UNKNOWABLE (Murder on the Mekong, Book 2)

by Rivers, Hart;

  She helped him get dressed and whispered something in Vietnamese he didn’t understand. Whatever it was had to be something he needed to hear, since it left him feeling calmer than he could ever remember feeling before. And that felt so good, after spending most of his life teetering on an edge he didn’t dare tell nobody about, that it had to be addictive.

  He felt like he’d been drugged. Not with #4 Grade A heroin; more like with Love Potion No. 9. He would do anything for Missy, and not just because she kept the radio volume down in the head that could still hear the distant sound of her chanting.

  As she escorted him to the garden where he was meeting The Man, Mouse knew one other thing, and it made him smile so big you’d think he’d just gotten laid by his dream girl.

  He was gonna kill that freak, and Vo while he was at it.

  Chapter 25

  Kate was vastly relieved to finally get out of the gilded cage of The Pale Man. There was something cloying about his palatial estate, as if toxic waste flowed beneath the extravagant surface and some part of her subconscious identified the stench from the pockets of time where she still drew a blank. Fortunately, since accepting Phillip’s offer, there hadn’t been a minute to waste on self-recriminations or secret tears on a pillow. Instead, she had been forced to focus on the thrilling, endless hours of a crash course in espionage, political affairs, the present operation known as Project White Tiger, and, of course, how to fire a gun.

  That had been one of the most exciting parts of her admittedly still-limited training. She was a pretty good shot. Especially when she imagined JD’s achingly handsome, pathological liar’s face in the middle of the target.

  She forced the image away as she gazed out the window at the endless green jungle below. The helicopter was flying high and fast. The vibrations and rotor noise were numbing and precluded conversation with Phillip. Her new “friend” Missy had not come with them. Kate wondered if it was getting burned so bad by JD that made her distrustful, careful not to say anything to Missy that she didn’t want repeated, despite the young woman’s engaging attempts to offer her services as an assistant.

  They were slowly circling the bay at Nha Trang, but soon began descending onto a wide expanse of grassy lawn that fronted a magnificent villa that stood high on a promontory above the city and the sea.

  She and Phillip ducked out and hurried across the grass as the helicopter lifted off behind them.

  It was suddenly very quiet, except for the trilling of birds, the distant sound of sprinklers on the lawn.

  Phillip held her arm and they entered through an ornate yet formidable iron gate, fronted by two guards who saluted them. They continued their stroll down a flowered courtyard that led to an elaborate stone fountain with carved koi spouting water, and then passed through a beautifully carved mahogany door. The interior was cool, and seemed darkened after the bright sunlight. The floor, a gleaming white marble, was punctuated with exquisite rugs. Several arched floor-to-ceiling windows looked out across the bay to the islands off shore, showcasing a breathtaking view.

  “Perhaps the finest villa in the country,” noted Phillip. “It belonged until recent years to Madame Nhu, the former First Lady.”

  Kate recalled some outrageous public appearances during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations that had been sufficiently inflammatory to earn Nhu the title “Dragon Lady.” Kate hadn’t paid a lot of attention at the time, but it was hard to forget anyone saying they would “clap hands at seeing another monk barbeque show” when asked about Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire to protest oppression under her husband’s and brother-in-law’s rule. It had also been said she was the one who really ruled, until the two men were assassinated.

  Beyond that, Kate hadn’t made it her business to know much about the Nhus, but in her new role, such things were now her business.

  “Do you think we had anything to do with what happened to them?” she asked.

  “Pirates and Whores, my dear. We give gifts, we are generous, but we take things away when we are displeased. It is fine to be nasty, greedy, pretentious, entitled, but never too much, too publicly. They, mmm, took themselves a little too seriously, she in particular and so…” Phillip shrugged and extended his arm. “Anyway, a pleasant place for us to enjoy for a few days while seeing to business. Tonight we have a dinner party arranged for a select group, with more arriving tomorrow for the necessary meetings before you get to work in your new capacity.” He smiled, his eyes shining with pride. “You’ve done extraordinarily well in your training. I know what’s waiting will be quite difficult to pull off but, Katherine, you will do a marvelous job.”

