There was no place to go, the small privacy room was built to hold one human being at a time and had thick wooden walls so telephone calls could not be overheard. I stepped outside, letting the spring action built into the door, and slowly close it behind me. That the two officers didn’t grab hold of me immediately I took as a good sign, but I made no move to avoid or run from them. There was no place to go for a Caucasian man who, at normal American male height, stood almost six inches above the obvious oriental men and women occupying the huge city.

“We would speak in private,” the older officer said, although it was very hard for me to properly gauge the ages of almost anyone I met. The adage of ‘all Indians look alike’ came unbidden to my mind.

The man hadn’t asked a question so I simply stood, breathing as easily as I could, and waited. Tom Thorkelson and Chuck Bartok back in California would have been proud.

The two men looked at one another.

“We would speak in private now,” the younger officer said, this time raising his voice a bit.

I realized that I wasn’t going to win the sales stare-down in my current situation. Without much thought, I replied to the second unasked question.

“How about my room?” I offered, thinking that was as good a place as any.

Both men turned and walked away and I followed. We were headed for the elevators. They knew what room I was in and on what floor, as we’d first met just outside that room when they’d been making believe they were something other than police officers.

The elevator came, and the doors opened, but others standing in wait to ride to higher floors did not enter when the few people aboard exited. Both police officers stood waiting, looking back at me. I got inside the spacious elevator, departing from the first floor with only the three of us aboard. The floors started to ding off but I wasn’t automatically counting in my head like I usually did. My mind was racing.

For some reason, when I’d entered and exited the embassy no one there bothered to search me for a weapon, or even ask about such a thing. There’d been none of the new-fangled detection equipment set up as only a few airports in the U.S. were using such devices. The holstered .45 under my arm seemed to weigh twenty pounds as I thought about the real problem my possessing it would likely cause. I hadn’t studied the weapons laws that applied in Korea, much less those that might apply to foreign guests to the country but I figured the punishment for unauthorized possession wouldn’t just totally compromise my ‘disguise’ or cover, but also land me in prison or worse.

Both men stepped away from my room door and I was relieved that they didn’t have a key. I had a plan but it would take some doing to pull off, but the stakes were high, potentially for the whole ball game I was playing. At the very least I’d be labeled a dangerous foreigner or worse, and although I might get out of the country, and a career with it, I’d certainly not be allowed back under almost any circumstance.

I turned the key, opened the door, and stepped through, throwing a comment over my shoulder about grabbing the key.

Both officers stopped and fumbled getting the big brass key out of the lock, while I walked easily but quickly across the room to the small desk by the side of the bed. I grabbed my briefcase and snapped open the hinged locks that weren’t locked. I turned, holding out the folded open briefcase toward the two approaching officers. I balanced the briefcase for a second, using my right hand to grab and palm a small tube I kept inside, before turning the old thing, fully open toward the officers.

“Here, you’ll want to look inside my briefcase,” I offered.

The older officer took the briefcase in both hands.

“I’ll just use the restroom and be right back,” I said, the door being open only a few feet away. “You’ll want to look through the whole room and that’s okay. In my country, we obey all police officers all the time and try to help.”

The last words I said while walking through the bathroom door and closing it behind me.

At the other end of the small room, next to the tall but tiny shower stall was a window, still pulled inwardly open from when I’d pried on it earlier. It was a wooden panel hinged at the top without glass. The bathroom was musty and I’d wanted the space to air out earlier. I knew I had to move fast. The bathroom door had no lock and if it had I wouldn’t have been able to use it for fear the signal that would send wouldn’t be good.

I reached up into my left armpit, unsnapped the holster, and pulled the .45 down into my hand. I stepped to the open window and carefully set the Colt down on the small concrete ledge that jutted a few inches out, forming a sill. The automatic fit and there was still room. I quickly reached up into my right armpit and unsnapped the small leather case that held two extra magazines for the Colt. I gently placed those next to the .45 and pulled the small ‘window’ to make sure the edge of it would fit over what I’d placed beyond it.

