Assignment - Cong Hai Kill (25 page)

The land sloped down
again beyond the high rise of the gorge. They had run perhaps a quarter of a
mile downstream before he actually saw the glisten of moonlight again on the
surface of the river. It seemed as if a thousand fireflies hovered in some orgiastic
dance high above the current. Then Deirdre gasped: “They’re following us.”

“I know,” he said.

She stumbled and fell in
the thick humus of the forest floor. As they paused, he heard the thrashing of
men coming up fast behind them. He hauled her roughly to her feet. Her face was
white, drained of all strength. Her weight sagged against him, and her mouth
was shaped by remorse.

“Sam, I’m sorry. Go
ahead. I have Paio’s charts—” She took them from inside her shirt and
pushed them at him.

“Keep them. You got them;
they’re yours.”

“But Sam—”

“You wanted the job,
didn't you?” he said harshly. “You’ve done fine up to now. Don’t blow it at the
last minute.”

She pulled herself
together, revived by a touch of anger. They ran for the river’s edge.

Like a miracle,
the 
Dong Xo Lady
 chuffed and shuddered and splashed only a few
yards offshore. The moonlight hid her rotten, rickety condition, and she looked
beautiful in Durell’s eyes. Papa Danat had done exactly as he’d
ordered. The boat had gone through the gorge and was waiting for them.

He could see Danat’s fat
figure in the pilothouse atop the Texas deck. Sparks belched from the crazily
tilted stacks and the paddle wheels turned erratically. Durell hailed the
Frenchman and got a loud reply, and then a burst of machine-gun fire from one
of the .50’s mounted on the lower deck chopped a swath of death in the
jungle behind them. It checked the hounds on their heels.

Deirdre stumbled again,
and Durell scooped her up and held her tenderly as he waded into the warm
current toward the dozens of hands outstretched to help them.

                                  28

IT WAS raining, and the
sound was warm and comforting. The rain rattled and dripped from the ornamental
gargoyle eaves of the Palace Hotel in Giap Pnom. A haze obscured the
Gulf of Siam along the curving white beach that formed part of the harbor. The
air was warm and wet.

Durell soaked
luxuriously in his hot tub. Outside, the gardens in Government Square shone
with varied greens —wet moss, the metallic emerald f a parrot’s wing, the
bronze green of a beetle’s back. The sea beyond was dull and flat, stained with
mud. Durell felt as if he could stay there forever. It was twenty-four hours
since he had brought the sagging, groaning 
Dong Xo Lady
 alongside
the dock in the coastal town and the crowds of refugees had boiled ashore, to
the astonishment of the local police and the militia at the wharf.

He had filed a
preliminary report for Bangkok Central of K Section and dictated another for
the military radio communique. Even then, he had not been able to rest. Red
tape prescribed that he fill out internal customs reports for the Giap Pnom port
authorities. A radio message advised him that the Embassy in Bangkok was
sending down a replacement to take over the cleanup. He did not care about
that. The job was done.

Durell soaked in the tub
and called for the smiling Thai bellboy to bring another pail of hot water. The
boy bobbed his head, and his neat white-uniformed figure backed out of the huge
bathroom. He sighed and sank down to his chin in the suds.

Papa Danat was
in the French missionary hospital at the other end of Government Square,
attended solicitously by the French nuns who enjoyed fussing over his huge
carcass. Never leaving him, silent and loyal, Giralda was at his
side.

“My follies, M’sieu Durell,
have caught up with me at last,” said Danat. He had looked possessively at
the tall, brooding Giralda. “It is a truth that a man becomes accustomed
to anything and presently finds he cannot do without it. But perhaps it is more
than habit, with Giralda. The nuns click their tongues at her, and she is
embarrassed.”

“As long as she keeps
you from other follies,” Durell had said.

“I have promised to do
that. And also, in my present state of weakness, yielded another promise. I
shall marry Giralda before I go back to Dong Xo.”

“You’re planning to
return there?”

“But of course. Where
else is there, for a man like me? I have my home, my work, my tea plants. I do
not fear the Congs. I shall need a new manager, of course. A pity about
Uncle Paio. He was really very efficient, you know.”

“A bit too efficient,”
Durell murmured.

Papa Danat sighed
and heaved his bulk about on the hospital bed. “You will do me one little
favor, my friend? You will see about my little daughter, so infatuated with
Lantern?”

“I think it's more them
mere infatuation.”

“Yet he used her only to
contact you. He will go back to America with you and leave my little girl
broken-hearted.”

“I think Anna-Marie will
go with him,” Durell said.

“As his wife?”

Durell smiled. “I’ll see
to it.”

Orris
 
Lantern
was in another room in the mission hospital. The Thai doctor had ordered
several transfusions, and the French sisters had insisted on shaving his ragged
yellow beard. He looked surprisingly younger, as American as apple pie, as he
said thinly, “Yo, Cajun.”

