We Were Beautiful Once (38 page)

Ten minutes later a balding, middle aged man in a white smock walked in.

“Jack, good to see you're awake. I'm Doctor Kaspersky.”

“Why am I here?”

“You were admitted last week after an episode. Remember?”

“Remember what?”

The doctor filled in the details. A week earlier, Jack had complained to Anna he hadn't slept in days, kept awake by nightmares where men threatened to chop off his hands. The dreams were as real as if he were awake. “Jack, your wife said that over the past few weeks she's heard you talking to someone in the basement, where you have toy trains.  You took an axe to the layout.  Destroyed it. You're suffering from a psychosis. Probably something brought on by your son's death. Treatable, for sure. We have you on a new medication.”

 

 

NICK'S BULL-LIKE RESOLVE TO GET TO THE BOTTOM of Girardin's whereabouts, focused on Hamilton's evasiveness. “Did you know of any POWs that did not return, sir?”

“Yes, I suppose I knew many,” Hamilton said coldly.

“Do you know if any soldiers were murdered, shot, hanged, committed suicide? Or died while working at the camp—you know, heart attack, appendicitis...  blown up in a minefield?”

Hamilton looked down, biting his lower lip. “Well, let me think, we had a few suicides and a fight in the Turkish barracks. Someone was killed. But no, I did not know of any odd deaths. Many died of pneumonia, dysentery. Most GIs died before I got there—this happened after they were first captured. Late '50, the whole of '51.”

“What about GIs trying to escape?”

Hamilton's eyes shifted side-to-side, “No, not that I recall.”

“Do you know if there was an escape route leading from the Camp 13 south?”

“Could have been.”

“I am going to show you Plaintiff's Exhibit B-1, which had been previously marked for identification. Look at the easel. Have you seen anything like this map before?”

Hamilton glanced at the map. “Please feel free to walk over.” Hamilton walked to the easel. He studied the map.

The crowd shuffled, a few coughed and others whispered. The noise steadily increased until Lindquist brought the gavel down. “Quiet, please.”

After roughly two minutes of doodling on his yellow pad, Lindquist pulled his eyebrows together. “Is this the first time you have seen this, Mr. Hamilton?”

Hamilton blinked several times before glancing at Harris, “Yes, sir.”

Nick caught the contact between the men and moved around Hamilton to put another map on the easel.

“Have you ever seen this map?”

Lindquist interrupted again. “Number, please?”

“B-2, your Honor.”

Hamilton, moved his finger in the air from side-to-side. “It shows an obvious route leading south from Camp 13, down the east coast.”

“Would you know what this hex mark means?”

Hamilton kept his eyes on the map. “No.”

“Have you ever seen such a mark?”

“No.”

Lindquist felt tired. He turned to Nick, “Counsel, are you going to be much longer?”

 “Yes, sir, a bit.  But given the lateness of the hour, I can recall this witness when we reconvene?”

Turning to Harris, “Any objection, Counsel?”

“No, your Honor.”

“Mr. Hamilton, can you be here next Tuesday at ten?”

Hamilton pulled his lips taut, “Fine, yes, I can be here.”

“Very well, this court is adjourned.”

As Nick and Mitch walked toward the exit, Mitch mentioned to Nick, “I never saw Hamilton before, but he looks vaguely familiar.”

“Probably saw his picture on TV or in the newspaper when you were at the library.”

“Maybe, more recently than that...  I have to think about it.”

***

During Hamilton's testimony Harris had been slipped a note that Russell wanted a call as soon as possible.  He and Foster rushed upstairs, closed the office door and had the secretary put the call through.

Foster yelled into the phone anxiously, “I have you on the speaker, Mr. Secretary.”

Before Harris could finish saying hello, Russell bellowed, “Listen, the goddamn papers turned up.”

Harris looked at Foster, “Papers? You mean the orders? I thought they were secret.”

“Yeah. Well, somebody is playing fucking games with us.”

Harris looked out the window. “Do you have a copy?”

“I do.”

“What's it say?”

“Turn the speaker off and pick up the goddamn phone.”

