Assignment - Cong Hai Kill

by Edward S. Aarons

  Papa Danat wiped his face with a trembling hand. “I could use a cognac."

  Durell relaxed a little. “Sit down. I need you here. You know this river better than I.”

  “I am not a pilot, m’sieu. And this is madness.”

  “Would you rather stay and be massacred?”

  Papa Danat subsided, then said: “I cannot understand you. A man who loves a woman as you do—-oh, I have eyes, I have a comprehension of love, and I have seen how you looked at Mademoiselle Deirdre—”

  “What of it?” Durell asked harshly.

  “How can you leave her behind with the Congs? They do have her, you know. Their anger at our escape will be enormous. They will turn it against her—"

  “I’m not leaving her,” Durell said.

  “But how is that‘? We go downriver.”

  “Just listen, Papa, because what I must do means that you will have charge of this old tub. And you mustn’t Wreck her. You must do everything I say, and do it right, and without the help of cognac. Without any pipes from Giralda.”

  “You are formidable,” Papa murmured.

  “Can I depend on you?”

  “No. But I will promise to try.”

  “Then listen.” He told Danat exactly what must be done. Time was growing short. Every surge of the groaning paddle wheels took them closer to the critical point. In the dark pilothouse, Danat’s round face sobered, and several times he started to object, but Durell shut him up and made him repeat his instructions.

  “But are you sure of this?" Papa Danat asked.

  “Lao talked. We can’t trust him, but his fear of Tuc was genuine. Tuc convinced Lao that it would be best to speak loud and clear. Now, can you do it, Papa?”

  “I am a weak and foolish old man who has ruined his life through vice and indulgence. It may be too late for me. But as I said, I will try."

  It still did not go exactly as Durell had planned.

  They had come to the end of the wide area in the river by the time he finished talking to Danat. In another mile, they would be at the confluence of the two rivers and headed downstream toward the coast. But before they reached that point, there was the gorge he had seen from the hillside of Papa Danat’s plantation.

  He could see the sheer cliffs now, outlined in the moonlight. The current quickened in its narrowing channel, and the steamer steered more erratically. It was touch and go as to whether the straining paddles would hold together. He kept his eyes on the gorge ahead.

  Now he could see the Khmer temple ruins on the cliff-top, a dark, pinnacled mass touched by the moon. That was the place, according to Lao’s confession.

  But then everything began to go wrong.

  He had not underestimated the fanatical Chinese. But even so, Lao proved unexpectedly resourceful.

  His first hint was a sudden scream from below, in the passenger quarters where Lao was a prisoner. The sound was sharp and brief, pregnant with danger, and it was followed by a thud of running feet, a crash that sounded above the thump of the Lady’s engines. Danat lurched up. “What is it?”

  “Take the wheel,” Durell snapped. “Remember what I told you.”

  He jumped for the ladder. There were no lights aboard, and the decks were in total darkness. He heard the sound of someone breathing in the corridor, and plunged ahead. At the stern exit, he glimpsed a flicker of movement against the dim moonlight that shone in their wake.

  “Lao!”

  He knew with dismay that somehow the Chinese had tricked his guard and broken free. He drove ahead, careless of the fact that Lao might now be armed.

  “Lao!” he called again.

  The passengers who crowded the afterdeck returned a sudden babble of confused shouts. Durell came face to face with a milling Wall of frightened refugees.

  “Where is he?”

  Too many voices answered him, none of them intelligible. Then he saw Lao poised momentarily on the rail, tall and thin against the moonlit river. Durell raised his gun, but there were too many people in the way. He tried to shoulder his way through them, but it was impossible.

  Lao turned his head for a moment. He was grinning. Then, with a clean, smooth movement, he dived overboard.

  They were in the mouth of the gorge now, and the current was swifter, filled with jungle debris brought down from the high valley astern. Durell forced his way to the rail, shrugging out of his shirt as he went. All sorts of dark objects bobbed in the muddy flow of water. He could not identify Lao’s head in the turbulence astern of the paddle wheels.

