Monica looked at the phone next to her hotel bed then dialed the international code and Rayman’s cell number and waited.
It was midnight when Rayman heard his phone unexpectedly chime as he sat looking at the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge from his Fairmont Hotel room in San Francisco and answered, “Hello?”
The grip on Monica’s heart evaporated in a liberating sigh as she spoke, “Oh thank god, you’re alive.”
“Just barely. How about yourself, are you alright?”
“Yeah, I’m better now.” Monica’s body surged with emotions and she wept with joy and relief.
Rayman could hear the emotions swelling in her and reassured, “It's okay Monica." Everything’s going to be okay.”
“What happened? The newspaper said you burned,” she sobbed, “under a roof beam!”
Rayman wore an insolent grin and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, “Yeah well, leave it to the press to jump to logical conclusions.” He waited for a response but all he heard was crying, “Monica, take it easy, everything will be fine, really. You have to be strong.”
Monica whipped back, “I’ve been strong all my life and you want me to calm down!? I call you in the supposed after life and you answer! What-the-hell, Rayman?”
“Please, calm down and listen. Somebody came to the ranch house a couple nights ago, like I suspected they would, like I told you they might when we met in Dupont Circle. Do you remember?”
Monica’s free hand moved to her hip and she took a defiant stance and tone, “Yeah, I remember, you said if they came after you, you would have to disappear like my father did and I told you to take your pet storm cloud away with you unless you were willing to come clean with me about what’s going on. Do you remember that part?”
Rayman knew he wasn’t going to win this battle, so he complied, thinking that Monica’s fragile state of emotions could become one hundred percent rage with one wrong word, “Well, I haven’t disappeared from you so I guess its time to do some cleaning.”
The last rays of a fading sunset reflected off the tear streaks running down Monica’s face as she sighed, “Oh Rayman, I don’t think today is such a good day for this. Why couldn’t you have told me all this in DC? I’m physically and mentally exhausted.”
Rayman stood up and moved close to the window, “Listen to me, it’s important. The guy that came to the ranch house knocked out a cop in the front yard with a soaked rag of ether, took the cops gun and encircled the house in gasoline up to the window sills and lit it on fire. He hid in the bushes waiting for me to run out the front door of the house to shoot me, but I wasn’t in the house. After a detective from San Francisco asked me a bunch of questions then left, a patrol car showed up and I got a little uneasy and sat with the cat until the uninvited quest startled her. Soon after that, I climbed out a rear window and found a set of foot prints coming from the woods leading around the back of the house so I used his foot prints and snuck into the barn with my rubies and watched through a crack in the siding. After a while, when I didn’t come out of the house, the man impatiently decided to go in then the roof fell in on him. Apparently he grabbed my old wallet off my desk or something. The cops and the reporters didn’t really have a choice on what to think until the detective from San Francisco returned and expressed his opinion and reservations.”
Monica gasped, “Rayman, all those irreplaceable artifacts, those paintings, the masks - and my butterfly collection . . . !”
“Relax,” Rayman said calmly, “That’s why we’ve been paying insurance all these years. The artifacts were insured for over four million bucks.” He smiled to himself and charmed, “You know your butterfly collection was worth two million dollars, easy.”
Monica laughed and cried at the same time, “Augh, Rayman, hang on.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I need a tissue, hang on.” Monica put the phone on the bed and moved to the bathroom and pulled a tissue out of a decorated box on the bathroom counter and blew her nose before she returned to the phone and continued, “I loved that house.”
“Yeah, me too, but it was an old house and beginning to gather as many sad memories as good ones. We can build something more contemporary one day when all this is over. But we have more pressing matters right now.”
Monica searched the horizon through the hue of twilight and asked though drying sniffles, “And, why were at the cops at the ranch house?” She tilted her head down slightly down listening intently.
“I was visited by this San Francisco detective named Dixon. He asked me to assist him in a case that happened at the Cho Estate museum in San Francisco a while back. He needed to know some stuff about Moguk stones and if I still had mine. He told me he had been to Burma recently and somehow gotten in touch with some well connected folks over there that listed me as a recent buyer. I had to show him that I had my stones to ease his suspicious mind but he wasn’t satisfied so he called a cop to watch me and the house. The odd thing was he produced two stones identical to the ones I have. Right then I knew that if the cops were snooping around and making solid connections that things were definitely going to get ugly and I could be considered a suspect.”
