by Tom Wilson
She'd demanded that the woman be brought to Hanoi for interrogation, but the Pathet Lao were hedging. They wanted her for themselves. It wasn't surprising. Li Binh had realized from the first that the American woman was a prize and would not be easily given up.
She bounced a pencil on the desktop, thinking of alternatives, and then of her nephew. Her mind wandered to her hideous husband. The situation at the villa was tolerable, for they'd come to a comfortable impasse. Both knew there would never again be a true husband-and-wife relationship, yet there were quiet times during which they would talk—boast of achievements and speak of government figures without worrying about consequences. Such times were valuable.
There was another need in Li Binh, growing as it periodically did, which hadn't been satisfied the last time she'd allowed her nephew access to her body. But once Nguyen Wu had pleased her greatly, and she increasingly found herself thinking of those secret encounters.
It would be troublesome to take another lover. And if the man boasted, as males were often wont to do, it would be difficult. She was certain that wouldn't happen with her nephew. He was appropriately terrified by what she'd done the previous time he'd shown lack of discretion. Li Binh had also grown realistic in another line of reasoning. Regardless of his fondness for rugged males for sex, he'd been responsive to her needs—certainly more so than the halfhearted and fumbling Xuan Nha had been, even at his best.
After she decided the best way to give Nguyen Wu access to the Mee spy, he must be carefully instructed on what was needed, to make sure he knew of the consequence of failure. She made up her mind abruptly. She'd meet with Nguyen Wu—privately of course—and brief him. The most secretive place she could think of was still the villa. Only the servants were there in the daytime, and they understood that a loose tongue meant quick and merciless death.
And at the villa they could . . . Li Binh hastily penned a note, sealed it, and called in a clerk. She gave him succinct delivery instructions, and when he left, she felt a giddiness and sudden lilting of spirit.
Even as she felt the rush of excitement, her organized mind asked about a solution to the problem of the female spy. If she could not have the woman brought to Hanoi for interrogation, she would convince the Pathet Lao leaders to allow interrogation on their soil. All that remained would be to agree upon a proper location. And, of course, Nguyen Wu must prepare to travel.
Li Binh wrote a note of instruction to a field agent in Laos, examined it, and added a few words before sending it out. She then hurried from her office with uncharacteristic urgency.
1900L
Colonel Xuan Nha
Xuan had only to point with his finger for the young maid to do his bidding. He indicated the opened door, and she rushed to close it.
"Here," he muttered as he sat heavily on the side of the bed, and the girl hurried to help him disrobe. She started with his low boots, pulling them from his feet with effort and placing them carefully nearby.
"What happened today?"
She answered immediately, for she'd learned the painful alternative. "They met, Colonel master. Nguyen Wu came to the villa and went to the mistress's room."
Xuan suppressed emotion. He'd done that when he'd heard about his wife's philandering during his long hospitalization. He'd used his wiles to put an end to the meetings with her nephew, and until his discussion with Quon, he had believed the secretive meetings had stopped.
He pushed himself up, and the girl deftly pulled off his trousers.
"Did you listen to them?"
"As you told me, Colonel master. I could not hear all the words, but there were some."
"Did they . . . fornicate?"
"Yes, Colonel master. Twice. The mistress was very loud. You could hear her everywhere in the house." She nodded seriously in the silence as she folded his trousers neatly and placed them on the upright clothing stand with his shirt.
"Her words?" he finally rasped when the girl returned to his side.
"She was crying out in her joy. It was not like the last time. There were no—"
He grasped the girl's face with his powerful hand. "When they were not fornicating," he demanded. "What did they say?"
The girl sputtered in fear, then swallowed mightily as he relaxed his hold just a little. Her face was distorted when she spoke, her eyes wide and the words hardly audible. "They talked about a Mee woman spy who is somewhere in Laos, Colonel master." She was trembling with terror, as Xuan preferred when he was questioning.
"What else was said?"
