Good Fortune Draws Demons
It is the way of things: where good fortune goes, a devil slips in after it.
Gijo was on a train bound for Daegu when Jeong Bong-pal and Choi Seong-han—the same pair who had ambushed Hee-ja and Roberts—crouched near a bridge, watching everyone who crossed.
"He'll come over this bridge. Count on it."
"You gonna know him when you see him, boss? I got hit so fast I can barely remember the face..."
"I don't remember it well either. Only thing I'm sure of is he was built like a mountain. Wait—!"
Choi Seong-han yanked Jeong Bong-pal back behind a tree.
Right past them went Jang Ma-ryang, pedaling for Eundae-ri with Sunrye perched on the bicycle.
"How long you gonna keep actin' the spoiled child?"
"You don't want to give me a ride, then don't. And I won't be bringing lunch anymore."
"Me, I can do without your cookin'. I put up with it 'cause the professor likes it. Come spring, you walk."
The two thugs stayed hidden until the bickering faded, then eased back out into the open.
"That's him, ain't it?"
"Looks like it. Fella was talkin' that northern talk."
"A commie bastard, then. No wonder he hit so mean."
"Must be workin' that brick plant out at Cheongsan."
"Oh, right. I heard about that place. Word is everybody at the plant's from up north."
"That so? Well, ain't that convenient..."
A vicious smile flickered across Choi Seong-han's face.
"Boss. Should we bring iron bars this time?"
"Iron bars for what?"
"Payback. We jump him from behind."
"You an idiot?"
Choi Seong-han snapped it at him.
"You can barely see out of those swollen eyes, and my back's shot. You want the two of us to take him? We tangle with him again and we'll be walkin' the road to hell side by side."
"Then what do we..."
"What do you think? We tie every last one of those Sampar-ttaraji bastards up there in with the Reds. Don't you remember what we pulled in Icheon?"
"Icheon?"
"When we got caught liftin' bundles off refugees come down from the north, we branded 'em commies and had the whole station beat 'em half to death."
"Oh! Right, we did. Guess that bastard rattled my skull so bad my memory ain't what it was. Hahaha."
Jeong Bong-pal cackled, and the broken front tooth showed through his bruised, swollen face, making an already ugly mug uglier still. Choi Seong-han laughed at the sight of it, then a sudden stab of pain took his back. He clutched his waist and groaned.
"Aigoo, my back..."
"You all right, boss?"
"I'm fine. It ain't gonna kill me."
"Son of a bitch. Wrecks a healthy man's back just 'cause he was gonna jump some GI whore? Goddamn bastard..."
Jeong Bong-pal cursed Ma-ryang without a thought for what they themselves had done.
Still hunched over, Choi Seong-han braced his waist with both hands.
"These days, two men put their heads together and call a fella a Red, and a Red he is. You know that."
"Sure do. Bunch of northerners all huddled up together—couldn't ask for an easier mark to paint red."
"Let's stitch it up nice and tight. Time we showed 'em that you lay a hand on Choi Seong-han and Jeong Bong-pal, and your life's finished..."
"But how do we stitch it?"
At the question, Choi Seong-han said,
"You remember that bomb went off in Eundae-ri not long back? Killed a pile of GIs?"
"Yeah."
"And I hear those bastards got themselves a truck lately. Been drivin' it all over."
"They have? Northerners with a truck?"
"Thread the two together so the story holds, and we're set."
"How?"
The man did nothing but ask questions, and it was a pitiful thing to watch, but Choi Seong-han kept his patience.
"Where'd they get money for a truck? Kim Il-sung gave it to 'em. Every last bit."
"Ah..."
"And that bomb that killed the GIs the other day—they set it off."
"Oh... That sounds real good, boss."
"And the northerners workin' the plant mean to drive that truck up to Seoul and make a run at Dr. Syngman Rhee. How's that for a story?"
Jeong Bong-pal flashed the broken tooth again and shot a thumb in the air.
"Let's go file it."
"Boss, us walkin' into a police station... that don't sit right, does it?"
"What police are there in Yeoncheon? We came here 'cause there ain't any. Spies, you report to the army!"
"Can't match you for the little angles, boss. Let's get a move on!"
Leaning on Jeong Bong-pal, Choi Seong-han came slowly down the hill. Every time his foot met the ground, his right leg sparked as if a current had run through it. Ever since Ma-ryang had slammed him into the dirt, his back had ached whether he stood straight or lay flat. That he could walk at all was close to a miracle.
Just you wait, you devil. You laid hands on the wrong man...
Choi Seong-han clenched his teeth and swore his revenge.
Two days later, an unusual man came to the 7th Division.
He arrived in a black sedan, passed the main gate, and went straight to Division Commander Martin's office. When he stepped out he was not in uniform. Newspaper in one hand, he took off his sunglasses, glanced once around the post, and went inside.
Major General Martin greeted him warmly as he entered.
"Come in. What's the CIA doing all the way out here?"
"Good to see you, sir. Your piece ran in Stars and Stripes, so I came by to pay my respects."
The paper in his hand was that day's Stars and Stripes, carrying the feel-good story of the 7th Division and the village of Eundae-ri.
"You could have just telephoned. No need to come all this way for that. Hahaha."
