by Jay Brandon
The hall door opened. Carol’s hopes fell to nothing. Reinforcements had come for the rat-faced man.
John Loftus stepped into the room. Her heart lifted at the sight of him. She hadn’t gotten over that instinctive reaction. Lost in the Vietnamese nightmare as she’d been for days, Loftus looked to her like a fellow traveler from the homeland.
The rat-faced man grinned at Loftus, said something in a gruff undertone, and gestured at Carol with the rifle. His grin was a horrible thing. He didn’t have enough teeth to fill it, for one thing. John Loftus stepped close to him and the rat-faced man inclined his head to receive the whispered instruction. Loftus’s right hand came from behind his back, holding the leather-covered sap. He swung it from about the level of his waist, all the way across his body, and laid it just in front of Ratface’s ear. That wasn’t quite the right spot. It only staggered the Vietnamese, made him drop the rifle. Loftus took his time placing the second strike, to the back of the rat- faced head. The Vietnamese went straight down like a building imploding.
Carol had come catlike off the bed. She didn’t even exult in the rat-faced man’s fall, she just saw the chance she’d been waiting for. Her hand was on the fallen rifle.
But in the next moment, so was Loftus’s foot. She struggled to jerk the rifle out from under him, but it might as well have been welded to the floor. She leaned forward to bite his leg.
Loftus stooped and pushed her back before she could bite. “Stop,” he said mildly. “I’ve come to get you out of here.” He picked up the rifle.
She was back on her feet and laid a hand on the gun again. “They killed my husband.”
Her voice was low and fierce and determined. This wasn’t the way he liked her. “No, they didn’t,” he said in the same mild tone. “What gave you that crazy idea?”
“He hasn’t called me all day. He would’ve called if he was alive.”
Loftus shook his head. “Khai hasn’t been letting him talk to you. He’s been putting the pressure on.”
Carol stepped back in confusion. She’d become so convinced of Daniel’s death that this sudden uncertainty left her feeling hollow. “Why?” she said.
“He’s out doing a favor for Khai right now. He’s killing the old gook pawnbroker.”
Carol shook her head, not looking at him. “Daniel would never do that.” Would he? A week earlier she would have said the same thing about herself, but she’d been more than ready to kill a minute ago.
Loftus was looking at her coolly. He saw the weakness taking her. Her shoulders slumped. She was staring at the floor. Helpless.
“No?” he said. “Bad for you if he doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, but that was a form of question he didn’t even bother to acknowledge. “Come on,” Loftus said. “I’m getting you out of here.” She looked up at him, finally. Her eyes were hopeful as a child’s. “How?”
“Looking like a prisoner,” he replied. He dropped the rifle and grabbed her arm, high, just under the shoulder. He knew his grip was hard enough to leave bruises but she didn’t resist. Loftus smiled to himself as he pulled her out into the corridor and she came along willingly.
*
“She is safe enough,” Khai said. “One of my men is guarding her.”
Daniel nodded. He didn’t want to ruin things by being in too big a hurry now.
The house was aswarm with Vietnamese men. Carol hadn’t realized how many there were. Most of them were armed too. She hung her head so she wouldn’t have to look at them.
She looked so submissive now it was obvious her fierce look in the room had been a shallow pose. Loftus hurried down the hall, making her walk faster. She stumbled a little. Her feet were bare. They went down the back stairs, the ones that came out next to the kitchen—and the closet with the door into the tunnel.
John Loftus had not been the only occupant of the house to see Daniel walk in. Chui had been watching from a different window. He too thought at once of the woman. But he also thought of Loftus. He had been waiting, praying, for Loftus to do something stupid. This was his last chance. If Loftus betrayed Khai, maybe Chui’s failure would be forgotten. Especially if Chui was the one who stopped him. He hurried to a spot from which he could watch the woman’s room. John Loftus did not disappoint him. When he emerged with the woman Chui followed leisurely. The other fools Loftus passed in the hall assumed he was taking the woman to Khai. Only Chui knew there had been no command. He slipped down the dark back stairs behind them. He wished he had another witness to Loftus’s treachery. Was there time to turn back and fetch someone?
