The Man in the Darkness
The Counter Intelligence Corps withdrew, and a detailed report was carried to Major General Martin, commander of the division. He sent for Ki-jo and Ma-ryang and commended them for having handled the matter well.
"Good you didn't let those bastards lead you by the nose. Well done."
Martin's face was bright.
"President Rhee's seventy-nine now, isn't he? Thereabouts?"
"Yes, sir."
"A new regime could appear any day. Cooperate with those men now, and whoever comes after may well hate you for it."
The general, too, did not believe the Syngman Rhee government would last.
"Keep your heads down for the time being. This affair will turn another way, I'm sure of it. A fabricated investigation never holds for long."
"I hope you're right, sir."
Martin studied Ma-ryang, who had come with Ki-jo, and then asked Ki-jo to interpret.
"General Kim Hong-il told me about Changsha. Said you went into the enemy's lines to pull your men out."
"Yes."
Ma-ryang answered short, as if to ask what else a man would have done.
"You're a fine soldier."
"Been a good while since the uniform came off."
Interpreting between them, Ki-jo could feel the respect passing from one man to the other. Ma-ryang was grateful for the decision Martin had made, the one that had saved so many lives, and Martin, well satisfied with the exchange, asked with a pleased face.
"The two of you want work assigned, as civilian employees of the 7th Division?"
Ki-jo had already asked the division commander for the tower watch.
"Yes, sir. We can't draw pay and sit idle. Even standing guard would do."
"All right. I'll grant what you asked."
"Thank you."
The general accepted the request and gave them one outpost on the base's outer perimeter, issuing with it the firearms and live ammunition the guard required. To Ki-jo, who had never served, went a pistol easy in the hand; Ma-ryang received an M1 Garand. The two of them volunteered for the night watch, the shift no one wanted.
The winter nights were cruel, but it was good to lean on each other and let the talk run. Ma-ryang began to unwind what he had lived through in China, one story and then another.
"When Kim Gu—Master Baekbeom—asked you to join him in the independence movement, why did you refuse?"
"Figured it better to join the Nationalist Army and fight the Japanese. Big man like me ain't fit for that work. Stand out too much..."
"True enough."
Ki-jo was glad to know, at last, the real reason Ma-ryang had turned the independence movement down.
"Still, you fought the Japanese. A man could say you took part in the struggle after all, couldn't he?"
"Wouldn't say so. If I'd never set out for China, I'd have lived quiet back in Hamgyong. Fought them Japanese bastards 'cause I wanted to get home quick."
Listening to him tell how he had gone to war and fought with everything he had, because he missed the wife and son waiting at home, Ki-jo felt something catch in his chest. Had he himself not come back to this difficult year of 1953 for the same reason—because he missed his own wife and son? There was much in which the two of them were alike.
"Don't you miss the family you left in the North?"
"Long as they're living, that's enough..."
The question was out before he could stop it, and at once he wished it back. How could the man not miss them? Ma-ryang, married now to Ki-jo's own sister-in-law, was in no position to say so.
What a foolish question...
Ki-jo blamed himself for the slip and let the silence stand. For a while their talk broke off, and then it picked up again.
"Anyhow. When's that vice president from Hyundai Construction coming?"
"He'll wait and see how our business turns out, I expect. He's willing to join hands with us—that much is clear. Even so, he'll be watching which way the wind blows. Hyundai is tied up in government contracts. They won't move carelessly."
Ma-ryang nodded.
"Even if Hyundai Construction don't come in with us, we can manage it on our own, can't we?"
"Of course. I think we can."
Major General Martin had promised that, one way or another, he would see Cheongsan Development awarded the base construction, and with the promise had come a hint that General Taylor, commander of the Eighth Army, had given his leave. Ki-jo thought it would be good to join hands with a giant like Chung Ju-yung. He also thought it would not matter if they didn't.