  Kate touched his freshly shaven cheek, her palm slightly moist, but steady. “I won’t disappoint you, Phillip. I promise.”

  “I know you won’t. Otherwise I never would have brought you in.”

  Yes, Kate thought, as she looked out the expanse of windows to a world she had come to view in far broader strokes. It really was much better to be on the Big Pirate side of the door.

  Later, after they had swum in a luxurious indoor pool, made love in the water, and then rested, Kate went to her separate suite, the one Phillip had ordered prepared just for her. The former Madame Nhu’s private quarters exuded a combination of elegance, the exotic, and over-the-top indulgence. On each side of the extraordinary bath were full-length tiger skins, the glassy eyes glowing yellow and the teeth gleaming in growling grimaces, reflected from an over-abundance of artistically placed mirrors. The closets were empty except for one that contained a collection of silk dressing gowns and a chic Chanel ensemble that she assumed Philip, thinking of everything, had ordered and sent ahead for her. He would certainly know her size, and his taste, as always, was exquisite.

  She had so much to appreciate, to celebrate, so why was she wishing for a suitcase with some of her old clothes from the mission and a nice, long talk with Shirley? The Mission had to be a little shorthanded now with their head nurse gone, but at least Phillip had said Shirley shouldn’t be worried. Periodic messages were being sent on Kate’s behalf as reassurance that all was well, she was having a wonderful time on her extended vacation.

  For a moment Kate let herself imagine that all was as it had been when she first left the mission, anticipating she would come back. But she could never go back now. At least, not in the capacity she had left, and there would always be secrets she could never tell even a close friend like Shirley. It felt a little like someone had died.

  Kate supposed in a sense someone had. Her.

  But, that wasn’t all bad, was it? There were things about the old Kate she hadn’t particularly liked. Being an only child, she had grown up thinking the world revolved around her. She could be reckless. Impulsive. And not always assume accountability when she should. Sometimes she relied on her looks too much because it gained her special treatment, and that probably made her a little lazy, even manipulative in ways she’d rather not admit. She had used Gregg when they were young and she had enjoyed playing games with a lot of boys, then men, who she shouldn’t have thought of as toys for her own amusement. Maybe that had something to do with not having a father to look up to, or with the way her mother had often been treated like a joke in the courtroom. Still, Kate knew she could have made different, better choices…

  And now she was. She was choosing to seize this opportunity and remake her life, and herself, into all they both could be. If she couldn’t have the children she had begun to wish for, at least she could have a rich and rewarding career, filled with adventure and the kind of responsibility that no mother in good conscience would ever consider assuming. She could be a role model, break some glass ceilings, and pave the way for younger women who would never realize how good they had it.

  The door closed behind her and she turned to see Missy.

  She bowed. “Pardon. I knock but I think you not hear me. Monsieur Jordon—”

  “Wait. Do you speak French?”

  “Oui.” Missy nodded shyly, grinning
. “It is better than my English.”

  “Great! I mean, nothing’s wrong with your English, but…” Kate actually preferred speaking French when she could. It flowed so much more easily from the throat and sounded so much softer on the ears. She missed Shirley terribly, the best friend and confidant she’d probably ever had—no jealousy or competition or any of the other petty crap that could get in the way of an honest, woman-to-woman friendship. But Shirley didn’t speak French fluently, and now that things had changed so drastically in her own life, they wouldn’t have as much to freely talk about as they once had. Also, their circle of associates and friends were moving in very different directions.

  Maybe Missy was a friend she should consider cultivating after all. At the very least she was someone to have a conversation with that didn’t have an X and Y chromosome with more testosterone than fashion sense—unless she counted Phillip, but he still had testosterone to spare.