Loftus and the woman disappeared into the closet. The woman looked a little apprehensive now.
Daniel was seated in front of Khai’s desk. The door of the study was open behind him. He saw Khai glance up and frown slightly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” said Khai. It was a very minor crease in his ego. One of his men had just walked by the open door without even glancing in and bobbing his head deferentially. The man had paid no attention to the study and its occupants. He had been walking toward the front door with a curious expression on his face.
Khai dismissed it. Until a minute later when another man walked by in the same direction. This one was hurrying a little.
Khai had no window in his study to see what had attracted four or five of his men to the front porch. They stood there watching the gate. A small crowd of Vietnamese had gathered there. They weren’t threatening— they seemed to be mostly women and old men—but their presence was a mystery. This wasn’t a Vietnamese neighborhood. Where had they come from? They were a middle-class-looking group. One man even had a camera hanging around his neck. It was as if the old mansion had been included on a tour. Khai’s men stood there on the dark porch keeping an eye on the small crowd. The soldiers were unworried, smoking, leaning on the rail. They made comments about the women at the gate and laughed to each other.
* * *
“Where are we?” Carol finally asked. It was the first curiosity she’d shown since they’d left her room. Loftus heard the apprehension in her tone. It made him grip her all the harder. He had turned on only one bank of the few lights in the tunnel so that it was dim enough to look forbidding. They couldn’t see more than ten feet ahead of them.
“Khai’s escape hatch,” Loftus said. “He was a little worried that if you got out of your room you might find your way down here. That’s why he had me spend so much time with you, to see you didn’t. But you never tried.”
Carol shook her head. There were rustling echoes in the tunnel. She couldn’t tell if they were caused by their own movements. The floor of the tunnel was dirt and she was barefoot. That made her feel like a child. Unconsciously she was walking on tiptoe, setting her feet down as lightly as she could. Imagination made the dirt move underfoot.
Loftus took her arm and pulled her deeper into the tunnel. He stopped under a light where he could see her face. He saw her glance aside into the darkness.
“This is good-bye,” he said. A line from some movie he’d seen. It drew her attention back to him, her eyes on his face. She was still wearing that green warmup suit. It was tight enough to show what she had, but that wasn’t good enough. Pretending to be getting another grip on her, he gave it a little tug, so some skin showed between the top of her pants and the bottom of the jacket. She didn’t seem to notice.
“What do you mean?” she said.
“I mean this is the way out. I’m letting you go.”
He pointed into the darkness. Her eyes followed the gesture but she didn’t move.
“Are you sure?” she finally asked. “There aren’t any—?” She didn’t even know what to ask. Holes? Guards? Alligators?
“It’s okay,” Loftus said. “Want me to come all the way with you?” She was the one holding his arm now—ever so lightly but still, the touch was there. It communicated her fear. He stepped closer to her, slightly surprised she couldn’t feel him already.
She started to answer but he didn’t wait. “But before you go,” he said, and put his arms around her. His hands went under the jacket and slid along the smooth skin of her back.
She was making a nominal protest but he smothered it with his mouth. Her hands were on his chest, pushing feebly. In a minute they would go around him. His hands went higher, pulling the jacket up in front now as well. He let her go for a second to pull his own shirt off.
“You bastard,” she said. To his surprise that fierce tone was back in her voice. And that’s when she tried to knee him.
He blocked it easily with his own leg, then grabbed her thigh in his hands, holding her leg up off the ground. She had to lean back against the wall of the tunnel to keep from falling. He towered over her.