“Go ahead,” Harris said.

“Well it says:

‘September 30, 1950,
CIA, U.S. Embassy, Seoul: Top Secret. Arrest without delay Private Roger Girardin and Staff Sergeant Joseph Johns, 1st Battalion, 21st Regiment, 24th
Infantry Division. Confiscate all cameras and film...  '”  
 

When he finished reading, Harris said, “Well, we're going to have to bring this to Lindquist, get it under the standing secrecy order.” He expected no argument on the necessity for disclosing.

“Bullshit.  It doesn't exist, you hear me?” hollered Russell on the other end.

“Sir, but...  ”

“Harris, it does not exist.  Do you hear me? Do you have the slightest idea what we are trying to steer clear of?” Russell demanded.

“Yes, Mr. Secretary, but...  ”

The phone went dead.

***

What Russell had refused to share with Harris was that following a briefing in Seoul, the Barclay Task force, Lieutenant Colonel Barclay, Captain Reiner and CIA operative Perrone set out for points north in the direction of the Eighth Army's 24th Division. By the third week in November, they had reached the Ch'ongch'on River. The ice that had formed in large swaths had begun to bridge the opposing banks. The ice, rain, snow and the sub-zero winds blowing in from the Asian hinterland solidified anything that did not move. The three men eventually arrived at 24th Division Headquarters and informed the brass that they were there to return Privates Johns and Girardin to Seoul for questioning.

Complicating the assignment was that the NK and the CCF were fiercely defending the valley and the surrounding hills. The 8th Army, 24th Division, 19th Regiment was taking heavy casualties and started falling back. The month of November slipped away.  The CCF rounded up more and more Americans, and when it was clear that the U.N. forces were in full retreat toward the 38
th
parallel, the three man posse headed back to the embassy in Seoul. They reached their intended destination a few days before Christmas. Notably, the men were not relieved of the powers that went with the mission to arrest and, if necessary, keep Roger Girardin and Joe Johns from telling anyone of the atrocity they had witnessed. In fact, when they returned to HQ, they debriefed an entire squad of intelligence officers in the hope of expanding the search rather than abandoning it. One of the officers at the debriefing was Trent Hamilton, who recognized the name Roger Girardin and could only imagine that it was the guy he knew from back home —a guy with whom he had a score to settle, and now doubly so.

In closing, CIA operative Robert Perrone said, “And remember, confiscate any film they may have in their possession, regardless of how the apprehension goes.”

“Suppose they're not in a position to be returned?” Hamilton asked.

The CIA operative answered assertively. “Use your discretion.  These men cannot and will not fall into enemy hands, period.”

“What's that mean, exactly?” Hamilton persisted.

“Do I have to paint a picture, Lieutenant?”

 

 

AFTER NICK LEFT COURT THAT DAY HE WENT back to his office to catch up on some work. As he turned the key, the phone rang. Nick figured Diane wanted to know when to expect him for supper, but when he answered a man started shouting something barely comprehensible about being a vet. Nick considered hanging up, except between mentioning the Girardin case at the top of his voice and moments of labored breathing, he said his name was Kenny Preston—the man, besides Montoya, on the Broadbent list who was unaccounted for. The man sounded drunk, although claimed he was sick, but what he told Nick could have a potentially explosive impact. He decided to accept the man's claims at face value, until Nick asked him what he had done before he had gotten sick.

The man slurred his answer, “Twenty-t'ree years was a...  milling machine operator.”

“For who?”

“Aah, t'was a...  Hudson Valley Machine Shop, near Albany.”

“Can I ask what's ailing you?”

“Cancer, goddamn cancer caused by the metal.”

“What do you mean, ‘metal?'”

“Worked beryllium, made parts for copters, companies like Bell, Sikorsky and a company down your neck of the woods—Hamilton.”

“Hamilton?”

“Yeah, same company as that guy that testified at your trial.”

“Do you remember him from Korea?”

“Not sure, but his company signed me a death warrant; they knew those parts caused cancer, those sons-a-bitches.”

