Doublespeak--A Novel

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Doublespeak--A Novel Page 24

by Alisa Smith


  We had to find out where the ruckus was coming from. We ducked below the roofline and ran along the inside gutters, around the corner and onto the western temple wall. In the middle of it, above a doorway, there was another set of multi-level roofs for cover, and we peered into the grassy courtyard below. A burst of machine-gun fire made me duck, my heart racing, until I realized they hadn’t shot at us. I hazarded another look. Giant floodlights illuminated bull’s eyes set up near the outer wall of the palace complex. Some of the targets had been blown to smithereens, with only the stands left behind. Link pulled out binoculars and scanned the crowd. Silently, he handed them to me, but I didn’t need them. I could see von Roth’s blond head clearly, where he stood right beside the king.

  Von Roth. His gall was incredible, and, I had to admit, his genius formidable. King Ananda was known to be a gun connoisseur and keen marksman. So apparently von Roth had organized a shooting party, allowing him to haul in weapons under the very noses of the guards, many of whom had gathered, laughing and cheering, in the courtyard.

  For the admiration of the king and his entourage, von Roth held out a rifle, which I recognized immediately as a Sturmgewehr 44. I wished Link still had his. It had a lot more firepower than our pistols. Well, we had one advantage: von Roth did not know we were here. We had to keep it that way.

  The men grabbed pistols from a portable table covered with bottles, which were apparently filled with liquor, judging by the men’s behaviour. They shot wildly at the remaining targets, making an incredible racket. Perfect cover for silenced weapons, I thought as I stared through my sights. Link steadied his pistol on the ledge. Under the floodlight, von Roth’s blond head made a clear target, but he needed to step away from the king. If the shot was more than six inches off, Ananda would be killed instead.

  Link took the shot.

  Even a silenced weapon is painful to the ear when only a few feet away, and I was stunned. Von Roth jumped backwards, but no one else seemed to have noticed anything. He did not fall. He was not hit, but he must have felt the air disturbed by the bullet. He spoke into the king’s ear and made a low bow. The king hardly looked at him, distracted by the shooting and laughter of the other men, while von Roth calmly made his way toward the temple wall. He was still carrying the StG 44 close to his chest. He seemed to know what direction our shot came from and was staying out of the roof’s sightline. Frantically, I waved Link forward. We scooched along the inner wall, back to the south side, which had a view toward the main gatehouse through which von Roth had arrived. Link must have guessed the Nazi was planning to leave the same way. Maybe we would have one more shot at him before he reached it. The guards were occupied watching the king’s antics in the courtyard, and the shooting party’s noise would easily conceal us.

  Von Roth should have been on the walkway below us by now, but there was no sign of anyone, either there or around the silent mansion that housed the king’s bedroom.

  I heard footsteps inside the temple walls. I pushed myself up against the gatehouse roof, putting my arm instinctively across Link’s chest to draw him back. Panicked, I had a childlike impulse to close my eyes.

  Link took a shot onto a path lining a small pagoda.

  Von Roth dived onto the ground, recovered, and disappeared around one of the many dogleg corners in the temple precinct. He was running too fast to be injured.

  I wanted to scream at Link. Where was his sense? Blood pounded in my ears. Before I had time to think, Link slid down the roof and grabbed the tiled gutters, hanging on his arms. Then he jumped to the ground, landing in a roll that must be painful on the stone ground. It looked very far down, but I knew I had to follow. I hung, the ground wavering below my dangling feet. Dear God, don’t make me do this, I thought. I was scared, but the rough tile edges were digging into my hands. I let go. Pain shot up from my ankles and through my legs. I stumbled, then righted myself.

  I drew the Walther and kept my finger on the trigger guard as I ran after Link. My feet pounded on the stonework, and the sound refracted off the walls of the temple maze. I halted at Link’s shoulder where he stood at a corner, and he poked his head around it. Then he ran into the square. I followed, keeping close to the wall. I saw no one in the small courtyard, just silhouettes of strange grey statues, men with wings and beaks, standing guard over a pagoda. Dark passageways led off each side.

