Martin Limon - Mr. Kill

I didn’t know. We walked out of the yoguan and I stared up at the sky. From the peak of Mount Halla, a wisp of smoke trailed lazily up into the endless blue. I thought of the commo site, and flunking an IG inspection, how seriously the army takes those things. Then I remembered something Vance had said, and suddenly I knew.

“What?” Ernie asked.

When I didn’t answer, he asked again, more insistent this time. “What?”

“Come on,” I said, “let’s find a cab.”

We were three quarters of the way up the mountain, with the same cab driver, Mr. Won, still driving his unrepaired cab and more nervous than ever. He’d made us pay triple fare instead of double. Ernie pointed. “There!”

Won pulled off at the next bypass. The three of us climbed out to get a better look. Zigzagging down the mountain, we could see him from a mile off. The quarter-ton truck from the communications site.

“That must be him,” I said. “Let’s roll the cab out here to block his way.”

Ernie jumped in the driver’s seat and Mr. Won screamed at us to stop. Oblivious, Ernie started the engine, shoved it into gear, and drove the cab across the road so as to block the way of the oncoming truck.

“He’ll have to come wide around that curve,” Ernie said. “If he doesn’t slam on his brakes, he’ll barrel right into the cab.”

Keeping the keys so the protesting Mr. Won couldn’t move his vehicle, Ernie and I trotted up the road and hid behind some rocks next to the spot where we figured the truck would have to come to a stop. Or at least slow down.

Up above, the engine roared louder.

The quarter-ton truck rounded the last corner and the driver’s head, small in the distance, was square and dark, almost-black hair cut very short: Ronald T. Parkwood, the ranking NCO and the only other man besides Vance stationed at the Mount Halla commo site. When he saw the taxicab blocking half the road, a moment of surprise suffused his features, but then hairy forearms took over, jerking the steering wheel to the right, rolling the quarter-ton into a skid. Expertly, he twisted the steering wheel back to the left, turning into the skid, straightening out the truck and slamming, with a horrific crash, into the rear of the little Hyundai sedan. Behind me, Mr. Won groaned.

Ernie and I erupted from our hiding places and sprinted toward the truck, but Parkwood was still in control, rolling forward, shifting gears, finally gunning the engine and making the wheels spin. Laughing, he sped off down the road. An arm reached out of the left cab window, raised in the air, flipping us the bird.

“Dammit!” Ernie shouted.

He jumped into the driver’s side of the cab and tried to start the engine. It only whined in protest; no matter how hard he tried, it wouldn’t turn over.

“Specialist Vance,” I said. “He’s still up there. And there’s a phone. We can call. Come on.”

Ernie and I started up the mountain, running when we could, leaning forward and striding when the incline became too steep. Reluctantly, Mr. Won followed.

We’d chased the Blue Train rapist from Seoul, down the Korean peninsula to its southernmost tip, and then beyond, to this island deep in the heart of the cold Yellow Sea. Now we were truly as far south as it was possible to go and still fall under the purview of the United States Forces Korea. The gate in the chain-link fence surrounding the Mount Halla Communications Center squeaked on its hinges.

“He left it open,” Ernie said, perspiration pouring off his forehead.

“Apparently,” I replied, “he doesn’t plan on coming back.”

The door to the main building had been propped open with an old combat boot.

“He wanted us to enter,” Ernie said.

I nodded.

Behind us, Mr. Won, the cab driver, stood nervously outside the gate, wringing his hands, still staring back down the mountain toward his damaged cab. On the way up, he’d harangued me about how he was a poor man and he couldn’t afford to have the cab repaired-if, in fact, it even could be repaired. I told him to contact the 8th Army Claims Office. He might have to hire an attorney but eventually, they’d make good his loss, not only for repair of the cab but also for lost wages. That’s what I told him. Whether that would come to pass, I couldn’t guarantee.

Unconsciously, Ernie touched the inner pocket of his jacket. Nothing was there. No. 45. But I didn’t think we’d need one. The Blue Train rapist was long gone. What I had to do was find a telephone, contact the Korean National Police, and make sure that Sergeant Ronald T. Parkwood didn’t get off the Island of Cheju.

The communications room was shattered. Metal boxes had huge dents in them, keyboards and control panels had been smashed, wires-some of them still sparking-stuck out in every direction. Clipboards with maintenance checklists on them had been smashed in two.

“Christ,” Ernie said. “He must’ve taken a sledgehammer to this stuff.”

I checked the phones. Dead. So much for calling ahead to the KNPs.

“Where’s Vance?” I said.

Ernie hurried toward the back room. I followed. The living quarters had been similarly smashed. Glassware, metal utensils, pots and pans, chunks of roast beef, and sprays of broccoli were splattered everywhere. An expensive stereo set with microphone lay on its side atop a smashed electric guitar. The single cowboy boot I’d seen before lay beneath a pile of dirty clothes that, incongruously, included a red lace bra.

“Somebody threw a tantrum,” Ernie said.

“Vance!” I shouted. “You in here?”

When no one answered, Ernie and I tiptoed through the mess until we reached the small outdoor exercise area. That’s when we saw him. His arms were tied behind him with a sturdy rope. Somehow, Parkwood had managed to hang him over the pull-up bar, about eight feet off the ground. His knees had been hooked over the bar and then his ankles tied by electric cords securely to his thighs.

“God,” Ernie said. “Must’ve hurt like a bastard.”

Still, that much torture wasn’t enough for Sergeant Ronald T. Parkwood. He’d then tied a twenty-five-pound barbell to an electric circuit wire and attached the other end of the wire in a loop around Specialist Vance’s neck.

Slowly, Vance had been strangled to death.

I could’ve saved him if I’d managed to put it together earlier. On the Blue Train, Runnels the courier had said that the rapist was making his first checkmark on a list of corrective actions. Here at the Mount Halla commo site, Specialist Vance told me they’d failed their IG inspection. The list of deficiencies hanging on clipboards was massive and had to be corrected. If they weren’t corrected-and corrected in a timely fashion-Parkwood would be denied reenlistment.

To civilians, especially civilians with gainful employment, that may not sound like much. But if you have little or no education, and you’ve been trained by the army to do a job that only the military has a need for, and you only have a few more years until you reach your twenty-year retirement, a bar from reenlistment can seem like death. Parkwood had a choice: correct the long list of deficiencies from the IG inspection, or get out of the army. He decided to get out. But before he left, he set about, for some reason known only to himself, to correct his own list of deficiencies in his life, and in so doing he’d murdered innocent people and destroyed the lives of those who had loved them.

A red tongue lolled out of Vance’s open mouth. His upside-down face was purple, wearing an expression as if screaming in horror. Ernie found a butcher knife among the jumbled kitchen utensils and was about to cut Vance down when Mr. Won pushed through the open door behind us.