Satisfied with my work I pulled the tube I’d palmed from my briefcase out of my right front pocket. I breathed in and out, my first breathing since I’d entered the little room.

I pulled the cap on the little tube off and punctured a thin lead cover with my right eye tooth, wanting to spit from the bitter taste and aroma that shot into my mouth, but not doing so, holding the breath I’d taken in.

I went to the small panel, held it upward with my left hand, and squeezed the substance I’d picked up before traveling to Korea back and forth across the edge of the wood that the panel slid into when closed. I tossed the tube into the toilet with its cap and then pulled hard on the little metal handle located in the bottom center of the window. I held on tightly, putting as much pressure as I could without pulling the handle off, wishing I had more time, which I knew I didn’t have much more of.

Finally, I eased off, hoping that the “Super Bonder” would do a sufficient job to hold the window closed if anyone tried to open it. I’d purchased the tube when I’d identified it at a hardware store days earlier, feeling it might come in handy during a trip abroad. In Vietnam, during my hospital stays there, I’d heard the doctors talk about the new invention of a super-fast glue that could be used to hold bad wounds together until someone badly hit could be brought into surgery.

The stuff was so sticky though that it took acetone to soak it off, and even then, it took some time. Wounded patients had a lot of time or none at all so it didn’t matter, but that wasn’t always so for civilians using the stuff or other purposes.

I quickly pulled back, removed my suit coat, and then the holster rig. I folded the rig up and slipped it onto the top shelf of the only storage spaces set into the wall opposite the toilet. I pulled my pants down and got on the toilet proper just as the door opened. There’d been no knock.

“Just one moment,” I breathed out, finally exhaling, knowing I’d avoided breathing in the intensively poisonous gas emitted by the glue.

“Kimchee,” I said, with an anguished expression, mentioning the name of the noxious combination of vegetables red pepper and other garden stuff that was placed in a crock and buried for days until it was fermented or ‘ripe’ for eating.

Herbert had kindly told me not to touch the stuff or I’d be sick ‘downstairs’ for days. I’d not doubted him, although I’d leaned over and smelled a bowl of the substance in the lobby restaurant. There would be no kimchee for me, ever, I knew, not with the reconstructed elements of my lower abdomen

The older man backed away until he was out of the small closet-sized space, but he didn’t close the door. Both men stood waiting. I knew I could stall no longer. I tipped the edge of the door, swiping with a piece of toilet paper to simulate cleaning myself up, and then got up to slowly easing my trousers up.
I took a good minute to wash my hands before wiping them on the smallest washcloth I’d ever seen, hanging from a tiny wire that looked like it was made from a cheap cleaner’s shirt hanger.

I walked out of the bathroom and the two officers went right in and began to scour everything. The younger officer tried the window while I held my breath once again, but the glue held to the point where I wondered how I’d get through the little levered thing to get my stuff back before it rained, some bird crapped on it, or worse.

I walked to the bed and sat waiting. The briefcase had been filled with only insurance stuff and some notes about the creation of the companies that would be needed to accomplish the strange but understandable mission I’d been assigned. I wasn’t worried about the briefcase or its contents. I was worried about what I needed to say to allay suspicion when the holster rig was found, which didn’t take long.

“What is this?” the younger officer said, nearly prancing into the main room holding the dangling series of belts, straps, and holster that it took to be a weapon holder capable of being fairly well concealed under a coat.

The older officer nodded at me, as if encouraging me to confess, his almost unreadable expression one of mild triumph If not understanding.

“Is it illegal to possess that in Korea?” I asked, thinking fast, my next comment to be based on how the question was answered.

“No, but what is in it is very illegal and very punishable,” the younger officer replied.

“There is nothing in it,” I said, using the same stilted and formalized but partly broken English to reply.