“All right,” he said agreeably. “That way’s just as good or better.” He was not at all disappointed. He let go of her leg and before she could regain her balance he stepped in close and put both hands inside the waistband of her pants, pulling them down. Then he stepped in even closer, mashing her bare butt against the wall of the tunnel. She squirmed, which was pleasant, and tried to claw at his face with her nails, which wasn’t so pleasant but was part of the game. He buried his face in her shoulder to protect it.
The only trouble with it turning out to be rape instead of seduction was it meant he’d have to kill her afterward. That was a waste, but he could live with it.
Khai hadn’t bothered to take Daniel’s gun off his desk and put it out of sight. Its display was a display of Khai’s confidence. The .45 was easily within his reach but both men ignored it.
“I’ll probably be moving,” Daniel was saying. “Even with Linh gone, the business isn’t there for me. You can turn the whole block into—”
“Perhaps I can help,” Khai said. He and Daniel looked at each other, understanding that this was not an offer of help and that it could not be refused.
This time the man who passed Khai’s open door was running, so Daniel heard the patter of his steps and he too turned to look. When the man had passed, Daniel looked back inquisitively at Khai, who made a dismissive gesture.
“Nothing to concern us. The men have their little games.”
The commotion outside might have been the wind of the approaching storm. It sounded like the murmur of many voices. There was a crack of thunder and the lights flickered. In its aftermath the air felt charged with electricity. It carried the sound of voices. There was a small thump against the outside of the house, like a heavy first drop of rain. But it wasn’t rain.
A shot was fired. Its sound engulfed the charged air, so there was no telling its source. Daniel and Khai sat frozen. Each glared at the other mistrustfully.
There was another shot. It came from the front porch. The sound was followed immediately by a scream from farther out in the darkness.
Khai moved, but Daniel was quicker. He snatched up the gun from the desk and ran out of the study—not toward the front porch, but still the wrong direction. He ran up the stairs. Vietnamese men were swarming down, but word had already spread among them that the American belonged to Khai now. They let him pass.
Daniel stood at the head of the stairs shouting, “Carol? Carol!"
The only answer was the sound of running feet, that seemed to come from all over the house.
His breath seemed the vilest touch of all. It was hot, panting, burning her neck and cheek. His mouth so close to her ear made her want to retch. A degree of numbness had taken her body where his hands touched it, but the caress of his breath continued to horrify her. She kept twisting her neck to escape it, trying to smash her forehead against his nose. But he stayed too close, mirroring her movements like an evil shadow.
She kept fighting him. Even after he ripped her pants down to her ankles so that she was hobbled. Even after he opened his own pants and she felt him against her stomach. She kept squirming and trying to knee him. Her feet were hopelessly entangled in her pants; if he had let her go she would have fallen. But he didn’t let her go. He had her pressed hard against the wall of the tunnel and his hands were behind her now, clutching for a grip on her buttocks so he could lift her up.
The lights went out for an instant that seemed eternal. In that darkness he was inescapable. She was smothering under his weight.
Then the lights came back on, dimly but bright by contrast, and the horror was right there against her, his beard stubble scraping her shoulder. She had stopped struggling during that moment of darkness and he had pressed his advantage. He lifted her clear off the ground. Carol tried to keep her knees clenched but he was already between them, pushing forward. They squirmed against the tunnel wall in what might have looked like passion to an observer.
There was a brighter flash of light. Lightning, Carol thought, far in the back of her mind, but there was no lightning down there belowground. The light was followed by a whirring sound she had heard before but couldn’t place.
Loftus seemed oblivious to these tiny distractions, even after the flash and the whir came again. It was the low chuckle afterward that stopped him.
“Oh my,” said Chui. “These will be lovely additions to my collection.”
Loftus stood dead still. His back was to Chui. He didn’t know how many people were back there. Carol didn’t move either. She could see over Loftus’s shoulder, see that Chui was standing there alone, ten feet away. A Polaroid camera was hanging by its strap from his right wrist. In that hand he held the two pictures he had just taken. Chui looked at them admiringly. In his other hand he held a gun.
