to be with him.'
The policeman flapped out his hand toward Lady Ahn. 'Your fiancee paperwork,' he demanded.
I started speaking in English. 'Hey, wait a minute. What's going on here?' I turned to Lady Ahn. 'Is everything okay, honey?'
'He says we must have our engagement paperwork,' she said in English.
'Wait a minute!' I gaped at the policeman. 'You've got to be kidding! All that paperwork requesting marriage approval is back at the compound.' I pulled out my regular army ID card, not my CID badge, and held it in front of the inspector's face. 'I'm Eighth Army. You alla? Eighth-Army.'
Ernie started speaking even louder than I had. 'Who the hell does this guy think he is? We're just trying to get on the damn boat! What is this shit?'
The crowd of Koreans behind us waiting to board the ferry began to mumble. The foghorn blasted through the air again. The rest of the policemen wandered over, wanting to find out what all the fuss was about.
Lady Ahn resumed speaking in Korean to the policeman. 'You can't stop us from visiting my mother,' she said, 'just because we didn't bring our engagement paperwork.'
The policeman's face was very red now. Obnoxious GIs and stubborn Korean women weren't something he had to deal with every day.
A policeman with more gold braid on his shoulder than the inspector strode over, his face calm, his arms behind his back, acting as unperturbed as a Confucian scholar strolling through a grove of flowering plum blossoms. The first cop turned to him and explained rapidly. 'They don't have their engagement paperwork.'
'We forgot it,' Lady Ahn said in Korean.
The honcho ignored her and pointed to me and Ernie. 'Are they soldiers?' he asked the red-faced cop.
'Yes.'
'Let's see their identification.'
Lady Ahn translated and both Ernie and I flashed our military ID cards.
The honcho studied the ID cards intently. Then with a flick of his wrist, he waved us through. He sauntered off.
We scurried onto the ferry.
It took the rest of the day to reach the island OF Sonyu. A tiny village clung to the feet of a jagged cliff. The hooches were made of driftwood and roofed with straw thatch. Nets hung drying from the rickety wooden quay and women squatted in the shade of cherry trees, weaving straw mats. There weren't many boats along the quay. All were out fishing.
The three of us stood along the railing.
'Your mother lives here?' Ernie asked Lady Ahn.
'Yes. My family has lived here for six centuries.'
Ernie whistled. 'Not much business for the van and storage boys.'
Lady Ahn pointed to the gray-shrouded distance. 'See that island there?'
I could barely make it out on the western horizon. Craggy rocks rose straight out of the sea. 'Yes,' I said.
'That is Bian-do,' she said. 'That is where the jade skull is hidden.'
'That's where we're going?' Emie asked.
'Yes,' Lady Ahn said happily. 'Tomorrow at dawn.'
'Bian-do,' I said. 'The Island of Mysterious Peace.'
Lady Ahn swiveled her head. 'Yes, Agent Sueno. You are correct.'
Her pleased expression was worth more to me than all the gold in Genghis Khan's tomb.
Lady Ahn's mother bowed as we entered the small courtyard of her home. It was a large ramshackle building on a hill overlooking the village of Sonyu, much too large for one old woman. It had been an ancestral home, built originally by Ahn the Righteous Fist in the fourteenth century, and rebuilt repeatedly over the years.
Within minutes we were seated on the polished wood-slat floor and a table was placed before us spread with rice and kimchi and kalchi, a scabbard fish found only in Far Eastern waters.
The food was delicious and both Ernie and I were famished. We polished off every plate in short order. As was ancient custom, the women ate in the kitchen and later came in to clear our plates.
Lady Ahn seemed to be glowing, as if returning to the island of her birth had infused her with a strength of spirit that made her even more impressive than she was on the mainland.
She wore traditional Korean clothing. A long white skirt called chima, tied high up along the ribs, and a short powder-blue chogori vest coat with long flowing sleeves. Her short hair was brushed back but fell forward and caressed her smooth cheeks when she bent to pick up the small serving table.
The sun was almost down now, and Lady Ann's mother fixed one of the many rooms for Ernie and me. Ernie hit the sleeping mat almost immediately. Lady Ahn and I strolled down to the beach and watched the fishing boats sail in, floating across the red glimmer of a sinking sun.
The moon started to rise and I held my breath. But it still wasn't full. Not quite. We still had time.
As Lady Ahn outlined her plan to me, I realized that she'd been setting it up for years. Her scheme was brilliant and in it all of us would have our roles. And, as she told me more about the island and the mythology surrounding it, I realized that by taking such a bold step as to defy the monks of Bian-do, she was overcoming many of her own misgivings.
Still, she was a modern woman. Not one to be awed by superstition. A great beast supposedly protected what was left of the Treasure of the Sung. But as I pointed out to her, whatever this creature was, it hadn't been able to stop ancient Japanese pirates. Hadn't she told me they had looted most of the treasure?
She agreed. The monster was probably just something conjured up by the monks to keep adventurers away from the monastery.
Still, the corpse of the commando in the photo she'd shown me had been carried to the shore of Sonyu Island by the current from Bian-do. The dead man's wounds were clearly not from a knife or a bayonet.
In fact, if I had to guess, I would have to say that the wounds were from claws.
17
Fisherman Yun, Lady Ahn's third cousin, stood at the stern, rough hands gripping the thick oar that both propelled and steered the little skiff. He leaned forward and then pulled, creating a rhythm that moved us through the sea like a wriggling snake.
Ernie sat on a splintered wooden plank, clicking loudly on his ginseng gum, scanning the darkness before us. What he was looking for, I wasn't quite sure.
A blanket of clouds swept across the sky. For an instant a gap opened in them and I spotted the nearly full moon. Not much time left to turn over the jade skull to Ragyapa and his Mongols. Not much time to save Mi-ja's life. Then the clouds closed and opened again on the other side of the cosmos. The vast panorama of the Milky Way glittered above us. I wasn't used to stars being so bright, or so close. In East LA the only contact with heaven I had was reaching up and touching the smog inversion layer.
Out here, on the Yellow Sea, heading for the remote island of Bian-do, the air was fresh and laced with salt, as if it had been created yesterday-solely for our enjoyment.
It seemed like a good time for a burial.
I reached into my jacket pocket, pulled out the bloody handkerchief containing Mi-ja's ear, and dropped it into the cold, choppy waters. The white linen swirled. Then it sank into an endless world of water.
Before we'd left Taejon the day before, I'd placed a call to the pharmacy in Itaewon because I wanted to find out if the kidnappers had contacted Herman again. Slicky Girl Nam had picked up the phone. She was hysterical.
'Most tick full moon! They will cut Mi-ja again! This time they will kill!'
I tried to calm her down. She kept jabbering.