  Having decided to let her guard down, albeit cautiously, Kate engaged Missy in the first real conversation she’d had with her beyond superfluous pleasantries, and asked in French, “How did you get here?”

  “I was invited to join Monsieurs Pale Man and Gallini on the helicopter that left a few hours after you and Monsieur Jordan departed.”

  Invited, Kate thought, what a polite way to put it. “And where are you staying now? Do you have your own quarters, or…?”

  Missy lowered her eyes but not before Kate caught her wince. And it didn’t take any recent tutorials in body language to interpret Missy’s forced smile, the anxiety she tried to restrain in the subtle wringing of her hands when she quickly answered, “My quarters are in another wing, and they are so beautiful I cannot believe my good fortune. They adjoin Monsieur Gallini’s quarters. He likes me. A lot.”

  “But what about you,” Kate ventured, knowing she should not go there. “Do you like him back the same way he likes you?”

  Missy hesitated, then confessed, “There are things I do like about the American from New Jersey, but if I could avoid certain duties in private, I would. My heart belongs to another man I have always wanted to be with, even as a young girl in school. He was a bit older and did not take me seriously, until one day I made him see me as a woman, not a child. We were together for a while, and it was fantastique, like a dream, but then life interfered and…” She sighed wistfully and shook her head. “C’est la vie. I grew up with many privileges, but one learns to adapt to the ways of the world when war and other circumstances take such advantages away. As I believe you might understand, it is important to make the most of what one has, even if it means making lemonade out of lemons. A gin chaser never hurts, n’est-ce pas? As Mary Poppins would say, it helps the medicine go down.”

  Kate decided then and there that Missy just might qualify for a bona fide girlfriend. Even if she had more advantages than Missy did now, they could relate on an elemental level where survival and trade-offs were ingrained into the choices they had made in life. And love. Because they both understood that if you couldn’t be with the one you loved—or once loved, honey—a smart girl sometimes had to love the one she was with.

  Easy enough with Phillip. But considering Missy’s bedmate, even if there were qualities she had found to like in Mike Gallini, the poor girl had to be going through a case of gin a week to make that medicine go down.

  Her gaze settling on a bottle of waiting champagne, Kate made tracks to the silver bucket filled with ice and glanced at the note Phillip had left, saying he looked forward to sharing a toast before dinner.

  “Oh hell,” Kate told Missy, “he can get more where this came from. Let’s crack this open and have some fun. Are you game?”

  “Oui!”

  And so they helped themselves to the bubbly, along with whatever else they could find in the drawers and closets. As they chattered away in French she did Missy’s fingernails, then Missy did her toenails in exchange, both of them giggling over the idea they were dipping into Madame Nhu’s nail polish and hoping it didn’t turn them into Dragon Ladies who wanted to eat barbequed monks for dinner.

  The exquisite dresses in the closet that fit like a glove on Kate swamped Missy’s small frame, but that just made them laugh uproariously as she pretended to model them on a runway in Paris—

  Until a soft rap at the door had Missy racing for the closet that could house a small family just before Phillip made his entrance. Apparently dinner would be quite the event since he was perfectly attired in a white dinner jacket and black tuxedo trousers, so unlike the first time she had met JD who had been wearing an old linen suit, aviator shades, and two silver bracelets on his wrist.

  Kate quickly searched for, and found, the self-protective shield she had been nurturing to deflect any fond memories of JD. She willed herself to look innocent and forget that she had hidden his silver bracelet in a lacquered box Phillip had tied up with a lavish bow as a gift filled with her favorite toiletries. He had given it to her the day after their reunion; as best as she could recall. While some disturbing flashes of sensations, sights and sounds—that may, or may not, be actually true—had recently presented themselves, there was a lot more that remained fuzzy around the corners of her brain.

  Phillip’s very male and very appreciative expression, as he took in the last dress she had tried on, with all the others draped in a silky heap over a couch that could have belonged to Louis the 14th, or Vuitton for that matter, shifted to the empty bottle of Krug and two mostly depleted flutes.

