Martin Limon - Buddha's money

The soldier shoved Lady Ahn up against the wall, ripped open her blouse, and fumbled for her breasts.

"I found it!" he said. He pinched Lady Ahn's nipple cruelly, causing her to cry out in pain. "Large and brown from these foreigners sucking on it. It would make a good souvenir of our trip to Seoul, would it not?"

The other soldier laughed and barked his approval.

"Then let us take it with us." He lowered his bayonet and ran the sharp edge along Lady Ahn's pale flesh.

Once troops are turned loose on demonstrators there are no controls. They can do anything. Foreign reporters will know nothing about it. The whole thing will be hushed up by the government. But the students will know what happened. And demonstrations will subside for months-maybe years-afterward.

I tried to stand. Pain shot through my body. As if a two-by-four was sticking into my gut.

Ernie struggled but settled down when the other soldier nudged the bayonet deeper into his belly.

Lady Ahn seemed unafraid. With a sudden move, she twisted her body and raised her hands to scratch at the soldier. He was too fast for her. He shoved a powerful forearm under her throat. Slowly, he brought the tip of the bayonet closer to her bruised brown nipple.

It was as if a cannonball dropped from the sky. I couldn't see anything clearly but somehow I knew, just from the large round shape. Herman the German had leapt off the top of the wall.

The soldier who had been groping Lady Ahn was now nothing but a crumpled, groaning mass beneath Herman's girth. The soldier with the bayonet in Ernie's gut turned at the noise, and Ernie reacted like a pissed-off tomcat. He punched and clawed at the guy, not giving him a chance to jab with his weapon. Lady Ahn pounded on him, too, and soon they had the soldier on the ground, hammering his skull into sawdust.

I crawled over and grabbed Ernie's feet. And Lady Ahn's. "Enough. Enough!"

They stopped pummeling the soldier.

Herman helped me to my feet. The pain was ebbing now. I was starting to breathe normally.

Lady Ahn covered herself as best she could with her tattered blouse. The jade skull was snuggled once again beneath her bosom.

"Let's get the fuck out of here," Herman said.

Herman bent over and snatched up one of the M-16 rifles. As we approached the next alley, I heard a rumbling sound.

"Armored vehicles," Ernie said. "We have to cross the next alley in front of them or the convoy will block our path."

We started to sprint, Herman huffing like a freight train. Before we reached the alley, the black front of the armored vehicle appeared. We were only a few feet away, but we weren't going to make it. Trash lay strewn around the pathway and Lady Ahn stumbled on something, I think the wreckage of a wooden crate. She tripped and sprawled forward, letting go of the jade, and crashed face-first into the mud.

The armored vehicle rolled slowly downhill.

Lady Ahn bounced back up almost immediately, gazing forward, screaming.

The jade skull skittered across the slick pathway like a soccer ball heading for the goal. It rolled in front of the armored vehicle, bounced, hit the metal floorboard, rolled again, and stopped just beneath the clattering treads.

In seconds it would be crushed.

Lady Ahn wailed and charged forward. I tried to stop her, but the smooth flesh of her forearm slipped out of my grip. When she reached the front of the armored vehicle, she dived, scrabbling forward, almost there.

We heard a crunching sound and saw what seemed to be a puff of green dust. And then a scream.

Lightning flashed. Thunder. And then a wall of rain hammered down.

My eyes were momentarily blinded by the lightning but then I focused. The long row of treads ground heavily across Lady Ahn's leg.

Only when the vehicle passed could we pull Lady Ahn out of the path of the next armored vehicle rattling down the lane.

A tiny sea of green gravel swirled in the running rainwater. It began to trickle like the tail of a comet into the dark gutter. I reached forward and grabbed a handful. The remains of the jade skull of Kublai Khan sifted through my fingers like the dust of a giant emerald.

The armored vehicle stopped. The hatch opened. Soldiers started to climb out.

"Pick her up! Carry her!" Herman shouted. "I'll cover you!"

Herman waved the M-16 he'd taken from the soldier he'd squashed.

Ernie and I did as we were told. We started trundling Lady Ahn away from the armored vehicle. Herman let go a burst of fire. The soldiers hopped back into the armored vehicle and slammed the lid shut.

At the top of the hill, I looked back down at the intersection in front of Guanghua-mun. Even up here we could hear the gunfire and the screams. The students were surrounded. The soldiers of the White Horse Division were cutting through them like hot bayonets through lard.

"I told you the government would get pissed off," Herman said.

Ernie slapped his head. "Shut the fuck up, will you?"

Lady Ahn's leg was mangled and bleeding badly. But she wasn't whimpering. I whipped off my belt and used it as a tourniquet. When I tightened it, she winced at the pain but didn't cry out. She seemed lost in a world of misery, and I don't think it had anything to do with her leg.

We wandered through alleys until we reached a section of Seoul where life was still somewhat normal. Waving the M-16, Herman stopped a cab. The terrified driver skidded to a halt. Ernie and I loaded Lady Ahn aboard and climbed in after her. There wasn't room for Herman.

"Report to the MP Station," Ernie told Herman. 'You're still in my custody."

"Not the MP Station," Herman said. "I have some things to take care of first."

"I said the MP Station!"

Herman leveled the M-16. Ernie gazed into the barrel.

"Okay," Ernie said. "Maybe I was a little hasty. Where would you like to surrender?"

To my surprise, Herman answered.

"Itaewon. Tomorrow afternoon. Four o'clock."

Ernie nodded. "Sure. Any particular spot?"

'Yeah. The Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House, where they chopped up Mi-ja's ear. And come alone. You and George. No one else."

Ernie looked at him quizzically. "Okay, Herm baby. You got it."

I told the driver to take us to Yongsan Compound. "And bali bali!" Hurry.

The nervous driver nodded, sweat dripping from his nose. He jammed the kimchi cab into gear.

Lady Ahn's blood trickled through my fingers.

Ernie held out his shiny new. 45 and let the monsoon rain splash off of it.

"Damn thing's too new," he complained. "No rust on it."

We stood under a storefront awning in Itaewon, across the street from the Virtuous Dragon Dumpling House.

"They're not supposed to have rust on them," I said. "It causes them to jam."

"An old wives' tale," Ernie said. "You have to work a weapon in, let it get dirty and muddy so all the gears mesh right."

"Pistols don't have gears."

Ernie stared at me. "That's the problem with you, George. You take all this technical shit too seriously."

I ignored him and studied the front of the Dumpling House. So far, Herman hadn't entered. If he kept his word, he should be here any minute.

Last night, when we arrived at the front gate of Yongsan Compound, the MPs wouldn't let us through with an "unauthorized civilian" in the cab. I told them to go fuck themselves and forced the driver to take us to the 121 Evacuation Hospital anyway.

The emergency room nurse was also reluctant. But once she took a look at Lady Ahn's wounds, she went ahead and started working on her.

The doctors were worried that they might have to amputate Lady Ahn's leg. The decision would be made tonight. Luckily, they hadn't spared the sedatives, because Lady Ahn was still more distraught about losing the jade skull than about losing any part of her body.