  He pulled himself up on the rail, paused to look into the churning, foaming river, and dived in after him.

  26

  DEIRDRE sat with her back to the cool stone of her prison cell and studied the carvings on the opposite wall. A single candle guttered on the floor, made of huge paving blocks. In the uncertain light, the carved figures of gods, goddesses, and demons disported with an abandon that would have shocked Westerners. The eternal, fixed smiles on their everted lips came and went in the candlelight.

  They had taken no pains to hide from her where she was. She could even hear the dim murmur of the river in the gorge far below. But they had not fed her or given her water. For the moment, she was grateful that they ignored her.

  She went back to work on the rope that bound her wrists behind her. She had found a rough edge of stone in the wall, where a carved foot of one of the Khmer figures had broken off, and she used this to laboriously fray the bonds. Her wrists bled where she had scraped them against the stone. She knew it was nightfall, but beyond that, she had no idea how much time had passed since Lao had tricked and seized her.

  She remembered nothing past that, or how she had been brought here, but she was beyond remorse or chagrin now. If she could escape, it might be turned to some advantage.

  Her head throbbed from the blow she had suffered, but she kept her eyes focused on one stone goddess Whose serene face smiled down at the tumescent stone men who attended her. The goddess’ smile seemed to encourage her as she worked at her bonds. Through an arched and columned doorway she could see down a mined arcade into another room where the Congs were gathered. Some of them were just boys, in ragged black pajamas and sneakers. The youngsters seemed sullen and frightened. The few older men, who seemed to be of different tribal origins, were in command. These would be the hard-core Communists down from North Vietnam, to organize the impressionable village boys. All were armed with Chinese and Russian automatic weapons, together with festoons of grenades around their shoulders.

  The place was an armed fort, with deep storage cellars for rice, ammunition, and a small—arms assembly plant. From the dark corner where she sat, she could see a trestle table, where charts were piled up, and various guerrillas came to report regularly to the commander who sat there.

  It was Paio Chu.

  Paio Chu! she thought bitterly.

  This was the man they had really come for. A man who could callously order the killing of his twin brother. A man who bore on his conscience the betrayal of his village, his life-long employer, the murders and obscene tortures of innocent hundreds and thousands.

  Paio Chu! She only hoped her knowledge hadn’t come too late.

  She worried about Durell, knowing how he must be anxious about her. From scraps of conversation that drifted within earshot, spoken in Thai dialect, she gathered there was something about a steamer due downriver at any moment. She could guess that Durell was aboard. But she had glimpsed the mortars on the temple court facing the river, and she knew that the steamer, if it came, would never have a chance.

  As she worked on the ropes, she kept an eye on the charts on the distant table beyond the dark arcade. Bangkok and Washington would give a lot to have them. With those charts and Lantern’s information, the threat of the Cong Hai could be nullified indefinitely, giving the Thai government time to counter the terrorist movement.

  She had to escape.

  And she had to get those charts.

  One of the strand
s on her wrists suddenly snapped apart under the abrasion of the rough stone. She sat very still, but her heart thundered so loudly she wondered they could not hear her in the command post. The goddess on the wall still smiled at her. She returned to work, careless of the slippery blood that ran from her wrists. Nothing mattered except that she get free.

  She already knew the way out. There was a side doorway; low and dark, to her prison cell, opening into a gallery behind the ancient temple. Perhaps it could lead her into the jungle atop the cliff and she could signal the steamer.

  Another strand parted. She was almost free.

  Then there was a commotion in the command room, a shouted order, and the scrape of a chair being pushed back.

  Paio Chu appeared in the arcade and walked toward her darkened cell.

  He came alone.

  The fat, bland Chinese now wore a gray uniform that transformed him from his former role as a kindly, efficient plantation manager. His step was firm and brisk, and he no longer smiled. His eyes were dark as he paused in front of her, and his voice raised harsh echoes.

  “You are hungry now?”

  “No,” Deirdre said.

  “Or thirsty, my dear?”

  “No.”

  “And not surprised to discover it is I, Paio Chu, who is your enemy.”

