Martin Limon - Buddha's money

Through it, Ragyapa shoving her from behind, stumbled Lady Ahn. My heart punched the walls of my chest like a clenched fist.

Even from this distance I could see she was a mess. Her hair exploded around her skull like uncut weeds. Her face was dark, shadowed, bruised. Her clothes were soiled and torn. If this had been a normal day, Ragyapa would have never dared to allow her onto the street. After one look at her, any self-respecting policeman would've investigated. But the rows of helmeted police had their eyes only on the surging demonstrators. None of them would break ranks; they'd be under orders not to.

Besides, what the foreign press called riot police weren't really police at all. They were conscripts in the Korean Army. After basic training, they were sent to the special riot police academy and taught how to wear gas masks and protect themselves with shields and wield riot batons. The riot police were soldiers, actually, and subject to military law and under the command of military officers. Most were from poor families, drafted when they were twenty years old. Few had any love for the wealthy students who would turn their backs on the money-making advantages of a university education to come out here and curse them for just doing what they were told to do.

It was an old story. Peasants against the Mandarin elite. And the Korean government wasn't above using class warfare to its advantage. The strong young peasant boys had been trained to beat up the uppity students.

I searched behind the yoguan. No sign of Ernie.

Ragyapa waved for me to come forward. His thug with the M-l could be drawing a bead on me right now. No sense thinking about it. I walked forward.

Twenty yards in front of the yoguan, I stopped.

"Let her go," I said.

Lady Ahn didn't seem to know I was there. Her eyes were glazed. I'm not even sure if she knew where she was.

"Lady Ahn," I called, "can you walk forward on your own?"

She didn't move.

I unslung the bag and carefully set it on the wet pavement. "I'll leave the skull here," I said. "You let her walk toward me."

Ragyapa smiled. From out of the shadows of the yoguan emerged one of his Mongolian thugs. The thug held the M-l rifle level, pointing it straight at my nose.

"That won't be necessary," Ragyapa said. "You will bring the skull to us."

I knew that if I stepped into the darkness of the yoguan, I'd never step out. Out here, if they shot me, someone would be forced to notice. The riot police would move. Ragyapa and his boys would never get away.

"No," I told Ragyapa. "We make the exchange right here. Out in the open."

From the corner of my eye, I saw something scurry along the side of the yoguan. Ernie, I thought, but I forced myself not to look.

"No!" Ragyapa said. "You will bring the skull to me now."

Suddenly, metal flashed from the sleeve of his coat. I saw it press up against Lady Ahn's side. She moaned. Then he lifted it. A gleaming dagger, pressed right into her throat.

"She will die," Ragyapa told me, "if you don't do what I say."

Behind us, student leaders started to rant into the microphones. They were criticizing the president of the republic. Calling him a lapdog of the American occupying forces. Accusing him of letting the filthy GIs get away with assaulting Korean women. Even innocent Buddhist nuns.

The students roared their approval. Off to the side, the riot police started to shuffle. Officers barked orders and the police repositioned themselves closer to the demonstrators.

I looked back at Ragyapa, into the evil in his eyes.

"If I step into the yoguan, she will die anyway," I said. "If you want the jade skull, you will have to bring her out here and get it."

I knelt slowly, watching the M-l rifle move with me. I reached into the bag and pulled out the jade skull. I held it high in the air and ripped off the dirty cheesecloth.

The light of the Seoul afternoon filtered through the intricately carved jade and brought the skull gleaming to life. It was like some precious emerald, filled with the grinning spirit of an ancient phantom of evil.

Ragyapa gasped. His gunman lowered his rifle.

"Put it down," Ragyapa hissed at me. "They will see it."

"If you don't want anyone to see it, you must come out here and take it. And bring Lady Ahn with you…" I gestured at the demonstrators behind me. "… or I disappear into their midst."

Ragyapa nodded, greed overcoming him. "Yes. Yes. Keep it lower. I will be right there."

He barked some incomprehensible order. From the darkness a hand emerged and handed him a white cloth. Hurriedly, he unraveled his turban, exposing his hideously scarred bald head. Then he wrapped the white bandana around his forehead and slipped off his coat. Suddenly, he had transformed himself into someone who, in the confusion of the afternoon, could pass for a student. I saw his plan. Once he had the jade skull, he could slip it under his arm and disappear into the vast legions of student demonstrators.

Okay by me, as long as he turned Lady Ahn over to me first. After that, we'd try to capture him in order to keep our promise to the nun. But Lady Ahn came first.

Ragyapa strode forward, tugging Lady Ahn after him. I lowered the skull and held it in front of my chest, hoping the M-l marksman would think twice before pulling the trigger.

Moving my eyes as little as possible I searched for Ernie. Where the hell was he?

About ten feet from me, Ragyapa stopped. He shoved down on Lady Ann's shoulders. Like a trained dog, she knelt at his feet.

Had he broken her will? After days of torture, it could happen to anyone. No matter how strong.

"Now," Ragyapa said. "The jade."

"Let her crawl forward."

"First you place the jade skull on the ground between us."

I thought it over. Probably as good a deal as I was going to get. And if Ernie popped a slug into the rifleman in time, maybe I'd even live through it.

"Okay," I said.

I had just set the jade down and Lady Ahn started to crawl forward when two things happened simultaneously. I heard a great grinding of gears and a woman's scream. Off to the left a vehicle careened through the dense crowd. Demonstrators, screaming, dove out of the way.

Over to the right, the officers in charge of the riot police had apparently become fed up with the students badmouthing their president. With helmets and face screens, shields and batons, the ranks of the riot police pressed forward. A Roman legion clearing the rabble.

Ragyapa snapped his head between the converging riot police and the madly rampaging vehicle.

Suddenly, I realized what it was. Ernie's jeep. But it wasn't Ernie at the wheel. It was Herman the German, holding his hairy arm high over his head, still handcuffed to the roll bar.

Somehow, he'd managed to scoot over far enough to wedge himself behind the steering wheel and start the engine. The chain welded to the floorboard was still preventing him from steering, but Herman didn't seem to care. Every time he ran into something-a lamppost, the wall of a building, an iron railing leading to the subway-he backed up, stepped on the gas, and rammed forward. Like that, turning the wheel only a few degrees at a time, he had managed to zigzag all the way down the hill.

The radiator of the jeep looked as if it had been chewed by an iron-fanged dinosaur.

Herman butted into the last obstacle between him and Ragyapa: a stone pedestal that during normal afternoons supported a traffic cop. He rammed into it, backed up, turned the wheel as much as he could, then stepped on the gas again. This time he cleared it.

Making a long graceful loop, he swung through the crowd. Students cursed and leapt out of the way. The jeep picked up speed. Suddenly I realized what he was doing. He was heading right toward us.