“Explain,” the older man said, sitting in the only chair the room had and seeming to relax for the first time since I’d first met him.

“Korea is a wonderful country and so many things are made here of quality that back home would be expensive,” I began, watching the officer nod his head in agreement. Back home this kind of thing would cost me almost as much as a good motorcycle or more, so I had it made here to take home.”

“Where was this made?” the younger officer asked, causing the older man to smile for the first time.

“Itaewan,” he said.

“We’ll never find anything there,” the young cop replied, sighing when he did so.

“There’s no crime to investigate here,” the older man replied, getting up and taking the holster from the younger man’s hand. He examined it closely from one end to the other.

I waited, thanking my lucky stars that I’d examined the same material intently, looking for any leather source marks or identification of any kind. Bulldog at the embassy was thorough, however, likely predicting I’d get myself in some -sort of predicament by going anywhere in Korea armed.

The police officer put the leather rig down gently on the bed before turning toward the door.

I got up to accompany both men out, hoping that their examination and search would be the end of things.

“Good,” smiled the older officer. “Very good,” he said, more to himself or his partner or even me.

I didn’t like the sound of the simple words. Was the man saying that it was good that they had found nothing or that I was good at being able to conceal the weapon that had to be a part of the rig? Who goes all the way to Korea to have a holster made in a country where guns are forbidden?

The door closed and I went back to the bed. I put the rig on the floor by the foot of the bed and prepared to head back downstairs to call Herbert back.

God knew what resources he might have brought into play to save me and I wanted to head such an effort off. My cover was holding but it was a shaky hold at best. It wouldn’t take more than some high-powered phone calls to throw the whole thing back up in the air, I knew. The Colt could stay on the ledge with the extra magazines until dark, no matter what the weather. I very much doubted that Starlight scopes, like we’d used so effectively in the valley, had yet to make their way into the inventories of police forces, even those located in allied countries. I needed to acquire a thin-bladed screwdriver or a short-bladed but very strong knife to pry what served as a bathroom window in the room, however. I didn’t want an examination after I was checked out to show the damage that might just reach back to the two suspicious officers. Exactly what the fake ambassador had done, whether in Namibia or elsewhere, to have suspicions rain down upon me I had no idea, and I knew I wasn’t likely to, not on my first trip to Seoul anyway.

I headed down to the lobby with the lilting female-like sounds coming on every floor. I wondered if I would ever get used to such a cultural affectation or, if I did, would look for it in elevators that I rode for the rest of my life.

The lobby wasn’t busy, although the lobby in the Asian hotels I’d been in so far didn’t truly resemble those in American hotels. In four and five-star Asian hotels in Seoul, the lobby was only marginally set up to check guests in and out or wait on them at the counter. There were many side rooms, cafes, restaurants, and even open-air rooms where live music emanated from at almost every hour of day and night.

The call to Herbert went smoothly, but its content was shocking. He’d once more been brought straight out of sleep, although he had taken the call. When I gave him the best of what I could think to describe the situation, without mentioning guns or any of that, he’d waited through my diatribe before finally commenting.

“Thanks for filling me in, now proceed,” he instructed. “I took no action as there was none to be taken. You are such a capable man that concerns like our own depend upon your ability to be what you are, in the situation you find yourself, and convert such difficulty into adventure and even success. Adventure is doing something dangerous that has a happy ending. Part of why we’re friends is my being able to enjoy how you do that and also give you someone to tell your tales to. Call me when you’re ready to step aboard an aircraft and hit American airspace.” Herbert hung up without waiting for any breathless and shocked reply from me.

I’d called for help and gotten nothing. I sat in a lobby chair to think. He was right, of course, I concluded after a bit. To have done anything from where he was and what he was would have revealed both of those things and all about me. I’d likely have been sent home but that would have been my last trip abroad and therefore, my career would have been over. I thought it most unlikely that the Agency brought failed agents into its analysis ranks.

