“They pray to God for forgiveness.”

“They’re all Christian?”

“Not when they get here. But they all leave Christian.”

We were at Whitehall’s cell by that time, and the big Korean was digging through his pockets for the key.

“I am the only one with one of these,” he said, as he stuck it in and gave it a hard twist. “It is for Whitehall’s safety. There are many men here who would gladly kill him. Even guards.”

I let that one pass as Katherine and I stuck our heads inside the cell. What I didn’t say was that I wouldn’t mind killing him myself.

It took a moment to adjust our eyes. The dim light in the overhead cage barely emitted enough rays to make it to the floor.

“Thomas?” Katherine said.

There was a slight rustling in the corner of the tiny cell. “Katherine, is that you?”

“Yes. How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” he said. “Come in.”

So we did. The room stank. Obviously Whitehall was using the little metal bowl for his toilet, and just as obviously the bowl wasn’t being emptied.

“Excuse me,” Katherine said, talking to the big Korean, “why don’t you have someone collect his waste? For God’s sake, this is disgusting. He’ll catch some terrible disease.”

“Not to worry,” the man assured her. “We collect the bowl every third day. He shouldn’t have eaten so much before he entered. Soon his body will be purged, and his new diet will correct the problem.”

In other words, pretty soon Whitehall would be getting only small portions of rice and water, so he wouldn’t be producing much human waste. Very economical, these Korean prison officials.

I said, “Could you relocate about fifty feet away? We have to discuss a few things with our client, and American law affords us the privilege of confidentiality.”

“Certainly,” he said, smiling like it was a particularly stupid request.

My eyes were now fully adjusted and I carefully examined our client. He was wearing Korean prison garb that consisted of some coarse gray cotton pajamas and a pair of cloth slippers. His lips and face seemed oddly misshapen, and either he had two pretty serious black eyes or he was turning into a raccoon.

“Pretty rough?” I asked him.

“Very rough,” he said.

“Who did this to you?” Katherine demanded, sounding pissed to beat the band.

“Don’t worry about it,” Whitehall said.

“No, I won’t ignore this. I-”

“I said, forget it!” Whitehall yelled, so insistently I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had reached out and punched her.

“Damn it, Thomas, they can’t do this to you.”

“Katherine, they can do much worse than this to me. Don’t make them angry.”

Katherine said, “I’ll go see the minister of justice. If I have to, I’ll hold a press conference and tell the whole world what’s happening here.”

Whitehall collapsed onto his sleeping mat. “What in the hell do you think caused this in the first place? They dragged me out of my cell in the middle of the night, took me to a room to watch you on CNN, then beat the crap out of me. No more damn favors, huh?”

I could hear Katherine draw in a deep breath.

Before she could say any more, I said, “Other than that, how’s things?”

“Unbearable.”

“Think you could stand this the rest of your life?”

There was a moment of still silence. Then out of the shadows he said, “I’d kill myself.”

It sounded fairly bizarre because he didn’t say it angrily, or forcefully, or even threateningly, like most folks would say it, either to garner some sympathy or to make you offer to do something. His tone was perfectly flat, absolutely unaffected, like it was just a fact.

I said, “Captain Whitehall, the more I look into your case, the more likely it seems you’re facing just that. Your only chance is me and Katherine here. You’re going to have to tell us more.”

A reflective look came to his face. The truth was, I’d been sadistically hoping a few days of Korean prison would make him sing like a castrated canary.

“All right,” he finally said, “I’ll answer two more questions. So pick wisely.”

“Tell me about Lee No Tae,” I said.

I heard him release a heavy sigh, and he didn’t say anything for a long moment. That moment stretched on so long, I worried that I’d picked something so vexing or embarrassing that he was going to go back on his word.

He finally said, “I’m sure this will sound sick to you, but we were in love. It started about five months ago. His sergeant sent him into finance to collect some forms and I was there checking on something, and we took one look at each other, and both of us just knew.”

“Five months?” I said.

“That’s right. That’s why I got the apartment off base. It was our… well, I’m sure you get the picture. I could see him, spend time with him, be alone in our private space.”

“You… uh, you what? You dated him for five months?”

“Regularly.”

“Then… what about witnesses? There must’ve been witnesses?”

“No, no witnesses. At least, none I know of. When you’re a gay in the Army, Major, you’re extraordinarily careful about these things. You get very expert at sneaking around in the dark. And if you’re a Korean, it’s even worse.”

“Why?”

“Why what? Why do we sneak around?”

“No. I think I got that part. Why are Korean homosexuals so paranoid?”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know. Educate me.”

“Because in Korea, homosexuals are lower than any other life form. Many Asians are viciously prejudiced. They’re all very big on their racial bloodlines, and they despise anybody who makes that blood seem in any way tainted or perverted. Korean homosexuals are nonpeople, pariahs, beneath contempt. They don’t even peek out of the closet. That’s the world No lived in. He was scared to death about being discovered. Even more scared than me.”

“But everybody, the Koreans, the American Army, even Moran and Jackson, they’re all saying he was straight. How do you account for that?”

“Moran and Jackson know better. The rest of them probably believe he was. He was very persuasive. He even went so far as to date women, just to elude suspicion. They liked him, too. He was beautiful, you know. When he’d walk into a room, they’d all start eyeing him, as though he were a stud bull.”

“Did his parents know?”

“Absolutely not. That’s the single thing that scared No the most. He adored his parents. He knew it would kill them. I sometimes had this fantasy that he’d move back to the States with me, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He would never do anything to shame or disappoint his parents.”

This sounded like some weird twist on Romeo and Juliet, the old doomed love story, only in this case I somehow didn’t feel any surge of sympathy for the afflicted lover.

“Okay,” I said, moving along. “Your apartment was locked. There were no signs of a break-in, so if you didn’t kill Lee, that leaves only Moran and Jackson. If you had to pick one of them, which would it be?”

He mulled that over for a moment. For a frame defense to succeed, we had to have a scapegoat we could pin this on. We didn’t necessarily have to prove Moran or Jackson did it, but we had to create enough doubt in the minds of the court-martial board that they weren’t sure who did do it. In other words, there had to be a reasonable doubt that Whitehall was the guy.

What he finally said was, “Neither of them would’ve done it.”

“That’s not what I asked. Give us something to go on. Which one of the two?”

“Look, Major, maybe I’m terribly naive, I just don’t believe either of them could’ve done it.”

“Damn it, Whitehall, grow up. They’re both saying you did it.”

He snapped right back. “That’s not what they’re saying. I’ve read their testimonies. They’re saying they thought they heard a loud argument. They’re saying that No was in my room, with me. They’re saying I removed the belt from No’s neck. Except for the argument, that’s all true.”