  There was a shout in Siamese. On the wall near Link’s head, a spark ricocheted. Link ducked and popped up again, letting off a shot from his silenced Walther. A man fell to the ground in front of him, by the pagoda door, his gold buttons shining in the moonlight. A dark amoeba formed on the white of his uniform. Blood. Link ran and took cover behind the slumped man.

  An arm grabbed me in a chokehold and I gagged. I couldn’t see who it was. I could only smell something like pine sap, but more cloying. I strangely wondered if it was frankincense, from the Bible, from the death of Christ. Was this von Roth? No, the man seemed to be my size, while von Roth was much taller. It must be a guard. I struggled, but the man’s grip was strong. The click of a trigger cocking echoed throughout the courtyard, but Link didn’t take the shot. The guard had me as a shield. He raised his revolver to aim at Link. The guard’s disembodied arm stretched in front of me, as though it was my own. Now that he only had one arm around me, I tried to grab the gun, but I couldn’t breathe and it made me weak. The report of his weapon, unsilenced, exploded in my ears.

  Was Link hit?

  My blood surging in my panic, I felt the straps tight around my forearm. It was the knife Bill gave me, and it called me to my senses. I yanked it from my sleeve and stabbed behind me, where the man’s soft stomach would be. He screamed and let go of me.

  The air was displaced beside me, very close. With a surprised yelp, the guard fell to the ground. His white uniform seemed to glow like phosphorescence in the sea. Link had taken the shot. It was risky, but it had missed me and hit its mark. I ran to the pagoda staircase where I’d last seen Link sheltered behind the dead guard. I found him standing behind a pillar.

  I tugged at his sleeve, but he would not move. He looked everywhere except at me, scanning the courtyard, his eyes glassy and strange.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” I whispered.

  “Not till we get von Roth.”

  “I know where he is. Come on.” I don’t know why I said that, but it did the trick and Link followed me. I had the uneasy feeling that we hadn’t seen the last of von Roth, and I didn’t need to know where he was to find him. He would find us.

  We slipped through the claustrophobic passageways, checking around each corner, until we were back at the main temple where the tunnel was. I eased open the giant door. I froze at the sound of chanting, which seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Then my eyes made out the source: at the far end of the temple, in front of the Emerald Buddha, two monks in orange robes were kneeling, their backs to us. They were near the altar gate that accessed the tunnel. How could we get by them?

  There was a muted bang, once, twice. The monks slumped forward, silent, blood blooming on their robes. I stared at Link in horror. His arm was still outstretched, holding the pistol. Smoke wisped from the barrel. When he ran, I followed him, desperate now only for escape. They were monks, I thought, again and again, like my own dark mantra. How could Link kill them?

  We descended through the trapdoor, closing it behind us with a click as I set the lock. I was shocked by the pure blackness. Link found his flashlight and turned it on to illuminate the chamber. The royal boats still sat waiting in the flat, dark pool, and we ran to the largest one. To cut the rope, I reached into my sleeve to pull out my knife, but it wasn’t there. I must have dropped it after I stabbed the guard. At least it was unmarked. That in itself could suggest secret service, though hopefully no one would know which country’s. Well, nothing could be done now. Link cut the rope with his own knife and we jumped aboard. We each grabbed a long wooden paddle from out of the keel and shoved against
the wall to start the boat on its way. We would wait to start the engines until we reached the canal, far enough away that the sound could not be heard from the palace.

  As we paddled through the tunnel, the ceiling got gradually lower until we had to fold ourselves forward. I realized I was breathing loudly and quieted myself. The light was getting blue, so we must have been nearing the exit to the canal. I used the paddle to nudge the boat off the far wall toward the small raised ledge by the gate—our escape hatch. I fired up the engine, but Link stayed seated in a dreamy state. Why didn’t he open the gate? I nudged his ribs with the paddle and he jumped onto the ledge. He tugged at the gate. Mangled from the blast, it barely moved. He jumped into the water and, bracing his legs against the wall, wrenched it open enough for the slender boat to get through. He climbed back aboard and the boat nosed through the vines, their tendrils dragging across my face as we passed underneath them.

