The silence in Colonel Potter’s office was heavier than a wet wool blanket. Outside, the camp was sleeping off the exhaustion of the marathon O.R. session, but inside, the air was thick with the toxic fumes of betrayal.
Hawkeye Pierce stood at attention—a rarity in itself—his hands clasped tightly behind his back. He was still wearing his blood-stained surgical scrubs, a stark visual reminder that despite being an alleged criminal, he had just spent eight hours saving lives.
Potter sat behind his desk, methodically cleaning his reading glasses with a handkerchief. He didn’t look at Hawkeye. That was the worst part. The anger Hawkeye could handle; the profound, disappointed silence was suffocating.
“Fifty crates,” Potter finally said, his voice flat, devoid of its usual Missouri warmth. “Fifty crates of military-grade penicillin. You didn’t just bend a rule, Pierce. You took a sledgehammer to the entire chain of command. You used my name. You used my authority.”
“Colonel, if I had asked, you would have had to say no,” Hawkeye said, his voice pleading but firm. “The military bureaucracy wouldn’t authorize civilian diversion. Those kids at the Uijeongbu orphanage were dying. They had a massive outbreak of bacterial pneumonia. I had to bypass channels.”
“And look where your righteous crusade got us!” Potter snapped, slamming his glasses onto the desk. He stood up, leaning over the wood. “The penicillin didn’t even reach the orphanage! You trusted a black-market smuggler to deliver military supplies? Are you naive, or just spectacularly stupid?”
“Mr. Shin wasn’t a smuggler!” Hawkeye argued, though the absolute certainty in his voice was beginning to crack. “He’s a local merchant. He’s helped us secure fresh vegetables and blankets before. He swore he’d drive the truck straight to the nuns.”
The door to the office creaked open, and Radar O’Reilly slipped in, looking like a rabbit surrounded by hungry wolves.
“Excuse me, Colonel, sir… Hawkeye…” Radar stammered, holding a crumpled teletype message.
“What is it, Radar?” Potter growled. “Did Captain Pierce also sell the mess tent to the Chinese?”
“No, sir. It’s… it’s about Mr. Shin,” Radar gulped. “I had Sparky over at Battalion HQ run a background check through the local constabulary. Sir… Mr. Shin isn’t a merchant. His real name is Cho Jung-ho. He’s one of the biggest black-market warlords in the province. He specializes in stealing American medical supplies and selling them to the highest bidder. Sometimes back to our own supply depots, sometimes… sometimes across the line.”
Hawkeye felt the blood drain from his face. The floor of Potter’s office seemed to tilt. The “Collapse of Trust” was complete. Not only had he betrayed Potter’s trust and risked a court-martial, but his own trust in humanity—his desperate belief that he was doing the right thing for innocent people—had been ruthlessly exploited.
“He played me,” Hawkeye whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. “He used the orphanage as a sob story. He knew I couldn’t resist playing God.”
“Congratulations, Pierce,” Potter said coldly. “You just financed the black market to the tune of ten thousand dollars’ worth of stolen US Government property. CID (Criminal Investigation Division) is going to be breathing down my neck by tomorrow afternoon when that supply depot realizes their inventory is short. And when they do, I am going to hand you over to them wrapped in a bow.”
“Colonel, you can’t do that!” B.J. Hunnicutt burst into the office, having clearly been eavesdropping outside the canvas door. “If CID gets him, he goes to a military prison! We lose our best surgeon.”
“He ceased being my best surgeon the moment he became a thief, Hunnicutt!” Potter roared.
“Let me get it back,” Hawkeye said. His voice was no longer pleading. It was dangerously calm. A desperate kind of calm.
Potter scoffed. “Oh, brilliant. The Lone Ranger rides again. How exactly do you plan to recover fifty crates of stolen goods from a black-market warlord? Challenge him to a martini-drinking contest?”
“I know where he operates,” Hawkeye said, his mind racing, pulling together a frantic, terrible plan. “He runs a warehouse out of an abandoned brewery in Dongducheon. If he’s planning to sell it, he hasn’t moved it far. It’s too bulky. He’s waiting for a buyer.”
