rise.'
For the first time, it dawned on me what was happening. 'They're moving down toward the demonstrators.'
'You got that right,' Ernie said. 'And as quietly as death itself.'
'We've got to get out of here.'
'You fucking-A Tweety.'
I glanced at Ragyapa and his thug. Both were hurt badly. When this riot was over, the Korean police would pick them up and probably deport them for being involved in the demonstration. I didn't want that to happen. Not until we could have them properly charged.
I searched their bodies hurriedly and found two passports. Both from Hong Kong, but both men had what seemed to be Mongolian names. I tucked the passports in my back pocket. Once I turned them over to the KNP Liaison, along with my report of their crimes, Ragyapa and his man would be locked up-and deported only if they were very lucky.
'Let's move,' I told Ernie.
Lady Ahn had been listening to us. 'Where?' she asked. 'If we go downhill, we'll be with the demonstrators. It will be madness once the soldiers attack. Even being American won't save you.'
'She's right,' Ernie said. 'We have to go uphill and slip past them somehow.'
'All right,' I said. 'Let's do it.'
'Where's Herman?' Ernie asked.
'Don't know,' I said. 'No time now.'
Somehow Lady Ahn kept up with us, clutching the jade skull like life itself. When we reached a small pathway, Ernie checked both ways. The dark humps were still up ahead of us about twenty yards. We turned down the pathway, scurrying forward, looking for a place to hide. But there was nothing. Nothing but jagged stone walls and thick wooden gates shoved flush up against them. In the distance I heard movement. Gravel crunching. A long line of sound moving steadily toward us like a slowly cresting wave.
'They're coming down,' Ernie said. 'Hit it!'
He flattened himself facedown in the gutter against the wall. Lady Ahn and I crouched as best we could behind a wooden crate stuffed with rotting melon rinds. The biting aroma made me think of wine, somehow. Or champagne.
I had it all: a beautiful woman, moonlight, naturally fermented vino.
Soldiers in combat gear, holding bayoneted assault rifles at port arms, filed down toward the big intersection in front of Guanghua-mun. A few broke off from the main line and trotted down our alley.
There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. I wrapped Lady Ahn's face under my arms and bent over her, pressing my lips into the nape of her neck.
The soldiers weren't fooled. I heard the footsteps stop right in front of us. Slowly, I looked up.
His face was a mosaic of rock-hard planes of stone, slashed with camouflage paint. A metal combat helmet shadowed narrow eyes. His body was lean and he wore combat gear that sat on him as comfortably as if he'd worn it all his life. Moonlight glistened off a patch on his left shoulder. A white stallion rising on a blue background. The ROK Army White Horse Division.
Judging from the number of soldiers I saw stretching down the long pathway, they must've pulled a battalion strength-maybe a brigade-off the Demilitarized Zone just to teach these demonstrators a lesson.
The soldier didn't smile. He had only two stripes on his sleeve. A sergeant joined him. Soon an officer was sent for. A captain, upset by the intrusion.
I showed him my identification and started to speak in Korean.
'We are investigators for Eighth Army and-'
The captain slapped the badge out of my hand. 'Sikkuro!' Shut up!
Ernie stepped forward. 'Who the hell do you think you are, Charley?'
A soldier jabbed a bayonet into Ernie's stomach, stopping just before breaking the skin, and backed him up against the wall. Ernie held his hands up and stared cross-eyed at the gleaming blade. Another soldier searched Ernie and took away his. 45, holding it in the air, showing it to the officer. They found my. 38 and the officer took that, too.
The officer barked a command. 'You two stay here. And guard them.'
Before I could speak again, the captain swiveled and stomped away to rejoin his troops. Soon, their footsteps faded and we stood alone with the two impassive soldiers.
In Korean, one of them started to speak to Lady Ahn.
'Is it true their dicks are as big as trees?'
She kept her head down. Not answering. The soldier kicked her lightly with his combat boot. 'Come on. Stand up. We want to see what a foreign whore looks like.'
Both soldiers laughed. Ernie bristled. The soldier pressed the bayonet deeper against his skin.
'Come on. I said stand up!' He pulled Lady Ahn to her feet. She pulled her shoulder away and stared at him, her face a mask of hatred.
'Aiyaa,' the soldier said. 'Prime meat. And you sell yourself for the Yankee dollar?'
I launched myself at him but he had been expecting the move and sidestepped me, ramming the butt of his rifle into my stomach.
Even as I curled over, I was angry at myself for reacting with pure emotion. For lunging at him, for leaving my midsection open. It was the move of an amateur. Now I was useless. I clutched myself and rolled up in a ball on the ground.
The soldier shoved Lady Ahn up against the wall, ripped open her blouse, and fumbled for her breasts.
'I found it!' he said. He pinched Lady Ahn's nipple cruelly, causing her to cry out in pain. 'Large and brown from these foreigners sucking on it. It would make a good souvenir of our trip to Seoul, would it not?'
The other soldier laughed and barked his approval.
'Then let us take it with us.' He lowered his bayonet and ran the sharp edge along Lady Ahn's pale flesh.
Once troops are turned loose on demonstrators there are no controls. They can do anything. Foreign reporters will know nothing about it. The whole thing will be hushed up by the government. But the students will know what happened. And demonstrations will subside for months-maybe years-afterward.
I tried to stand. Pain shot through my body. As if a two-by-four was sticking into my gut.
Ernie struggled but settled down when the other soldier nudged the bayonet deeper into his belly.
Lady Ahn seemed unafraid. With a sudden move, she twisted her body and raised her hands to scratch at the soldier. He was too fast for her. He shoved a powerful forearm under her throat. Slowly, he brought the tip of the bayonet closer to her bruised brown nipple.
It was as if a cannonball dropped from the sky. I couldn't see anything clearly but somehow I knew, just from the large round shape. Herman the German had leapt off the top of the wall.
The soldier who had been groping Lady Ahn was now nothing but a crumpled, groaning mass beneath Herman's girth. The soldier with the bayonet in Ernie's gut turned at the noise, and Ernie reacted like a pissed-off tomcat. He punched and clawed at the guy, not giving him a chance to jab with his weapon. Lady Ahn pounded on him, too, and soon they had the soldier on the ground, hammering his skull into sawdust.
I crawled over and grabbed Ernie's feet. And Lady Ahn's. 'Enough. Enough!'
They stopped pummeling the soldier.
Herman helped me to my feet. The pain was ebbing now. I was starting to breathe normally.
Lady Ahn covered herself as best she could with her tattered blouse. The jade skull was snuggled once again beneath her bosom.
'Let's get the fuck out of here,' Herman said.
Herman bent over and snatched up one of the M-16 rifles. As we approached the next alley, I heard a rumbling sound.
'Armored vehicles,' Ernie said. 'We have to cross the next alley in front of them or the convoy will block our path.'
We started to sprint, Herman huffing like a freight train. Before we reached the alley, the black front of the armored vehicle appeared. We were only a few feet away, but we weren't going to make it. Trash lay strewn
