nervously over her shoulder as the mob closed on them. “Ma’am, I’d get rid of those heels if I were you. They’re nice, but they aren’t Nikes!”
She looked at him and then at the chaos behind her. Muttering “There goes one pair of stockings,” she kicked out of her heels, scooped them off the pavement, and ran down the street, shoes in one hand and a package in another.
Tony ran to catch up, shouting, “The bookstore on the left!”
This lady was fast. Even with the noise behind pushing him along, he caught up to her only when she slowed to find the shop front.
Tony banged on the door and it opened just long enough for them to duck inside. The Korean slammed it shut as if it were spring-loaded. He looked up at Tony. “This is good. You find your lady friend. Both now safe.”
The woman flushed red.
Tony glanced over at her, embarrassed, and then back to the shopkeeper. “I don’t know her. I just didn’t think we should leave her out on the street.
“I’m glad you didn’t. Thank you both.” She started to put on her shoes, and Tony reached out a gentlemanly hand to steady her. She stood gracefully on one leg and slipped on one shoe, then switched legs and repeated the process. Tony pulled his hand back before she noticed it.
Hell, she wasn’t just pretty — she was damned pretty. She had a nice figure, but what really caught his eye was a mop of curly copper-colored hair. She wore it shoulder-length, and combined with the pale, freckled complexion only redheads can have, she was a knockout. She was tall, only half a head shorter than Tony, and that much taller than the shopkeeper.
And that was an American accent if he’d ever hear one. He straightened his shoulders. “Ma’am, I’m just glad I could help.” He reached out again, turning the charm meter up to level three. “My name’s Tony Christopher.”
She took his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Christopher. I hadn’t counted on running into something like this.” She suddenly smiled. “I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Anne Larson.”
Tony was worried. Level three wasn’t a killer, but “Mr. Christopher”? Sheesh. He tried level five. “Call me Tony, please.”
Before she could reply, something or someone slammed off the bookstore’s shutters, making them all jump. Anne whitened. “They’re going crazy out there. What’s going on around here all of a sudden?”
Tony shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. This is out of my field. Ask me about MiGs or flying, but not this stuff.”
They could hear windows breaking across the street. He turned to the Korean shopkeeper. “Say, have you ever seen anything this violent before?”
“No, not before. But all riots bad. Criminals and communists and ungrateful children. They make too much trouble, and everyone suffers. My shop will smell of the gas for weeks.”
Anne said, “But the police, they’re clubbing people.”
The Korean’s face tightened. “They bring this on themselves. Protesting the government! They should see how I lived thirty, forty years ago. They go to school and instead of classes they march in the street and throw rocks! They should obey parents and use chance to go to school. I wish I could go to university. They could have better life, build country.” He shook his head slowly and gestured outside. “Instead, they tear things up.”
Tony peered through a crack between the window shutters. Groups of students and police were struggling — sometimes attacking, sometimes fleeing. He felt as if he were watching it on television, but the sounds were too real, and you couldn’t catch the gut-wrenching stench of the tear gas on television.
He could see several hundred people, mostly white-masked students with some other civilians mixed in, trying to make a stand in the street outside. But a solid line of green-uniformed Combat Policemen were working their way slowly up the street breaking heads.
Squads in phalanx formation charged knots of protestors as they tried to form, firing rubber bullets and closing with clubs. Behind the advancing police line, troopers handcuffed individual rioters, none too gently, and dragged them over to waiting security vans. At the same time, trucks with water cannon and grenade launchers fired at larger groups, driving the mass of people farther up the street. It was a well-organized operation, pulverizing a mass of organized demonstrators into dazed individuals, safely under control.
He and Anne both watched as the police line moved toward the bookstore. As the fighting got closer, details popped out. Two policemen handcuffed a glassy-eyed student, threw him to the ground, and kicked him savagely. Just a few feet away, another demonstrator picked up a tear gas grenade from the pavement and lobbed it back toward the police. He went down with blood streaming from his forehead, knocked senseless by a rubber bullet fired at near point-blank range.
Another had a spray can. As a riot trooper ran at him, the kid pressed the spray button, then held a lighter in front of it. Tony saw a flash and saw the student try to aim his improvised flamethrower at the oncoming policeman. But the helmeted trooper knocked the spray can away with a long billy club, then whipped the weapon down onto the student’s unprotected head — smashing the boy to the pavement with a series of short, vicious blows. The man ran on, leaving the kid huddled in agony on the ground.
Tony looked back at the Korean shopkeeper. He was sitting at his desk in the back, quietly working. He wasn’t accomplishing much though, since he glanced up every five or ten seconds. When he saw Tony looking, he quickly fixed his gaze on the papers in front of him and did not look up again.
Anne didn’t say anything. She just shivered occasionally.
Tony couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t sound ridiculously out of place. So they stood together, behind the shutters, watching silently as the South Korean riot police broke the demonstration into fragments.
It was over in minutes. Moving with steady precision, the line of police and armored cars advanced past up the block. Like water spraying from a hose, the crowd scattered onto other cross-streets, and as the fighting moved on, the noise outside fell away — leaving an almost eerie quiet in its place.
They waited a few moments more, unwilling to believe that the brutal street battle they’d witnessed had ended so quickly. But it had, and finally Tony looked over at Anne with a questioning look. Anne nodded, seeming almost afraid somehow to break the silence.
Tony looked out through the shutters again, craning to catch a glimpse of the streets down which the riot had flowed. It seemed all clear.
“Hold up for a second,” he said, and walked back to thank the bookstore owner for sheltering them. He also wanted to pay the man for the pamphlet he’d been holding crumpled in his hand for almost an hour. The man smiled, came with him to the door, and unlocked it.
He ushered Tony and Anne out onto the street — bowing politely as they both wished him good luck. “Please, do not pay attention to this, this incident.” He gestured at the debris-strewn pavement. “Do not judge Korea by these hooligans. They are fools. They do not know what they do.”
As they stepped out onto the empty street, Tony half-expected to feel as if he were walking across a deserted battlefield. But the wind had blown the tear gas away and it felt strangely like an early morning, like those quiet, still hours just before people wake up and the stores open for business.
And Tony knew that the stores along the Insa-Dong would soon reopen. There had been a riot, but the police had restored order. At least that’s what they would say on the evening news.
Yeah, right. As far as Tony was concerned that was like calling a plane crash “an undesirable ground/air interface.”
He looked at his watch. Plenty of time to spare before his train left for Kunsan. Well, to hell with the shopping trip.
He wasn’t going to hang around waiting to get tear-gassed again. He glanced at Anne. She seemed uncertain, hesitant somehow.
“Look, can I get you a cab or help you find someplace? I’m not real familiar with Seoul, but I’ve got a pretty good map.”
Anne looked even less certain than she had before, if that was possible. “Oh, no. No, I don’t think so.” She paused. “I took the subway to get out here.”
Tony smiled. “No problem. I’m heading back that way myself. I’d be glad to see you to the station.” He was pretty sure he could find it again.
Anne kept her eyes fixed about the level of his shoes. Tony felt frustrated. Hell, he didn’t bite — at least not that often. And he couldn’t stand around here in the street forever, waiting for this woman to make up her mind
