A Corpse in the Koryo (15 page)

Later, when I told my grandfather, he became angrier than I had ever seen him. "Have you learned nothing from me, in all of these years?" he shouted. "When someone takes you aside and says even three honest words to you, haven't you learned not to tell anyone else, not even me?" His face was white with rage. "You'll get yourself killed, you'll get anyone stupid enough to trust you sent to the camps, and why? Because you don't pay attention, you don't see. Can my grandson be such a fool?"

"I'm not a fool."

"Then don't act like one. I lost my son to this. Don't let me lose the rest of the family as well."

"This. What is this?"

He grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me. "Look around you.

Do you think this is what we wanted, that for this we fought the Japanese, for this I sent your father to die on a lousy winter morning? For Christ's sake, look around you!"

I froze. I couldn't breathe. I'd never heard him speak like that. Not once, never once. For weeks afterward we barely said anything to each other. Years later, when I was assigned to a guard detail for a visiting Romanian official, Ho, who by then had become Foreign Minister, came up to me during a quiet moment. "That chest is in my house. It still gleams." Just then he was called away, and we never met again.

"So, Comrade Ho, you graduated from the Wonsan Fishery College, did you?"

I had no idea if there was such a place, but he probably checked at least that much, so I stuck to the truth. "Never heard of it. Whoever told you I knew anything about fishing?"

"Word has it you peddle fish."

"As far as I'm concerned, they jump into the truck. I don't know how they get there."

"You're lying."

"Fine, someone loads them on, so shoot me."

He pulled his coat back, and the knife blade glinted in the morning sun. "Don't have to."

"Look, I'm just a middleman. I make a little, I spend a little, I make sure everyone is happy. Are you happy, Comrade Chong?" This was the second crate of fish I didn't have that I was giving away. From the funny look on his face, I thought for a moment I'd made a mistake.

Maybe his name wasn't Chong. Then he pitched forward and collapsed across my legs. I pushed him away and scrambled clear. The guard in the valley was still sipping tea. The dog looked up for a moment, then put its head back down on its paws.

From behind a tree next to the road, I saw something move. Kang stepped out. "Not easy throwing a rock uphill like that. Luckily, he has a big, stupid head."

"Good morning. Taking a stroll, are we?" I glanced down at the lump on the ground. There was no movement.

Kang stood off a few feet. "His name is Chong. If he twitches, I'll shoot him."

"Here?"

"As good a place as any."

I looked back down. "He's not twitching. I'm not even sure he's breathing."

"Good."

"In fact, I think he might be dead."

"Better."

I knelt down and rolled Chong over. No fish for him.

Kang moved a step closer, no longer tensed to reach for his pistol.

"Must have hit his head on something harder than his thick skull."

He glanced down the valley, toward the guard. "We'll leave him here.

Let's go."

"Leave him? Here? And then what?"

"Someone will find him, if something furry doesn't nibble on him first."

"I know this is Manpo, but don't the police like to be informed about unexplained deaths?"

"Inspector, please, they don't even have a filing cabinet. Anyway, it's not unexplained. He tripped on his shoelaces and fell on a rock. Often fatal."

"He was following me. Someone will know that. And the guard in the valley must have seen the two of us up here. There will be inquiries."

Kang was getting impatient. "Don't worry about the guard. He didn't see anything."

"You think you're going to pay him off?"

"I don't have to. He works for me." I couldn't tell if he meant to tell me or if it had slipped out--though I didn't think Kang was the type who let things slip.

"That guard? What is the Investigations Department doing with agents in the hills of Manpo sipping tea?"

"I didn't say he was an agent. Now, can we go?"

"Whose compound is that?"

"No one you'd be interested in."

"Suddenly, I'm very interested."

All at once, Kang looked tired. "Pak warned me you could be an awful pain in the ass."

"You want me to peddle some fish on that compound?"

This brought a thoughtful look. "Pak also said you were smart.

That's an idea I hadn't considered. You'll need to be in there by this evening."

"Why?"

"I don't know." Kang stared down the trail. "No, really, I don't know. My information is that whatever is going on down there gets done tomorrow at dawn."

