'It is.'
'No way. Those assholes were after the skull, not Lady Ahn. And they already had one hostage. Who would've thought they'd take her, too?'
His attempts to make me feel better didn't do any good. I sipped on a little more of the bitter coffee and then tossed the rest into the trash can.
Sergeant Riley slipped the pencil out from behind his ear and tapped the triangular eraser on a sheaf of papers.
'Here it is,' he said. 'I knew it was in here. The dope for the last two months on all foreigners entering Korea.' Riley pushed his sleeves up along his skinny forearms. 'Foreigners, most of them businessmen, broken down by nationality.'
He started slashing Xs along the list.
'We can ignore all these Miguks.' The Americans. 'And all these pansies from Europe.'
'Cross out the Japs, too,' Ernie said.
'Right you are.' Riley slashed vigorously. 'Out with the Eastern dwarfs.'
Riley claimed not to have any interest in Korean culture, other than chasing the business girls and guzzling rice wine. But he had somehow picked up all the cuss words-even a few I didn't know-and every racial epithet in the book.
'Now what we have left,' Riley told us, 'is a few from Africa.. ' He slashed these out. 'And a few more from South America.' His pencil continued to work. 'And that leaves a whole shitload from Indonesia and Taiwan and Malaysia and Singapore and-'
'Cross those out, too,' I told him. Riley glanced up at me. I said, 'Concentrate only on the states of Northeast Asia.'
'Which are?'
'Mongolia, China, Manchuria, and the Soviet Union. Korea and Japan I've already eliminated.'
Riley glanced back down at the paperwork. 'Nothing from any of those places. The South Koreans don't issue visas to Communists. If these guys are from one of those countries, they must have phony passports.'
'So this list isn't going to do me any good?'
Riley shrugged.
'Is this the only list they gave you?' I asked Riley. 'Nothing else?'
'Well, there is one more thing.' Riley slid a sheaf of paper out from the bottom of the pile. 'The guy at Korean Customs told me I didn't really need it, but since I was paying him, I told him to throw it in anyway. By the way, you owe me forty thousand won.'
Ernie's head jerked up. 'Eighty bucks just for some lousy paperwork?'
'Hey. We didn't go through channels. My man was taking a risk.'
'Shit,' Ernie grumbled. 'Take it out of petty cash.'
'You find a way to fool the First Sergeant and I will.'
'Don't worry,' I said. 'You'll get your money on payday.'
That seemed to satisfy Sergeant Riley. He slapped the slender list on top of the other. 'You see why he didn't think you'd need it.'
The title had been translated into crude English: Entry into Korea by Persons of Organizations Religious.
My heart beat harder. Even Ernie leaned closer.
A few minutes later, we knew how Ragyapa and his boys had entered Korea.
Using Riley's list of foreigners entering Korea, we figured that the most likely method of entry for Ragyapa and his thugs was by means of a convention that was being hosted here by the Pacific Rim Buddhist Association. About five thousand Buddhists from all over the world were attending. The festivities included elaborate ceremonies at some of the most holy Buddhist shrines on the peninsula. Worship and conferences were scheduled in many sites, and if anyone attended all the events, he'd have to spend over two months in Korea. The exact location of all the attendees was unknown even to the government. The honchos of the host organization, the Pacific Rim Buddhist Association, were the only ones with that data.
'Where is this association located?' Ernie asked.
'Chong-ro,' Riley answered. 'Downtown Seoul.'
Ernie lifted his eyebrows at me.
It took ten minutes to switch from the Eighth Army phone net to the civilian lines in Seoul. Once I got through, all I heard was a steady ringing.
I slammed the phone down. 'No answer.'
Ernie glanced at his watch. 'Most of the world's already closed up shop and gone to Happy Hour.'
'You want me to check with the KNP Liaison Officer?' Riley asked. 'See if he can contact them?'
I thought about it. 'Wouldn't do any good. Even if these Buddhists had a line on Ragyapa and his boys, they wouldn't be staying in the same hotel. They would've moved by now. Probably two or three times.'
I paced the room. Two sets of eyeballs following me.
'Besides,' I said, 'tonight is the full moon.'
Ernie unwrapped a new stick of ginseng gum. 'Our last chance to save Mi-ja.'
Slicky girl Nam was in her glory. A dozen old women from the neighborhood had gathered at her hooch and everyone watched as she stood in the center of the courtyard and screamed at us.
'Where you been? Why you no find Mi-ja? Why you no bring jade skull?'
I held up both hands. 'Calm down, Nam. We're here now. Where's Herman?'
'I don't know. That sonofabitch kara chogi.' Gone away. 'He here this afternoon but now he gone. I don't know where.'
One of the women shuffled across the courtyard to check the charcoal. Using iron tongs, she pried open the cover. The fire glowed brightly. She let the metal lid clang shut.
The edge of the full moon peeked over a tile roof.
'There it is!' Nam screeched. 'The moon! Pretty soon foreign assholes kill Mi-ja.' She clutched my sleeve. 'You do something!'
'We are going to do something,' I told her. 'When was the last time the kidnappers called you?'
'You know. When they told you to go to top of Hooker Hill.'
'They'll be calling again tonight,' I said, 'to give us instructions. You wait here. Ernie and I will handle it.'
Slicky Girl Nam clutched her bare arms and shivered.
At the pharmacy, Ernie and I passed a bottle of soju back and forth. I carried the. 38 under my jacket, Ernie had his. 45. Still, a little extra courage couldn't hurt.
I'd thought of having some sort of MP rapid-response team put at our disposal, but it wouldn't work. Wherever this rendezvous was going to be, Ragyapa would have lookouts. A bunch of clumsy cops barging in would be spotted for sure. We had no choice. Ernie and I had to handle the exchange ourselves.
'Where the hell did that goddamn Herman get off to?' Ernie asked.
'Don't know.' I sipped on the soju. The fiery rice liquor burned all the way down.
'Maybe it's better without him,' Ernie said. 'If we took him along, there's no telling what he might do. The guy's totally unpredictable.'
I stared at Ernie, trying to figure if he was joking. His expression seemed perfectly serious.
I handed him the bottle. As I did, the phone rang. I lost my grip and the soju crashed to the ground, liquor and crystal splashing everywhere.
'Shit!'
I snatched the phone off the hook. 'Sueno.'
'Midnight.' It was the gravelly voice again. Ragyapa. 'The Bridge of the Golden Tribute.'
'Where's that?'
'You must find it.'
It was already almost eleven. We had to drive back to the compound, pick up the skull, then make it to wherever in the hell this Bridge of the Golden Tribute was.
