The Checkpoint
Ki-jo and the three brothers of Hyundai Construction burst out of the tent. What hit them first was the dizzying glare of headlights pouring off trucks and jeeps—and then the American soldiers, M1 rifles in their hands. Armed men climbed down and drew a ring around the canvas.
What in the world is this...?
Ki-jo and the brothers were too stunned to speak. Chung In-yung, who had dealt with Americans more than any of them, stepped out in front.
"What's going on? This is a bridge construction site. If you've taken a wrong turn, I'll show you the way out."
At that, an American officer got down from a jeep and came toward him.
"Is there a man named Lee Ki-jo here?"
In-yung checked the patch on the officer's shoulder. A black hourglass on a red field—the mark of the 7th Division.
"Why are you looking for him?"
"We're carrying out the division commander's orders."
"Then you ought to tell us what this is about. You can't simply appear and start asking after people..."
Another man stepped out of the jeep. The headlights left little more than a silhouette, but Ki-jo thought he knew the shape of him.
"Hansu? Is that you?"
"Yes, Chief! It's me, Shim Hansu!"
Relief didn't come. What came was puzzlement. What business could Shim Hansu have, riding with the U.S. Army all the way to Dalseong to find him? Something had gone wrong. That much was plain.
"I'm Lee Ki-jo."
He walked up to the American lieutenant, who offered his hand.
"Lieutenant Cedric. Come with me to Camp Casey."
The face was familiar. Ki-jo had seen it twice, on his calls upon the division commander. The man was Major General Martin's aide.
"What's happened, all of a sudden? I was speaking with General Martin only a few days ago..."
"I don't know. We were ordered to get you to the base safely, no matter what. That's all we were told."
No matter what?
Ki-jo looked at Hansu. Shim Hansu's face said he was just as lost.
"Very well. If General Martin is asking for me, I ought to go. You'll give me a moment to take my leave of the people here?"
"Of course. But you'll need to hurry."
Ki-jo nodded and went over to President Chung Ju-yung and his brothers.
"It won't be anything serious. Once I'm finished with General Martin, I'll come back."
"You sure you're all right? The Americans drove two hundred miles to come get you."
Chung Ju-yung's eyes had gone round. Ki-jo was every bit as thrown, and determined not to show it.
"Must be that I'm worth the trouble, wouldn't you say?"
He put on a show of ease.
"You didn't skip out with the Army's money, did you?"
"Hardly. Ha. I'm a man of credit, same as you."
He shook hands with Chung Ju-yung's younger brothers as well. When that was done, In-yung leaned in to his eldest brother and spoke at his ear.
"I'm going with President Lee."
"What? Why would you?"
"I need to see whether President Lee is on the level. Otherwise how are we supposed to decide on a partnership in a hurry?"
Chung In-yung kept Hyundai Construction's money, and he knew the company's straits better than anyone. If there was cash to be found, he was ready to follow it into hell itself and look it over. Hyundai was that desperate.
"Drop it. He said he'd come back."
Chung Ju-yung tried to stop him, displeasure plain on his face. In-yung turned to Ki-jo instead, and he was in earnest.
"President Lee. If your contract with the 7th Division falls through, you wouldn't mind Hyundai Construction taking it?"
"Of course not. You'd be right to."
"In-yung! Even if we landed it, we couldn't do the work!"
Chung Ju-yung nearly jumped.
"We take it first. Then we subcontract."
"And where are you going to find a subcontractor you can trust? You got one, bring him here."
"Brother, is this the time to fuss over hot rice or cold?"
In-yung seemed to have settled it. He was not a man who ordinarily crossed his eldest brother. He asked Lieutenant Cedric whether he might come along, and Ki-jo spoke up for him.
"This gentleman is an important business partner of mine. We haven't finished a critical discussion, so we'll talk it through on the way to Dongducheon."
"So long as you come to the base, I don't care."
And so, for all his brother's objections, Chung In-yung climbed into Lieutenant Cedric's jeep beside Ki-jo. Shim Hansu transferred to an Army truck. One jeep and eight trucks, some hundred American soldiers between them, pulled out of the Goryeong Bridge site in a column.
In the back seat Ki-jo and In-yung did not speak. Ki-jo had nothing to say about the fix they were in, and In-yung held his tongue because of why he had come. The two of them might yet be partners. They might just as easily be rivals.
As the escort raced through the night, both men grew uneasy at how little the Americans hesitated. Around Daegu, partisan guerrillas had forced the ROK Army to throw up checkpoint after checkpoint, but the column ignored every attempt to stop it, kicking up dust and punching straight through. Watching that from inside the car, time and again, In-yung settled on one of two things.
This Lee Ki-jo... either the American division commander truly treasures him, or he truly hates him.
They never paused. Drivers were rotated through the night, and past Suwon the escort drew up before the Han River bridge, where a large ROK checkpoint was waiting—barbed wire and barricades, sandbagged fighting positions, heavy machine guns, and an M24 Chaffee light tank besides. This was nothing like the posts they had blown through. This time the Americans had to stop.
"Open the gate! We're an escort from the U.S. 7th Division, carrying out Major General Will Martin's orders!"
