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  A Corpse in the Koryo

  ( Inspector O - 1 )

  James Church

  James Church

  A Corpse in the Koryo

  At dawn, the hills wake from the mist, One row, then another,

  Beyond is loneliness

  Endless as the distant peaks.

  - – O Sung Hui (I 327)

  1

  No sound but the wind, and in the stingy half-light before day, nothing to see but crumbling highway cutting straight through empty countryside. Laid out straight on a map thirty years ago, straight was how it was to be built. The engineers would have preferred to skirt the small hills that, oddly unconnected, sail like boats across the landscape. Straight, rigorously straight, literally straight, meant blasting a dozen tunnels. That meant an extra year of dangerous, unnecessary work for the construction troops, but there was no serious thought of deviating from the line on the map, pointing like Truth from the capital down to the border and drawn by a Hand none would challenge. Alas, to their regret, the engineers could not completely erase the rebellious contours of the land; in places, the road curved. For that, the general in charge, a morose man of impeccable loyalty, caught hell. Cashiered one afternoon, by evening he was on his way to the northern mountains to manage a farm on land so bleak the grass barely grew. Eventually, he was let back into the capital to serve out his years planning new highways-all straight as arrows, and none of them ever built. By then the mapmakers had learned their lesson. Every map showed the Reunification Highway running ruler-straight and true, and that was how people came to think of it. Hardly anyone traveled the road, so few knew any better.

  My orders didn't say where to look, only to be on the lookout for a car. No color, no description, just "a car." This was routine. As the English poet said, it was all I needed to know.

  Frankly, I had no interest in knowing more. At this hour, if a car did appear, I figured it would be moving fast from the south. Why a car would be coming up from that direction was an interesting problem, but I wasn't curious. It wasn't my business, and what I didn't question couldn't hurt me.

  Take a picture, they said; that's all I had to do. I looked through the viewfinder to find the range, then put the camera down on the grass. My vantage point was no problem-good angle, the distance fine for the lens, the lighting sufficient given that sunrise wouldn't be for another half hour. I knew the road emerged from a short tunnel a kilometer away. The sound of the engine echoing against rock would reach ahead, giving me time to get ready before the car slammed into view. The driver had probably been running without lights; he would be tired from peering through the windshield into darkness, fighting to hold the center of the highway for the ribbon of good pavement that remained. He wouldn't be looking up a hillside for anyone with a camera.

  Now, though, nothing moved. No farmers walked along the road; not even a breeze rustled the cornfields bleached from too much summer and not enough rain. The only thing to do was wait and watch the line of hills emerge from the misty silence.

  "Status?" It was turned low, but the sound of the radio still shattered the tranquility, I checked my watch. Every thirty seconds from now on the radio would spit out, "Status," "Status," "Status," unless I turned it off.

  The voice began again, then strangled on its own static. I left the dials alone. A better signal would only invite more noise. Anyway, no response was necessary. Nothing was happening, and I was already convinced nothing would happen. If a car hadn't appeared by now, it would never show up.

  I sat back to watch the third row of hills take shape, a dark ink wash against the barely light western horizon. The contours were smooth, not earth and rock but the silhouette of a woman lying on her side. Up the road, smoke curled toward the touch of morning. Probably from the village that worked the fields spread out below me. I turned my attention back to the highway and flexed my knees to keep my legs from falling asleep. A stone rolled down the hill from behind me. A split second later, I heard a bird cry and then the sound of its wings beating against the grass as it rose into the sky. This sort of surveillance always made me jumpy. I wanted a cup of tea.

  The radio crackled back to life. "In case you've forgotten, you're supposed to click. How many times do I have to tell you. Once for affirmative, twice for a negative." The briefest pause, and I knew Pak was softening. "All right. It's busted, come on in."

  "Save some tea." I spoke softly into the handset, though there was not a living thing in sight.

  "Can't. The kettle's gone. The red one. It disappeared." Just from his voice, I could sense the trace of a smile on Pak's lips.

