Jang Ma-ryang's Past
Major General Martin received word that Ki-jo had come safely inside the unit.
At last. Mr. Lee is here.
He let out the breath he had been holding. Getting Ki-jo through the gate unharmed was already half the battle won, and the desperate hours of the day before came back to him in a rush. The moment he had gone through the file Frank handed over, there had been no room left to hesitate.
Kim Chang-ryong, chief of the Counter Intelligence Corps, was purging every Korean he so much as suspected of communism. His method was to kill first and look afterward—no trial, no investigation. The dead tell no tales, whether a man had ever been a communist or not. The first thing a corps like that would reach for was the persons of Ki-jo and Ma-ryang. Martin had decided to get there first.
At dawn the previous day he had sent a tank company and an infantry battalion racing for Eundae-ri and Cheongsan. They managed to take the man called Jang Ma-ryang into custody, but Ki-jo was nowhere to be found. Martin ordered every resident of Eundae-ri and every hand at the Cheongsan factory evacuated to the base.
His judgment proved sound. As the Americans who had gone into Yeoncheon were bringing the villagers out, they met the Counter Intelligence Corps on the road. There was a short, ugly exchange, but tanks and numbers smothered whatever resistance the corps could offer. A little later, and the people of the factory and the village would have been hauled away. If even one of those six hundred, under threat and torture, had sworn that Lee Ki-jo was a spy, Martin would not only have seen his road to promotion stopped cold—he might have been saddled with the charge of colluding with a spy himself.
When Ki-jo stepped into the room, Major General Martin broke into a bright smile and held out his hand.
"Mr. Lee. Welcome."
Ki-jo took in the general's drawn face and bloodshot eyes. The man looked as though he, too, had gone without sleep.
"And who is the gentleman with you?"
Martin was looking at Chung In-yung, who had come in at Ki-jo's side.
"My partner. Chung In-yung, vice president of Hyundai Construction."
"Ah, Hyundai Construction. I know the name. They've done a good deal of work for the Army, as I understand it."
"That's correct, General."
In-yung was plainly gratified to be recognized.
"You've come a long way. You must be tired. Have some coffee."
At the division commander's word, Lieutenant Cedric brought in three cups.
"General, please tell me what has happened."
Martin set his cup down.
"It seems we've landed in a difficult spot."
At that, In-yung looked from Ki-jo to Martin and back again. Martin lit a cigarette.
"A report has gone to the Counter Intelligence Corps. It says you're a Red."
"That I'm a communist?"
"That hardly matters now. The trouble is that the corps has already decided you are one."
The shape of it came clear to Ki-jo soon enough. In the 1950s it was no rare thing for an ordinary man to be branded a spy or a Red, and to lose his family, his fortune, or his life. He did not know who had named him a communist, or why, but he understood that a naked blade had just grazed his throat. A chill climbed the back of his neck. This was his last return, and it had nearly all come to nothing—his own life, and his family's with it.
I've run headlong into the age itself.
He had guessed that coming back to the 1950s might set a butterfly effect loose, and so he had meant to live carefully, crossing the times as little as he could. The trouble had found him before caution ever had a chance. He stilled the lurch in his chest and made himself think coldly. In this life, shock and despair were luxuries he could not afford.
For now, Major General Martin is trying to save all of them, not only me.
The measures the general had already taken made that plain. It was something to be grateful for.
Then why did he look so on edge?
Waiting in the office, Martin's face had been worn thin.
McCarthyism?
The more he turned it over, the more certain he grew that the tension came from the climate in America, where McCarthyism was running wild. The Counter Intelligence Corps itself could lay no finger on the U.S. Army. It was a tiger only in its own house, fearsome solely when the prey was its own people. But this was a season in America when a soldier or a politician needed only to be whispered into the company of communists, and his career was blown apart. If Ki-jo were branded one of them, Martin would be in danger too. That was why the general had not said that he was in trouble, but that we were. Ki-jo understood.
"General, I'd like to know what you mean to do from here."
"Sit tight inside the unit for now. The post might as well be American soil. There won't be a thing they can do."
Safety, for the moment. It would not be enough.
"Is there anything beyond that?"
"I've already sent word to General Van Fleet. I served under him. He'll stand by me."
"You're certain?"
"General Van Fleet has suffered an injustice of his own..."
Martin told them how the general he had served under had been mistaken for another officer with a similar name, and how his promotions had suffered for it.
"His name sat too close to a drunkard of an officer's. The promotion boards kept passing him over."
He gave a short laugh and tapped his ash into the tray.
"General Eisenhower—the president, now—cleared the misunderstanding. He told the man's superiors that Van Fleet was no drunk. When General Marshall learned the truth, late as it was, he gave him his promotion."
Ki-jo already knew the story. Hearing that Martin meant to lean on Van Fleet's influence eased him a little further. Van Fleet had commanded the Eighth Army in the Korean War; his son had been killed in Korea, and the general held the country dear. He was on close terms with President Syngman Rhee besides.
"One thing, General. Why is there a tank parked at the main gate?"
"The Counter Intelligence Corps will be at the front of this base before long. We could keep them out of the post without a tank, but the tank is a statement. It says we will not hand over the people of Eundae-ri. Not for anything."
The general's resolve was iron. He had handled the first hours well and laid the next steps with care, but Ki-jo knew he could not simply leave it there. He wanted something that would make the corps hesitate.