The man's name was Frank. He was a junior who had trained alongside Martin at the OSS—the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA—back when Martin had served as an intelligence staff officer. When the OSS became the CIA, Frank had gone over with it. Martin had stayed in the army.
Seated across from the general on the sofa, he made ordinary small talk for a while, then opened the paper he had brought.
"Sir. These men, here."
Frank's finger indicated Gijo and Ma-ryang in the photograph with the article. Red circles had been drawn around both faces, and Martin found the pencil marks vaguely ominous.
"Yes. The Koreans we ended up in that heartwarming piece with. Something the matter?"
"Korean intelligence has started looking into them."
"Looking into them? For what?"
"They're checking whether there's any basis for a counterespionage case. We only know because they asked us to cooperate."
"Cooperate how?"
"They wanted confirmation that bricks really were delivered to a U.S. Army unit, and that the village of Eundae-ri and the 7th Division truly formed a sister partnership."
"Do we have to account to Korean intelligence for every little thing like that?"
"Of course not. I only came because I was worried you might run into trouble, with your promotion coming up."
Major General Martin's expression changed.
Since the early 1950s, America had been sweating through the fever of McCarthyism, ever since Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed there were 205 communists inside the State Department. Martin thought of Brigadier General Ralph Zwicker, once a close friend. Zwicker, commanding Camp Kilmer in New Jersey, had been named a communist by McCarthy and was even now being dragged through the mud. With his own promotion to lieutenant general ahead of him, Martin's throat went dry at the thought that he too might be offered up to it.
"Care for something to drink?"
"Yes. That'd be good."
Reading the man's mood, Frank said he would like cold water, and Martin had his aide bring two glasses. Martin drained one at a swallow and turned back to him.
"I did a short stint at the OSS myself, didn't I? I know how an intelligence service moves. Speak plain."
"A special unit of the Korean Army is on the move."
"A special unit?"
"Yes. Under the Army Intelligence Bureau. Professional Red-hunters."
"And how is it playing out?"
"The way I see it, they've already decided the men are communists and they're running an operation to make it stick."
At the word operation, Martin let out a low breath. It meant Korean military intelligence would turn Gijo and Ma-ryang into Reds one way or another. If those two were branded communists, Martin himself became a general who had been in contact with them—a serious liability in the season of McCarthyism.
"Do they have any grounds?"
"A report from a villager, they say. Very specific, and they claim they've secured physical evidence. Frankly, I don't trust the Korean side's story."
"What evidence?"
"A truck, a bomb, and a communist camp, supposedly. But those people fabricate that sort of thing so often..."
Martin knew as well as anyone that prey an intelligence service had once seized, it never let go. Testimony and evidence were only a matter of manufacture.
"Sir, you need to shake them off. Now, while you still can."
Frank was saying what he meant. Cut the tie with Gijo and Ma-ryang.
"But the story's already in the paper, isn't it?"
A photograph of him with those men had already run in a newspaper published by the Department of Defense. Martin judged it far too late to wash his hands of them.
"How much pull do you have with the Korean Intelligence Bureau?"
"I can stall the operation a little. The commander of that unit is an aggressive man. On my own authority, that's as far as it goes."
He could buy a little time. Martin sank into thought.
"Sir, shall we move first?"
"Move how?"
"Before the Korean Army takes the two of them, we can remove them ourselves."
"Remove them? What are you saying?"
It sounded as if the CIA meant to eliminate Gijo and Ma-ryang so the special unit could never lay hands on them.
"No. I won't have that."
Martin was not a man who wanted a promotion badly enough to kill innocent people for it. His instincts told him Gijo and Ma-ryang were no spies.
"Sir, I didn't mean we'd kill them. I meant we'd slip them out to Japan, where the Korean Army couldn't reach them."
Abduct the two and spirit them to Japan—with the CIA's reach, that much would not be difficult. But would it really end there? Martin knew Frank was trying to help him, and still he did not think it a fundamental solution.
"For now, you buy me time."
"Understood."
"How long can you hold that unit?"
"I'll have them frozen through tomorrow afternoon."
Twenty-four hours of room, then.
"Sir, will that be enough?"
"It's enough."
Frank could hear the resolve in the answer.
"Is there anything more I can do for you?"
"Get me the file on that unit's commander. Know your enemy and know yourself, and you don't lose the fight. Isn't that so?"
A fight?
From that single word, Frank understood that Martin meant to meet this head-on.
"And, Frank..."
"Don't worry, sir. I won't report it home."
"Good. Thank you."
Martin was grateful. Frank was a loyal man.
Overseas, the CIA looked into even the smallest details and reported them back to headquarters, and whatever was reported reached, as a matter of course, the White House. In a promotion review for a general officer, CIA reporting on his conduct at an overseas post could sway even the president, who held the final say.
Still not easy in his mind, Frank asked again.
"You're sure you don't need my help?"
"I'm grateful, but if you step in, it could make things worse later."
There was sense in that. If a private collaboration between a serving officer and an intelligence service ever came to light, it would be the end of him.
Frank nodded. He knew Martin was not a man who dealt in tricks. What he could not foresee was where that stubborn integrity would carry this affair.