was filled with charcoal dust. She crawled inside and shoved the small hatch back into place, holding it with her trembling hands.
The footsteps exploded above her. A herd of men. All shouting. All tramping down the stairs. Angry sounds. None of which she could understand. She dared not breathe; she prayed her strength would last long enough so that she wouldn't lose her hold on the wooden door.
Someone shouted again and metal clanged on metal. A key. And then the creaking of the grillwork gate as it swung open. Footsteps pelted down the stairway.
They'd been fooled! They thought she'd climbed over.
Mi-ja listened. All was quiet.
She dared not believe it at first but now she must. The men were gone. Now was her chance to escape. They would be back soon, once they discovered that she wasn't out on the street.
Scraping her shaking fingers against the splintery wood, she pulled back the small hatchway and crawled out. Silently, she crept back up the steps, back toward the room where she had been held hostage. Cautiously, she peered inside the open door. No one was left inside.
She scurried down the hallway until it turned and turned again. The doors in the long corridor were shut tight and all was silent. Then she saw it. A back stairway.
She crept down, taking one step at a time. Listening. No sound.
At another window she could see below. This stairway led to a back alley lined with large crates of refuse. She must hurry before the men searched back here. She sprinted down the stairway but before running outside she stopped, squatted low, and glanced both ways. The alleyway was perfectly still.
Freedom at last, she thought.
With a great burst of breath, Mi-ja leapt out into the alleyway and ran as fast as her shaky legs would carry her, past the line of crates. Only a few more steps and then she would be on the main street. Others would be there. Street vendors, shop owners, maybe-if she was lucky-even a policeman.
Only a few more steps.
She was about to reach the last crate when a demon emerged from the shadows.
Even as Mi-ja's mind flooded with terror, her small body kept moving.
A turbaned man-not a demon-leaned toward her and, with a great paw, swiped out at her naked body. Fingers like iron spikes bit into the soft flesh of Mi-ja's arm, pinching bone.
The fingers softened and wriggled and slithered around her like curling pythons.
Mi-ja howled.
Not in pain but in anguish. Anguish for the freedom that had been so near.
The man in the turban slapped her hard across the side of her head. He slid his enormous hand across her mouth, covering her nose. Choking, Mi-ja kicked and struggled, but it did no good.
The turbaned man's lips slid back, revealing blocks of yellowed teeth.
He hoisted Mi-ja into the air, tucked her beneath his arm, and sauntered nonchalantly down the alleyway. He kicked open the creaking back door and reentered the endless darkness of the ancient wooden building.
12
Ernie squinted through a tinted visor, 'Prepare for heavy swells.'
'What?'
I couldn't hear him above the roar of the helicopter engine. We were in the back compartment, behind the pilot and the copilot, wearing helmets and loose flight crew overalls.
Ernie leaned toward me. 'I say it looks like a world of shit is about to roll down on top of us!'
I gazed out at the gray overcast of the Taejon city skyline, a jumble of brick and cement-block buildings- nothing over three stories tall-in a sea of traditional Korean homes with blue and red tile roofs. Off toward the Yellow Sea, a solid wall of black clouds rolled steadily inland. Occasionally, a spark of lightning flashed out of the roiling mass.
Looked like we were arriving just in time. The monsoon was about to hit hard, and all military flights were sure to be canceled.
The chopper dove through the mist, bounced a couple of times, and came to rest on a cement helipad. We were on Camp Ames, an American compound on the outskirts of Taejon. We took off our gear, folded the overalls neatly, and thanked the crew chief for the ride.
After flashing our identification to the MPs at the front gate, Ernie and I stepped out into the streets of the city. As we walked down the brick sidewalk, I felt as if we'd stepped back into a different era.
The city of Taejon had been leveled during the Korean War. What had been rebuilt was done, for the most part, in a traditional Korean style. Each hooch was surrounded by bushes sprinkled with purple mukunghua, the Korean national flower. Long-faced men on three-wheeled pedicabs rolled solemnly through the narrow lanes.
There wasn't even much hustle outside the GI compound, a spot which had to be a major source of income for this slow-moving city. No bars. Only a couple of tailor shops and souvenir emporiums. A short row of pedicab drivers waited patiently outside them for passengers, and didn't run up offering 'special deals' for Americans.
One driver looked surprised when I spoke Korean to him.
'Yes, you want to go downtown,' he said, 'but where downtown?'
'Chungang,' I replied. The center.
The driver smiled at that and I asked him how much and he told me. Ernie and I piled into the back of his pedicab. We paraded through the quiet lanes toward downtown Taejon.
Unlike Seoul, where everything is cement and exhaust fumes, the streets of Taejon were lined with elm trees rustling in the morning breeze. Shop owners splashed buckets of water on brick sidewalks and scrubbed away filth with long-bristled brushes. A few cars wound through the traffic, but mostly the thoroughfares were filled with women on foot, carrying bundles over their heads, and men on bicycles, clanging out warnings of their whereabouts with the ringing of tinkling bells.
The leather sandals of a bevy of robed Buddhist monks slapped past us. The monks strode up ancient stone steps toward an intricately carved and brightly painted wooden pagoda. Schoolchildren in yellow caps crossed the street and bumped into each other every time the teacher brought their centipedelike procession to a halt.
The pedicab driver dropped us off in front of the August Moon Yoguan. When I paid him he said 'Komowo- yu,' ending the verb with a 'yu' instead of a 'yo' as they would've said in Seoul. It was an accent that I was to hear often in these southern realms.
Ernie stood on the sidewalk with his bag draped over his shoulder, glancing around, chomping on gum.
'Nice place they got here,' he said.
I wasn't sure if he meant the city of Taejon or the August Moon Yoguan, but whatever it was I had to agree.
The August Moon Yoguan was a ramshackle two-story building made of darkly aged lumber. Through the red-lacquered gate of the inn was a small garden filled with roses and tulips camouflaging rows of earthen jars pushed against the outer brick wall. A woman in a long blue cotton dress and rubber slippers with upturned pointed toes stepped out to greet us. She bowed.
'Oso-oseiyo.' Please come in.
The rooms were cheap, and larger than what we were used to. Each had a sleeping mat with a bead pillow, a two-foot-high writing desk, a black-and-white TV, and a bathroom. Hot water in the early morning and in the evening from eight to ten.
We ordered chow.
A boy from a Chinese restaurant brought in a tin box and Ernie and I stared at it suspiciously. But when the boy slid up the side panel and pulled out a plate of chap chae-fried noodles laced with beef-and two steaming bowls of shrimp fried rice, we relaxed, paid him, and commenced to wolf down the food.
We didn't speak as we ate. We were both thinking the same thing. How in the hell were we going to find this Lady Ahn in a city we didn't know? How in the hell were we going to keep little Mi-ja from having her throat cut by the scar-headed Ragyapa and his Mongol horde? And what the hell was this all about?