Nick thought about Preston's timely call, his possible motivations, but had to go the next step.

“Mr. Preston, if you can get here by Monday, I'll put you up overnight. Is that possible? And, depending on how things go, I might like you to testify on Tuesday. What do you think?”

“My daughter will drive me down Monday morning. Should get there around noon.”

Nick, was feeling buoyed by the call, but when Preston hung up, Nick heard a click in the receiver that sent a chill through his body.

 

 

ART GIRARDIN BELIEVED THAT THE GOVERNMENT had conspired for political reasons to cover up his brother's disappearance, along with that of the other 450 missing POWs. Nick, while he still wasn't one hundred percent convinced, was more interested in
motive.
Nick knew the CIA had intervened on more than one occasion when he had subpoenaed records he thought had bearing on the case, but he did not know
why
the CIA maintained its interest in a matter that occurred thirty years ago. In more than one instance, like the Broadbent report, Harris claimed a state secrets privilege. Lindquist reviewed documents,
in camera
, denying Nick access to most of the documents. There were a string of coincidences that defied explanation, such as Sonny Reiner's untimely death a mere three days after meeting with perhaps Army agents. Could they all be coincidences? Nick wondered. But for all the thousands of documents Nick reviewed for the case, and for all the witnesses he interviewed, none was more revealing than a meeting with Ambassador J. Rufus Jefferson, from the U.S. State Department earlier that week.  

Seymour Freedman had invited Nick to a joint regional National Security Agency/American Bar Association meeting at the Carlisle Hotel in New York City. Much to his surprise, the meeting host introduced the ambassador by saying that he had been a negotiator at Panmunjom in 1953.  After a talk on the subject of Chinese and American strategic interests, he made an abrupt exit, telling his audience he had to testify in Washington the following morning. Nick ran out and cornered him in the lobby, telling him in a nutshell what the Girardin case concerned.  The ambassador was to the point.

“A large number of POWs were not returned. Why?  Well, that's complicated.” He told Nick that the particular answers he needed were not in the United States. Being the diplomat that he was, he hinted that there were venues where Nick would find others more open.

On the ride back to Connecticut that night, Nick told Freedman what Jefferson had told him. Freedman said that he was planning a trip to Seoul to exercise a long standing invitation to the Blue House. “Nick, the people you're dealing with are powerful and rich. They use bogeymen that end in‘ation.'You know, we fight for nation, democratization and monetization. Be careful, Nick, these men are treacherous; they don't give a rat's ass. They have a lot to protect and hide.”

Freedman told Nick that he had met with the highest levels in the government during his visits to the embassy. “They were pleased with my efforts to link them up with the right people, especially after I fixed the licensing problem. They also feel indebted to you Nick. After all, you orchestrated all of this—at least, in the beginning."

The next day Freedman called Nick to tell him that they had  been invited to the Korean Embassy in D.C. the following day to talk to Jong Lee, one of Yoo's administrative assistants.

Freedman and Castalano boarded Amtrak to Washington the next day and met with Jong Lee who opened the conversation.

“Yes, the ambassador was correct, many men were not returned. As the Armistice approached, the North Koreans were increasingly agitated over the U.N.'s unwillingness to force the 40,000 North Korean POWs and defectors to return home. Korean soldiers on both sides had families on both sides of the DMZ. Given a choice, many of their soldiers desired to remain in the South. The NK accused the ROK of breaching the deal with the POW repatriation. When Big Switch came, the North Koreans retaliated and refused to release hundreds of U.S. soldiers. Our governments kept this secret since the Armistice.”

Nick slumped in his chair, stunned that Lee would so matter-of-factly reveal something Nick couldn't get anybody to talk about for years.  

“When we reached the Armistice in June '53, casualties were almost three million dead, over one-hundred thousand American casualties, thirty-five thousand dead. We did all we could, but short of resuming hostilities, the subject was best left to the post-war negotiations, which failed.”

 “You have no idea what happened to them?” Nick asked incredulously.

“Some of them, not all. We know that at least sixty men were executed at a place called Death Valley.”

“And you're telling me that our government knew this?”