"Does this have anything to do with what Pak told me?"

"That depends. What did Pak tell you?" It wasn't a friendly inquiry.

"You want my help. That's what you said. But you have told me exactly nothing about what you want me to do. Or more important, why.

I have developed a rule over the years. I stick to it, all the time. Never take a step, unless I can see at least that far in front. You don't want to tell me some secrets, okay, I don't want to know. But if you don't tell me something more than what you've given me so far, this is as far as I go."

Kang looked around. "Nice place for a conversation, I guess. But first, tell me what Pak said."

"All he said was, the ground was moving."

"That's it?"

I thought a moment. "He also said all hell might be about to break out."

"Not might. Will, and soon." I could see Kang was debating with himself about what more to say. "This has been coming for a while.

Months. We first picked it up in February, in Japan. After our initial reports, we were told to stop paying attention, it wasn't our business."

"So you paid closer attention."

"What I don't know can hurt me. Basically, we dug around and realized there has been a decision to fix relations with Japan, finally."

"And that's bad?"

"No, nothing wrong with that, if you can stand smiling at the Japs in order to get a few billion dollars in blood money from them. But there is a hitch. The Japanese want some old problems"--Kang hesitated, then finished the thought--"solved."

"What has this got to do with that compound down there?"

"Nothing, directly. Except that's a Military Security compound, and Military Security has been unleashed to help solve those old problems."

"And they think you're part of the problem standing in the way of those billions?"

"I need to keep them off my neck for at least another week. Knowing what is going on down there might help."

"You're plenty interested in Military Security, aren't you? Is that what you needed from me when we were at the tower, some sense of the location of Military Security offices? I thought the Investigations Department had pretty good sources of information."

"On the outside, Inspector, not at home. Pyongyang is a foreign country to me. Ask me about Beijing, ask me about Moscow, even ask me about Budapest." He smiled. "In Budapest, I know pretty much what goes on, and where. But Pyongyang?" He shook his head.

"Won't it spook them if Chong's body is found on the road overlooking their buildings?"

"I doubt it. Anyway, stop worrying about Chong's carcass. It won't be here long. There will be some lumber trucks by in an hour or so.

They drive fast and have bad brakes. It's a miracle no one has been hit on this road before."

"I thought it was bad shoelaces."

Kang was moving fast down the road. "So he fell in front of a truck."

"Why was Chong following me?" I started off after Kang, wondering how he could move so quickly downhill without falling over.

"He was stupid, but he had a sixth sense. Maybe you don't smell enough like someone who deals in fish. Maybe you look like a friend he once had from Wonsan. Who cares? We've got work to do, and only twelve hours left to do it."

I glanced down in the valley again. The guard was gone. The so called guard dog had his nose in the teacup. It didn't look like it was going to be a problem to saunter in the gate. It was a cinch that the dog was working for Kang, too.

11

The clerk at the inn was cranky. "You know how to fix a video machine?"

Through the door behind him, I could see videotape all over the floor. "Damn Chinese pirates." He kicked at some of the tape that was wound around his foot. "Everything they build breaks."

"Cost a lot?"

"What do you care what it cost?" His eyes narrowed, and he swayed from side to side like a rat snake pretending it was a cobra. "You owe me a basket of fish. And they better never have been swimming in Chinese waters."

"How would you like a new video machine?"

He looked at me coolly. "You stick to fish, alright? I'll do the electronics."

I

shrugged. "Up to you. You know anyone else interested in some fish? I have an extra truckload coming, and if I don't move them, they go bad. Probably smell up the whole inn."

"Hey, you're not bringing them in here. The rule is, no animals in the rooms."

"No goats?"

He sneered. "Not even for you. You Wonsan people are disgusting."

"Too bad about your tape." I started toward the stairs.

"Wait a minute. What if I knew a certain person interested in some fish?" He paused. "Or a truck."

Kang had told me that if I mentioned the extra truck, the clerk would go right for it. "Truck? I don't know. It's new, Japanese. Refrigerated.

Why would I want to sell it?"