I got up and went out through the lobby doors, opening my door in frustration with just how things seemed to be going. The mission was a success but could blow up completely at a moment’s notice and I was the biggest liability I could think of to that mission. I needed to get out of arm’s reach of any interested parties so I could get home and then go through the process of building the foundations to allow what had to be done all over the world. Nothing more could be accomplished except bringing the ambassador and the headmaster into the plan and then making sure they did what they had to do.

Ho was waiting, as I expected. Once again, I headed for the Bank of Korea. I needed some cash, as I also didn’t want to leave any more trails by using the card. I’d need another card, either Master or Visa, as I was also discovering that some places were so cheap that they wouldn’t take American Express. The differential in card fee charges was almost three percent, which didn’t seem to be a lot but then it could be if the volume of transactions was high.

I went into the bank and waited for an open teller. I pulled out the card, told the young woman what I wanted, and then waited for whatever checking out, investigation or phone calls might have to be made, but none of that happened.

The woman merely ran the card into a black box that measured about a foot on the side. The box whirred with my card inside and then spat it back out the same slot it’d gone in. The woman pushed the card back across the counter and then counted out twenty-hundred-dollar bills. There were no questions and no discussion about changing currencies. Somehow, I’d become a proven quantity to the bank, although there was no way to solve the mystery of why.

Ho was where I left him. I let him know that I wanted to go back to the small, loud, and best soup joint I’d been in outside of Kamuela Boulevard in Honolulu when I was a young boy. Ho seemed mystified but obeyed, the trip was quick and without incident, as there was only a mass of traffic, not the usual nightmare of it. Once there I invited Ho inside. He didn’t want to come, claiming he had to watch his tuk-tuk or possibly lose it to some passing thief, but he came inside. Once in the room, which I referred to as the ‘cone of silence’ from the ancient television show Get Smart, I gave Ho a hundred-dollar bill and sat down. Slowly, Ho sat and accompanied me.

“I need to know who those two security, police or whatever they are, characters are and why they are following me. I know you have to know as you don’t miss much and survive by swimming in this veritable sea of humanity every day and night.”

“I can’t really say, or I would,” Ho replied, pocketing the hundred and looking around, although there was nobody within earshot unless they might possess some way of filtering out the constant loud back and forth of local men and women eating, talking and even making bets.

I waited a few seconds before pushing another hundred across the linoleum-covered tabletop.

Ho stared down at the second hundred, then back up into my eyes.

I’d not known the man for very long although I’d come to trust him, but at what point was that trust to extend to having him choose to help me over the lengthy relationships he had to have in such a tightly wound-together culture? I waited.

Ho slowly reached out and crumpled up the hundred before putting it in his pocket to join the other.

I wondered as I watched his expressionless face, whether it was the money or the relationship that had won out, knowing of course, in my heart of hearts that it was the money, and vaguely feeling bad about that.

“They are of Mr. Kim’s.” Ho said, looking around him, as if worried about having that name overheard.

“Mr. Kim,” I replied, not having a clue about who the man might be.

“You say mafia in America but here is much more family and much more serious.”

I thought about what he said and was struck by the thought that any organization could be more serious than the mafia. Satisfaction began to flow through my feelings. My cover wasn’t blown. I was being examined as a threat to the Korean mafia in Seoul. That was acceptable and wouldn’t likely follow me when I left the country or interfere with my plan to establish and operate the companies I envisioned. Those companies would not be based in Korea and their operations would be no threat to any mafia actions I could imagine. Openly smiling at what I considered good news I instructed Ho to take me to the ambassador’s hotel. It was time to confirm all the player’s roles in the mission and then get the hell out of the country.

We got to the hotel very quickly, Ho now driving like he wanted to unload a package that might be dangerous, no longer turning with smiles to check on me as we went.

