Free Mr. Kill by Martin Limon Page B

replied. “Let’s do.”
    Still pouting, she stared at Ernie and then turned and walked out of the office with Staff Sergeant Riley. Ernie waited until the door closed and their footsteps faded down the hallway. Then he said wistfully, “You think he’ll get any of that?”
    “Not a chance,” I replied.
    The SOFA meeting had been an unpleasant experience. Translators were used for the ROK Army officers—most of whom could speak English but didn’t want to lose face by mispronouncing words in a formal setting. The American officers kept trying to get us to admit that we had no idea, for sure, that the Blue Train rapist was a member of the United States military. This was in fact true. The ROK Army officers kept trying to get us to admit that the chances of the Blue Train rapist being anything other than an American G.I. were slim to nothing. This also was true.
    When neither side could shake us from either position, Ernie and I were summarily dismissed.
    It was up to the honchos now to hash it out. What came down, came down. I hoped that we’d be allowed to investigate, but after a day with no word, my hopes dimmed. After the second day, they were all but gone. It was the third day, while we were at the MP station finalizing some paperwork on a black-market bust, that the desk sergeant walked over to speak to us.
    “You Sueño?” he asked.
    I nodded.
    “They want to see you over at the head shed.”
    “The Provost Marshal’s office?”
    He shook his head. “Chief of Staff.”
    “Eighth Army?”
    “You know any other Chief of Staff?”
    Ernie and I stuffed the unfinished paperwork in a drawer, walked out of the MP station, and climbed in the jeep. An hour later, after having our butts reamed by the 8th Army Chief of Staff, we were on a train heading south toward Pusan. A train known as the Blue Train.
    Normally, I would’ve been happy about it. I’d played a not-so-subtle bureaucratic game, and I’d won. At least that’s what I thought at first, but that’s not what really happened. Actually, 8th Army never relented on their refusal to admit that the Blue Train rapist was a G.I.
    Until events intervened.
    Whoever he was—G.I. or not—he’d struck again.
    And this time, his victim had not only been raped. She’d also been murdered.

5
    T he stewardess roamed the central aisle of the Blue Train, paying particular attention to elderly passengers. She was a round-faced young woman, husky but not fat, and she looked good in the blue beret, white cotton blouse, and blue skirt. I particularly admired her legs. Sturdy and smooth.
    As attractive as she was, if she walked in the door of a modeling agency in New York City, they’d soon enough show her the exit. She wasn’t tall and leggy, and she certainly wasn’t blonde. There are many types of gorgeous women in this world, but the fashion industry’s insistence that there is only one ultimate form of beauty fools many and encourages them to buy the products that Madison Avenue sells. In other words, lying pays.
    One of the things I liked about Korea at the time was that advertising was kept strictly under control. No billboards were allowed to mar the serenity of the countryside, and, on Korean television, commercials were permitted only before and after programs, not during. On AFKN, the Armed Forces Korea Network, there were no commercials at all, only public-service announcements. Boring, but at least not obnoxious.
    Outside my window, rice paddies rolled by, dry and yellow and already harvested. In the distance, burial mounds dotted round hills; beyond them, a red sun glowered angrily behind purple peaks. Alongside the train, straining to keep pace with us, a gaggle of Manchurian geese flapped their way south.
    “You ready for a wet?” Ernie said.
    He reached in his AWOL bag, pulled out two cans of Falstaff, and handed one to me. I popped mine open and enjoyed the frothing warmth of hops and barley.
    Earlier this afternoon, after we’d reported to his