Brian Haig - Mortal Allies

“So they can’t do this?” she announced, or asked, or prayed.

“Well, here’s where it gets itchy. The crime was committed off base in Itaewon. The victim was a South Korean citizen. He was wearing an American Army uniform and was serving in an American unit, because he was a Katusa. But he was still South Korean. And it was a particularly nasty crime and the Korean people are obviously very annoyed.”

“So what? Tough shit,” Allie said. “A diplomatic agreement’s a legal document, right?”

“True, but the SOFA agreement has been a source of great aggravation and controversy over here. It even had to be amended a few years ago, because the South Koreans are fed up with all the crimes American soldiers have committed over the past four or five decades.”

“Amended how?”

“We still have the right to try the accused. However, the issue of pretrial confinement is now negotiable. Also, once there’s a conviction, we now have to bargain with the South Korean Ministry of Justice over who gets to punish the criminal.”

Allie said, “So I was right, then. They have no right to try Whitehall.”

“Partly right. The South Koreans don’t like our legal system one bit. They think we give way too much leeway and protection to the accused. They think we’re too procedural. To their way of logic, it’s incomprehensible that a criminal could get off just because somebody failed to read him his rights, or some piece of evidence got contaminated, or someone on the jury had a bellyache and voted impulsively. They apparently don’t want those risks in this case.”

Katherine stroked her chin. “So what’s their legal system like?”

“From a defense perspective, Dante’s inferno. A system designed by victims, for victims. To them, a trial is a search for truth and justice. And sometimes they go about finding it in some pretty ugly ways. South Korean gendarmes and prosecutors can get pretty rough, if you get my meaning. There’s this hilarious joke about the Korean who really wanted to sign the confession, only he couldn’t, because all his fingers were broken. But you probably don’t want to hear that joke right now.”

Allie’s big nose stuck out about two inches. “We’ll just tell them to blow it out their ass. We’ve got this SOFA shit on our side, right? They can’t have him. It’s that simple.”

I replied, “Very eloquently stated, but it’s not that easy. It’s their country, so like it or not, we’re walking on eggshells.”

Katherine began pacing across the room. She took small, measured, deliberate steps, because it wasn’t a real big room, but also because she was that way. Very calculating, very shrewd.

“Do you have any suggestions?” she finally asked me.

“Sure. Arrange an immediate meeting with Spears’s legal adviser and the ambassador. Except, if I heard right, the ambassador’s in a hospital in Hawaii. So maybe the embassy charge instead.”

“What for?”

“Mainly to hear what they’ve got to say.”

“Anything else we should do?” Katherine asked.

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“Have a big breakfast. It’s going to be a long day.”

She and Allie and Maria didn’t want to eat a big breakfast, or any breakfast, which I can’t say displeased me all that much. I therefore went downstairs and ate alone. I stopped in the convenience shop first and picked up the newspapers for the past two days. These were issues of the Stars and Stripes , an overseas military newspaper that included excerpts from stateside Associated Press stories and lots of local news articles written by a regional staff based in Japan.

Updates on the Lee murder case filled the front pages of both days’ papers. As Clapper had warned, the case was every bit as much a lightning rod in Washington as in Seoul. Not only were the Republicans trying to usher through a bill to overturn the “don’t ask, don’t tell” compromise, but a consortium of angry Southern Baptist fundamentalists were mustering a march on Washington to protest the godless policies of the President who had opened up the military to gays.

I was just finishing my second cup of coffee when Katherine and Keith swooped down. Keith looked handsomer than ever in a superbly tailored worsted gray flannel suit, with a silk handkerchief stuck out of his coat pocket that perfectly matched his necktie. He looked like one of the models you see in all those catchy men’s fashion magazines Army guys don’t subscribe to. Our fashion world is prescribed in tedious detail by something called a regulation that doesn’t leave you the least bit curious about what lapel cuts or tie widths are in vogue this year.

Katherine looked frantic. “We’ve got an appointment at the embassy in thirty minutes.”

“Have fun,” I mumbled, whipping the paper back up in front of my face.

She and Keith kept standing there, and I knew damn well what was going through Katherine’s mind. She wasn’t about to beg me to come along, but hey, she was way over her head on this.

I wasn’t over my head. I was swimming in my own metier, as the saying has it. But I also wasn’t about to come along – unless, that is, she did beg me. I can be real churlish that way.

She said, “Attila, I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to tag along.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmured, hibernating behind my paper.

“You know, this might be a fairly interesting session.”

“Bet so,” I idly mumbled.

“Come on, Attila. You coming?”

“I haven’t done the crossword yet,” I remarked indifferently.

Another moment passed. I heard Keith whisper something in her ear.

“Attila, please come,” she said.

“Hey, Moonbeam, my name’s not Attila,” I replied, pointing down at my nametag. Keith’s eyebrow shot up in the air at that one. He looked questionably at Katherine as though to say, Moonbeam? Then he smiled, because really, as monikers go, it fit.

She ignored him and said, “Okay, Major… Major Drummond… Sean. Please come.”

I put down my paper with an exaggerated sigh. “Be happy to. If you think I would be helpful, that is.” I looked up into her beautiful face and could see this was getting excruciatingly painful for her.

Her big green eyes got narrow and pointy, and her cute little lips shrank. “It could be helpful,” she said, with no effort to disguise her resentment.

“I’m sorry. Was that could be helpful? Or would be helpful?”

“It, uh… it would be helpful. Okay?”

I could tell I’d extracted about as much humility from her as I was likely to get. On this round, anyway.

“And how were you planning to get to the embassy?” I asked.

“I thought we’d take a taxi.”

“Won’t work,” I told her.

“And why not?”

“Because we’d never get there. Just a minute.”

I went to a phone by the hostess’s table. I dialed the operator and asked her to immediately put me through to the MP station. A desk sergeant with a brusque, uncompromising voice answered. I told him to connect me to the shift commander.

An only slightly more reasonable voice came on the line. “Captain Bittlesby.”

“Bittlesby, this is Major Drummond, co-counsel for Captain Whitehall.”

“Yes sir.”

“My other two co-counsels and I need to be transported and escorted to the American embassy. Immediately.”

“Is this trip authorized?” he wearily asked.

“Authorized by who?”

“By Major General Conley, General Spears’s chief of staff.”

“This just came up. There isn’t time for that.”

Sounding a little too happy, he said, “Too bad, then. Without Conley’s signature, nobody leaves base.”

I said, “Listen, Captain, we’ve got an appointment in twenty-eight minutes to meet with the acting ambassador. You could take that for authorization. Or, if you’d like, I’ll tell the ambassador, ‘Gee, I’m sorry, Captain Bittlesby says we can’t come.’ Then I’ll call the New York Times and tell ’em some captain named Bittlesby is trying to sabotage Whitehall’s defense.”