“And this security guard is supposed to make sure that he’s looking the other way?”
“Right. They pay him later. But lately he figures he’s been getting stiffed.”
“Why?”
“Because the shit they’re bringing out is high-grade American primo pharmaceuticals. Products from all the big companies. Antibiotics that they don’t even make in Korea because the diseases just recently arrived. Germs carried in on jet planes by tourists with hard-ons and too much money to spend. People need the medicine in the ville. But after customs duties are paid, it’s just too expensive. And most of the time it’s not even available anyway.”
I whistled. “High profit margin.”
“You got that right. When a rich guy’s caught a case of the creeping crud, he’s willing to pay through the nose for the right kind of medicine.”
“So what’s this guard going to do?”
“He’s going back to his farm, he says, down in Cholla Province. He’s tired of all this corruption up here in Seoul.”
The people of Cholla had always been at odds with the people here in Kyongki Province. For the last few millennia anyway.
“Why doesn’t he just do his job,” I said, “and quit playing the game with the slicky boys?”
Ernie’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding? They’d fire him, if he was lucky. If they thought he was a turncoat, he’d end up in the Han River.”
“Next to us.”
“Not me,” he said. “They’re never taking Ernie Bascom down.”
I wished I felt as confident as Ernie did. I watched him. I think he was only faking his bravado, but I knew him well enough to realize that he’d never admit it.
“So we have about five hours to wait?”
“Yeah,” Ernie said. “Might as well have a brewski.”
“Capital idea.”
As he rose to walk down the hallway to the vending machine, someone pounded on the door.
“Who is it?” I yelled.
“CQ.” The Charge of Quarters. “Someone here to see you.”
Ernie and I looked at each other. Without saying anything, he grabbed the entrenching tool stashed with my field gear and padded over to the wall behind the door. When he was in place, he nodded.
I opened the door.
Two MP’s, black helmets glistening, filled my doorway, their fat thumbs hooked over webbed pistol belts.
“Sueno?” one of them asked.
“Yeah.”
“Your presence is requested over at the Provost Marshal’s office.”
“I’m off duty.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with duty.”
“Then what’s it about?”
The MP tried to look bored. “Don’t know. All we know is that you have to come with us.”
Ernie stepped out from behind the door. “What the fuck’s going on?”
“Ah, Bascom,” the MP said. “How convenient. Your presence is requested also.”
“Me?” Without thinking, Ernie raised the entrenching tool. Both MP’s stepped back. Their hands reached for the butts of their. 45’s.
“Drop it, Bascom,” one of them said.
Ernie looked puzzled at first but he swiveled his head and looked at the entrenching tool.
“Oh, this. Sorry.”
He started to lower it but suddenly reared back and threw it at them with all his might.
“Ernie!” I shouted.
Both MP’s dodged and the short shovel slammed against the far wall, gouging a chunk of cement block and kicking up a cloud of dust.
The MP’s rushed into the room. They were big and knew what they were doing, and soon they had wrestled Ernie to the ground and slapped the handcuffs on his wrists. I started tussling with one of them but my heart wasn’t in it because I knew it was absolutely the wrong thing to do. Instead I held the MP back a little, yelling at the other one to take it easy on Ernie.
When they had him secured, the MP’s stood up and one of them pointed at me.
“Put your clothes on!”
I walked over to the radiator and slipped on the still damp blue jeans. After I had thrown on my jacket and my sneakers, the MP told me to turn around. He snapped the cuffs on my wrists.
They marched us outside to a line of vehicles waiting, red lights swirling.
In the back of the jeep, Ernie leaned over.
“I didn’t actually mean to hit them with the entrenching tool,” he whispered to me. “I missed on purpose.”
“That was considerate of you.”
He sat back in his seat.
“I’m a considerate kind of guy.”
13
An MP held open the door and the First Sergeant walked into the holding cell. Top’s stubbled jowls sagged and he wiped his face with an open palm, as if trying to wake up from a bad dream.
“What’s this about you guys resisting arrest?”
“Not so,” Ernie said. “They never told us we were under arrest.”
“But they did say you had to come with them to the MP Station, didn’t they? And that’s a direct order, isn’t it?”
“Still not arrest,” Ernie said.
“Jesus, Bascom, why do you have to make everything so damn difficult?”
“If you wanted to talk to us, Top, why didn’t you just swing by yourself instead of sending the MP’s?”
“It’s not me who wants to talk to you. It’s the Provost Marshal.”
Somewhere down the hallway someone shouted, “Attention!”
“Carry on.”
Boots pounded down the long corridor. The First Sergeant held the door open while Colonel Stoneheart, the Provost Marshal of the 8th United States Army, strode into the cell.
“Good. You’re both here,” he said.
What the hell did he expect? He’d sent a convoy of armed men after us.
Colonel Stoneheart was a slim man who stayed that way through religious jogging. His hair was short and brown with a slash of gray at the temples. The fatigues he wore were freshly starched. Not a good sign. Apparently, he’d put on his uniform and interrupted his evening at home just to talk to us.
The First Sergeant unfolded a metal chair and the Provost Marshal sat down. We faced him from a hard wooden bench.
“Thank you for coming down,” the Provost Marshal said.
I nodded. “Our pleasure.”
“I was at the Officer’s Club tonight,” Stoneheart said, “and this tragic murder of Trooper Whitcomb is quite the topic of discussion.”
He looked at us. Neither one of us said anything. Ernie’s face was grim. Unreadable. I think we both knew what was coming.
