Martin Limon: The Iron Sickle

By then Mrs. Han was screaming bloody murder and everything was being spattered with gore, up to and including the uppermost Venetian blinds. In all, the 8th Army coroner counted two dozen stab wounds, all delivered in rapid succession and all but the first superfluous because that one had neatly sliced Barretsford’s carotid artery, damaging it beyond any hope of repair.

By the time the workers outside recovered from their initial shock, the man with the sickle was already walking quickly but not hurriedly out of the office. According to at least one eyewitness, his overcoat was once again buttoned, and he seemed to be holding something beneath it. After he left, everyone rushed into Barretsford’s office.

Mrs. Han was still wide-eyed and screaming, and Mr. C. Winston Barretsford lay in a growing pool of his own blood. Life still pumped red from the gaping wound in his neck. Finally, an onlooker of some presence of mind called the Military Police.

The 8th United States Army was on lockdown.

I stood with an MP named Grimes on a low hill overlooking a drainage ditch that slithered darkly beneath jumbled concertina wire. The hour was zero six hundred on the morning after the attack. Grimes shifted the weight of his M-16 rifle in the crook of his arm, took another long drag on his cigarette, and stared beyond the chain-link fence at the shadows that enveloped the Yongsan district of Seoul.

“Commies,” he told me. “They want to chase us out of Korea, so when we ain’t looking, they kill as many of us as they can find.”

“You think that’s it?” I asked.

“Course that’s it.” He exhaled resolutely. “But we ain’t going.”

Already the general assumption was the man with the sickle had been an agent for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea. The honchos of 8th Army were convinced the assassin was a trained professional who had been sent south to create mayhem and drive a wedge between the US and our South Korean allies.

“They’re tricky, those Commies,” Grimes said.

My name is George Sueno. I’m an agent for the 8th United States Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. My partner, Ernie Bascom, and I had been drafted, along with every other CID agent and MP Investigator on the compound, to perform the duties of Sergeants of the Guard around the five-mile perimeter of the 8th Army headquarters compound. It was our job to patrol the fences and the gates every half hour to make sure the MPs and the contract-hire Korean gate guards were alert. We couldn’t have another attack like the one at the Claims Office.

“Seen anything unusual?” I asked Grimes.

“If I did,” he responded, “don’t you think I’d report it?”

“I guess you would.”

Without saying goodbye, I continued my rounds, strolling past the now-dark brick buildings of the headquarters complex, stopping to talk to the pacing Korean guards heavily bundled in hooded parkas, M-1 rifles slung over their shoulders. No one reported seeing anything unusual. All quiet on the Yongsan front. This extra security was a classic case of shutting the barn door after the horse has escaped. Many of us thought it was a waste of time. But the brass didn’t, and in the army, only the opinions of those with eagles or stars on their shoulders truly count.

After finishing my circuit, I made my way back to the MP station and pushed through the swinging double doors. Ernie was already back, lounging on a wooden bench, a copy of the Pacific Stars and Stripes in front of him; this morning’s edition, just flown in from Tokyo. With the back of his hand, Ernie slapped the paper.

“Nothing in here about the murder,” he said.

“They haven’t had time,” I replied, shrugging off my field jacket. “Their deadline was something like noon yesterday.”

“Barretsford was dead before that,” Ernie said. “They knew about it.”

Ernie was right. The editors at the Stripes office in Tokyo must’ve known about the brutal attack on C. Winston Barretsford before they went to press, and yet they’d chosen not to print the story. So far, our only source of information had been chatter amongst law enforcement personnel and the tight-lipped briefing we’d received when assigned to our sections along the perimeter. The radio and television outlets of the Armed Forces Korea Network had been completely mum about the man with the iron sickle. It was as if he hadn’t existed.

“They’re shutting the case down,” Ernie said. “Total blackout. I bet even AP and UPI won’t be able to pick up on it.”

“Maybe not.” I drew myself a mug of coffee out of the big metal urn the 8th Army chow hall had set up for us. It was barely warm but I’d been out in the cold so long it tasted good.

“No maybe about it,” Ernie replied. “And you can bet the Korean papers won’t say boo , not if the ROK government doesn’t want them to.”

The military dictatorship of President Park Chung-hee kept a tight control on their own news outlets: print, radio, and television. So tight they occasionally arrested a reporter without trial and threw him in jail to rot for as long as the regime saw fit.

“Okay,” I said, sitting down on the bench next to Ernie. “So Eighth Army’s keeping it buttoned up. That doesn’t make Barretsford any less dead. And it doesn’t make the guy with the sickle any less out there.”

“That’s my point,” Ernie said. “So far we haven’t found zilch. No evidence that would lead us to this guy. Not even any clue as to his motive. With publicity, maybe somebody who knows something would drop a dime on him.”

“You mean ten won .”

“Okay,” Ernie replied. “Ten won .”

I picked the paper up off the bench, sipped my coffee, and started reading the front page story about two cub reporters who were giving President Nixon hell. It was fun to read, like a soap opera, and it took my mind off our current troubles. After finishing my coffee, I put the paper down, slipped back into my field jacket, and trudged out into the still, dark morning to make my final round of the perimeter. When I returned, I waited until Ernie had finished his inspection tour on the far side of the compound, and we marched over to the 8th Army movie theater. Colonel Brace, the Provost Marshal, was giving a briefing for law enforcement personnel at zero eight hundred, and our attendance was not only requested but mandatory. At the entranceway to the theater, a colorful movie poster announced the upcoming re-release of Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen in The Sand Pebbles .

“Don’t they ever get any new movies?” Ernie asked.

I didn’t answer. We pushed through the double doors.

Just past the empty popcorn machine, Staff Sergeant Riley, the Admin NCO of the CID Detachment, was taking roll. His thin body looked lost in the neatly pressed folds of his khaki uniform. As GIs passed, he checked names off a list on a clipboard.

“Fill up the front rows,” Riley growled. “The Colonel doesn’t want to shout.”

“Yes, Teacher,” Ernie said.

Riley pursed his thin lips and jammed his pen toward the front of the theater as if to say, “Keep moving.”

During the day when he was sober, Riley was one of the most efficient men I knew. At night, he pulled out a bottle of Old Overwart he kept hidden in the back of his wall locker and laid into it. After three or four shots, he was completely stupid, which was how he wanted to be when the sun was down anyway.

Contrary to Riley’s orders, Ernie and I took seats in the seventh row from the front. More CID agents and MP investigators filtered in. After about three dozen of us had taken our seats, the murmured conversation started to subside. Finally, Colonel Brace strode down the aisle. Riley shouted, “On your feet !” and we all stood at the position of attention.