Both men were in the lobby waiting. When getting out of the tuk-tuk I paid Ho with another hundred, which raised his thin eyebrows but didn’t elicit a thank you or any other comment. He immediately pulled his tuk-tuk out into the traffic and disappeared, instead of waiting for me to return. I wondered if I’d ever see the man again. Money wasn’t always the best material to make or seal relationships and quite possibly I’d proven that once again.
I sat down after perfunctory greetings and laid out the plan and the potential timing, which wouldn’t be finalized until I was back home and had things set up there. The ambassador wanted a cash advance and the headmaster wanted immediate coverage for his entire staff, neither of which I was in any position to pay or grant until finalizing everything with Langley. Hours went by while all manner of currently meaningless details were brought up to be considered. Finally, I could take no more and begged to be excused. My excuse was to leave to prepare to depart the country and get what both men wanted as quickly as I could.

One of the hotel cars was available to get me back to my place. The Jaguar was silent and air-conditioned with the driver behind a glass panel so there was no conversation at all. I didn’t tip when I got back to my hotel as I now understood the system. Once in my room, I was able to retrieve the Colt and ammunition magazines by merely using the hard bar of soap on the sink to tap back and forth across the bottom of the ‘window’ until it finally gave way. There appeared to be no damage to the wood, and I was able to use wet toilet paper to remove all traces of the usage of my soap/hammer solution.

I called downstairs to concierge to have them make flight reservations for travel on United the following day. They called back almost immediately to inform me that I was booked for a flight early in the morning, but the only seat was in first class. I smiled while accepting. Herbert would probably be upset but what the hell. The mission was a success and that seemingly small act might be my only physical reward.

I used a cloth hanging in my closet to stuff the .45, ammo, and holster in. The gun had to go back to the embassy as it was of no use to me. I’d learned a lesson. Don’t have or use a gun on a mission unless in extremis, as the possession of it would likely cause many more problems than the potential usage of it or the feeling of comfort it gave me to wear it.

Ho was not out front, as I now expected when I went out the lobby door, but one of my own hotel’s vehicles was. The trip to the embassy took half an hour, as the afternoon traffic was back in massive, jammed intensity. The corporal at the gate accepted my package for Bulldog without comment and I was out of there without ever having to enter the place.

I asked the driver to find an entertainment bar near the hotel. There was no glass between us as in the other hotel vehicle I’d taken earlier. The man nodded and another half an hour later I was in front of a ‘dance bar.’

I went inside, getting change for a hundred-dollar bill as there was a multi-thousand-dollar Korean won cover to get in. I pushed the small pile of Korean won into my pocket, in case I needed to tip inside. I wanted some music, a drink, and anonymity to relax as much as I could before getting a decent night’s sleep.

The place was relatively quiet inside, and I was able to get a small corner booth with my back set into that corner. I felt secure. I ordered a Bacardi Coke, which came almost instantly, although, from the first sip, I knew the rum wasn’t Bacardi but some cheap substitute. I sighed deeply. I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Every table in the place had a pole going up six or seven feet from the center. A laser beam was being reflected from some source that struck angled mirrors atop all the poles around the room. It was an eerie effect, with a single red beam seeming to connect every customer’s table in the place.

The music began. American rock and roll. It was the Animals doing House of the Rising Sun, one of my favorites and a song that was threaded deeply into my troubled background. I was finally beginning to relax.

The lyrics played and I found myself mouthing the memorized words. I reached for my drink and noticed a red spot on the left breast of my coat. I brushed at it with my left hand, but the spot transferred to the back of my hand.

I jerked to my right side, spilling the Barcardi coke across the surface of the table, I then leaned all the way down across the cushion to my right, my body going flat as I hid down below the edge of the table, my heart beating wildly. I’d been struck with the arrival beam of a targeting laser. There was no shot I realized, as I laid flat, noting that no servant was coming to clean up the mess I’d made of my drink. I breathed in and out hard and fast, sorry that I’d turned in the Colt and taking back thoughts about going anywhere on any mission without being armed.