Assignment - Cong Hai Kill (11 page)

“I won’t. Not out loud,
anyway. But I feel—”

He kissed her. She
seemed willing enough. She had been worried about him, and when he returned, her
alarm wiped out the cool facade she had tried to maintain. He felt he had won a
major skirmish in their private war, and the ache in the back of his head was
almost worth it. He felt stirred by her, as always, familiar with her and her
excitation that for him was unique among all the women he had ever known. Her
perfume was alluring. He felt the warm pressure of her body, and wanted her
with an overwhelming, sudden desire that she recognized and apparently was
ready to surrender to.

“Sam——“

“We’re a long way from
home, Dee.”

“No, Sam. That’s the
whole point. Home is where we’re together. Like this. And like this.”

A small sound came from
the connecting room, shared by Deirdre and Anna-Marie. The French girl had
slept out her sedative, Deirdre had said, and was in her own bed. But now, as
he held Deirdre to him, Durell heard restless sounds through the door that was
slightly ajar, and he immediately alerted himself. “She’s awake again.”

“Yes, she wanted to talk
to you, earlier.” Deirdre’s dark hair screened his eyes as she bent over him.
“But she can wait a few more minutes, darling,” she whispered. “She Wants to
see you alone. Very privately. But so do I. Should I be jealous, Sam?”

“Dee, you know it’s just
a job—”

“Nothing is ‘just a job’
to you, Sam.”

And the spell was
broken.

He was not sure what he
had done wrong. But she drew away abruptly, a tall and lovely woman in the
shadowed room. When he reached for her again, she evaded him gracefully. Her
big eyes were luminous in the dusky light.

“Go on. Go ahead and see
her.”

“She’s 
your
 friend,
Dee.”

“I know. Go.”

He was aware of his
quick temper, inherited from his Cajun ancestors. It was a fault noted on his
dossier in Washington--and probably in Moscow and Peiping, too. Usually he
could channel it to good purposes. But he could not fathom Deirdre at the
moment, and he reacted to her abrupt withdrawal with a harsh coolness of his
own.

“All right.”

She stood at the window,
looking at the lights that had returned to the port. At another time, the
romance of this place could have heightened their union here. Now he was
abruptly returned to his world of shadow war, and his anger spilled over with
memories of an old Chinaman’s butchered body and the murder of a frightened
little Hindu dope peddler.

Death often seemed to
serve no purpose in his world. In his convoluted environment of suspicion, of
mask and counter-mask, of self-identity buried deeply under one cover
personality after another, you could lose yourself forever in the images you
created of what you had been and would be. But this was Durell’s reality, and
he could not return to the workaday world of business and domesticity. He could
never return, however much he and Deirdre wished for it. His habits of reflex,
caution, and violent reaction could only bring regret to anyone he loved.

He looked at Deirdre’s
back and said quietly, “Stay away from the window, hon,” and went into the
next room.

Anna-Marie stood with
her back to the wall just beside the door as he went through. Moonlight flooded
through the tall doors open on her balcony, turning her pale golden hair to
silver. She wore black coolie trousers, sausage-tight on her hips, and a silk Thai
blouse through which her full, deep breasts were more than evident. Her eyes
were wide, and the whites showed all around them. She had put on too much
makeup, and when he paused to look at her, he felt as if a centipede were
crawling on the nape of his neck.

She whispered in French.
“Close the door, please.”

“But Deirdre—”

“I know. Close it. I
want to be alone with you.”

He closed the door. It
couldn’t be helped. Then he went to the balcony windows and closed the shutters
there. The scene from the hotel was extraordinarily beautiful now. The curve of
the bay, the lanterns of sampans and barges, the exotic shape of a junk’s sail
coming down the coast, the pinnacles and towers of temples and Malay mosques
were all touched by the huge Oriental moon rising over the river. Distant bells
and strange scents and a warm breath of humid jungle air touched him for a
moment; and then he turned back.

He bumped into
Anna-Marie, who had moved on soundless black coolie slippers directly behind
him. Her body was soft and yielding.

“Please, will you help
me now?”

“What is it?”

“I had a telephone
call-yes, the telephone is working, isn’t it odd?—from Papa.”

He looked at the
old-fashioned French phone that had been useless here since their arrival. It
was on her bed, the receiver off the pedestal. He went to it, more to get away
from the nearness of her body than anything else. There was no hum or click in
the receiver, He put it back and picked it up again. Nothing.

“It is not working now,”
Anna-Marie said. She had drifted after him again and stood very close. “It
happened in the middle of Papa’s call from Dong Xo. That is the river town at
the plantation, near the border.

Where Papa sends his tea
by steamer and gets his supplies.”

“And what did your
father want?” he asked gravely, to humor her.

“I don’t really know. He
had time to tell me several things, but then we were cut off before he
finished.”

“And what did he tell
you?” he asked patiently.

“There is trouble in
Dong Xo. Some Buddhist monks were killed. Terribly. Li.ke--like-”

“Like your ‘Uncle
Chang’?”

“Y-yes.”

“And then?”

“The Cong Hai have
been terrorizing the villages. Some plantations were burned, some of Papa’s old
friends, Frenchmen and their wives, were murdered. And there is fighting now in
Dong Xo.” She began to tremble.

“Are you sure of all
this?” Durell asked.

“It is serious. Papa
said it, and then he said that Orris did not get on the riverboat at
all. He was supposed to go aboard with Uncle Chang, to give himself up to you
here, today. But he never went. I do not know why. Papa had no chance to say.”

“What happened?”

“The telephone went
strange. All sorts of noises. And then I heard Major Muong‘s voice.”

“On the phone?”

“Yes. He told me to be
quiet and hang up.”

“And you did?”

“The telephone went
dead, anyway.”