In Korea at that time, the only institution that could so much as question the corps' abuses was the press. Every other public body was helpless before it. The papers could not break the Counter Intelligence Corps, but they could worry it and make a nuisance of themselves, and in the 1950s the newspaper was the most powerful medium there was. Television would not arrive until 1956, and radio, still thinly spread, carried little weight. Ki-jo meant to use the papers again.
"What if we called back the reporters who covered the 7th Division last time?"
He laid the plan out. Put a story in front of the whole country: the U.S. Army was sheltering villagers suspected of being Reds. Bringing an entire village inside an American base for protection was something that had not happened even in the Korean War. The nearest likeness was the Hungnam Evacuation, when the Americans had taken a hundred thousand refugees aboard their ships and withdrawn with them. News like this would wake that memory. And people then trusted the U.S. Army more than they trusted the Counter Intelligence Corps. Fear of power kept them quiet. It did not keep them from knowing right from wrong.
"Then I'd better call a few reporters I know. I've some correspondents."
"I'd like them to see something that speaks to the friendship between the 7th Division and Eundae-ri."
"Good. One photograph of innocent people is worth more than saying a hundred times that they're innocent."
Chung In-yung, listening, saw at once that Ki-jo and Major General Martin were bound by more than the ordinary tie between a client and his contractor. They shared a single fate. Was there a better relationship to have? If this came out well, he was certain the Army's construction work would fall to Ki-jo as a matter of course. Even if Ki-jo's side were cut out of those contracts, Hyundai Construction could not take the 7th Division job; every man it had was tied down at Goryeong Bridge. And even if they went looking for a subcontractor, his brother had been right—there was no proper, trustworthy one to be found. The best they could do was let Cheongsan Development win the contract, and take a modest return for lending Hyundai's name.
He thought of his younger brother, Chung Shin-yung, at the Dong-A Ilbo.
I should have Shin-yung cover this too. President Lee Ki-jo's success is the road Hyundai has to walk.
"General, I'd like to call my younger brother. He works at the Dong-A Ilbo."
"Your brother's a reporter?"
"Yes, he is."
In those days the Dong-A Ilbo was the first newspaper in the Republic of Korea, and there was no second. Seeing In-yung pull his brother into the matter, Ki-jo understood: the man had decided to bet on a joint venture between Cheongsan Development and Hyundai Construction. Ki-jo offered his hand, and In-yung took it in a hard grip.
"Then let's each call the reporters we know."
Martin, Ki-jo, and In-yung worked the phones. Everyone who received the tip—an affair without precedent, unfolding inside an American base—answered with interest, and the promise that they might report freely within the compound made them keener still.
When the calls were done, the three put their heads together again. They were settling just what the reporters ought to see when Martin turned to Ki-jo.
"Any trouble with your brother-in-law? Mr. Jang?"
He was thinking of the man—grim in the face, built on a towering frame—and asking whether Ma-ryang might carry a criminal record. Red or not, a past conviction would give the corps something to splash through the papers, and a way to paint every villager inside the 7th Division as a gang of criminals.
"I shouldn't think so. He spent a long time in China before he came to Korea."
Even as he said it, Ki-jo realized how little he truly knew of Ma-ryang. Beyond a father, and a wife and children left behind in the North, the man had been sparing with his past.
"Suppose we brought him in and heard it from him. If there's even some small fault, we'll want an answer ready."
He was right. Ki-jo agreed, and Martin sent for Jang Ma-ryang.
A short while later Jang Ma-ryang came into the division commander's office. Chung In-yung, seeing him for the first time, could not help marveling. The man was larger than most of the Americans around them, and In-yung understood, then, why Martin had worried.
"Have a seat."
At Ki-jo's word, Ma-ryang bowed and sat down beside him.
"You can see how serious this is. The general wants to hear about your past. The reason is—"
Ki-jo explained. Ma-ryang listened, and slowly nodded. Every eye in the room settled on him. At last he spoke.
"I served with the Nationalist Army. In China."
"The Nationalist Army?"
So that was it.
Ki-jo nodded.
"Fought the Japanese with them through '45. Fought the Communists through '49."
In-yung interpreted the exchange for Major General Martin as it went, and the general's face broke into a warm smile.
"A record of fighting Communists is as good a past as a man could have. You're not so different from us. You stood against the Japanese Army and the Chinese Communists."
Martin felt a small regret for having doubted Ma-ryang on looks alone. In-yung, though, named the one thing still wanting.
"But we have nothing on paper to prove Mr. Jang served with the Nationalists, do we?"
Hearing him, Ki-jo had to grant the point. He turned to Ma-ryang.
"Anyone who could swear you fought for them?"
"President Chiang Kai-shek would know."
Ma-ryang told them that when Chiang Kai-shek, beaten in the civil war, fell back on Taiwan, he had been one of the bodyguards kept close at the president's side.
"If President Chiang would vouch for you, nothing could be better. But..."
This was a time without video calls or fax machines. Getting a request through to Chiang's people in Taiwan, asking them to confirm Jang Ma-ryang's identity, would be no simple thing, and whether the president would even remember him was an open question. The men who had guarded him could hardly have numbered one or two.
Ki-jo turned his memory of history over carefully, looking for the right man to stand witness. Among men of Korean birth, the one who had risen highest in the Nationalist Army came to mind. The fight he was known for commanding was the Battle of Changsha.
"Can you tell me where you fought in the Second Sino-Japanese War?"
At the question, Ma-ryang's face darkened, and a hard light came into his eyes.