Martin Limon - Buddha's money

Still, I admired their planning. A wooden plank through a secret opening in an ancient Buddhist temple.

No way I could've picked up on that one.

Soon, all of Ragyapa's thugs had crossed to the safety of the stone wall. I heard gruff cursing in Korean and then the cops started upstairs. I crawled toward the plank.

If I could just hold it, I thought, so the KNPs could use the plank to cross the chasm and chase those Mongols down. We could get Mi-ja back.

Still barely able to move, I slithered closer to the edge, reached out with both hands, and grabbed on to the plank. At that moment, two thugs atop the stone wall gave it a mighty tug. I held on as tightly as I could but the wood slid through my grip. A splinter needled my skin and, as they pulled, sliced deeper into my flesh.

I screamed.

The plank slid through my fingers, tearing my flesh, and fell into the chasm, clattering to the cobbled road below. The last of the dark figures leapt off the far side of the stone wall and disappeared.

Ernie crawled over to me, clutching his side. Perspiration streamed off his forehead.

"Was that her? Was that Mi-ja?" he asked me.

I watched drops of blood squeeze past the splinter in my hand. "That was her."

Ernie spat into the night. "Next time, I'll blow me some asshole's brain out. Right through that pile of rags he calls a turban."

Blood from the First Sergeant's neck ran up the veins behind his jaw, reached his gray sidewalls, and began to pulse.

"Kidnapping? And you didn't report it?"

Ernie shrugged. "Herman the German didn't want us to."

"Herman the who?"

"Herman the German. An old retired lifer."

The First Sergeant of the Criminal Investigation Division paced around his desk, reached the coffee counter, and fumbled with a thick porcelain mug. He was a thick-shouldered man and always wore his dress green uniform to work, unlike Ernie and me, who were required to wear civilian coats and ties during regular duty hours. We both sat in straight-backed army-issue chairs. The ones we always sat in when we received our ass-chewings.

The First Sergeant returned to his desk, placed the half- full coffee mug in the center of the immaculately white blotter, and leaned toward us.

"A Korean National Policeman was injured! Hospitalized with a severe concussion. His M-one rifle was stolen." The First Sergeant shook his head, not sure whether the injured man or the lost weapon was more important.

After Ragyapa and his thugs escaped from the Temple of the Dream Buddha last night, Ernie and I caught holy hell from Captain Kim, the Commander of the Itaewon Police Station. When Kim was given the report about the shenanigans at the Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House, he figured it was me and Ernie. And when he discovered that an abduction was underway in his precinct, he was incensed that he hadn't been informed. Later, he followed the wide swath we had left up Hooker Hill and, with a few of his men, surrounded the Temple of the Dream Buddha. Somehow, before the foreign thugs escaped, they managed to surprise one of Kim's men in an alley, beat him, and steal his M-l rifle.

The Korean National Police were on the case now- with a vengeance-crawling all over Herman the German and Slicky Girl Nam. With one of their own hurt, the KNPs had a particularly strong reason to bring the foreign kidnappers to justice.

"Eighth Army is catching hell from the ROK Government." The First Sergeant stared into our eyes, searching for something, not finding it. "And you aren't authorized to keep the kidnapping of a military dependent secret, no matter what the reason."

"Mi-ja is not a military dependent," Ernie said. "The adoption wasn't legal. Slicky Girl Nam just bought the kid from some poor farm family who couldn't afford to feed her anymore. Herman never got her a military ID card."

The First Sergeant slammed the desktop. Murky fluid erupted from the mug.

"I don't give a damn! When something as important as a kidnapping happens and you become involved, you report it, Sergeant Bascom. You understand me? You report it!"

Ernie didn't seem in any way fazed by the First Sergeant's hollering. He sat back in his chair, legs crossed, coat open, as calm as a deacon in a private pew.

"Look, Top," Ernie said, picking lint from his pants leg, "have you been to the one-two-one Evac lately?"

"What the hell are you talking about, Bascom?"

"About your blood pressure. You really ought to have it checked."

The First Sergeant's knuckles whitened around the coffee mug. "Listen, Bascom. You, too, Suefio. Don't you two worry about my goddamn blood pressure. You just do your jobs. And when there's a kidnapping, you report it. You understand me?"

Ernie looked over at me. "Did you jot that down, George?"

I had a small notebook out, notes I'd taken on the case. I ignored Ernie's remark and gazed into the First Sergeant's gray eyes.

"We had reason to believe," I said, "that they'd murder the little girl if the Korean National Police were notified." I held up my hand before the First Sergeant could interrupt. After returning to the barracks last night, I had carved out the splinter in my palm and patched and medicated the wound as best I could, but it still ached with a dull throb. "You're right. I realize now that with KNP help we might've been able to rescue the girl last night. But we'll never know for sure. Too many cops, and the kidnappers might not've shown themselves. Anyway, that's over now. Herman's filed a formal complaint at the Itaewon Police Station."

My businesslike tone of voice seemed to calm the First Sergeant somewhat. Ernie slouched in his seat. He knew what I was doing. Ruining his fun. He loved nothing better than to antagonize the First Sergeant. Like poking a dragon in its lair.

"What's your next move on the case?" the First Sergeant asked.

I was a little surprised by the question. Usually, the First Sergeant tries to control every aspect of our investigations. This time, he apparently realized that he would only get in our way. All the principals, other than Herman the German, were Koreans or Third Country Nationals. The First Sergeant couldn't speak Korean, didn't know anything more about the country than what he learned on the military base, and once he was out in the Korean villages, he had no more idea of how to proceed than the Man in the moon. Ernie and I, however, had proven our ability to work off-post. I spoke Korean. Ernie had an almost instant rapport with people of any nationality-when he chose to. We were the best investigative team the First Sergeant had. And he knew it.

And the pressure was on him. The honchos at the Eighth Army head shed were raising hell. Now that the word was out that a military dependent-even an unofficial one-had been kidnapped, the howls for revenge were rising. The secret fear of every American colonel and hotshot diplomat is that some sneaky Korean will some day swipe their child. It had never happened before, but now something close to it had happened.

The American community in Korea wanted blood.

And that wasn't the only case Eighth Army was barking about.

The First Sergeant reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a Korean newspaper, unfolded it, and slapped it down on his desk in front of us.

"Anybody here look familiar, Bascom?"

The photo was grainy, but the image was unmistakable. Ernie. Manhandling the business girl who had tried to claw his eyes out last night. Behind him, I emerged from the black and white shadows, carrying the little nun. We looked like pirates preoccupied with rape and pillage. The headline said it all: GI ATTACKS BUDDHIST NUN.

Nothing else was on the front page. Only feature stories about the riot that followed and the outraged reaction from the Temple of the Celestial Void, the little nun's home base. And a short bio of Choi So-lan. Who she was. How she came to be a Bride of Buddha.