“Help me,” Carol said. Her voice was low and wavering. “Help.” Her voice died to a rasp. Chui glanced at her with a simper of fake sympathy. He didn’t give a damn what happened to her. His eyes were gleeful.
“After Khai sees them, of course,” Chui went on to Loftus. “After Khai sees what you’re doing to his plans. So to speak.”
Loftus unfroze. Carol felt his muscles relax slightly. She thought he was going to set her down but instead he turned, still holding her, so that now her naked back was to Chui and Loftus was facing the Vietnamese.
“Carry on if you like,” Chui said lightly. “The damage is already done. I’ll just take these to Khai and be right back.”
Loftus stepped out of his pants. They were looser than Carol’s and didn’t snag on his feet. He took a step forward. Carol started struggling again, but he had her tightly, one hand under her thigh and the other across her back, clamping her against him. He took another step, carrying her easily.
“There’s enough here for two,” Loftus said. His voice was a growl, as if his panting breath had burned his own throat.
“Enticing sight,” Chui said. “If only I had the time.”
Loftus took another step and Chui dropped the camera in order to shift the gun to his right hand. He slipped the photos into his shirt pocket. “Stay back there,” he said. “You don’t need to come along.” The lightness was gone from his tone.
“Go ahead,” Loftus said. “Shoot her. See what Khai thinks of that.” They lashed each other with Khai’s name like a whip. Carol squirmed harder, almost falling out of Loftus’s grasp. He shifted one hand to her neck and squeezed. Her breath was gone instantly. She struggled only to breathe. She sagged in Loftus’s arms on the edge of unconsciousness.
Chui took a step back and his shoulder bumped the tunnel wall. He edged sideways along it. Loftus kept walking. Carol, on the verge of passing out, felt him shift her weight.
“I’ll shoot your leg,” Chui said. He lowered the gun barrel appropriately. Loftus didn’t flinch. He lifted Carol higher in his arms as if to give Chui more of a target.
Chui wavered, afraid to take a shot and miss. This was going badly suddenly. He had only to turn and walk away, but his fear of Loftus’s physical strength kept him from turning his back on the ghastly stalking figure.
“I’ll be back,” Chui said, and finally turned to run, but it was too late. In one last surge of power Loftus lifted Carol and hurl
ed her. Chui could have stepped out of the way but made the mistake of putting up his hands to catch her instead. Carol’s body struck him in the chest and slammed him back against the tunnel wall. They both fell to the ground, entangled in a breathless heap.
Loftus was there in an instant to separate them. He pushed Carol aside and put one hand around Chui’s throat. With the other he reached for the gun, still held in Chui’s hand but no threat any more. Chui’s hand twitched briefly in a tiny struggle to point the gun, but he was much, much too slow. Loftus shook the wrist and the gun fell out of Chui’s grip.
Loftus pulled the rotund Vietnamese to his feet. The flesh of Chui’s face squeezed up under his eyes, narrowing them to slits. Dimly he could see Loftus grinning. One lust had replaced another in Loftus’s skeletal face. It looked the very face of death.
Chui’s back was against the wall. He lifted one foot, planted it in Loftus’s midsection, and kicked with all the strength he had left. It wasn’t much, but it took Loftus by surprise. He fell back, losing his grip on the throat. Chui shook his head, struggling to breathe and to see. Loftus stood there for a moment, surveying his helpless condition, and laughed, as he had laughed while raping Carol. Killing a man barehanded gave him the same sense of power.
He stepped in and struck Chui in the stomach with his fist. Not hard, just enough to knock the air out of him again. Enough to keep his victim helpless while Loftus did the real damage with his fists and knees.
From the corner of his eye he saw Carol roll over, pull her pants up, and start limping away. It didn’t concern him. She was headed deeper into the tunnel, and there was no escape there. She would find the locked gate at the end. When she came back this way they could start over again.