When the young girl was slow responding, he shook her, squeezing her face so tightly that his fingernails drew blood where they dug into flesh. She made small sounds, but did not cry out, for Xuan had taught her to endure stoically. He relaxed his grip.
Garbled words gushed forth. "That was all, Colonel master. When Nguyen Wu departed, he left quickly, but he was smiling as if he was very happy."
"And then?"
"The mistress also left. She seemed pleased too, Colonel master."
Quon had been right, Xuan thought. He'd indeed been shamed. It was not over. As his rage grew, he felt in need of some sort of release. Sexual, perhaps?
"Remove your clothing," he croaked, and the girl hastened, dropping them about her feet, all the while trembling in his grasp. He observed her small body with half interest. The girl was unique in that he'd seldom, other than with Li Binh, of course, fucked a woman more than once. He was growing stronger, he decided, staring at the face held tautly in his clawed hand. There was great strength in that hand. Since the other had been amputated, he'd exercised it relentlessly.
Perhaps it was not only sex he wanted. The maid knew far too much. With simple questioning, Li Binh could discover what he'd learned. He pondered killing her, wondering idly if he simply squeezed hard enough, he could do that. Pop her skull, as he might a roach's.
Likely not, but then . . . He sat on the bed, looking with renewed interest at the naked girl's terrified expression as he began to squeeze. For the next ten minutes awful, shrill sounds echoed loudly inside the room, even though the girl's mouth was partially muffled by his palm.
He stared at her face as he continued the pressure—transforming what he saw—imagining Nguyen Wu there, and grasping harder yet, using every ounce of fervor and power—grunting aloud as tendons in his arm bulged with the effort.
When he finally relaxed his grip, he was puffing hard, chest heaving from the exertion.
The screams continued. He'd not been able to crush her small skull in the grasp, but she'd surely have a headache for a long while.
"Quiet!" he rasped.
Her sounds reduced to painful whimpers.
"Never speak of what you tell me," he ordered. "Not to anyone."
"Never, Colonel master!" she cried from bloodied lips beneath his fingers.
He grunted brusquely, then released his hold and examined the girl. Bloody flaps of flesh hung loosely at the sides of her face, and an ear was half-torn away. Her nose had been broken and mashed almost flat, and her right eye was weeping yellow viscous fluid where a finger had gouged it. She'd be sightless in the eye, he decided, like himself.
He became aware that he had an erection.
"Now!" he barked, and had to slap her and repeat himself to gain her proper attention before she scrambled onto him, lifted and fumbled to insert him, all the while moaning from the excruciating pain. Perhaps he'd not kill her right away, he decided as the girl began to rise and fall energetically. She was too unsightly to continue in the house, where others might see her, so he'd have her work in the garage area.
Perhaps the lieutenant might wish to use her. Xuan Nha prided himself on being good to his men.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Friday, December 29th, 0050 Local—Northeast of Nakhon Phanom Air Base
Sergeant Black
"It is quiet," said the lieutenant, staring out and across the river. The night was moonless and dark.
There were three of them. B
lack, the lieutenant, and the senior sergeant. Together they pushed the long, narrow boat into the water, and Black held on to it as the other two climbed in. When they were in position, the lieutenant clucked his tongue twice, and Black shoved them off, then watched as the dark shape was swallowed by the night.
Sergeant Black watched for thirty long minutes, until he saw the blink-blink-blink of a dimmed flashlight from the other side.
They'd made it across and secreted the boat with no hitches.
He watched for another moment before making his way back toward the roadway and the jeep he'd left there.
Black was relieved when Lieutenant Colonel Lucky Anderson returned to his base. He genuinely liked the pilot, but he'd only been in the way. Black had continued to check with intell about the high-priority Clipper affair, and as if it had been Anderson's presence holding things up, they'd gotten their first news of Clipper's fate two days after he'd left. That was the same day that all hell broke loose in southern Laos. The Pathet Lao, backed by NVA regulars, had selected the day after Christmas to attack there as they'd done in the north.