  "From a police station? How do we boil water without a kettle?" I should have brought my flask. A little vodka would have helped pass the time, especially if there was to be no morning tea. The office didn't own a thermos. The Ministry had a few but refused to supply them, not even in the dead of winter, much less on an August morning like this. No matter that getting in position meant climbing a hill in the dark and sitting on wet grass until sunrise. The answer was always the same. "You want tea, Inspector?

  Perhaps we should offer rice porridge and pickles as well?" The supply officer had been around for years. When he talked, he simpered.

  Unfortunately, he kept impeccable records. Though we tried several times, no one could catch him taking a bribe. It was impossible to get rid of him.

  Pak's voice turned unusually official, signaling there was someone else in his office listening to our conversation. "Stop moaning. And turn off the radio. If we have to replace the battery-"

  I heard the sound of an engine. "Car coming," I broke in, no longer bothering to whisper. "Fast. Down the center of the road." I grabbed the camera, framed the big Mercedes, and pressed the shutter. No click, no whir, no picture. Horn blaring, the black car stormed past. One minute it was flying toward me; the next it was disappearing, pale blue wild flowers along the roadside flattened in its wash.

  I watched the car drop out of sight over a small rise, then threw down the camera in disgust. The battery was dead. But even a perfect picture would have been useless. The car had no plates.

  2

  The clock on the wall next to the window said 2:40, but that wasn't right.

  It was dusk. At this time of year, in midwinter, the sun set early, but not that early, not even here, just neglect, I figured. If the apartment wasn't used often, the clock must have run down. On the opposite side of the room was a floor lamp shaped like a piece of bamboo. The shade had green fringe along the bottom; it was open at the top, and the bulb threw light pretty far.

  The man on the couch had closed his eyes and raised his chin, as if he were on a beach, sunning himself. "Not very illuminating, that," he said.

  "A pretty enough picture with those flowers, I'll admit. Too bad I didn't come to hear a travelogue." Stilted Russian; it was barely understandable.

  His eyebrows were red, flaming red on a milk white face. He was big, bald as a monk. To look at him, you had to think there had been a mistake assembling the parts. He wouldn't blend in with a crowd. Not in any city.

  "You told me to describe a day in my life," I said. "I just did. Next, you'll be asking me what kind of phones we use. I won't tell you. You'll want to know the color of the upholstery in the duty car. I won't tell you that, either. I'd say this has the makings of a long night, but maybe you'll learn more Russian vocabulary before it's over."

  "Suit yourself." He said it in English.

  "You're not American, not with that accent."

  "Irish."

  "What do the Irish want with a North Korean?"

  He moved his head in a slow arc, stretching his neck muscles. "You know, some people say the Irish and the Koreans are alike."r />
  I snorted. "Don'tfool yourself. It's an insult to one of us." I took another look at the clock on the wall. "Let me guess. You work for British intelligence.

  What do they need with me?"

  "No one needs anything, not from you, anyway, friend. We're not even sure who you are. I couldn't care if you float away on the Vltava with the rest of the trash. In case you've forgotten, you set up this meeting. You're here. So the question is, what do you want?"

  "I didn't set up anything. I just made a phone call to a friend."

  "Maybe your friend got in touch with us."

  "I don't think so. I think you're listening in on conversations that don't concern you."

  "You're here. We're here. Maybe a mathematical improbability. Two bodies on different vectors in the same place at the same time."

  "I'd call that a collision."

  "That would be up to you, wouldn't it?"

  "You know what? Your problem is you think you've got a real live North Korean on the hook. But you don't know why. You're thinking to yourself, maybe the guys wants to defect, maybe he has the crown jewels."

  The Irishman looked me over very deliberately, like a man about to buy a piece of used furniture. Finally, he said, "No, I don't think you have the crown jewels. Because if I did, you'd already be out the back door and into a car. Maybe I was interested when you walked in. Now, I'm not so interested.

  "

  "What do you want?"