“And what makes you think you can just waltz in there and take it?” Potter demanded.
“Because I’m going to be his buyer,” Hawkeye said.
Potter stared at him. B.J. stared at him. Even Radar stopped trembling for a second to stare.
“You’re out of your mind,” B.J. said softly.
“I have the requisition forms,” Hawkeye explained rapidly. “I have blank travel vouchers. I can forge documents that say I represent a rogue quartermaster from the 8th Army looking to buy back stolen meds off the books. We set up a meet. We get eyes on the crates. Once we confirm it’s our penicillin…”
“…Then what?” Potter interrupted. “You perform a dramatic citizen’s arrest? You’re a doctor, Pierce, not John Wayne.”
“No, then we steal it back,” Hawkeye said, his eyes locking onto Potter’s. “Colonel, my career is already dead. I know that. But those crates belong to the army, and they belong in the veins of wounded kids, not lined in some smuggler’s pockets. Let me fix my mess. Give me twenty-four hours. If I fail, you can personally lock me in the brig and throw away the key.”
Potter looked at the map of Korea on his wall. He looked at the exhaustion etched into Hawkeye’s face. The old man was torn between his rigid military duty and the undeniable fact that beneath all the insubordination, Hawkeye Pierce had a terrifyingly effective moral compass.
“You take Hunnicutt,” Potter finally grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “And you take my personal jeep. It’s faster. You have until 1800 hours tomorrow. After that, I’m calling CID myself.”
Hawkeye nodded, a silent vow passing between them. The trust wasn’t fixed, but a fragile bridge had been built over the chasm.
“Thank you, Colonel.”
Ten hours later, Hawkeye and B.J. were parked in a dark, muddy alleyway behind the ruins of a pre-war brewery in Dongducheon. The rain was coming down in sheets, drumming a relentless, anxiety-inducing rhythm on the canvas roof of Potter’s jeep.
“If we get shot, Hawk,” B.J. whispered, gripping a heavy tire iron—their only weapon—”I’m going to haunt you. I’m going to become a poltergeist and hide your stethoscopes for eternity.”
“Just look menacing, Beej,” Hawkeye muttered, checking his forged documents by the dim light of a flashlight. “Try to channel your inner Frank Burns when he finds out the mess tent is serving powdered eggs.”
A heavy metal door rolled up in the distance, spilling harsh yellow light into the rainy alley. Two armed Korean men stepped out, flanking a man in a sharp, surprisingly clean suit. Cho Jung-ho. Mr. Shin.
Hawkeye took a deep breath, grabbed a heavy duffel bag supposedly filled with military scrip, and stepped out of the jeep into the rain. “Showtime.”
They walked toward the light, the tension ratcheting up with every step. Cho smiled when he saw them, a slick, predatory grin.
“Dr. Pierce,” Cho called out over the rain. “I must say, I didn’t expect you to become my best customer.”
“Cut the crap, Cho,” Hawkeye said, stopping ten feet away. “I want the fifty crates. I have the money. Show me the goods.”
Cho gestured, and one of his guards pulled back a tarp inside the warehouse. There they were. The wooden crates, stamped with the unmistakable U.S. Army Medical Corps insignia.
Hawkeye let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He reached into his coat to pull out the forged documents to begin the charade of the “buyback.”
But before his hand could leave his pocket, the night exploded with blinding, high-intensity spotlight beams.
“FREEZE! MILITARY POLICE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS AND PUT YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEADS!”
A megaphone voice ripped through the alley. Hawkeye and B.J. whipped around. Three military police jeeps had blocked the alley entrance, heavy .30 caliber machine guns mounted and pointed directly at them.
From the lead jeep, a figure stepped out, holding an umbrella to protect his perfectly pressed uniform.
Major Frank Burns smiled, his teeth gleaming in the harsh spotlights. “I told you, Pierce,” Frank yelled over the rain. “I always get my man. CID is going to love you.”
[ Next Chapter ⏩ ]