“Are you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“That was one of the Won’s, the oldest son who died at the museum, wasn’t it, Won Chanyu?” Monica asked knowingly.
“Chanyu was my contact. His father arranged for us to meet at the museum so I could find out where my dad was being held and release him. I got the location for a small fortune of Moguk stones. I gave the stones to Won Chanyu and left the museum. He was stabbed in the back and through the heart after I left. The Moguk stones I gave Chanyu were stuffed in his mouth. That’s why the detective had identical stones, they were mine. Detective Dixon informed me that the Un Jangdo knife had gone back to the museum lab for further analysis when someone came in and killed the two research technicians with it by cutting their throats and leaving the premises without a trace. The knife is the murder weapon in three recent homicides at the Cho Estate museum and now the cops are looking for the second son, Won Jie and me for questioning; but I’m still officially dead. The cops have yet to release the identity of the dead guy at the ranch house or the fact that it’s not me. Anyway, Won Jie produced photos of his brother, Chanyu, at the precinct then identified and claimed the body at the morgue. He described the knife as a family heirloom that had been missing for some time.”
A sudden adrenaline surge pumped through Monica’s heart and she physically shook at the shoulders. She reached for the handle of her suitcase still at the foot of her bed and opened it, “Rayman, do you know this knife? It’s right up your alley as an artifact, isn’t it?” She shuffled her clothes around and flipped open a green towel revealing the Un Jangdo. The rubies and sapphires radiated in contrast to the green towel.
Rayman apprehensively paused before verbally opening Pandora’s Box, “Detective Dixon had a couple of photos of the knife which he showed me; but it goes a little deeper than that Monica. The knife used to belong to your mother, Won Ji Tun. It appears that the Un Jangdo has been handed down from great grandma Cho to her first daughter, grandma Won, who gave it to their first daughter who married your father and became, Ji Tun Stell, or as some Koreans prefer it, Won Ji Tun Stell. We put the last name last and the Koreans put the last name first, whatever. Ji Tun is the first daughter of the first daughter and so on back through the ages. Your mother was the first daughter born of the Won family, of - I think eight children; at least two have died, the first son and the first daughter - leaving six – four boys and two girls; in that order.”
Monica had to hear it for confirmation, “Do you know exactly what happened to my mother, Rayman?”
“Yes Monica, I do. Your mother committed suicide with the same Un Jangdo in true Korean tradition, protecting her virtue even from her own husband and ending the pain for everyone – except you, of course.”
“Where was I?”
Rayman wrapped his free arm around his chest and looked into the sky at the big dipper and an unknown planet, “I was told that you were found between her arms. You, ah; you had been there awhile.”
Monica looked through the Un Jangdo as if into its history and played out the suicide in her mind; her mother on her knees centering the Un Jangdo blade below her sternum; the sudden thrust to her heart; collapsing with limp arms and tears, eyes wide open staring forever at Monica screaming and wailing on the floor beside her.
Rayman could hear and feel the pain coming from Monica and chose to continue, softly, “Monica, it also means that both the first born son and the first born daughter of the Won family have died under the same blade.”
Monica sucked her emotions back in and locked them down with auto defense precision. The airwaves froze in silence. Rayman knew Monica’s mind was migrating towards an alternative conclusion as to the death of her mother and whereabouts of the Un Jangdo had been hiding all these years.
“Could my mother have been murdered?”
“It’s possible, but not probable.”
“Was there an investigation?”
“I don’t know. We’d have to go to the Driggs cop shop and do the research, but not now.”
“Right.” Monica ran her fingertips over the silver sheath. It had a calming effect and gave her subliminal confidence. She was now touching the last thing her mother had ever held in this world. The rubies arched their red angles and sparkled faintly in the dimly lit room. The sapphire inlays and gold markings shimmered for Monica as she spoke her mind, half in shock, “You know something Rayman, every time I talk to you, I’m filled with the happiest and saddest of feelings. I guess there’s some strange balance in that. Even when other people mention you, I know there’s a tragedy approaching. You are truly your own little storm.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and took a deep breath and began again, “Mr. Won and the newspaper both said that you burned in the ranch house, but somehow I knew you hadn’t. And I can’t put into words how nice it is to hear your voice right now.”
Rayman exclaimed with slow desperate clarity, “Monica, tell me about Mr. Won!? What did he say?”