Although the assaults had been anticipated, the Special Forces headquarters camp at NKP had become frantic with activity. A-detachments were alerted and recon teams diverted or deployed. Every available human resource was either put to immediate use or placed on standby status. Except Hotdog, of course, for Black had made his devil's agreement with the lieutenant colonel that he'd not be placed in jeopardy.
When two different indigent sources reported that Clipper was alive across the river, seen in first one, then in another, Pathet Lao camp, the news was lost in the noise of the battles and guerrilla movements in Laos. Only Black had seemed interested that she'd been reported in two different camps, meaning she'd been moved at least once. It likely also meant she was expected to survive. The P-L traveled light. If she was badly wounded, they'd have killed her and tossed her body into the Mekong. The report on the AA-priority Clipper matter was also important to the lieutenant colonel commanding the headquarters C-Team, but with everything else happening, it was no time to request a cross-river expedition. There were simply too many P-L and NVA units running wild in the southern Laotian panhandle. Clipper would have to wait. Intell was told to continue monitoring and to pinpoint her location.
Black had gone to the old man and argued that it was the perfect time for Hotdog to try to rescue her. With all the NVA over there, they'd blend in. It was the sort of thing they were best at.
He'd been reminded, one, of his agreement not to place himself in a hazardous situation, and two, that the lieutenant colonel code-named Papa Wolf and his staff had more important things to worry about just now.
After three days Black had run out of patience. If they waited longer, Clipper might be moved. Once transported to northern Laos or Hanoi, she'd be irretrievable. Since he'd made his agreement not to go on recons, he sent the lieutenant and the senior sergeant. Their mission was to find the woman and, if it was a simple matter, to bring her back.
They were to return within seven days. Period.
He reached the road, made a single birdcall, and heard it echoed. A dim flashlight was switched on, illuminating the side of the jeep. Black emerged from the bush and walked to the vehicle. The other two Hotdogs quietly crawled inside with him.
"They gave the signal," he said in Viet. The others were quiet as he started the engine and drove toward the base.
Black wondered if he should notify Colonel Anderson, to tell him Clipper was alive. He decided against it. It would be better when he had more definite news. Perhaps, if the lieutenant was successful, Clipper could call him herself.
0655L—Route Pack Six, North Vietnam
Captain Manny DeVera
The foul mood that festered in Manny because of what had happened to Penny didn't evaporate when he flew combat, and he had difficulty concentrating on the mission. Her transformation in his mind was completed—by being the target of Lyons's contempt for him, every flaw had disappeared. Where she'd been acceptably attractive, she became beautiful. He'd forgotten that her conversations were sometimes silly, that her depth was sometimes questionable. She was the maiden ravaged by the beast, and the beast had done it to attack Manny. DeVera hated Lyons so intensely that his stomach boiled with it.
Today they flew to the auxiliary MiG bases. Most of their recent missions had been to the lower packs, trying to find and destroy convoys on their way south, so they weren't as keen as they should have been. That fact was made apparent by all the radio chatter, as leads barked for their flights to get into and stay in proper position, called out SAMs and AAA that weren't a threat, and twice misidentified their Phantom MiG-CAP flight as MiG-21's.
It was Manny's third time as mission commander, but his first to lead a strike formation to pack six. That should have made him more alert, perhaps more conservative, but he had trouble erasing the image of Colonel Tom Lyons from his mind.
He was leading the sixteen-ship effort to bomb Kep airfield, northeast of Hanoi, out in the wide, featureless expanse the pilots called "the flats." The pilots disliked flying there. If you were shot down, there was no chance of being rescued. And when you bombed, you had to recover into the ECM pod formation quickly, for without terrain features there was nowhere to hide.
As mission commander Manny was first to soar up to the perch, then to roll in and dive-bomb the target.
The flak looked to be only moderate, which came as a pleasant surprise.
He was halfway through the dive maneuver, about to release his six bombs, when someone called MiGs "west of the target."