Late that dawn, as the two of them fought off sleep on watch, Ma-ryang glanced down, whipped the M1 to his shoulder quick as lightning, and roared.
"Don't move! I'll blow your head off!"
Ki-jo drew the pistol at his hip and leveled it into the dark ahead.
"Don't shoot!"
A man's voice came out of the blackness. Ki-jo switched on the lantern and threw the beam across him. Both arms were raised wide, the posture of surrender.
"What are you doing, coming up on an American base?"
"Looking for someone."
"Looking for who? At this hour."
"Men by the name of Lee Ki-jo and Jang Ma-ryang."
The two of them looked at each other. Was this the Army Intelligence man the painter had spoken of?
"What do you want!"
"Got to save my wife's uncle..."
"Saving your wife's uncle—and for that you need men off an American base?"
Ma-ryang asked it, incredulous. The words wife's uncle, though, caught on something in Ki-jo. Lantern in hand, he called out.
"Come closer. Slowly."
The man came on by degrees, toward the light.
"Take off the cap."
When he did, a sound escaped Ki-jo.
"Ah..."
"What's the matter?"
"It's nothing..."
As the man drew near, Ma-ryang worked the action of his rifle. A hard metallic click, and the man stopped dead. Ki-jo whispered.
"Let's just let him go, Ma-ryang..."
"What are you saying?"
"It's better this way..."
It struck Ma-ryang as strange that Ki-jo would turn loose a suspicious man who had come looking for them.
"Who are you, and what brought you this far? Speak."
"Captain Kim Jong-pil, Army Intelligence. My wife's uncle is..."
Damn it...
Ki-jo let out a short sigh. What on earth was this? In the yellow lantern light he made out Kim Jong-pil's face, and turned his head aside.
"Brother, didn't you say we'd meet the Intelligence man too?"
"I did, but..."
He could not tell Ma-ryang what the man who was Kim Jong-pil's wife's uncle was going to become.
"I'll speak with him myself."
He told Ma-ryang to hold the tower and went down. Outside the barbed wire he came up to Kim Jong-pil.
"I am Lee Ki-jo. May I ask why you were looking for me?"
"You were questioned by the Counter Intelligence Corps a few days ago, were you not?"
"We said nothing."
"Is that the truth?"
"They were framing innocent men with lies. How were we to assist in that?"
"Thank heaven..."
Kim Jong-pil breathed out in relief.
"But tell me—were there no questions about Brigadier General Park Chung-hee?"
"Brigadier General Park Chung-hee?"
Ki-jo put on the face of a man hearing the name for the first time.
"He is my wife's uncle. He and Army Chief of Staff Paik Sun-yup stand as senior and junior, and the bond between them runs deep."
So that was why Kim Jong-pil had come. Ki-jo thought he understood. The Corps was striking at Chief of Staff Paik Sun-yup, and as the net drew tight around his close associate, Brigadier General Park Chung-hee, Kim Jong-pil of Army Intelligence had stepped forward.
"Please go back. The inquiry is finished. We do not so much as know Brigadier General Park Chung-hee, so set your mind at ease."
"They may put the two of you on the stand as witnesses. Be careful."
"Witnesses? We have already been questioned, and we stood on our right to remain silent. Put us in a courtroom?"
"When those people call a witness, they require no reason at all. It means only this—you have been marked, so tread carefully from now on."
Persistent bastards, Ki-jo thought. The Corps never let go.
"I understand. Thank you for telling us."
"One request, if I may."
"What is it?"
"If they should try, in that court, to force from you any testimony damaging to Brigadier General Park Chung-hee, please refuse them."
"Ah, well, as for that..."
Ki-jo was not a man who set out to do harm. He stood against the real powers of the Syngman Rhee regime now only because he had no choice, and that was nothing more than a choice made in order to live. Speak carelessly from a witness stand, and he might earn the military's hatred and suffer who knew what fate. He could not say who would be president in the years ahead, and he would not gamble on it. Better to set himself against the Rhee regime, which was sure to vanish before long.