  "Like I told you, we don't want anything from you. Not a thing."

  "So, enjoy your night." I started to turn away.

  "Someone said they thought you knew something. About somebody.

  Do you?"

  I almost left right then. Maybe I should have. Instead, I turned back toward the Irishman. "Why do I keep having the feeling you're listening in on conversations that are none of your business?"

  "I'll tell you how this is going to go. Every time I ask a question and you change the subject, I get a point, alright? If you answer, you get a point. As of now, you're behind. Want to get back in the game? Let's try it again. Do you know something about somebody?"

  I didn't say anything.

  The Irishman bit the inside of his lip, barely enough to notice, but I saw it. You just lost a point, I thought, whether you know it or not. "Another thing." His Russian was so bad I was getting annoyed. "Silence is like running over the referee. Be careful, you might do it once too often. Let me try this a different way. You said you knew about Kang."

  "You're interested in Kang?"

  "Cut the crap."

  "He's dead."

  Not a lot of noise, suddenly, except for a bus in the distance and a bicycle bell ringing nearby. "Really?" He was speaking carefully. "We hadn't heard. We heard he was here, in Prague."

  "Not likely. Last time I saw Kang, he was slumped against a tree, staring into space, a little hole right there." I walked over and put my finger between those red eyebrows.

  He looked up, daring me to leave my finger where it was. I shook my head, but I didn't move away. Finally, he leaned back slightly. "Why should we believe you?"

  "Maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you're not really interested." I took a step backward, toward the door. "Wasting your time, maybe."

  "My name is Molloy. You can call me Richie." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Smoke?"

  "No. Thanks." I backed the rest of the way to the door and stood there, looking bored.

  "A drink, then. Vodka?"

  "No."

  "Christ, a bloody nun." He pointed to a round table in the middle of the room, with a tin coffeepot on it. "Alright, pour yourself a cup. Maybe it will make this less of a battle. Sort of friendly, like."

  "Tell me what you want, or I'm out the door. If this isn't going to lead anywhere productive, I've got better things to do."

  "Like what?"

  "Like finding something to eat, then going to bed."

  "Why are you people always so difficult?"

  "Difficult? I think I've heard that before, somewhere. You'll accept my deep apologies, won't you? Must be a lack of breeding. Or civilization, maybe. Yes, probably that, lack of civilization on our part. You are the civilized ones. Obviously, we must learn from you."

  He moved his head from side to side, as if he had fixed the problem with his neck but now his shoulders were sore. "Go ahead, leave if you want. Makes no difference to me."

  "Will you be going out the front or the back after I'm gone? The front of the building is being watched. We always thought it was yours but weren't sure. Now we are."

  His head stopped moving. I could tell he didn't know I had been watching the building for the past few days. Simple surveillance, straight from the Ministry's training manual. I'd seen the technicians come in to get ready for the meeting. I decided to push him a little. "We have a list of every license plate of every car you and your friends have in this city. And when you change plates, which you do from time to time, we know the numbers of the new plates before you receive them."

  He was sweating, not much, but the light from the lamp picked it up. I didn't have any list, but it was worth the bluff.

  "Piss off." He kept his voice low.

  "Tell me, are there any mountains in Ireland?"

  This relaxed him some because he suddenly realized what I was doing.

  Getting ready to dance. The decision was his: He could tell me to leave, or he could join in. "Hills, yes, finer than girls on a sunny day." Good, he was in. Then he seemed to reconsider. He looked thoughtful, rubbed his chin. I thought I'd lost him. "Though I couldn't say if any of our hills look like an Irish woman lying on her side. An odd thought, that." He laughed gently, barely a laugh, more at a memory than at anything I'd said, but that was alright. I knew we were past the first barrier.

  "Ever been to Finland?"

  The big face cracked a smile, but the green eyes were steady, eyes like I'd seen once on a cat. "So, we're back to Kang. A long way around to get to the subject at hand, but here we are. You really did know him?"