Monica tucked her phone in the crook of her neck and pulled the handle of the Un Jangdo from the sheath exposing the blade, admiring it, studying it, and calmly as if in a trance explained, “He came to my flat in DC with pictures of my mother and the rest of his family, your dad and mine when they were in the military stationed near Seoul. He even had a couple photos of you, recent ones.”
Rayman shifted positions and asked uneasily, “What happened?”
“I let him in after he proved to me that he was related to my mother. Mr. Won told me of my parents’ beginnings and his father’s mistrust and opposition to ethnic blending. Then he accused my dad of taking a key from my mother, which he couldn’t have. Mr. Won accused dad of shooting his uncle and his children in London for some other keys that go to some historically concealed vaults scattered over the Eurasian Steppe and apparently as far east as China, Mongolia, and Korea, all over the place. Mr. Won showed me a key he had and asked me if I had ever seen one. I showed him the one I received from a safety deposit box that expired four days before my eighteenth birthday with pre-existing instructions to send the contents to me. It came along with a letter from my mother saying she loved me and she died for me. That’s how I know that my dad didn’t steal my mothers’ key. It didn’t make sense then.” Monica’s eyes welled up and she choking and continued, “Mom warned me in the letter never to let my father know I have the key. I tried to give the key to Mr. Won but he honorably declined and explained that it wasn’t his to take. He said it was my mother’s key and rightfully given to me and that some keys had been handed down through the women of Cho. It sounds like these two families have been intermarrying periodically throughout the last three or four hundred years. Isn’t that weird? Then Mr. Won changed the subject and informed me that you had been burned up in the ranch house and that those who killed you were now coming to kill me to get my key. He invited me to come to South Korea with him to meet the rest of the family and for my protection. And since my family was mostly dead or missing, including you, and I have time off work right now, I thought I could meet the Won family and get some answers that my dad and you have not been willing to share with me, Rayman. And the last thing Mr. Won showed me was a beautiful old knife with a silver sheath with gold, rubies and sapphire inlays. It’s really beautiful. He said it was a wedding gift to my mother from her mother and father. Mr. Won says it rightfully belongs to me through inheritance and that I should come with him to South Korea to learn about the vault which the key I have unlocks. Then I quickly packed and we left for Dulles airport.”
“Yeah, detective Dixon told me that you had left the country with Mr. Won heading for Seoul. Where are you now?” asked Rayman.
“I’m at the Gorgyeo Hotel in the center of Seoul a couple of blocks away from the Won senior’s house, my grand parents’ house, it turns out.” Monica stood up, admiring the blade in hand waiting for a reply from Rayman. She sliced the blade waist high through the air and stopped short. “Rayman?”
“I’m still here. I’m thinking. Listen, Monica - when I fled Idaho, I went straight to your flat and found detective Dixon on your bedroom floor with a knife wound through in his back and a secondary wound with the knife and a letter stuck in him. I called nine-one-one and saved his life. He’s been recovering in a DC hospital and returning to San Francisco soon. That all happened after you left for the airport. Now - I feel compelled to tell you: you need to know that the accusations Mr. Won has made against your father are pretty much true. Your dad did kill a Korean man in England. I don’t know about the rest of the family, I never saw them, but I was there. I was young and I didn’t know who it was until many years later.”
“And again I ask; where was I?”
“I don’t know, at boarding school probably. Your dad took me with him while my dad was away on business or something. We went to England. It was raining, like usual. I watched from a ground level window where your dad told me to wait for him. After a few minutes of waiting I heard a couple of loud noises. Two shots rang out in the street and I got up on a sofa or desk or something and wiped the condensation off a window. I saw your dad running out of an antique shop half backwards with a gun in his hand shooting back into the building. Someone shot at him from within the shop and he tumbled into the street. Two cops appeared running down the street at him blowing their whistles. When they got close, your dad rolled over and shot the police down. I watched as one of them fell. Your dad got up and half stumbled towards me. Seeing my face in the window shocked him, horrified him - but he ran down into the room anyway, bleeding from his right shoulder. All I remember after that is we moved through some below ground corridors and then hid for a very a long time. Your father gave me one of the keys he stole for saving his life. I’ve carried it with me all these years until very recently. Do you remember when your dad was a bleeding mummy at Halloween at the ranch house?”
“Yeah.”
“It was a week or so before that.”
Monica was taken back and replied, “I thought he was injured in a hunting accident. He said a stray bullet.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling people too, but it’s not true. It was a cover.”
