Ernie turned to me. 'Time to un-ass the area.'
The monk smiled. 'I will see to that.' He raised his arm. A few monks scurried away and in less than a minute a long American-made station wagon nosed its way through the throng. It was ancient, almost twenty years old, and the outer walls were paneled with revarnished wood. A 'woody,' they used to call it back in Los Angeles.
Ernie took one look at it and grinned. 'Shit. And here I am all out of surfboard wax.'
The station wagon pulled up next to us and two monks jumped out and opened the doors. The elder monk motioned with his arm.
'Please. Be our guest.'
Ernie shook his head. 'I'll walk. Itaewon's just a few blocks from here.'
Lady Ahn preferred walking, too. With the jade skull strapped in a bag over her shoulder, she didn't trust these Buddhists at all.
They both looked at me. 'Yes,' I said. 'We prefer to walk.'
'Ah,' the monk said, 'but we insist.'
A dozen tough-looking monks closed in on us in a tight circle. Behind them were hundreds of angry demonstrators. The police near the Ministry of National Defense started to scrape their batons along the tops of their riot control shields.
It was an eerie sound. Like Roman legions preparing to clear a square.
The monk motioned again for us to climb into the sta- tion wagon. Ernie ignored him and stepped away. Before I could move, three monks hoisted Ernie into the air, and shoved him into the backseat of the woody like a flailing side of beef.
We were outnumbered. There was nothing else for us to do but comply.
Lady Ahn clutched my arm but kept her face set in stony aloofness. Regally, she stepped forward and entered the car. I followed.
21
We cruised in the woody through downtown Seoul to a temple located at the rear of the grounds of Doksu Palace. The palace had been built during the fifteenth century, burned down a time or two by Japanese invaders, and each time rebuilt by the tradition-loving patriots of Korea. The front part of the palace was open to tour groups. But back where we were, hemmed in by elm trees and rows of spruces, no one could hear us.
Even if we screamed.
But it wasn't a dungeon we were brought to. It was a tile-roofed pagoda in the center of a small island, in a placid pond infested with lily pads, frogs, and elegantly floating swans.
Three monks shoved Ernie into the center of the main floor of the pavilion, amidst comfortable couches and celadon vases filled with flowers and ancient embroidered silk screens covering the walls.
Ernie cursed at his captors and straightened his shirt. 'This place sucks,' he said.
Actually, this place had been the summer retreat of a king. But Ernie's only impressed by free-flowing booze, sawdust on the floors, and hot and cold running women.
Lady Ahn acted as if she'd been born here. Still clutching her burlap sack filled with rice and the priceless jade skull, she slipped off her shoes, strode toward one of the handcrafted couches, and sat carefully in its center.
I sat next to her, checking out the odds against us. They weren't good. Besides the half dozen or so monks who had accompanied us in the woody, on the way in I had seen ten more monks arrayed around the residence. Extra security.
A novitiate brought a tray holding a teapot painted with white cranes rising from reeds. He poured us each a cup of jasmine-scented tea.
If it hadn't been for the evil-looking monks watching him, Ernie probably would've smashed his teacup and the pot and everything else on the varnished coffee table. Lady Ahn didn't touch her tea. Instead, she sat with her back ramrod straight, gazing into the distance as if pondering great thoughts.
I was the only one who drank the tea. It tasted good. Besides, I was thirsty.
Choi So-lan, the little nun, and the elder monk sat down on the divan across from us. The monk spoke.
'My name is Bo Hua,' he said, 'the Protector of the Flame. Thank you for accepting our hospitality.'
'You can take your hospitality and shove it,' Ernie said. He paced the varnished slat floor behind us, unwilling to sit down.
The little nun frowned and stared at the floor.
'The reason we brought you here,' Bo Hua continued, 'is that we seek the jade skull of Kublai Khan.'
Lady Ahn's facial expression didn't change. But her breathing stopped and the knuckles on the hand gripping the burlap bag grew white.
'We have been searching for it for many centuries,' Bo Hua said. 'I will let Nun Choi explain.'
The little nun looked up. She took a deep breath and began to speak Korean in her high, lilting voice.
She had been assigned by her superiors, she explained to us, to collect alms in the Itaewon area. When word of the discovery of the jade skull of Kublai Khan reached her temple, she was further instructed to investigate the possibility that an American might somehow be involved in smuggling the precious skull out of Korea. Investigate she did. During her inquiries she uncovered two names: Slicky Girl Nam and Herman the German. After watching their hooch for two days, she had been assaulted without warning by the American who Ernie and I managed to chase away. She had no idea who the men were who had kidnapped Herman's daughter, Mi-ja, but the fact that the abduction happened wasn't particularly surprising. The word was now out that the precious jade skull had reappeared. Many bad people would be after it, she assured us softly.
'That is why you should turn the skull over to us,' Bo Hua added, once the little nun was finished with her dissertation. 'You will surely be robbed. There is no way the thieves of the world will allow you to keep something as valuable as a skull with a map to the Tomb of Genghis Khan.'
But the little nun wasn't finished yet. She interrupted him, and as she did so, Bo Hua turned to her slowly, amazed at her temerity.
'The jade skull is the key to the Tomb of Genghis Khan,' the little nun said. 'And all the riches of Genghis Khan's tomb belong to Buddha. They were stolen by the Mongols, stolen by Genghis Khan, and came from the Buddhist temples of China and Korea and other lands. The wealth was meant to do the work of Lord Buddha. To help the unfortunate. To build a bridge for everyone to the land of the infinite. That wealth does not belong to the Mongols or anyone else. It is Buddha's money.'
She spoke with such passion that even Ernie stopped his pacing and stared at her, although he could understand little of what she said.
Finally, embarrassed by her outburst, the little nun's face turned crimson; she bowed her head.
'Yes. Quite,' Bo Hua said. 'We are not thugs. We are not thieves. We only ask that you turn the skull of Kublai Khan over to its rightful owners. The church of the Lord of the Vision of the Future. The church of the Maitreya Buddha.'
At last, Lady Ahn spoke, using rapid Korean. 'Have you no shame?' she demanded. 'You know who the rightful owner of the jade skull is. Me! It was my ancestor, the great emperor of the Sung dynasty, who owned every bit of this wealth you describe. Some of it he allowed to be borrowed by the Buddhists, since he was a tolerant man. But ultimately all the wealth belonged to the emperor! Not to you!'
Bo Hua started to argue, but Ernie jumped in. 'Knock off the bullshit! That jade head goes to get Mi-ja back. All this squabbling over who owns what don't mean jack to me!'
The little nun closed her eyes. Still keeping her head down, she scurried from the room. Ernie and Lady Ahn and Bo Hua started screaming at one another.
So much for civil discourse.
I finished the last of my tea and poured another cup.
Even the monks guarding us were involved in the argument, leaning forward, hanging on every word. Tough guys, but not exactly disciplined security guards.
I rose from my seat and sauntered toward the far side of the foyer where the little nun had disappeared. The
