James Church - Bamboo and blood

The phone rang just as I walked into Pak's office. Pak picked it up and frowned. "Well, tell your people to take care of it." He listened for a moment. "How many? Are you kidding? Alright, we'll be there as soon as we can. But don't blame me." He put down the phone and shook his head. "Get everybody in the building and let's go."

"Where?"

"The soccer stadium. There's a riot." Pak grinned at me. "Can you believe it? A soccer riot in Pyongyang! I never thought I'd live to see the day."

"Soccer, this time of year? Who wears shorts in this weather?"

"I guess sitting with all those people beats freezing alone in a cold apartment. Anyway, it's a championship against some team from the Middle East. Maybe the powers that be figured they couldn't function in these temperatures."

"That was fun." Pak rubbed his shoulder and let out a small groan. "At least it was different. I wouldn't have thought anyone could throw a bench that far." He groaned again, louder this time. "I think we did okay, Inspector. Lots of shouting. A few odds and ends onto the field. The referee cowering behind us. All sports, no politics, a little steam released and everyone happy. What do you say?"

"I say we don't let the boys in uniform have whistles anymore. The young guy next to me was blowing his the whole time. I would have killed him, but I think the sound paralyzed me."

"Probably just excited, that's all. Not something they get a lot of training for, riots."

"As will be obvious to anyone who reviews the films. Wait until the reports are filed and the comments come back from the Ministry. Someone will decide we need crowd-control gear, and then they'll decide we need training in how to use it."

"That means a lot of drills out in the cold before work. Fortunately for me, chief inspectors are exempt from field training. Unfortunately for you, inspectors are not."

"As long as it doesn't happen again for a while, maybe I'm safe."

"Don't get too comfortable, there's another match tomorrow."

"Let's hope it snows harder." Outside, a few flakes were drifting down. I liked snow late in March.

"Did you see that crowd? Magnificent, roaring like lions. Jumping up and down, a lot of yelling, and all perfectly harmless. Things are getting better, people can feel it. I don't know about you, but I never worried we'd lose control. Not once."

"I don't think we had control. I think they were just content to stay where they were and complain. If they had come onto the field, we'd have been squashed like grapes. Not one of our men had any idea what to do."

"And you did?"

"No, I just shoved back whoever was shoving me. The whole time I kept hoping nobody would call the army."

"For a soccer riot? Not likely."

"The army is sticking its nose everywhere these days. They'd like nothing better than to show we can't do our job."

"You want to know what I think? I think someone is going to have to pay for those benches. I hope it isn't us. The Ministry doesn't have the budget."

"I hate soccer. I always have. Too much running around to no purpose."

"You've been a good host, Inspector. I'm appreciative. Tomorrow I'll get on the plane, and you'll be free of me. Admit it, you'll be delighted." Jeno was walking beside me on the street in front of the hotel. It wasn't warm, but from the way the sun played with the wind and the clouds hurried across the sky, you could believe it might be soon.

"'Delighted' might be a little strong," I said.

"I'm sorry about what happened at the lakeside. It was regrettable. I hope you realize I had nothing to do with it."

"M. Beret filled me in."

I detected a slight skip of the eyebrows.

"That's good."

"He said the Man with Three Fingers saved my life."

"M. Beret said that?"

"Yes, I found it curious, too."

"You still feel guilty, don't you? About leaving your three-fingered colleague all those years ago."

Somehow, Jeno had been approved for yet another visa. I had become resigned to his ability to collect visas. But that was different from being given access to my file. So who was talking to him? How would he know anything about what happened that night?

"When the Pakistanis found your colleague, they didn't know who he was. He had no identification, and no face. For some reason, they didn't leave him to die. They brought him to the nearest army hospital, and the chief surgeon-a young man who had studied in London, as a matter of fact-put him together. There was nothing to do as he recovered, so they became friends. The surgeon taught him chess. The surgeon had acquaintances. And they knew how to play chess. It was awkward for the wounded man, picking up the chess pieces with that hand. The surgeon wanted to repair it. He was advised not to."

"I sense this is not going in a good direction." The highway of possibilities was bumper to bumper from this point on.

"Then go ahead and ask. Or would you rather not know?"

"Why didn't they want his hand fixed?"

"Because they wanted him to burn with anger. Every time he lifted a chess piece, they wanted the anger to burn hotter. Eventually, during a chess game one afternoon, they casually mentioned the idea of getting even. I think he had just knocked over his queen and two or three pawns with his claw."

I didn't like one bit the detail Jeno was bringing to bear on this little tale. He hadn't just read it in a file. This was the sort of detail you got from talking to someone who had been there, or being there yourself.

"We could do something about that, they said. How so, your friend asked. A little assistance, they said. Not much. Nothing extraordinary. 'You can fix my hand?' 'Oh, no,' they said. They didn't want it fixed. They wanted him to carry it around as a reminder. 'But we can give you information now and again. Steer you in the right direction. Much more satisfying than a couple of new fingers. You know, an eye for an eye. Think about it,' they told him."

Jeno paused. I thought about it. Involuntarily, my hand went up to my eyes. I might as well ask. "How do you know all this?"

"The surgeon was a strange creature-a Pakistani Jew from Karachi. He was a student of my father, who was a surgeon in the Royal Marines before he went to Israel."

"Does anyone drive a taxi in this tale?" Of course they did.

Jeno shrugged. "Sohn took your colleague back. It had been Sohn's operation, and Sohn felt guilty."

"Sohn." I put a hand out to break my fall. "Sohn's operation." Suspicion is a leap into the unknown; you can fly away on suspicions. Confirmation is the fall to earth.

"You never saw your chief?"

"No. We weren't supposed to." I never saw my chief, the man who put us into an operation that had "hurry up" written all over it, the operation that was hung with "only chance" bunting from the walls.

"Well, Sohn, your old chief, took him back, used him as he needed. Kept him overseas mostly, edged him into the special squad when it was time. His job? You'll never guess his job."

But I already had guessed, a split second before.

"To watch and protect you."

"Funny, I thought he wanted to kill me." I laughed, one of those painful laughs that slips over the wall and gives everything away. "Can you believe it?" It would have been nice to sit down somewhere at this point, away from Jeno, away from everyone. It didn't have to be a warm place, or a place full of light. It just had to be quiet, solitary. I could feel pieces falling into place; they'd all been there, just waiting to fall into place. They'd been waiting for me to put them on leashes and take them for a nice walk. Very patient, the pieces; even when they are staring you in the face.

"Why would he want to do that? Mun didn't blame you. He blamed whoever it was that had sabotaged the operation." If this was supposed to be comforting, it wasn't. I wished Jeno would just shut up. More pieces right now I didn't need. I was on overload. Too bad, I knew what was next.