“And Whitcomb wouldn’t realize right away that he was talking to another thief, because the man was American, maybe even dressed in a military uniform. He would’ve bluffed Whitcomb into thinking that he was straight.”
“So when Whitcomb received the note, he thought the guy wanted to deal somehow. Maybe get in on his action. Maybe even open the door to richer hunting grounds.”
“And instead he wanted to gut him and leave him for the rats.”
“Right,” I said.
“And this man was Shipton?”
“Right again.”
“And Shipton wanted to kill him because Whitcomb was the only person living who could link him to the theft of those classified documents. Why didn’t Shipton just kill him in the J-two office?”
“Might not’ve had a chance. Whitcomb would’ve been nervous, on guard, backing away. Killing him then might’ve attracted too much attention, proved there was another man there that night.”
“So he used Miss Ku to get in touch with us and hand the note to Whitcomb.” Ernie nodded his head in thought. “But why us?”
“Shipton wanted somebody official to contact Whitcomb, to add to the threat, make it more likely that he’d show up. And do you know of any other CID agents who hold court daily in Itaewon?”
“Just us.”
“Besides, if he had us involved in some way, he figured we couldn’t pursue the case wholeheartedly.”
“He had that wrong.”
“Yes, he did.”
Three sailors emerged from an alley, laughing and exchanging lewd stories. Ernie and I slowed to let them get a few yards ahead of us.
Ernie furrowed his brow. “But Shipton has already shown us that he has no trouble slipping on and off military compounds. Why wouldn’t he just kill Whitcomb himself? Why involve us and Miss Ku?”
“You saw how Whitcomb lived. In a barracks with a dozen other men. They sleep together, shower together, eat chow together. Even run the ville and pick up girls together. Getting Whitcomb alone would be Shipton’s main problem.”
“But the meeting in Namdaemun involved his thievery operation, so Whitcomb wasn’t sharing that with any of his pals.”
“Right. So he’d come alone.”
“But why kill him at all? Whitcomb was just a longnose slicky boy. He wasn’t likely to blow the whistle on Shipton. He probably didn’t even know his name.”
“But he saw his face.”
“So?”
“You’d be right if this was just one thief spotting another. But Shipton was after military secrets. And for those to have any value, you have to sell them to somebody who can use them.”
“Like the North Koreans?”
“Yes. And they wouldn’t want to jeopardize a guy with as much potential to steal prime information for them as Shipton.”
“So maybe the North Koreans ordered Shipton to kill Whitcomb.”
“Maybe. And they probably have big plans for Shipton. Very big plans.”
“If they have such big plans for him, why are they allowing him to black-market?”
“After he committed the first murders, of his Korean fiancee and her boyfriend, he was living on the lam. Black market was a natural way for him to support himself. It’s easy money. He probably grew to like it.”
“So maybe the North Koreans don’t even know he’s black-marketing.”
“Maybe not. Or if they do, they don’t want to force him to stop and piss him off.
“He’s arrogant.”
“Wouldn’t you be? After evading everybody these last few months?”
“But it can’t last forever.”
“That’s why I think he’s building up to a big score.”
“Hit the big one and then slip out of the country with the loot?”
“That could be it.”
“I’m glad you figured all this out, George,” Ernie said, “but I still don’t know what we’re doing up this early.”
“Going to the Kitty Hawk.”
“To the Kitty Hawk? What in the hell for?”
“Classified documents,” I said. “You forget, Ernie. That’s what Shipton was after at J-two. That’s what he’ll be after here.”
“Why go after such a difficult target when he’s been doing so well on the army compounds?”
“That part I haven’t figured out yet. Unless it has something to do with the tunnels Strange told me about.”
“Tunnels and an aircraft carrier? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. But the Kitty Hawk is a mother lode of classified information. Shipton and his North Korean handlers will see it as a gold mine too good to pass up.”
“And he was a squid himself. He’ll know his way around.”
“Right.”
“So maybe you’re right and he’ll go after Top Secret info while they’re in port. But how the hell are we going to get on the ship?”
“Bogart. Like we usually do.”
“Yeah,” Ernie said. “But usually we don’t do it before breakfast.”
A crowd of sailors had gathered at the pier, laughing and playing grab-ass and talking about the Korean girls in the bars last night. Ernie and I stayed close to them, trying to blend in, which wasn’t too hard because the guys with overnight liberty could wear civilian clothes and were dressed pretty much like us.
Deep in the mist a steady churning grew. The sailors moved toward a metal gangway. We moved with them.
With a final roar of its engine, a large flat launch with the U.S. flag waving at its tail edged expertly up to the bottom of the slippery steps. Sailors filed down. There was a little shoving, but we shoved back, and found ourselves sitting on one of the hard benches of the launch.
Luckily nobody tried to talk to us and Ernie and I stared grimly forward; two sailors too hung over to bother messing with this early in the morning.
As the engines fired up and we moved away from the quay, I felt the rolling swell of the sea beneath the metal hull. It was invigorating. I liked it right away and decided I felt at home on the sea, although I’d never been in a boat before. Except for one time. During a summer program sponsored by the County of Los Angeles, when they’d taken me and a lot of other orphans to Pacific Ocean Park. We rode around the pier and back. I got seasick. Where I grew up, in East L.A., there wasn’t much opportunity to earn your sea legs.
The little launch plowed through the waves but we could only see about twenty yards to our front. The impenetrable curtain of mist seemed to recede before us, and the faster we moved the faster it ran away.
Twenty minutes later a huge metal wall appeared without warning in the center of the sea. Sailors started to shuffle in their seats and I realized that the wall must be the aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. The launch moved down the wall until it found another metal staircase, this one leading up to a hatch in the hull. Light poured out of the opening and was diffused into a golden haze by the millions of airborne droplets of seawater.
Beneath the ladder, the sailors secured the launch with hooks on the ends of chains, and one by one we clambered off the rocking platform and climbed the stairwell. I went first. Ernie right behind me.
At the top of the stairs we finally met the inevitable: officialdom.
I had been watching the sailors above me. Each flashed his identification card and gave a halfhearted salute to the navy chief in his crisp white uniform. When it was my turn I mimicked the sailors as well as I could, trying to act as bored and as hung over as everybody else. The chief hardly looked at me. I stepped past him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ernie going through the same motions. He took a step away from the