“How do you feel?”
Durell had asked.

“Hungry and lonely.”

“Where is Anna-Marie?”

“They won’t let her stay
with me. I guess they can see the gleam in her eye.” Orris grinned.
“I can’t say I blame the sisters. I feel the same urge toward her. If it wasn’t
for this slug that chewed up my shoulder—”

“I’ll get them to let
her stay,” Durell promised. “How long does the doctor say you loaf around here?”

“Two weeks.”

“We can’t wait that
long. I’ve promised to get you back to Washington the day after tomorrow.”

“You’ve got Paio Chu’s
charts?”

“I’ve got them. And the
stuff you gave me to memorize, too.”

Lantern was thoughtful.
“I’m sorry I had to give you such a bad time, Cajun. But my bosses figured we
had to make it look good, or else we couldn’t smoke out Paio

Chu. We didn’t know who
was really leading the Congs in this area. And Paio never
trusted me enough to reveal his identity to me.”

“Don’t talk too much,”
Durell said. “Save your strength. We have along flight ahead of us.”

He went out in the
corridor and found Anna-Marie seated in a chair in the hospital anteroom. She
looked small and patient, like a child, with her hair in twin braids, her hands
folded in her lap. The sisters had given her a simple blue frock that made her
blue eyes seem even more luminous than before. She jumped up as Durell
appeared.

“How is he, Sam?”

“Not too well.”

“Oh!”

“He misses you. He loves
you. He wants you with him”

“But they won’t let me
—”

“Go on in. I’ll take
care of it.”

She started instantly
for the door, then checked and looked back at him. In that moment, the Way she
smiled and her eyes shone, he knew she was not a little girl at all, but a
woman desperately in love.

“Thank you, Sam,” she
whispered.

“I’ll see what I can do
about arranging passage tickets and an entry permit to the States with him.”

She looked as if she
were going to kiss him. Then she thought better of it and went quickly into
Lantern’s room. In her haste, she left the door open.

Durell closed it
quietly.

Afterward, there had
been a long discussion with the Thai military commander in Giap Pnom,
and by nightfall of that first day, there was the thunder of Thai Air Force
jets coming down the coast of the southern provinces and then swinging upriver
to the Cong Hai fortress areas deep in the jungle. They came and went
all the next day, while Durell did the paperwork to Wind up the assignment. Now
it was dusk, and he heard still another strike pass overhead. He sighed and
shoved himself deeper into the cooling water of his tub.

There was a knock on the
door and he called to the Thai bellhop to come in with his bucket of hot water.

Deirdre entered,
instead.

She looked different.
From somewhere she had obtained a white linen dress that clung with expert
lovingness to the fine, proud lines of her body. She wore her hair like a crown
of raven glory above her head and slender throat.  A touch of her
familiar perfume reached him as he submerged into the tub again. He said
nothing as she paused in the doorway. He thought he had never seen a woman more
beautiful or desirable.

“Yo, Sam,” she said
quietly.

“You’ve been to see Orris Lantern.”

“Yes. And now I’m here.
Do you mind?”

“Foolish question.
You’re being very feminine.”

“Why not? Who knows me
better than you?”

Durell’s face was burned
dark by the jungle sun. His black hair, touched with gray at the temples, was
disheveled. There were many old scars on his chest and shoulders. Deirdre
regarded them with tenderness.

“Do you forgive me,
Sam?”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“I gave you a bad time.”

“No worse than other
partners have given me.”

“I didn’t mean that, although
that’s some of it. I know I was an extra burden to you. Unfortunately, I guess
I have too much pride for a woman —”

“How well I know it.”

“—and I wanted to prove
that I could be useful in the business. Didn’t I do well?”

“You got Colonel Paio’s charts.
I doubt if I could have made it myself.”

She smiled with pleasure
and leaned back against the pale orange tiles of the bathroom. Her gray eyes
studied him. “That’s a high accolade, coming from you, Sam.”

“I meant it.”

“But what I’m really
sorry about is that I went so feminine on you before we even got to Dong Xo.
Practically before we left Washington. Sam, darling, I was so awfully stupid. I
never even let you kiss me.”

“We can make up for
that.”

“I want to,” Deirdre
said. “Right now.”

Durell sighed and felt
his tensions ease out of him, to be replaced by a familiar impetus to let her
know how much he loved her. He checked her next words with a gesture,
recognizing the softness of her mouth, the quickening of her breath, the soft
shine in her eyes.

“What did you do with
the bellhop and my hot water?” he asked casually.

“The pail is outside,”
she said quietly. “But I do wish, darling, that you’d get out of that tub. I
don't think you’ll need it now.”

He did as she suggested.

It was like coming home
again.