  From the canal I looked back at the entrance, which was concealed by the screen of hanging plants. It was as though we’d never been there, and I could not help thinking we were going to make it. Soon we would meet Byron on the river and shove this boat away, to drift with the current to the ocean, while we would race in a speedboat back to the palazzo.

  We were escaping, but Link had not killed von Roth. And I was supposed to be in charge of this mess. What would Miss Maggie say—or do—when she learned that von Roth was still free to murder the king? Surely von Roth would abort his mission after the chaos of dead guards and monks we left behind, I told myself. Security around the king would increase tenfold after this. Was that not a form of success?

  Maybe not in Miss Maggie’s books, but at least I had seen Link out safely. I exhaled.

  He’d saved me, too. He’d killed the guard who had grabbed hold of me. Or had he not cared if he killed me also? The bullet had been close, too close. I stole a glance at Link as we travelled down the canal. He was staring back into the distance, a smile on his face. It disturbed me. Was he completely unhinged? I supposed I should be glad he had gone into this strange passive mode, rather than insisting on staying behind to finish off von Roth.

  We reached the lock at the end of the canal, the last barrier between us and the river. We were nearly free.

  I navigated alongside a hanging cord and pulled it to signal the lock-keeper in the tower to let us out. The engine idled as I kept us in place, and the metal gate slowly, excruciatingly, yawed open. I had time to picture Bill’s hired man looking down at us, bemused by the goings-on of these strange visitors to his land, the usual lock-keeper unconscious at his feet. As soon as there was room to pass through, I revved the boat into the lock. The metal gate shut again and the water began to pour in, floating us up to the river’s level, slowly, slowly.

  “Get down, Lena,” Link said, so calmly it took a moment to register it was a warning.

  Then I saw the silhouette of a man holding a pistol. He was standing above us on the edge of the lock, which was now our cage. A bullet zinged nearby and cracked the boat’s wooden hull. Water surged in. Link stood up, tall and unwavering as a Viking figurehead on a ship’s prow.

  He took aim and fired.

  Von Roth ducked and rolled. He did not cry out or fall off the ledge. Link had missed.

  The boat kept rising in the lock, bringing us ever closer to the ledge where the Nazi waited. Von Roth took aim from his prone position and fired. Link stared in stunned amazement at his chest. Then he let off one more shot, wildly, and collapsed.

  “Link!” I yelled.

  On the floor of the boat, I stayed huddled under my wooden seat. I expected von Roth to kill me at any moment. The water was now six inches deep in the bottom of the boat and my legs were soaked. I would soon be nearly level with von Roth. I stared up at the starry sky, a sight of infinity and beauty. This did not have to be the end. I wanted to live.

  I pulled the Walther from my holster.

  Von Roth was standing in full view at the edge of the canal, as though waiting to give me his hand to step ashore. His pale hair gleamed ghostly under the moonlight. I knew this man. Warner. I raised the pistol and, as it so often did these days, my hand shook.

  “The lovely Vera,” von Roth said gently.

  My hand steadied as I thought, I’m someone else now.

  After the shock of the gun’s report, I heard a moan, and Warner toppled sideways to fall on the cement ledge. The water lifted me until I stared straight into his eyes. They were lost somewhere, whether the past or future, I couldn’t say. He was already more dead than alive.

  I looked away. Why hadn’t he shot at me? He was a Nazi. He’d killed hundreds of people, but he had danced with me. Did he have some strange selective morality that stilled his hand? Or had he believed that I was too weak and would not kill him, that I would now stand beside him, go to bed with him, the conqueror?

  Had I been more cold-blooded than a Nazi?

