The same colonel was seated at his desk, only this time he was the one wearing civilian clothes and I was the one in uniform, because it was Sunday morning.

Remembering our last tepid encounter, I ripped off a salute. It was an awesome salute, too. It left a smoke trail in the air. The most incurably fussy drill sergeant would’ve swooned.

I said, “Major Drummond reporting as ordered, sir.”

I said it loud and crisply, too, and just knew the man would be impressed as all get out. West Pointers are so damned easy to please.

He shook his head and gave me a scowl ugly enough to melt tulips. “Drummond, you’re a lawyer, right?”

“Yes sir. JAG Corps all the way, sir. Hoo Rah!” I popped off. I was Johnny Gung-ho this early Sunday morning.

“Then you should know that when inside a building, you don’t salute a higher officer who is not in uniform.”

My hand was still stuck to my forehead, and I all of a sudden started scratching a non-itch over my right eye.

I was frostily instructed to go to the general’s door and knock twice. The colonel even quizzed me to make sure I understood it was knock twice – not once, not three times, but twice. He was a real sweetheart. We were getting along famously.

Spears glanced up from some papers after I knocked twice, not once, not three times. I walked straight to his desk and noticed he also was wearing mufti on this grand Sunday morning.

Knowing military etiquette like I did, I merely nodded and politely said, “Good morning, General.”

He pushed aside his reading materials, got up, and walked around his desk. “Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing at a couch group near the door.

We quickly positioned ourselves so I was sitting across from him, while he eased into his chair, hoisted up his trouser leg, and studied me.

After a moment, he said, “How’s it going?”

“Fine, General. Couldn’t be better,” I lied.

He awarded me a nice grin. “We’ve got a long week ahead. The judge arrives tomorrow. Press people have been flying in by the planeload. By Wednesday there’ll be more reporters in Korea than soldiers.”

“It’s the big show,” I said, which was a needless remark, obviously, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“You ever handled a case this big, Drummond?”

“Like this? No sir.”

“You feel like you’re under a lot of pressure?”

“Like a bicycle tire that’s been placed on a ten-wheeler.”

He chuckled briefly. “And how’s your client doing?”

“Could be worse, General. Not a lot, but could be worse.”

He nodded. “Korean prisons aren’t for the fainthearted. But they’re good people, you know. The Koreans. This is my third tour over here. I was here as a new lieutenant, back in the early sixties. And I commanded my brigade here, back in the late eighties. It’s miraculous what the Koreans have accomplished. Really miraculous. They’re incredible people.”

“Yes sir, they’re admirable folks.”

Then came a quiet lapse, because we’d obviously exhausted the let’s-pretend-we’re-comfortable-with-each-other chitchat and it was time to tend to the nuts and bolts. Whatever that was.

He went right for the jugular. “Drummond, I have to tell you, I’ve been very unhappy with the way your defense team has conducted itself. And I mean, very unhappy.”

“Anything specifically?” I asked. Like I didn’t know.

“Start with Miss Carlson’s infomercials. I told you I didn’t want this case carried to the press. This is not the time to be fanning the flames.”

In my most humble tone, I said, “Look, General, telling a civilian defense attorney not to prattle to the press is like telling an addict not to go near a needle. It’s compulsive. They can’t stop themselves. It’s also perfectly ethical.”

I had the sense this was a throwaway conversational point, because I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, plus his face suddenly got more grave, or suggestive, or something.

“Then let me tell you what I really don’t appreciate. Your visit to Minister Lee’s home.”

“I have an obligation to my client to follow every avenue to prove his innocence. I wasn’t there for a social call or to harass them.”

I wasn’t going to disclose any more than that, because the existence of the apartment key in No’s possession was the only surprise we had for the prosecution. Besides, it was none of Spears’s business.

But, like I mentioned before, the general has these grittily intense eyes, and he was giving me a full-up dose. I squirmed uncomfortably in my seat.

He said, “Did you know I served with Minister Lee in Vietnam?”

I shook my head. How the hell would I know that?

His expression altered a little, maybe even softened. “I spent six months as the American liaison to the ROK First Infantry Division where Lee was a battalion commander. Most Americans don’t even realize Korean troops were in Vietnam. But the ROKs, you know, they earned a reputation as tough fighters. The Vietcong were scared to death of them, so the ROKs didn’t see as much fighting as most American units. The Vietcong made an effort to avoid them.”

“I’ve heard stories,” I said, which was true. And they weren’t pretty stories, either. Maybe they were exaggerations, but there were rumors of South Korean troops collecting ears for trophies and putting Vietcong heads on stakes to discourage sympathizers. On the other hand, maybe they weren’t exaggerations.

Anyway, Spears stared out the window, caught up in his reverie. “One day an ROK battalion was on a sweep, and before they knew it, they were attacked by two full brigades of North Vietnamese regulars. They were outnumbered nearly ten to one. What we guessed later was the North Vietnamese wanted to show the Vietcong, who were all southerners, that the ROKs could be beaten. Or maybe they wanted to try to knock the ROKs out of the war by inflicting a bloody defeat on them. They sure as hell weren’t happy that another Asian country was involved in their war. Anyway, the battle developed quickly. I flew in on a helicopter and landed at the battalion command bunker maybe twenty minutes after it began. Lee was the battalion commander. You probably guessed that?”

I nodded again.

“The ROKs didn’t fight like Americans. They didn’t have fleets of jets and helicopters and thousands of tubes of artillery. They didn’t rely on all that firepower. They just slugged it out, soldier to soldier, and the North Vietnamese knew that, so they threw everything they had at them. God, I never saw such a fierce, desperate fight.”

“So what happened, General?”

“Usually, in battle, there are pauses and lulls as the two sides regroup or stalemate, then go at it again. Not that time. It was one long, relentless attack. Lee’s troops were formed in a hasty perimeter, and several times the North Vietnamese broke through. There were bands of North Vietnamese running around inside the perimeter, shooting and throwing grenades. Some had bombs strapped to their bodies, trying to get to the command bunker. The North Vietnamese were smart that way. They knew that if they killed the head the body would follow. Within ten minutes after I’d flown in, I wondered what the hell I’d gotten into.”

He turned away from the window and stared back at me. But I didn’t have the feeling he was actually looking at me. His mind was in another place, another time.

“It was an inferno. I saw Lee rush out and kill three men with an entrenching tool. Can you imagine? He’d emptied his pistol so he literally ran at three armed men with nothing but a short shovel. That’s how desperate the fighting was. It took three hours for the ROK division to borrow some helicopters from a nearby American division and bring in reinforcements. A quarter of Lee’s men were dead. The medevac helicopters spent four hours pulling out the wounded. There were maybe four or five hundred North Vietnamese corpses strewn around, from outside the perimeter to the assault teams that made it inside.”