  “No, I’m not surprised, I—”

  He kicked her. The shock of his contemptuous assault was worse than the explosion of pain. She fell to one side, and for a moment her vision of her smiling goddess on the wall faded. Her ears rang with unnatural sound. Then she straightened slowly and looked up at the guerrilla leader. Paio’s belly was still big and soft from his long years of service with Papa Danat; but his round face was hard now, and it seemed to swell and expand with his anger.

  “You are a foolish woman, a tool of the imperialists, soft and complacent and accustomed to luxury. You are led by equally complacent and pleasure-loving men who feed soothing pap to your oppressed people. Your nation looks strong, but it is weak. Weak! You have forgotten the simplicities of life. You depend on machines that your leaders brag about, but which can fail you and make you helpless when something goes wrong.”

  “Spare me your propaganda lecture,” Deirdre murmured. “If we make mistakes, they’re not for the perpetuation of a ruling clique of petty tyrants and traitors like yourself.”

  She thought Paio would kick her again. But he controlled himself and stepped back. The guttering candle on the floor threw his enormous shadow on the carved wall. His eyes were savage and fanatic. She did not understand his immediate anger, and she doubted if she would survive to learn the answer to it. Strangely, she was not afraid of dying now. It was important to stay alive, however, to get those charts and papers to Durell. If she paid with her life for them, it would not be too high a price. She did not feel heroic. But like Durell, she had accepted her job and knew she had to do it. If she failed, someone else would be sent in after her.

  But she must not fail.

  Paio Chu looked at her again. “Is Lao dead?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He must be dead, or he would be here by now. How much does your Durell know or suspect about me?”

  “Everything,” Deirdre said promptly.

  “You lie. But when you tell the truth, I shall know it. And you will tell the truth. You are new at all this, aren’t you? We have little information about you. But your chances of survival are very slim, you see.”

  Deirdre was silent. Her right hand was now free, hidden behind her back. She hitched herself up, as if to get more comfortable, and picked at the loose rope around her left wrist behind her.

  Paio Chu spread his feet on the paving. “No man is infallible, but no leader can afford to make mistakes. One must preserve an illusion, create a legend akin to a new religion, as the sainted Mao Tse-tung in Peiping has done, in order to survive. The leader draws strength from the faith of his followers as one draws life from the air one breathes. But it seems I made an error. One must be strong to admit it. I am strong. But the error must be corrected.”

  “Bully for you,” Deirdre murmured.

  “You will now tell me everything about the double agent, Orris Lantern.”

  “A double agent?”

  “We now believe that Yellow Torch was always employed by what your government euphemistically calls a ‘Defense Department facility.’ He was cleverly trained. He could sit under a tamarind tree with a puppet show and tell many tall tales about Djanoko, the Indonesian god, and he convinced many wise men while he was in the Tsao Lan-tse prison that he was a true sympathizer of the East. But now we believe he was attached to your CIA training camp at Atsugi, Japan, where the murderous Chinese Nationalists are trained for missions over our mainland. He once flew MATS cargo planes from Seoul to Yokohama as a cover for such missions. All this, and more, has been learned since he vanished. He will not live, my dear lady. We cannot allow him to return to your headquarters with what he knows of us. And so you shall tell us everything you know about him.”

  “But I don’t know anything,” Deirdre said. All the time Paio Chu had been talking, she’d worked on the ropes about her wrist. She was now free. But she did not move as yet.

  “Do you want your Durell to die?” Paio asked softly.

  “He’ll defeat you,” Deirdre promised.

  “In ten more minutes, his foolish little boat will be in range of our mortars. Not only Durell, but all the refugees with him will be destroyed. Their deaths will be on your conscience, dear lady. So tell me about Yellow Torch,” Paio Chu urged. “He can be recaptured without shelling the boat. Otherwise, many people will die because you are so stupid and stubborn.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Deirdre said again.

  Paio’s round face became swollen with another fit of rage. His breath hissed and he stepped forward to kick her again. This time she was ready for it. She had been trained in physical combat at the Farm, and knew that each move had to be made with precision. It did not necessarily involve strength. . . .