  Just then Missy emerged from the closet, with her own simple shift back on.

  “Oh! Monsieur Jordan, I sorry. Mademoiselle Kate and I, trying to find just right dress for special evening.” She bowed. “I go now.”

  As Missy made for the exit, Kate called after her, “Thanks, Missy. See you later.”

  Missy smiled, bowed again. But not before Kate noticed her nervous glance at Phillip.

  He gave a short bow back. “Merci, Missy. I appreciate your assistance to my favorite lady. If you like I can have another bottle delivered to your quarters as a thank you.”

  Kate wondered: did he have any idea it sounded more like a threat than a gesture of appreciation, considering who was in the adjoining suite?

  “Merci, but I no need, pleasure all mine.” And with that, Missy was gone.

  “Well,” Phillip chuckled. “It looks as if you two were having a good time. I’m glad.”

  “Me, too,” Kate said and turned around to give him her back. “Zip me up?”

  “Only if I can unzip you later.”

  His lips were warm against her neck as he smoothly pulled up the zipper, and as always he smelled divine. Kate was sure that Missy’s own night would be nothing like hers and she gave an involuntary shudder, just imagining what it must be like to have that odd little man’s hands roaming over her.

  “Cold?” Phillip asked, running his palms over the gooseflesh prickling her arms.

  Kate shook her head and turned, looped her hands around his neck. “Phillip, what do you know about that man, Mike Gallini, that Paulu brought to join us here?”

  “I know he’s important to our transport team, and to the relations we have with a not-particularly-desirable but necessary individual with connections in the US. Which, as you’ve come to realize, is just part of the ugly, coarse, and dirty things we often have to do for the benefit of the larger picture.” A slight expression of distaste accompanied Phillip’s next revelation. “And I suppose we can group Mr. Gallini into the ‘undesirable but necessary’ camp of associates, since I understand he has a particular gift, or method, for keeping others honest and holding them accountable when they are not. Paulu was beside himself with excitement when he first heard of him, which suggests to me that we will want to keep our distance whenever possible. After all, it is one thing to do business, even possibly break bread, with those we may not wish to; it is quite another to share bathwater with the unclean.”

  Kate hesitated, but only slightly, before confronting Phillip wi
th what had become too obvious to ignore. “And yet, are we not sharing bathwater with Paulu?”

  “My, you are a smart girl, aren’t you?” Phillip gave her a little push onto the bed and she might have denied him what came next if he hadn’t added, “And smart girls know that once the water gets too dirty it’s time to get out of the tub, pull the plug, and take a shower instead.”

  Chapter 26

  Dinner was superb. It reminded Kate of her early days in Paris, right down to the warm soufflé for dessert. The conversation was predictably all about the war, but not body counts or battle operations or winning strategies. Instead she listened closely, critically, and appreciatively, to a lively discussion involving contracts for roads, bridges, airports, shipping, trucking. But then the talk turned to the recent ousting of Prince Sihanouk in Cambodia, now prime for invasion, and the extraordinary haul of loot just waiting to be taken out of that country. Although she found the tone of covetousness offensive, and the lack of concern over what an invasion would cost in terms of human collateral even worse, Kate kept her ears open and her mouth closed.

  Just as dinner was about to wind up, a Vietnamese air marshal rose from the palatial table and signaled a servant bearing a carved jade goddess with emeralds set in the eyes of the exquisite face. The figurine would easily grace any world-class museum collection of Asian Art, and as Kate imagined the air marshal secretly beating everyone else to Cambodia’s spoils of war, the sweet soufflé in her mouth dissolved into a nasty aftertaste.

  The air marshal made his presentation to its intended recipient with a grand flourish.

  “For you, my dear Ambassador, a small token of my gratitude for the honor of working with you for our dear country, though she does not compare to your most lovely companion this evening.”

  As Kate appropriately, graciously smiled, Phillip stood and gave a short bow.