"Because you'll never get rich with those stinking fish, but that truck is probably worth something."

"And if it disappeared, someone wouldn't be too happy, now would they?"

"Happens all the time, you know. Driver stops for a drink, or a trip to Finland." He smiled in his irritating way. "Leaves the keys in the truck. Comes out half an hour later, no truck. Driver is happy. Truck is happy. One big happy scene."

"Nice. Happy is good. But a new, sparkling white refrigerator truck is a work of beauty. Anyway, it belongs to Pyongyang, not to me.

There'd be hell to pay once they saw it was gone from the gasoline reports."

The

clerk was getting hungrier and hungrier. The more I described the truck, the more he decided he wanted a part of it. Even mentioning Pyongyang didn't scare him.

"Pyongyang is full of stuffed shirts and dopes."

I looked up on the wall at the two pictures, father and son, staring down. The clerk gave a nervous laugh. "This is a small country, but the Center is far away. In Manpo, we look at Pyongyang like the moon. All you need to know is what phase it's in."

"You're talking trouble, old friend," I said quietly.

"Don't lower your voice in here, pal. Someone might think we're not having a normal conversation. Listen, this place is filled with police, agents, investigators, counterintelligence goons, Chinese, South Korean, Taiwan, Russian. Last year we heard there was a pair of Japanese trying to set up an operation. Come to think of it, they said they were moving fish." He looked at me real hard, then half smiled. "Maybe I should ask you for some papers or something, after all."

"Maybe you should. Good way to lose a refrigerator truck. New tires. Not that retread crap." If the clerk was talking to me about counterintelligence agents and Russian operatives, he knew plenty. I might as well see how much more he had. Maybe he had some information on that Military Security site. I wasn't going to bust in there based on the little I knew about it. The dog didn't look to be a problem, but the machine-gun posts were another story. "What do you know about that compound in the hills, the one with the new Mercedes parked in front?"

The clerk was practically drooling at the thought of a new, white, Japanese truck. He stopped in midthought when he heard my question.

"No idea what you are talking about."

"White Japanese truck, refrigeration brand-new, good tires. A battery in it as strong as a bull's--"

"Alright. Be at the river at sunset. Down by the bridge. There's a little restaurant off to the side, behind some trees. Run by an old Chinese man and his son-in-law. Just hang around outside."

"What have they got to do with it?"

"You want information, you show up there."

This did not smell right. I didn't even know why I had told Kang I'd help him out. Now I was going to be down at the river as the light was fading, probably in a deserted spot, to meet people who might or might not turn out to be helpful. "If I don't like the looks of it, I'm leaving.

No truck. And no fish for you, either."

The clerk yawned and then shook his head. "I'm getting the feeling you don't have any fish, anyway."

"What makes you think I have the truck?"

"People have noticed you, pal. I wouldn't go out on walks in the hills at dawn anymore, that's what I wouldn't do." He moved toward his room. "Pirates," he muttered and kicked at a tangle of tape. Then he turned back to me. "Oh, this came for you."

It was a telex, from Wonsan. It was short. "Good fishing weather, lots of blue sky."

Even the Ministry couldn't locate me so quickly in a place like Manpo. So how did Pak know where I was, unless he and Kang were talking? And how was I going to call him? The clerk thought a moment and then handed me a name card he retrieved from the drawer behind the counter. "I'll bet Grandma Pak could get me another video," he said thoughtfully, as he shuffled into his room and shut the door.

I almost wasn't surprised that the old woman's reach extended all the way up here, to the border. Though if the clerk knew her, maybe he knew Kang, too. In which case, the two Chinese at the river might be helpful after all. I decided I needed to sit and think where it was quiet--no jeeps, no logging trucks with bad brakes. Kang had killed a Military Security operative; maybe it was an accident, but Colonel Kim wouldn't care. Military Security had orders to get Kang; now they had the perfect excuse to shoot him on sight. My stomach growled. A cup of tea was waiting for me, somewhere. Maybe it was time to crawl to the train station and get a ticket back home. Except Military Security would be looking for me. Surely by now they had a lead on who I was.