"I will speak exactly as things stand. I have no one to side with, and I tell no lies."
"Thank you. I will not forget this kindness."
It could hardly be called a kindness. It was only the choice Ki-jo had made so that he might live.
"Please—grant me this. The two of you, I will never forget."
With that, Kim Jong-pil left the wire and vanished into the dark.
Ki-jo stood dazed. Even in this life, he had no way of knowing whether Park Chung-hee would raise a coup. Through this trial, a great many fates might be changed.
Perhaps even the history of the Republic of Korea...
"Hah..."
Kim Jong-pil was gone. Ki-jo let the sigh out and climbed back to the watchtower. Ma-ryang, who had heard the whole exchange from above, spoke.
"If we got to stand witness, we stand. But I ain't saying what them Corps bastards want to hear. Not ever."
"Yes. I know... I'm of the same mind."
Ki-jo was silent for the rest of the watch. The weight of the age was too heavy.
A few days later, Ki-jo and Ma-ryang were summoned to a court-martial and seated as witnesses for the Counter Intelligence Corps. Through the whole of the proceedings the military prosecutor never once called on either of them to speak. Just as Kim Jong-pil had said, they seemed to have been put in that courtroom only so the Corps might display how powerful it was.
In their place, Jung Bong-pal and Choi Sung-han took the stand and testified with eager zeal. To Ki-jo's eye, what they offered against Army Chief of Staff Paik Sun-yup had hardly any weight as evidence. The court delivered a harsh judgment upon him all the same.
That the Chief of Staff of a nation's army should come under the unsavory suspicion of rebellion is a matter of deep regret to this tribunal. His conduct having been found improper, the defendant is hereby sentenced to removal from office and to three years of house arrest.
The judge brought the gavel down three times.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
As ever, the victory belonged to Kim Chang-ryong, Syngman Rhee's adopted son. Sentence was passed, too, upon the two villains who had testified.
By malicious false testimony against a senior officer of the army, the two witnesses have gravely injured the defendant's honor. This tribunal considered the extreme penalty; yet, taking into account their active cooperation with an organ of the government, it sentences each to fifteen years' imprisonment.
A strange ruling, and one in which it was hard to tell what anything meant. Jung Bong-pal and Choi Sung-han were hauled from the courtroom without so much as a peep. Ki-jo and Ma-ryang watched with a bitter taste. That the two villains had been punished was satisfying enough, and yet in a trial built entirely of fabrication, neither truth nor justice was anywhere to be found. Paik Sun-yup looked as if he felt the wrong of it, though his face said he counted himself fortunate to have kept his life. Kim Chang-ryong was triumphant.
Then someone tapped Ki-jo on the back, where he sat among the waiting witnesses. He turned, and started.
It was Park Chung-hee.
Park Chung-hee left the words behind him and walked straight out of the court.
"Who was that, just now?"
Ma-ryang asked, watching the man go.
"Nothing to concern yourself with. I don't know him either."
"Let's go, then. Brother."
They left the courtroom, climbed into an American jeep, and rode back to the 7th Division. In the jeep, Ma-ryang asked.
"Trial's finished. They going to turn the brick factory loose too?"
"Hard to say... If they don't, we'll have to find another way."
"You got a plan?"
"I have a plan. Whether the world will follow it, I don't know. The world is no easy thing..."
Regressor though he was, Ki-jo was nothing more than an ordinary man, and the limits on him were plain. If the world ran as it once had, he had means enough to meet it. Let history bend, or some sudden thing arise, and coping would not come easy. Best, so far as he could manage, to let history take its own course, and to spend at the proper hour the knowledge he had carried back into the past.
Before they knew it, the jeep had reached Dongducheon and passed the main gate of the 7th Division. The tanks, big as elephants, that had stood blocking the gate were inside the base now.
The moment Ki-jo stepped down, he went to find Major General Martin.