Martin Limon - Mr. Kill

I swiveled in time to see his face: wide-eyed with terror. Then he turned, grabbed his stomach, and barfed up what must’ve been his breakfast: a half-pound of partially digested cabbage kimchee, a little rice.

Ernie managed to get the cab rolling. Not started, but rolling. When it began gliding downhill, gradually picking up speed, he tried the ignition again. This time it turned over. Still, he kept it in low because the brakes, by now, were totally worthless. I sat up front next to Ernie. A pale-looking Mr. Won sat in back.

We screeched around corners, taking a couple of them on two wheels. When the road leveled even temporarily, Ernie slowed as much as he could, bouncing the side of the cab against boulders, scraping the bumper against bushes, purposely running the tires through mud or thick gravel. Each time Ernie completed such a maneuver, Mr. Won looked as if he was going to be sick again.

Finally, we made it in one piece to the base of the mountain and a few minutes later we pulled up in front of the main gate of the Mount Halla Training Facility. When we hopped out of the cab, Mr. Won held on to my sleeve, a pleading look on his face. I reached in my wallet and handed him one of my business cards; when that wasn’t enough, I pulled the small wad of military payment certificates out of the wallet and handed them to him. About forty bucks.

He held the money with both hands, staring at it forlornly.

“The Eighth Army Claims Office,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.

And then I was off.

Ernie was already arguing with the gate guards; shoving one of them, one of them shoving back. After about two minutes of that, Staff Sergeant Warnocki appeared. He listened to our story, scratching his nearly bald head beneath his beret.

Finally, he asked, “So, where did this guy go?”

“That’s what we don’t know,” I replied. “But I have to call the KNPs to make sure that they don’t let him off the island.”

“Okay,” he said. “Come on.”

The three of us trotted over to the orderly room. There I placed an AUTOVON call to Pusan. Inspector Kill picked up immediately. I explained what I knew. He reassured me that he would contact the Korean National Police on Cheju and this man known as Sergeant Ronald T. Parkwood would never leave the island.

I hung up the phone.

“So, did anybody see a quarter-ton truck around here?”

Warnocki shook his head. Then he said, “Wait a minute. This guy, Parkwood, he works at the commo site, right?”

Ernie and I both nodded.

“Works out a lot,” he continued. “Sort of buff, for a rear-echelon puke.”

“That’s him,” I replied.

“He was into diving.” Ernie and I both stared at him blankly. Warnocki continued. “Between cycles, Colonel Laurel gives water survival courses to anybody who’s interested, using the techniques he’s learned from the haenyo.”

“Did you go?” Ernie asked.

“Of course. All the SF personnel did. He’s our commander.”

“And Parkwood went too?”

“Yeah. Held back, though. Didn’t mingle with the rest of us.”

“So if you were trying to get off this island,” Ernie asked, “and you figured that even if you managed to get on the ferry, you’d probably be picked up by the time you landed in Pusan, where would you go?”

“I’d steal a chopper,” Warnocki said.

“And if that wasn’t available?”

“A boat.”

We started to run, but Warnocki shouted for us to wait. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. Inside a padlocked filing cabinet, he lifted out a pistol belt with a holster and strapped a. 45 automatic pistol around his waist. Outside, he slid back the bolt to make sure a round was chambered. The three of us climbed in Warnocki’s jeep.

“Something’s wrong,” Warnocki said.

The three of us were lying on a sand dune, looking down on the boulder-strewn beach next to the ancient wooden quay where the haenyo launch their craft. Lieutenant Colonel Ambrose Q. Laurel was sitting on a flat rock with his back to us, staring out to sea. Two haenyo, clad in full-body wet suits, were working listlessly on repairing nets.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Colonel Laurel never sits still: he’s always on the go. And he wouldn’t ignore the haenyo like that. He has great respect for them.”

Behind us, boots crunched on sand.

I turned to look to see who it was, but by then Warnocki was rolling down the sand dune like a mad dervish. As he rolled, he reached in his holster and somehow pulled out the. 45. He raised it and a shot rang out. I blinked in surprise and struggled to stand up. Ernie was already on his feet, hands held to his side, strangely immobile.

And then I realized why he was immobile.

The death end of an M-16 semiautomatic rifle was pointing right at him.

Sergeant Ronald T. Parkwood held the rifle, pointing it directly at us as he climbed the sand dune. His face was unshaven, his eyes squinting in rage, glaring at us over a nose that wasn’t as huge as portrayed in the witnesses’ sketches, but pretty good-sized anyway.

“Drag him up here,” Parkwood shouted.

And then I realized what he meant. Warnocki sat on the far side of the dune, clutching his right thigh, cursing, trying to stop the bleeding. His. 45 lay a few feet from him in the sand.

“If you try for it,” Parkwood told Warnocki, “you’ll be dead.” Then he turned to us. “Now drag him up and get him down to the beach!”

Ernie and I did what we’d been told. Once we were on the far side of the dune, Warnocki was able to hop, with our help, down the ten yards to the beach. The haenyo had stopped working, and were staring at Parkwood. Colonel Laurel stood up.

“You’ve shot one of my men!” he roared.

“Shut the hell up!” Parkwood replied. “Any more mouth and I’ll shoot you. And these haenyo while I’m at it.”

Colonel Laurel clamped his mangled jaw shut.

“In the boat,” Parkwood said. “Everybody.”

We walked toward the pier.

“Leave him here,” Parkwood said, pointing the rifle at Warnocki, “on the beach where I can see him.”

We sat Staff Sergeant Warnocki down on moist sand.

“Now everybody, up on the quay. Into the boat. And don’t launch until I give the order.”

It was a fairly large boat, with no sail, only two oars on either side. Seating planks crossed it with enough space for about ten people, about the size of a normal fishing party of haenyo. There was an outboard motor at the stern. Colonel Laurel sat farthest forward, then the two haenyo, and finally me and Ernie.

Warnocki stared after us angrily. With that leg, even if he managed to crawl back to the jeep, he wouldn’t get far. He was losing blood at such a rate that he’d probably pass out soon. Still, Parkwood wasn’t taking any chances. Just as the rest of us sat down in the boat, Parkwood, still on the beach, aimed the M-16 rifle at Warnocki and fired.

Warnocki scrambled backward like a crab. The first round missed. The second came closer, grazing Warnocki, I think, on the shoulder. But by then, Warnocki was at the top of another sand dune and rolled down to safety on the other side.

Colonel Laurel had risen to his feet and started moving toward Parkwood. Parkwood swiveled the rifle, pointed it at Laurel, and growled, “Sit down!”

Colonel Laurel sat.

The haenyo stared at the bottom of the boat, as if in complete defeat.

Parkwood braced himself against a wooden stanchion and took a bead on Warnocki’s jeep parked on the edge of the highway some quarter-mile distant. He fired a single round, apparently hitting the radiator because a puff of steam rose into the cold blue sky.

Satisfied, Parkwood sloshed through shallow water and climbed in the boat, sitting with his back to the outboard motor, grinning at us. Keeping the rifle in his lap, he jerked on the lanyard and the engine started up. He unhooked a line and putt-putted the boat away from the quay. After crossing a few small swells, we were at sea, heading I wasn’t sure where.