“Coming right up.” He left the office and quickly proceeded down the hall to the break room. He grabbed a small bottle of water and can of Diet Coke from the refrigerator and quietly jogged back, pausing outside the room hoping to eavesdrop on the women. He was disappointed however, as their voices were pitched softly and he was unable to discern their conversation. He sighed and walked into the room.
“Here, ladies.” He gave the can to Dr. Tyson who took it gratefully and popped the top. He handed the water to Claire, who took it from him, carefully avoiding touching his hand. Luke surreptitiously watched as she unscrewed the top and took a quick sip.
“You’re right-handed?” It was both a question and observation.
“Yes.” Her answer seemed a little hesitant.
“Where is your injury?”
She set her water on the desk and held up her right arm. She pulled back the sleeve of her tan jacket almost to her elbow, revealing a bulky dressing of white gauze encircling her arm. “Do you want me to take off the dressing so you can actually see it?” Her tone was blatantly sarcastic, and her eyes steadily held his.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. Can you point to where the wound is?”
She indicated the underside of her forearm, from a few inches under her wrist, nearly to her elbow. Luke felt an odd sense of relief. The placement of the wound supported her story. It suggested a defensive injury, as if she’d held up her arm to ward off the attack. Further, if the cut had been self-inflicted, it was a pretty sure bet her left arm would have been injured. He jotted a note and was about to continue his questions when there was a brief knock at the open door.
“Lieutenant,” Tony Mancini didn’t enter the room. He caught Luke’s eyes and gave a quick nod to his superior officer.
“Excuse me a minute. This shouldn’t take long.” Luke closed the file, nodded briefly and left the room.
During the short walk to the security office, Tony succinctly filled Luke in. “Getting that footage was a piece of cake. Our translator was able to find a detective—a Mr. Park—who speaks English. While I was still talking to him, that dude emailed me a video link to footage they had already excerpted from the surveillance cameras in the medical center parking lot.” He pushed open the door to the security office where two other marines were monitoring the three dozen remote camera screens. They started to rise in deference to Luke’s rank, but he nodded to them and they continued working. Tony pointed to a computer at the end of the row. He shook his head and gave Luke a meaningful look. “Wait’ll you see this.” Both men remained standing while Tony reached down and started the video.
Fortunately the hospital parking lot had been fairly well lit, and the video was of good quality. Luke and Tony were silent as they watched a white-coated Mary Claire Olsen come into view, walking at a brisk pace. She was almost out of the camera’s range when a man approached her from behind. At first she jumped out of his way when he tried to grab her, then as he swung his fist, obviously intending to strike her, she seemed to whirl and lean away, barely missing a serious blow. They saw her use her purse as a shield to deflect the arching knife, and then watched as she kicked out and struggled to fend off the two men. Luke swore quietly as she managed to stumble away from the assailants. Although the video was not in color, they could easily discern blood rapidly staining the white sleeve of her lab coat.
There was no audio, but he could tell that she screamed for help and then screamed again. He caught the surprised reaction of the two men as they heard the guards responding to the altercation. Both started to run off, but one paused briefly then ran back to pick up the purse the nurse had dropped. As the men ran out of the camera view, two guards approached from the far side and led the bleeding young woman back to the hospital. According to the time stamps, the entire incident took a little more than ninety seconds.
Luke re-played the video, swore again, and then ran it a third time. He leaned over the keyboard, pulled up his secure email account, and in a few keystrokes quickly saved the link so he could view it again. Finally, he turned to Tony. He looked grim.
“So, what do you think?” the sergeant asked.
Luke stared at the now blank computer screen. “I think I’ve got to go apologize to our customer,” he responded. “Some groveling may be necessary.” He paused a breath before adding, “I don’t know, but something about that attack still bugs me...” He sighed then and glanced at the sergeant. “What do you think?”
Tony looked at the computer and then back at Luke. He nodded, “Yeah, I think groveling would be appropriate.”
“I’M SURE THEY’RE nearly done.” Jessica’s tone was hopeful as she tried to encourage Claire. “I can’t imagine that he’ll have many other questions.” She glanced at her watch and grimaced.
Claire looked at her own watch for what seemed like the tenth time in the past hour and sighed. “What time is your date?”
“He’s supposed to pick me up at six. I can call him and change it to seven...”
Claire shook her head. “No, that’s not necessary, Jessica. You’ve been terrific through this whole thing. Why don’t you go ahead and head home. I can handle it from here, and I won’t have a problem finding my way back to the apartment.”
Even though they’d known each other for only a few weeks, Jessica had been a stalwart friend. In addition to sharing her home, she had instructed Claire on how to navigate Seoul and she’d taken her to dinner and church on several occasions. Jessica had immediately come to the hospital and supported Claire while she was being stitched up. Then she’d helped translate while Claire had given her statement to the police. Today Jessica had offered to accompany her to the embassy to apply for the replacement passport and report the incident. Claire had quickly accepted her offer because she was still trying to find her way around the huge city.
Initially, the process had been simple. The guards were respectful, allowing them to enter and showing them where to go. The Consular Assistant had filed the paperwork for the replacement passport before directing the women to Sergeant Mancini, who’d been sympathetic and helpful. He’d repeatedly tried to assure both women that Seoul was one of the safest places in the world for single women. He seemed genuinely baffled and angry—ready to beat the daylights out of the perpetrators. After he’d assisted with the intake forms, he described the remaining step in the process—a brief meeting with Security’s duty officer. That meeting, he’d assured them, was just perfunctory. They had both been stunned when the alarmingly big officer, with his disarmingly mild drawl, had bombarded Claire with questions and stared at her with distrust.
Claire had not completely recovered her composure following last night’s attack. Although trying to seem calm, she was nervous, hesitant and uncharacteristically fretful of strange men. The embassy was large and imposing, but at least she’d been spared the ordeal of being among a crowd of people.
The sergeant had been friendly, but when he returned with his superior officer, she was immediately overwhelmed into a state bordering on panic. Her reaction to the lieutenant was totally out of place—he bore absolutely no resemblance to her attackers, who’d been Korean..
But the lieutenant had alienated her from the outset when he mistook Jessica for her. Since she’d arrived in Seoul, there’d been too many occasions to count in which people assumed she was Korean, but Claire had never been annoyed before. Luke’s stereotypical attraction to the pretty, curvy blonde, along with his equally obvious choice to ignore her, bothered her in a way that was unexpected. When he was finally forced to acknowledge her, he was ruthless as he grilled her, and she immediately got the impression that he doubted her account of the attack. She couldn’t conceive why he thought she could—or would—make something like that up. Being particularly vulnerable, it bothered her to be questioned