Manny kept his eyes glued on the runway, got the proper sight picture, and pickled off the bombs. He recovered smoothly, pulling four g's, and began to jink out to the north as they'd briefed the rejoin, before he began looking around for the MiGs.
Nothing but blue sky and a few puff clouds. No flak. He S-turned so the force could catch up easier.
An excited radio call erupted. "Bear Force Leader, you got a MiG at your eight—"
Bright flashes zipped past his canopy.
Manny yelled something unintelligible as he kicked the rudder pedal and wrenched the stick to turn into the MiG. He swiveled his head right and saw . . . nothing. He whipped it the other way and saw the nose of a MiG-17 emitting brilliant staccato flashes.
He'd screwed up by believing the radio call, had turned away rather than into him. The hail of big, 30mm rounds were reaching out from Manny's left five o'clock. He felt the big bird shudder.
He'd already pushed the nose over and selected afterburner, and was jinking wildly, trying to screw up the MiG driver's aim point—not giving him an easy tracking solution. Manny was yelling at himself, wondering what the hell was wrong with the afterburner, when the thing finally lit and his bird was hurled forward.
There was nothing in the sky that could keep up with a Thud in a dive with burner lit, and a couple of seconds later there were no more bright streaks passing his canopy. But those were very long seconds, and he'd taken another hit. Manny continued to fly fast, but nudged the aircraft into a gentle westward arc. When he was certain there was no longer a threat, he pulled the throttle out of the A/B detent and continued the turn as he decelerated. His wingman, who'd tried to come to his aid, joined up.
There was no firelight—no telelites showing inoperative systems. Number two looked him over for battle damage and found a few large holes in his vertical stabilizer. Nothing major. Manny assumed his bird was okay.
They rejoined the force, his force, west of Thud Ridge. There were two SAM launches but no close calls on the way outbound.
All the way out, even when they were joining on the tanker, he thought of nothing but what the force should do next, and how they would do it. Keep calm—stay on the offensive—think of the next move. Just as Lucky Anderson had taught him to do.
Only when they'd passed over the Laotian border, headed west toward the orbiting tankers, did he allow himself to return to other
thoughts, and the first ones were not charitable toward himself.
Fool! he berated himself for allowing the MiG to sneak up as it had. He thought of other things he'd done wrong. He'd let himself become preoccupied with things not involving the mission and had not paid proper attention. Manny DeVera swore that he'd never again allow himself to think of anything other than the mission at hand when he was flying combat.
He also pledged to handle the matter with Tom Lyons as expeditiously as possible, so he'd no longer be plagued by thoughts of what the no-good bastard had done . . . through Penny Dwight . . . to him.
Sunday, December 31st, 2320 Local—Desert Inn, Las Vegas, Nevada
Major Benny Lewis
They were alone, having a nice evening to themselves. The first time they'd done that.
Ever since he'd told Julie he was leaving on New Year's Day for the trip to Southeast Asia, she'd called daily. Just to ask how he was and talk, she said. The evening had been her idea. She'd made dinner reservations at the small French restaurant a block off Main, told him how she'd dress—hinting that she'd love to see him in coat and tie—asked his preferences, and preselected the menu.
The meal had been superb. She'd done the impossible; after they finished with the liqueurs, she led the way to the Desert Inn, to the top-floor lounge, where a table was reserved and waiting.
The President would have had difficulty getting a reservation there. When he asked how she'd done it, she just lifted an eyebrow and smiled. He'd tried to order drinks, but the waitress ignored him and brought them a single glass of white wine.
"Forty minutes until Mr. 1968 comes marching in," Julie announced.
She wore a strapless black party dress made of material that shimmered with every move, accentuating her spectacular figure. Her long dark hair fell in natural waves. And, Benny was thinking, she had the brownest eyes and the warmest, most winsome smile he could remember seeing. Hopeless, he told himself, thinking of the way he'd been attracted since the first time he'd laid eyes on her. It was not something definable, but even then, when he'd not known he was in love, he'd felt a warmth and easiness around her that he'd felt with no one else.