Durell stared at the
blonde girl. “Why didn’t you mention any of this to Deirdre?”

“I wanted to tell only
you. And to ask you—” She paused. “You must tell me what you want,” she
whispered. “You must tell me your price.”

“My price?”

“For Orris’ life.
Not to kill him. To obey your orders and keep him safe.”

“I won’t kill him,”
Durell said.

“But you want to. It is
in your eyes. You are a cruel man and a dangerous man and you frighten me. But
if I can do anything to make you promise to save Orris—”

She leaned toward him.
She was a child in a world she did not know. She put her hands on the back of
his neck and pressed herself against him in a silent offering. But he felt the
shiver that went through her body with her amateur attempt to seduce him. She
could not put it into words, but her awkward promise was plain. She would give
herself to him, if he would promise in return not to hunt down her Orris Lantern
like the dog he was.

“Anna-Marie—”

“Hurry. Please. It is
difficult for me.”

“You know I love
Deirdre.”

“Yes. But men are like
Papa—with any woman.”

“And Orris?”

“He is different.”

“How well do you know
him?”

“Well enough to love
him.”

“How can you be so sure
of what he is?” I “I am sure. No one knows him as I know him.”

“How much time did you
spend with him?”

She whispered: “We met
by accident. I was riding—Papa keeps some wonderful horses—-and I went over to
the ruins of Gyur Wat, because it is peaceful there and the monks are
always pleasant. Orris was waiting there. He had been watching me for
many days, he said. He knew I would be there that day. We talked. I was afraid
of him, of course. I heard he was the leader of the Cong Hai terrorists.
A murderer, a rapist, an enemy of the peasants and the people, a tool of Hanoi
and Peiping, an American renegade.”

“And—?” Durell asked
urgently.

“And he was afraid,”
Anna-Marie whispered. “And tired. So tired! Dirty. He smelled of the jungle and
the swamps. He had a gun and grenades and he needed a shave and his eyes were
red from lack of sleep.”

“What about the monks?
Did they see him?”

“Yes. But they ignore
politics here."

“They ignore murders and
terrorism?”

“Gyur Wat is
remote from the world.”

He turned the talk back
to Orris Lantern. “He frightened you, that first time? What did he
Want of you?”

“To talk, to see if I
could help him. He Wanted to contact the Americans here, ‘to arrange a
safe-conduct for himself. Durell, he Wants to go home.”

“He was lying,” Durell
said harshly. “His home was a poor mountain shack, and he was kicked around
from the day he was born to the day he defected. Maybe, in his mind, he had
good reasons; I don’t know. But he had nothing to go home to. So he was lying.”

“Could he not simply
have wanted to be with Americans again? How can you judge loneliness for your
countrymen?”

“We think he’s killed a
few with his own hands.”

“Please. Please. I don’t
know how I know it, but Orris is a good man. I know it! And I love
him. And you must not kill him. You can have what you want, you can have me—“

“Anna-Marie—”

He Wanted to ask her
What else Major Muong had said when he interrupted her phone call
from her father. Maybe it was  a lie, or a fevered nightmare. Deirdre
had known nothing about it. Maybe it was all talk, to get him in here so she
could buy him, as she hoped, with a few moments of what might pass for love.

She stood on tiptoe to
kiss him. Her mouth was vulnerable. That was when Deirdre opened the connecting
door between their rooms. Durell pushed Anna-Marie’s hands from him and tried
to hold her away. Deidre’s voice was as cool as a Vermont mountain stream.

“You do enjoy your
work,” she murmured. “Don’t you, darling?”

                                  14

MAJOR T.M.K. MUONG sat
in the lotus position and watched the eastern sky over the river fill with a
lime-green glow that pulsed with a secret, universal life. Herons flew up from
the mangroves and 
thong
 trees along the riverbanks that slid
by. Mist clung to the bushy tops of the trees. In the night, the river steamer
had passed a few lighted villages, but not many. They had been delayed at Don Thap,
and again at the fork in the river, where the Guan Trac came down
from the Cardamomes. The day and the night had been filled with the
whining of insects, the screech of monkeys, the occasional cough of a leopard
stalking along the riverbank. Civilization, as Muong knew it, was
left behind within minutes after they pushed upstream from the coast. Yet he
did not feel alien to the hot, steamy land, the lazy, warm-eyed buffalo, the
peasant women in black pajamas with bare breasts, the fishing shacks on stilts,
the lush, overpowering green of the river and the jungle.

“Lao,” he said quietly.

The young Chinese
appeared at his side. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you think they are
all dead up there?”

“We will find out
tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow may be too
late.”

“It is as it is, Major.”

“Lao?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You truly meant to kill
Dagan, did you not?”

“Yes. You said—”

“Very well. I know what
I said.”

Muong
 
wore
a plain white robe around his spare frame. His face, partly Thai and only a
little Chinese, was as impassive as the jasper Buddha in the corner of his
little steamer compartment. But his eyes were filmed with a sorrow that had
been with him, it seemed, ever since his youth. One lived with it, and grieved,
and regretted. Perhaps, if one had not gone into the Western world, one could
better accept the way the world was. He felt contaminated by worthless
emotions. But hatred nourished him and kept him strong. It was unworthy, but he
could not live without it. He felt suspended between these two worlds, having
lost the serenity of his father’s faith, and having failed to learn the
pragmatism of a man like Durell.

The river steamer slowed
and the side paddles checked the vessel against the wide sweep of the current.
The deck vibrated. Through the window, he saw the driftwood that had made the
pilot cautious. The logs rolled slowly over and over on their way to the sea,
far behind them now. Then his black eyes took on a quickened interest. The lime
of the dawn sky gave him enough light to see the logs quite clearly.