Martin Limon - Slicky Boys

Something squeaked and scurried through the darkness. Without thinking, I slapped at the rolling fur and felt its plump body twist and writhe beneath my hand. A sharp pain jabbed my finger. I jerked backward. A rat. It scampered farther into the darkness.

I couldn’t see the puncture wound but I knew I’d been bitten. I sucked blood off my fingertip. I wasn’t sure which was worse: dying of suffocation or from the bubonic plague.

Finally, the tunnel started to widen. With great relief I found myself crawling on hands and knees. The air grew lighter, almost breathable.

At last we reached the end of the tunnel. Ma handed me the candle and climbed up another ladder. At the top he creaked open another trapdoor, peeked out, pushed his way through, and told me to bring the candle up with me.

I climbed out into the open space, taking greedy breaths of dusty air. The space we stood in was dark and dank but, compared to the tunnel, I felt as if I’d stepped into a springtime meadow.

We were in another warehouse. But this one was different. It was made of finely finished cement, no windows, and the crates around us were of cardboard rather than wood.

Ma closed the trapdoor and we piled a few of the boxes atop it. Each was stenciled with English lettering: Water, canned,? gallon, 12 each.

The other boxes were filled with nonperishable foodstuffs and medical supplies. It finally dawned on me where we were. An air raid shelter. Somewhere deep beneath 8th Army headquarters.

A thick coat of dust covered everything.

Ma opened one of the crates. He told me to douse the candle and hide it in there. I hesitated. Without light, we would be blind. He took my hand and had me grasp the back of his belt. I blew the candle out and placed it where he told me to. The world was pitch black. He pulled me forward.

I stumbled after him through the darkness, clinging to his belt like a lifeline, touching objects with my hand, occasionally bumping like a blind man into a box or a chair. After we crossed what seemed to be a short hallway, we entered another room. Here, moonlight filtered through a narrow window covered with metal bars. Light had never looked so beautiful.

Mr. Ma shoved the heavy door forward and it scraped on the cement floor. Outside, he lifted the padlock that hung open over the doorknob and locked it into the eye of the metal hasp.

Red lettering on the door in Korean and English said Authorized Personnel Only! Do Not Enter.

We walked quickly through a large room that I recognized as the regular air raid shelter used during the monthly drills, and we climbed a flight of stairs and finally out into the open sky and stars.

Ma crouched low and checked around us. We were about ten yards behind the headquarters building, less than a block from Geographic Survey.

Scurrying like an Arctic wolf across the snow-covered lawns, Ma made his way through the moonlit complex. I followed. After a few yards, under the caged red bulb of a firelight, I spotted the sign: 8th U.S. Army Geographic Survey, Colonel J. Ramrock, Commander.

A short flight of steps on the side of the building led down to a cellar door. Ma scurried toward it. We crouched in the darkness. He tried the door. It was padlocked from the outside. We’d have to find another way in. But he grabbed my arm and pointed to the rusty metal hasp.

He pulled on it. The door swung open. The hasp had been sawed neatly in half, but the padlock had been left in place. From a distance, the door looked secure. At least enough to fool a half-asleep security guard.

Ma pointed into the darkness and his somber face took on a seriousness that was unusual even for him. I immediately understood what he meant.

Shipton was already inside.

I reached beneath my pullover, unsnapped the leather holster, and pulled out the 38. Ma nodded in approval.

He opened the door. We entered.

The long hallway was like a tomb. Still, at each doorway we stopped and listened. Ma gently twisted each doorknob. Locked from the inside. Shipton had to be downstairs. Underground, where Strange had told me they kept the classified documents. I pointed toward another stairway leading down. Ma nodded and took the lead.

Although I took each step as silently as I could, my hard-soled combat boots seemed to be making way too much noise. Ma turned, frowning.

I knelt down and unlaced the boots, took them off, and set them against the wall. Ma shook his head. I picked them up, knotted the laces together, and draped them around my neck. He nodded.

As we inched our way downstairs I thought about running back up, sprinting through the headquarters complex to the MP’s at Gate 7, and ordering them to call for about five jeeps full of backup. It would be a lot safer, but I knew it wouldn’t work. By the time I arrived back with help, Shipton would’ve sensed something was wrong. He’d be long gone. Besides, he probably had escape routes planned, escape routes I knew nothing about. We had to catch him now. While he was busy photographing the documents or trying to break into a safe. Now, while he was close.

When we reached the bottom of the landing, my knees were shaking. Down the hall, at the last doorway, light filtered out. A flashlight. Someone was inside.

Ma’s face was grim. He motioned me forward. I had to admire him: the guy was fearless.

At each door we passed, we stopped and listened but now Ma didn’t try the doorknobs. Any whisper of sound would betray us. The glow of the light in the last room grew brighter as we inched forward.

At the edge of the door we both froze. Ma pointed to his chest and motioned that he would go in first, veering to his left. He signaled that I should follow, moving to the right and taking aim with the pistol. My hands shook and I hoped that my lips weren’t quivering but I knew they were. Ma placed one hand on the doorknob, held out three fingers with the other, and started to count them down.

One. Two. Three!

We slammed through the doorway.

Ma moved left, I moved right, both of us scanning a room lined with file cabinets, searching for anything that moved. I held the. 38 in front of me but I saw only a safe, untouched, and a lighted flashlight resting atop it, its beam reflecting off a coffee cup of burnished bronze. I realized what had happened but before I could turn, Ma was moving back toward me, his hands waving frantically, and something dark burst through the door and lunged at Ma. I saw only a gleam of silver and heard Ma grunt and then he was flying, lifted through the air, his squirming body heading straight toward me.

I swiveled and pointed the gun. But there was nothing to shoot at except Ma’s stomach. I stepped backward, but the soaring body arched toward me and slammed into my hands and my chest and I saw the gleaming blade and a hand around its hilt and the knife slashed toward my chest. I rolled but it was no good, the blade slammed into me with a thud, and I expected a searing pain but I felt nothing. I knew that was probably because I was in shock and that the pain would come later.

Then the laces of the boots jerked at the back of my neck.

I realized the blade hadn’t reached me, it had slashed into the boot hung around my neck.

Still, I was on my back and Ma was on top of me and someone was on top of him. Something heavy stomped my wrist. The pain flamed up my arm like molten lead.

The gun. The gun!

It was gone. My hand was useless, probably busted. I rolled, trying to get away from the monster above me and the pain, until I slammed into the wall. When I looked back I could see in the steady light of the flashlight that Ma lay sprawled beside me, blood seeping out a huge gash in his back. Above loomed a man. A man holding a bloody Gurkha knife.

Shipton.

I scrambled for the gun, found it in the dark. But before I could turn and fire I heard his heavy footsteps pounding out the door.