  Her free hand shot out and caught the uplifted boot and yanked and twisted, and at the same time, she kicked upward with her foot. Paio was caught off balance and smashed against the carvings on the wall. His mouth opened like a black hole in his round face. But before he could scream, she was up and upon him, like a female leopard on her prey. Her left hand chopped at his throat, her right was clapped over his mouth to strangle his yell. She kneed him again, and his eyes popped like grapes in his face. He sagged, and she caught at the holstered pistol in his uniform belt and slammed the muzzle into his fat belly.

  “Now be still, you proletariat mandarin,” she whispered. “You’ve made a big mistake now. Be very quiet. lf I die, you die with me.”

  “You are a she-devil—!”

  “Not quite. I might show you mercy, Paio.”

  “My men are close by. They will kill you —”

  “But you get my first bullet.”

  “You would not do it.” Paio was incredulous. “American women are known to be soft and devoted to comfort—”

  “The mistake you made,” Deirdre whispered, “is to believe your own propaganda. Now stand up straight.”

  “I cannot. You hurt me. . . .”

  “Straight, I said.”

  She looked beyond him to the distant table beyond columned arcade. The room was temporarily empty, but there were sounds of bare feet slapping stone floors beyond, where the temple ruins gaped over the high bluffs overlooking the river. Deirdre tried to control her rapid breathing. In a way, she was as surprised as Paio by her success, and uttered a silent prayer of gratitude to the tough instructors who had trained her at the Farm.

  Paio Chu squared his shoulders with a grimace of pain. His eyes were malevolent. His mouth opened, then closed as Deirdre jabbed the gun into his sagging belly. There was a smell of evil about this man, she thought, so strong that it almost could be tasted. It was a darkness in his corrupt body.

  “I want those
papers on your desk,” she said.

  Paio said quickly: “But they are worthless!”

  “We’ll judge that later. You understand how close you are to death? By the way, are you a general in this rag-tag army, or what?”

  “A colonel.”

  “All right, Colonel Paio. We’ll go to your desk. I’ll walk with you as if you’ve released me. My gun is at your back. Do you understand?”

  “My men will kill you,” Paio hissed. “They will do unspeakable things to you.”

  “You said we have less than ten minutes. Let’s go. And speak English, only. Not a word of Chinese to your men.”

  Paio began to tremble. Deirdre stood tall and very straight, and her smile was much like that of the little carved goddess on the wall—an expression of serenity and pride in herself as a woman. Paio thought he had never seen anyone look so deadly. He thought she was mad. But it was a madness that had a cunning quality he could not cope with.

  “Very well. But I am not responsible if my men sense your treachery.”

  He walked with Deirdre a step behind him. She did not feel as brave as she looked. The Chinese gun was unfamiliar, hot and hard in her hand. For an instant she wished she could step back and let someone else take her place. But there was no one else. She could save Durell, or not. She did not know. She could not even think of what might happen down on the river in the next few minutes.

  The crumbli.ng arcade opened into a room wider than she had expected. It was lighted by oil lamps, and stretched away into gloom to right and left. The floor was clear except for a stack of ammunition boxes, where four men sorted mortar shells and grenades and passed out equipment to a ragged file of guerrillas who trotted out of the shadows to receive their allotment of arms. Even now, Deirdre almost gasped at the beauty of this long-forgotten temple. The high walls were carved and painted in fading colors, with fantastic figures, half human and half animal. The Walls seemed luminous and alive even after a thousand years in this forgotten corner of the jungle. Empires had come and gone, and their long, exotic histories were now forgotten, and nothing was left of them but the glory of their art. There was a pedestal at the far end, and a huge stone figure loomed there, cross-legged in the lotus position, with a towering, intricately fashioned cap over the oddly menacing face. There were many arms, like snakes, emanating from the shoulders, and the image seemed half man, half woman, with provocative breasts and the musculature of a demi-god. Once the eye sockets had been jeweled and the cap crowned with a diadem of precious gems. But robbers long ago had despoiled this place and forgotten it.