  "I did. I didn't kill him, though I should have. Anyway, he's dead."

  "And you? What are you doing in Prague?"

  "Nothing. I just happened to get off the train. There was a message for me at the hotel from my friend. I gave him a call. He talked to me, I talked to him, and your transcribers wrote it all down. How did you know I'd be in town, by the way? My orders are for Budapest."

  "Not my concern, figuring out how we know what we know, or why we do what we do. I don't guess about such things. Big man like me, I just show up where they tell me to. I take notes, listen real close when people talk. You never know what they mean until you hear what they don't say.

  Simple guy, that's what people call me. You, you're more complicated."

  His cell phone rang. He answered it, softly. "Right. Right." He turned off the phone and gave me a long look. "Right." He walked past me to the window, moved the curtains aside, and peered outside. "You're wrong, but you knew that." He turned to me. "The front of this place isn't covered."

  "Does this mean you throw me back into the Vltava?"

  "Yourfriends would yank you out and put a bullet in your eye."

  "Don't worry yourself No one knows I'm here, though they may be curious by now where I went."

  "No one is trolling you?"

  "No, nothing so crude or well planned."

  "Excuse me, but I'm not convinced. You're out of your country, rolling around Eastern Europe like a billiard ball, and no one knows where you are? Sorry. I'm not in the market for a story like that. And you know what? If I don't believe you, we don't have a meeting. You go your way, I go mine. Good-bye, see you in a ditch."

  "You want the truth? They don't care who I meet."

  "You don't get it, do you?" He closed the briefcase that was beside him on the floor. "I'm only going to give you one more chance. Then I'm gone."

  I didn't say anything.

  "See, I'm a trusting fellow, but I'm not stupid. Let's say I hand in my
notes. First question I'm going to get is, 'What was the SOB doing in Prague if his orders called for him to be in Budapest?' And I'm going to say, 'Wow, good question. It didn't occur to me to ask. I was thinking of hills and girls on their sides.'" He clicked the lock on the briefcase. "Like I said, see you in a ditch."

  "Go to hell. I'm only a police inspector. Sometimes they need someone unmarked. They hand me my passport, tell me to go somewhere, see someone, do something. Nothing complicated. I'm like background noise. No one looks twice at me." I glanced at the red eyebrows. "Anyway, as far as they're concerned, I don't know anything that will do anyone like you any good.

  Even if you chop off my fingers one at a time, I've got nothing to tell."

  "We're not into fingers." He settled back on the couch. "Not this week."

  "You asked about Kang. Still interested?"

  He gestured toward the table. "Sit down, if you want. You got something to say, I'm listening. I doubt if it's worth a lamb's tit. We'll have to see. If it makes any sense, I'll take out my notebook. Otherwise"-the red eyebrows jumped on his forehead, then settled back into place-"I have a date."

  "The man's dead. Why would I make anything up?"

  He clicked his pen twice. A nervous habit. He wasn't trained very well, I thought, and his Russian was getting worse the more we talked. I walked over to the table and sat down. "You ready?"

  "Yeah." He turned on a tiny silver tape recorder and put it on the low table in front of him. The table was dark wood, maybe black walnut, covered by a white cloth with blue and red birds embroidered around the edge.

  They all had sharp, bright yellow beaks. The cloth was new; you could still see where it had been folded, "first a nice narrative, a bedtime story. Clean and simple. I don't need anything too Oriental." All of a sudden, his Russian was perfect.

  3

  I didn't knock. Just opened the door, tossed the camera on Pak's desk, and pulled up the only empty chair left in the room. My trousers hadn't dried from the wet grass; the camera hadn't worked; nothing had been accomplished. I was plenty irritated, and I wanted Pak to know it. I could tell he was annoyed as well. He ignored me. He kept writing on his blackboard, making a clicking sound with the chalk as he lifted it and then attacked the blackboard again. He battered the blackboard pretty good, pretending to be deep in concentration before saying, "Please come in, Inspector." There were two other men in the room.