Monica was getting annoyed and folded her arms and looked down to the streets below. People appeared like ants parading busily; weaving through the oncoming flow of bodies moving on their attentive paths. As she spoke her voice grew more agitated and angry, “Rayman, how much of my life is a lie? Is there any truth you can’t tell me - now that my life is in danger? You’ve held so much from me! You all have! I feel betrayed by my own flesh and blood and I’m pissed off! You hear me Rayman!? You’re scaring me and I’m pissed off!”
“Monica, I’m trying to tell you what you need to know right now because you and I are mixed up in something much older than ourselves or our parents. By your fathers’ insatiable greed, he got both our families involved in something. And because of your father, your mother committed suicide, my mother was poisoned, my father abducted and later killed on a beach in Indonesia, in close proximity to one of the Won pearl farms - it turns out. And your dad vanished.”
Again tears rolled down contoured way points on Monica’s face and her lower lip began to quiver. She used every bit of emotional strength she had not to fall to her knees and weep uncontrollably. She blinked and teardrops splashed onto the engraved blade of the Un Jangdo. She rolled the knife over and noticed the difference in the etched markings and demanded, “What do the engravings mean on the knife blade?”
Rayman impatiently sighed trying to maintain composure and answer her question, “On some of the traditional knives the country saying says something like; ‘one woman has one mind for one man, one man has one mind for one country.’ But detective Dixon is under the impression that your mother changed one of the etchings to give a clue to her family as to why she committed suicide.”
“Rayman?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
“It says something like; one woman has one mind for one man and the changed part says; one man has one mind for one self. Something like that.”
“Rayman?”
“Yes.”
“I have the knife here with me. Mr. Won gave it to me in DC and I brought it to Seoul in my suitcase.”
Rayman bumped his head against the glass with a thud in disbelief, “Monica, you just transported a murder weapon out of the country. You will be seen as an accomplice - especially if someone digs up your family tree. Let me tell you who some of you’re relatives are; Father Won, your grand father personally poisoned my mother with a tincture particular to Korea. It was his way of leaving a signature. And his son, your cousin, Mr. Won, his full name is Won Jie, has been groomed as a contemporary warrior. He’s a trained assassin and head of family security. And Won Chanyu, the dead guy was ordered by his father to participate in my father’s abduction. Won Jie has been actively seeking the whereabouts of your father ever since his disappearance and now vengefully looking for me. He’s the one that sent a devoted family servant to my house to kill me, reclaim a family key, and steal my Moguk stones - all under the guise of revenge and loyalty. Mr. Won Jie is the one that came to your house to kill you. He probably didn’t think you even had a key or that you knew what it was for. Now, for some reason, he has brought you to South Korea to confront the entire Won family and probably some of the Cho family as well.”
“Why would he change plans and bring me here?”
“I would guess it’s because you are connected by blood to the women of Cho!”
“And what does that mean?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re a princess of historically Korean royal blood, among others dating back before Christ. In any case, something has changed in the Won protocol. It’s not like the father of this tribe to do anything in our favor. You may be bait, as my father was to bring your father out of hiding or - they really want to meet you because you aretheir blood. Father Won’s wife, the agima, may hold some power in family affairs; if she’s involved or the Cho family - someone has upset the balance in your favor, not my favor, your favor. I’m sure I’m still number two on their ‘most unwanted relative’ list. I can only speculate about the Won family. I know nothing except that you are now deeply involved and I am coming to help you. I can’t stress enough Monica, Mr. Won and his father are the people that have been hunting down the Stell’s but they didn’t know about you until recently and some of the things you have told me don’t make sense yet, for instance; Mr. Won not taking the key from you and returning it to the Cho or outright killing you out of revenge. But I know one thing for sure now; Won Jie is the one that killed the two research assistance at the Cho Estate museum. He had the knife within twenty-four hours after its disappearance and gave it to you! Then you unknowingly transported it back to it’s homeland near where it was forged. There’s no question in my mind that the Won’s are a very dangerous and ruthless family trying to reclaim what they feel is rightfully theirs. The keys originally belonged to the Cho family but the families were enemies centuries ago and the Won were victorious and took a Cho princess as a bride, a marriage treaty, to share in peace and gain knowledge of the keys and vaults. They will stop at nothing to get things back in some sort of family order which your father upset.”
