Mr. Kill by Martin Limon Read Free Book Online Page B

“Namsan Relay Site, Long Lines Battalion North.”
    Ernie parked next to a short line of military vehicles.
    Inside, a sergeant in a neatly pressed fatigue uniform waited. Apparently, he’d already been informed of our arrival.
    “Can I see your badges?” he asked.
    We showed him.
    “Captain Fieldjoy isn’t in. He’s on a supply run down in Seoul. Is there something I can help you with?”
    I jotted down his name. Sergeant Ernsworth. He was a little old for a buck sergeant, maybe in his mid-thirties, and he sported a flaming red crew cut and a splash of freckles across a pug nose.
    Ernie wandered over to a wall plastered with black-and-white photos of officers in uniform, shaking hands and presenting one another with plaques and awards. I showed Sergeant Ernsworth the list of names. “A dozen guys,” I said, “up here from Taegu. Working on some sort of communications upgrade.”
    “What about ’em?”
    “I want to talk to them.”
    “What if they’re busy?”
    “They’ll get un-busy. At least for as long as it takes to ask them a few questions.”
    Ernsworth thought about it; after a few seconds, he shrugged. “Follow me.”
    He opened a low door for us and then led us down a long corridor, turned right, and at a new Quonset hut turned left. We entered an air-conditioned room with rows of impressive-looking equipment, like stainlesssteel refrigerators embedded with the occasional blinking green light.
    “All of this stuff is classified,” Ernsworth said. “Don’t be jotting down any nomenclatures or model numbers.”
    “That’s not why we’re here,” I replied.
    Finally, we reached an open area with canvas tarps spread on the floor. Toolboxes were scattered in disarray and men huddled in groups behind metal panels, peering into copper-and-rubber-wired innards that sparked and blinked and beeped. Ernsworth waited until one man who was reaching deep into a pit of complicated machinery retracted his hand and looked up at us.
    “They want to talk to you and your team,” Ernsworth told him. Then he swiveled on his heels and left. The man who stood to face me was a sergeant first class, balding slightly at the front of his short-cropped gray hair, holding a rubber-handled screwdriver loosely in long fingers. His mouth hung open.
    Ernie and I flashed our badges.
    “Just routine,” I said. “We want to ask you a few questions.”
    I pulled out my notebook and started to ask.
    On the way back down the mountain, I gazed out the side of the jeep at the magnificence of the city of Seoul. Maybe I was trying to avoid staring at the innocent-looking hookers who appeared every quarter mile or so. Maybe I was thinking about Mrs. Oh on the Blue Train and the crazed look in her eyes as her children glanced back and forth between the adults who surrounded them, wondering what had gone so terribly wrong. The city lay like a pulsating god, spread-eagled across the countryside, stretching from Tobong Mountain rising high above the mist in the north to the sinuous blue of the Han River in the fogshrouded south. I loved this city. I wasn’t sure why. It was so far from my original home, the people were so different from anyone I’d known growing up, but I’d adopted the city now. Had it adopted me? I didn’t think so. The city of Seoul would always turn its back on me. I’d always be an outsider. I’d always be the stranger who, oddly, spoke a little of their sacred language. My love of the city and my love of Korea, I felt certain, would never be returned.
    Ernie rounded a corner and honked at two girls walking arm in arm by the side of the road. After overcoming their shock, they both waved gaily.
    “What’d you think?” Ernie asked me.
    “About what?”
    He turned to study me. “You okay?”
    “Yeah. I’m okay.”
    “So what’d you think about what those Signal Corps twerps had to say?”
    “I think they’re telling the truth. They took the Blue Train from Taegu to Seoul two days before Mrs. Oh was