as she struggled.
The train was barely creeping forward, but gathering speed.
Boltworks glanced between us and the metal steps in front of the next car that was rolling slowly toward him.
“When the steps get close,” Ernie said, “he’s going to let her go. When he does, you charge.”
There was no time to think this over, no time for me to agree or disagree. What Ernie had said would be our plan. I raised myself to a crouch and edged forward. Boltworks was maybe twenty yards ahead of me now. How long would it take for me to cover that distance? Pro football players cover it in three seconds. I thought I could make it in four.
Still lying flat on the cement, Ernie raised his. 45.
Boltworks glanced again at the steps leading up to the train, and I broke and ran. He turned back to look at me. As he did so, Ernie fired. The bullet ricocheted off the edge of the train. The Korean woman bucked and struggled, and Boltworks tried to point his gun at me and then at Ernie but he knew his shot would be wild, and the steps of the moving train were only a few feet away from him now.
He let go of the woman and raced toward the platform.
I ran as fast as I could, low to the ground, legs churning, hoping I wouldn’t step on a rock. Another shot rang out from Ernie’s. 45, and Boltworks stopped, just for a second, only six feet from the onrushing metal steps.
Praying Ernie wouldn’t fire again, I plowed into Private Rodney K. Boltworks. We slammed into the metal steps, falling forward onto them. The train rolled on, shoving us to the side. I twisted, holding onto Boltwork’s neck. He twisted with me and the metal railing struck my back. I grunted and we were twirling through the air and falling backwards. The front wall of the passenger cab slapped into me once again. Boltworks and I twirled with the force of the blow, spinning like a top and rebounding once, twice against the side of the moving train. Startled Korean faces inside flashed by. Men, women, a few children. Mouths open. Eyes wide. And then the windows were gone and something metal slammed into us once again-into Boltworks this time-and we spun madly across the cement platform and crashed onto the ground in a heap.
Boltworks flailed, trying to rise and push me away but I held tightly. And then Ernie leaned over us, telling me to let go, grabbing Boltworks by the wrists and, finally, sweet sound of relief, metal handcuffs clinked. Boltworks let out a sigh of exasperation, and all the strength seemed to rush out of his thick body. I relaxed my arms.
I looked up at Ernie. He grinned. I passed out.
“I don’t know where she is,” Boltworks said.
We were in the Pupyong Police Station. One of their officers had patched up the slice in my side and once again stopped the bleeding. He also slapped a few poultices here and there over the bruised portions of my body and, most importantly, fed me a handful of unnamed painkillers, which helped some. Also, the KNPs had been kind enough to send a patrolman over to the home of Pak Mi-rae to reclaim our footwear.
Ernie and I wanted to escort Boltworks back to the ASCOM Provost Marshal’s Office, but the local KNPs would have none of it. Bolt, as we were calling him now, had terrorized a Korean woman and half the morning commuters on their way to Seoul, amongst them many important and influential people. The KNPs weren’t about to give him up. Not yet anyway. Not without orders from headquarters.
Bolt looked a lot less intimidating now. Of course, the KNPs had confiscated his stolen pistol, and they’d taken his jacket and his shirt and trousers. Bolt sat on a chair, wearing only boxer shorts and a sleeveless white T- shirt, his arms handcuffed behind him. His face was dirty and sweating, and I’m sure he fully expected to be beat up-maybe even tortured-by the Korean National Police. I doubted that, but I wasn’t about to disabuse him of the notion. As I patiently explained to the morose Mr. Boltworks, his only chance of being returned to U.S. custody was by cooperating fully with me and Ernie.
“It’s up to you, Bolt,” Ernie said. “Me, I wouldn’t want to spend no time in a Korean jail. Un-huh. Not after killing an innocent young Korean girl. No way.”
“I didn’t kill her,” Bolt said for what must’ve been the umpteenth time.
“So your partner did. Same difference. You think those Korean convicts are going to give a rat’s ass?”
Bolt didn’t answer. He let his sweaty head hang. A hot bulb filled the cement-box interrogation room with light. Ernie and I stood, as did the five Korean cops.
The woman Bolt had taken hostage had been rushed to Pupyong Municipal Hospital. She appeared uninjured, but was suffering from shock.
“You know who your hostage was, Bolt?” Ernie asked.
Sullenly, he shook his head.
“The wife of the third son of the brother of the Mayor of Pupyong. You know how to pick ’em. Smooth move. Smoother than Exlax.”
Private Boltworks’ head hung even lower.
“Me and my partner have to go now,” Ernie said. “We have things to do. Don’t have time to sit here all morning chatting with you, no matter how much we’d like to.”
Boltworks raised his head. “Don’t leave.”
“How can we stay? You haven’t told us a goddamn thing. We want to get back to the compound, have breakfast. A cup of coffee. Because of you, we missed our bacon and eggs.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“Sorry, Bolt,” Ernie said, shaking his head. “You don’t talk, we go.”
“Okay,” Boltworks said. “What do you want to know?”
Ernie smirked. I pulled out my notebook. In less than a half hour, we had the whole story.
We typed up our report at the ASCOM MP Station. It was past noon. We’d missed chow again, and Ernie and I were famished.
“Too bad you couldn’t keep your promise to Bolt,” I said.
“Screw my promise,” Ernie said. “A maggot like that deserves more than lies.”
“He’ll get what’s coming to him. That’s for sure.”
We’d left Private Rodney Boltworks in the custody of the Korean National Police. Since he’d committed crimes on their soil, and since he’d been apprehended off a U.S. military compound, by treaty, they had jurisdiction. Probably, in a few days, the ROK government would see fit to turn him over to U.S. military authorities. But that decision would come from on high. It wasn’t for two lowly CID agents like Ernie and me to decide. If Boltworks hadn’t been such a bonehead, he’d have realized that we really had nothing to offer him. But he’d been terrified of the stone-faced Korean cops who glared at him with such hatred. So he’d spilled his guts.
When we left him at the Pupyong Police Station, he’d squealed like a pig being left for slaughter.
A little betrayal didn’t bother me, not at all. As we walked out of the station, I thought about the cigarette burns on Mi-ja’s soft flesh. And I thought about the looks on the faces of Han Ok-hi’s parents. A young woman struck down in her prime. PFC Bolt could go straight to hell as far as I was concerned.
I asked the MP Desk Sergeant if the PX snack bar was open, and he said it was open all day and gave us directions.
We were about to leave the ASCOM MP Station, when the phone rang. The Desk Sergeant answered.
“It’s for you,” he called to us, holding out the receiver. “Seoul.”
It was Staff Sergeant Riley.
“Top wants you back here,” he said. “Immediately, if not sooner.”
“We’re gonna eat chow first.”
“Chow can wait. You got bigger problems.”
“I’ve got problems?” I said.
“Yeah, you. You’re the one who had his forty-five stolen, aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer. The humiliation of having my weapon taken from me still burned deep.
“You there, Sueno?” Riley asked.
“I’m here.”
“Back to Seoul-now. Both of you. Don’t bother to stop at the compound, just head straight for Itaewon.”
I stood straighter, suddenly alert. “Why? What’s happened?”
“Nothin’ good. You heard of a Spec. Five Arthur Q.
Fairbanks?”
“Fairbanks? No.”