In mild shock Monica watched as the neon lights over powered the darkness up and down the streets and buildings below. She asked nervously, “What should I do?”
“I don’t know. By now they’re watching your hotel, they know what room you’re in and you’ll be followed if you go out. For now, I’d play along with them and focus on Won family matters and questions you want answered. When they ask you if there’s any news of me; tell them you have no new information, nothing yet anyway. The truth will hit the newspaper or the Internet soon enough and I need that time to get to Seoul. The Won know it’s not me that burnt up in the ranch house. I may have to call on detective Dixon for assistance. I don’t know - I have to think this through.”
“Why would you call on a cop?”
“Because he’s good and he has my key. - I gave it to him.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because it’s the last thing the Won would think I would do. I’ll deal with it when the time comes.”
“Rayman, you’re getting more people involved by talking to the cops.”
“I know. I’m hoping it’s a little insurance. I’ll deal with Dixon when the time comes, if the time comes.”
“All right Rayman, you deal with him, whatever that means. It’s beside the point at the moment. How are you and I going to communicate if you’re still dead?”
“If the Won are worried about who you’re going to talk too, they’ll somehow monitor your phone calls. You could get a SIM card for your cell but they’d figure a way for you to lose it and probably not leave you alone for too long. Don’t be alarmed when this happens; they’ll give you a new phone that they can trace and listen in on. You shouldn’t call me anymore on any cell phone after you meet with them.
“Mr. Won already gave me a chip so my phone would work here. It’s in the phone right now.”
“It’s probably got a beacon signal attached. They are already following you. Let your battery go dead on occasion and leave it at the hotel then call me from a pay phone in a busy place like a subway station or use my email address. You remember it, right?”
“Yes, I’ve got it in my head.” Monica sighed. “Rayman, I need to know that you’re coming to help me sort this out and not screw it up any further.”
“Monica, I’m coming to help you, help us.”
“Okay then. I’m in the Goryeo Hotel on Chongno-ga, room twenty-eight- forty-seven; twenty-eighth floor.”
Rayman wrote it down and thought about it for a minute, “You know, if I don’t make it there right away, you might want to change hotels if you win a little trust. I’m coming as soon as I can.”
“You better. I’ll try and keep you posted. Oh, one more thing; what do I do with the knife?”
“I’d try and sneak it out of the hotel, go to an International hotel and make a reservation for a couple of days from now in my name and put the knife in the hotel safe in both of our names; for me or you to pick up later. It may keep you alive.”
Monica complained, “Rayman, I’m not the spy type. I work for a US congressman for Christ sake.”
“Well, some of them are spies, Monica. Look, you’re half Korean and you’re in South Korea; you’re hot and you’ll blend right in. This is what you could do; go to the Hyatt or the Hilton front desk or some other international hotel with good security and not owned by the Koreans. Ask if there’s a popular night club near the hotel and go with it. The Won will most likely follow you there. Go play, dance, meet with people if you want to, but don’t get involved with anyone. You don’t know who they are, where they’ve been, or who they’re connected to – all that. At some point in time, go to the ladies room and locate the closest exit, change your hairstyle then alter your outfit if you can - wear one outfit over another and throw the outer one under the garbage can liner bag or in the towel dispenser, somewhere you can retrieve it. Find your way back to the Hyatt hotel, make the reservation for me, deposit the knife in our names and go back to the night club. Redress as you did when you got there and go have some more fun. You don’t have to show the Won family the knife, do you?”
“No, I don’t have to show them the knife - that would be morose. But gee, Rayman, you make this sneaking around sound so easy. And when you say you’ll deal with the cop, does that include murder?”
Rayman ignored the accusation, “It’s easy, the sneaking around part, I mean. After this goes down, you’re going to be an adrenaline junky. Mark my words. I’ve got to go and so do you. Are you going to be all right?”
Monica smiled to herself and felt better about Rayman. She thought of him as an older brother. She paused to take a deep breath and decided out loud, “I think I’ll wear black tonight.”
“Good choice. See you soon. And be careful.”
“I will; you too.”
Rayman flipped his phone shut.
Monica did likewise and plugged her cell phone into a wall socket next to her bed and left the phone on the night stand. As she walked towards her hotel room door to check the lock, she put the knife and sheath back together and tossed it on her pillow. Secure, she slipped out of her clothes and headed for a shower to prepare for her first evening out in Seoul.
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