
We had parked the jeep in the parking lot of the Battalion Headquarters, engine running, pointed toward the gate.
Ernie said, “Now we see if any of the MP’s are in on it with them.”
We waited. The trash truck rolled up to the gate and stopped. A bored-looking MP emerged from the guard shack and, carrying a long wooden pole, pulled himself up onto the bed of the truck. The Korean workers shuffled out of his way as he methodically ran the pole down through the trash to the bottom of every drum.
After he’d checked them all, the MP hopped off the truck and waved them forward. A Korean guard started to roll back the big chain-link gate.
“Now!” I told Ernie.
He gunned the engine, shoved it into gear, and we shot forward. As he did so, I opened the canvas door of the jeep, stood up, held on to the metal roll bar with one hand, clutching my badge aloft with the other, and shouted at the MP at the gate.
“CID! Don’t let that truck pass!”
The gate was almost completely open now. Ernie had taken off so fast that the wheels missed their traction on the slick road and the jeep’s back end swerved a little. I held on. Ernie regained control in a matter of seconds.
The driver of the truck swiveled around to see what was causing all the commotion.
The MP stepped back from the guard shack, turned, and shouted at the Korean gate guard to close the damn gate.
The truck’s diesel engine roared. The big vehicle lurched forward and started to roll through the open gate.
The Korean gate guard stood motionless, not trying to close the gate, pretending he was confused. The tail of the trash truck cleared the gate and sped out onto the main road that runs in front of the compound.
Suddenly, the Korean guard came alive and leaned into it, shoving the gate closed.
Ernie shouted, “Son of a bitch!” and stepped on the gas.
The gate was closing, we were heading straight toward the narrowing gap, and I was standing outside the jeep, the door open, about to have my head smashed against the MP guard shack. I ducked back inside the jeep.
As I did so, Ernie hit the gate, something smashed into our left side, and we bounced against the wall of the MP guard shack but kept moving forward, squeezing through the rolling gate that clanged shut behind us.
“Which way’d they go?” Ernie screamed.
“Right.”
He took the corner sliding, forcing oncoming traffic to slam on their brakes. The trash truck was up ahead, only a few yards from us. Ernie shifted and gunned the engine like a maniac, and within a few seconds we were gaining on them.
“Take it easy, Ernie!” I shouted. “They’re outside the compound now. No longer in our jurisdiction.”
“Fuck our jurisdiction!”
Ernie was just about to swerve to the side of the trash truck and try to force them over, when their red brakelights flashed and they careened left in front of oncoming traffic.
Tires skidded. Horns honked. I screamed.
Ernie didn’t slow down. He followed the truck across a short bridge that led into the little village of Pupyong- ni.
The big truck took up the whole road. The traffic here was composed strictly of pedestrians and people on bicycles. They leapt out of the way of the barreling trash truck, screaming and cursing in several languages.
“The son of a bitch is going to wipe out the whole village!” Ernie shouted. But he stayed right on his ass.
Unlit neon and shuttered barrooms flashed past us. Suddenly the road widened. We were heading into rice paddies. But rather than continue toward the open countryside, the driver of the trash truck swerved back toward the cement block walls of a residential district.
Ernie wasn’t fooled; he stayed right with him, and now, with the road wider, he made his move, gunning the engine, speeding forward, racing alongside the trash truck.
He started to edge toward the nose of the truck, veering to the right to pull him over, when I saw it.
“Stop!” I shouted.
Ahead was a “honey truck.” Workmen stood around it, their faces covered with gauze masks, and a thick rubber hose draped over a brick wall, sucking the filth out of a septic tank.
Ernie slammed on his brakes. The driver of the trash truck wasn’t so fast. He sped forward, slammed into the rear end of the honey truck, spun it around, and the rubber hose busted loose. Liquid waste sprayed the air in an exploding brown swirl.
Ernie cut to his right but not fast enough. A stream of shit splattered against our windshield.
“Fuck!”
Ernie switched on the windshield wipers, leaned forward so he could peek through the waste, and kept moving forward.
The stench groped its way into my throat and tried to rip out my stomach.
The trash truck was still floundering in the mud, grinding its way past the smashed rear of the honey truck. When we pulled up alongside, Ernie cut the jeep in front of the truck, bumping it until the trash truck was wedged against a cement-block wall. We shuddered to a halt.
I leapt out of the jeep, holding up my badge.