  I turned to Link. Blood streamed into the water around him, where he lay face up on the bottom of the boat. My steps sloshing in the deepening water, I rushed to feel the pulse at his wrist. It was faint and erratic. The hole in his chest was small, but I knew the exit wound, at his back, would be large and gaping. There was no time to staunch the blood. Oh God. The boat was over a foot deep in water now, and would sink before I could get it to the dock where Byron waited upriver. I’d have to swim.

  I yanked at the lid of a padlocked wooden trunk built into the side of the boat, but it only budged an inch. Through the gap, I could see red lifejackets inside. The trunk’s lock was small, the wood old. I leaned down and, averting my eyes from Link’s wound, slid the dagger from the sheath on his arm. I used it to pry open the lid. The wood splintered and squealed, the blade bent, but the clasps flew off. The knife was ruined and would not fit back in its scabbard, so I threw it overboard. I pulled out the lifejackets, putting one on myself first. Then I gently raised Link’s head to slide it through the neck opening. He was floating a little in the deeper water in the boat now, which made it easier to put the straps behind him and clip them to the front of the lifejacket, though he groaned at the jostling. I made out faint words.

  “Is he dead?”

  I blinked back tears. “Yes. You got him.” A smile played on his lips, or so I thought, and I traced my fingers there.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice quavering. “I’m so sorry.”

  The gates of the lock were opening. Somewhere above us, the false lock-keeper looked down on our drama, unwilling to get involved, or uninterested in the outcome. A man doing his job. I jumped into the river and grabbed the gunwale of the sinking boat, to bring it nearly level to the water so I could pull Link out as gently as possible. Once he was floating beside me in the river, I clutched the collar of his lifejacket and started to swim awkwardly toward the dock where Byron was supposed to be waiting. It’s not far, I told myself. Swim harder. Byron will be there—he’s always there. I took one last look over my shoulder, but already I couldn’t make out von Roth’s form on the ledge. All I could see was the tall silver silhouette of the lock tower, like a monument.

  I swam away in the dark river, warm as blood, the green mats of lotus parting before me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  FEBRUARY 11, 1946—MIDNIGHT

  I HAD BEEN waiting and waiting at the little dock just south of Arthit Pier. The palazzo was just across the way, but hidden by the trees along the banks of the Chao Phraya. I hoped my speedboat was equally concealed among the branches in this obscure spot. Leaves quivered against my face when the ocean breathed up the river from the Gulf of Siam. Bats swooped low over the water, hunting insects, though there were fewer of them now. It was getting late. I’d expected Lena and Hughes at eleven o’clock, and it was now long past the hour, but I would never leave my post, no matter what. Either Lena returned or I would die here waiting, whether living to the end of my natural days as a lunatic boatman who begged alms from passing waterfolk, or shot as an accomplice by palace guards. My d
evoted skeleton would bleach under the tropical sun. I had not welcomed such visions, but did not shirk them either. They were a distraction, at least, from looking at my watch every few seconds. Now it was closer to midnight.

  A faint splashing sound made me stand up and stare into the water once more. I made out three forms in the river, approaching slowly, two of them together and the third trailing behind. Soon I knew for certain that Lena was the first of them. She was identifiable to me always, her head sleek as an otter like in those happier days, when the world was at our feet before the Nanaimo payroll robbery, and she had jumped overboard from our gang’s speedboat as a lark. Tonight, everything was different. We were on the other side of the world, and she was grim-faced and struggling. As she approached, I reached out to her with an oar, which she grabbed desperately, and I saw she was dragging Hughes. With a shiver I realized that the third form was one of those monitor lizards, perhaps fifteen feet behind them, cutting patiently and silently through the water like a crocodile.

  “Take him,” she gasped. I hesitated, thinking to haul her up first, but she pushed Hughes toward me. They don’t eat people, I remembered Dass saying. Only corpses.

  I grabbed him by the strap on the collar of his lifejacket, and she dragged herself up and over the side of the boat. I struggled with Hughes’ weight, at one point nearly dropping him. He gave me no aid.

  Lena had drawn herself away from the body, and lay panting on the floor of the boat.

 

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