A KATUSA—a Korean soldier attached to the American unit—had climbed down to deliver it to the platoon leader on the gate. The lieutenant, posted there only yesterday, did not so much as blink at an American major general's name.
"Shut your mouth, you son of a bitch. Don't you know the Han River bridge is under curfew? Tell your division commander to put in a proper request to ours!"
While he threw his weight around, the assistant platoon leader came up and whispered.
"Sir, just let them through. These are the same Americans who passed here yesterday."
"Cut the bullshit! At this hour nobody crosses—American or Korean—without the general's say-so. We're the last line holding the bridges into Seoul."
Second Lieutenant Kang Jang-su was already sour that a KATUSA had thrown an American division commander in his face.
A corporal's brat, throwing his weight around on nothing but American backing...
He was a proud man. When persuasion got nowhere at all, the KATUSA went back to the jeep and explained the situation to Cedric. Cedric got out and walked over to the Korean lieutenant.
"Lieutenant! Clear that barricade, or we'll force it open and drive through."
Lieutenant Kang snorted at the threat.
"If you can get through, be my guest."
He had been trained in English, and he said it with a glance at the light tank parked along the road. Lieutenant Cedric stared at him in silence, then turned and pointed the ROK tank out to the gunner on the heavy machine gun mounted in the truck. The muzzle swung onto the Chaffee.
"Lieutenant! Let's see if that tank of yours can take armor-piercing."
Mild looks or not, Cedric was a hard man. His great-grandfather had distinguished himself with the Confederacy in the Civil War, and the family had turned out officers down the generations. Cedric and his men had fought the year before in the bloodiest action the 7th Division had seen—the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, a height they called by that name because men went up it and came apart like ketchup and ground meat. Having lived through that, they did not blink at a clash with the Korean Army.
The charging handle came back with a hard clack.
The assistant platoon leader was at Lieutenant Kang's ear at once.
"Sir, if they open up, every man in that tank dies..."
The words were barely out when Cedric's arm went up, and the gunner pulled the trigger. The heavy machine gun roared. Tracers whipped past just above the tank commander's head, and the man flinched and dropped through the hatch.
What the—he actually fired...
Lieutenant Kang swallowed against a dry throat. When the burst stopped, Cedric stepped in until their faces nearly touched.
"Open it. You son of a bitch."
He seized the unit patch on the platoon leader's shoulder.
"Before I flatten that tank, and everything else with it."
The fight went out of the man. He ordered his men to clear the barricade. Once the checkpoint stood open, Lieutenant Cedric clapped him on the shoulder.
"Lieutenant. You're a fine soldier. But I had orders of my own to carry out."
The 7th Division's jeep and trucks rolled through and headed for the Han River bridge. The lieutenant was still watching them go when an urgent call came over the radio.
"What the hell was that gunfire at the checkpoint!"
It was the battalion commander himself. He had heard the shots from the far side of the Han River bridge.
"Ah—no, sir. An accidental discharge. The Americans."
"You sure? Say it straight, you little shit. The ones crossing the Han River bridge right now—they're Americans?"
"Yes, sir, Americans! Battalion Commander!"
"You stupid bastard. Word of gunfire near the Han River bridge has already gone all the way up to Gyeongmudae. If the Americans fired because of you, I'll kill you with my own two hands. You hear me?"
Gyeongmudae was the presidential palace. When the battalion commander cut the line, the platoon leader's legs gave out, and he dropped where he stood.
Ki-jo and In-yung had watched the whole of it from the jeep, and neither could make sense of what they had seen. Americans and Korean soldiers had squared off, shots had been fired, and an American lieutenant had taken the Han River bridge as if he meant to stake his life on the crossing.
"Well... this is a fine business..."
Chung In-yung, seated beside him, let it out on a sigh.
"Are you worried?"
"No, it's only... the Americans actually fired..."
Ki-jo wanted to ease him.
"At the start of the war, the Han River bridge was blown, and I couldn't get across."
"What?"
In-yung looked at him steadily.
"I had a sick child in my arms. I couldn't cross, so I just stood under the broken bridge, staring."
"You mean when Seoul fell to the People's Army?"
"Yes. Just before it fell. I was down by that river with my family." He said it looking down at the dark bank where, in his second life, he had stood.
"But why tell me that now..."
"When I think of that time, I feel there's nothing I can't do. And how good it is, crossing the Han River bridge like this—comfortable, in a jeep."
In-yung didn't really follow. But the sight of Ki-jo smiling, unshaken in the middle of so much ugliness, settled him a little. If the man at the center of it wasn't frightened, then somehow it would come out all right.
The escort passed safely through the streets of Seoul and reached Dongducheon around sunrise. A night in the jolting jeep had left Ki-jo and In-yung aching in every joint, but the ache vanished the moment they pulled up before the 7th Division. Four Patton tanks, each the size of an elephant, blocked the main gate. As the column arrived, two of them rolled aside and opened a lane.
In-yung watched with his mouth hanging open.
"President Lee... you really didn't run off with the Americans' money, did you?"
Ki-jo had no more idea than he did why any of this was happening. Then, from the jeep rolling in through the gate, familiar figures caught his eye.
Have I gone sleepless long enough to start seeing things...?
He rubbed both eyes and looked again. Ma-ryang and Seo-gwang.
No. What are they doing here...
He could not look away.