Chant

by George C. Chesbro

  He was sitting again, back braced against the tree trunk, rifles in firing position, when he heard the first volleys of automatic weapons fire in the distance—coming from the face of the escarpment. All along the two miles leading back to the cliff, there was answering rifle and machine-gun fire. Mortars.

  “God, no,” Chant murmured as he stood and turned toward the cliff. Mortar shells were hitting all over the trail, sending up clouds of smoke and pulverized rock.

  The Hmong were coming down, attracting fire, throwing themselves into a suicide mission in an attempt to rescue him—and they couldn’t even be sure he was still alive, that he hadn’t died in the helicopter explosion.

  He meant that much to them, Chant thought. And until this moment when dozens were being slaughtered, he had not realized how very, very much the Hmong and their struggle meant to him.

  He understood perfectly what had happened—knew who had betrayed them all, and why. He also understood that there was no sanctuary left for him, no place where he would be safe. They would hunt for him among the Hmong as the Pathet Lao never had, or could; villages would be destroyed to get at him, whole tracts of jungle defoliated and dug up to find him.

  If the Pathet Lao and the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese wanted him dead, the CIA undoubtedly wanted that even more.

  Now.

  This, Chant thought, was what the Japanese man had wanted, what he had foreseen from the beginning when he had insisted that Maheu contact him. The old master’s trap had been sprung, and only the love, incredible courage, and dedication of the Hmong were keeping the deadly jaws apart.

  And his own people would never know that they had been used, would never understand that all this carnage was nothing more than the punch line to a private, death-soaked joke perpetrated by a very wily and very dangerous Japanese.

  He would love to explain to them in his own way, Chant thought, and perhaps return the joke with his own brand of dark humor. But he couldn’t. He owed it to the Hmong to save as many of them as possible, or die with them.

  Screaming with rage, both guns chattering, Chant sprinted back the way he had come.

  EIGHT

  Even after more than a decade, Kim Chi recognized his voice—as she had recognized him during the night when he had killed the Hmong traitor and murderer. But she caught his wink and the slight shake of his head, and she maintained her sullen silence while he explained what was expected of her. She dutifully counted the money, remembering not to smile, and watched as the padlock was snapped onto the satchel, which was handcuffed to her wrist.

  Not until the next morning, when they were in the car and on their way to Seattle, did she speak to the man Baldauf called Colonel Fox.

  “Chant, is it really you?”

  Chant glanced at the Hmong woman and smiled. Kim Chi, with her slight build, had exquisite features marred only by a scar on her forehead left by a Pathet Lao knife. She usually wore her hair in a style that covered the scar, but this morning the raven-black tresses were tied back in a girlish ponytail, as if to emphasize that nothing about her would ever be hidden from him. Her dark eyes were very large and expressive, and could flash in an instant. Now they appeared molten, swimming with the soft glow of hope, astonishment—and disbelief.

  “I’m not a ghost, Kim Chi,” Chant said, reaching across the seat and squeezing the woman’s hand. “I assumed by now that you knew I was here.”

  “Yes. I saw you last night, knew that it had to be you who killed Lester Baldauf. But I wasn’t sure I could trust my own senses.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “Everything here, waking and sleeping, is bangangut, Chant.”

  “Yes. I know what’s been happening here, Kim Chi. I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner—years ago. I travel a great deal, and I spend a lot of time in Europe. I only learned about this situation in September, and it took a couple of months for me to gather the information I needed, and to plan.”

  Kim Chi shook her head, a movement that made her ponytail ripple and shimmer like a wave in an ebony sea. “We’re just grateful that you came at all. We all thought you were dead. That’s what the Americans said—and the Pathet Lao, too. What happened down there in the jungle, Chant? Why didn’t you come back after the fire-fight?”

  “It’s a long and complicated story, Kim Chi. If I had come back, more people would have died. I was used in a way I didn’t care to be used. I couldn’t allow what happened to happen again, so I decided it was time to leave.”

  “Leave? Just like that? Didn’t the Americans try to stop you?”

  “They tried.”

  Kim Chi studied Chant’s face, decided not to press. When she spoke again, her voice trembled slightly. “You were our hope, Chant. You taught us how to fight, how to defend ourselves against the Pathet Lao.”

  “The Hmong never needed me to teach them how to fight—only how to use American weapons.”

  “We already owe you so much.”

  “The Hmong owe me nothing. I owe you. It was my job to train and fight with you. If it weren’t for your people’s courage and loyalty, the Pathet Lao would have caught, tortured, and killed me a hundred times over. There was a big price on my head; not one Hmong ever thought to claim it. If the Hmong hadn’t come down from the cliff on that day and sacrificed themselves, I’d be dead.”

  “When you went away, when we thought you’d been killed in the firefight, something went out of us.”

  “If I’d stayed, more innocent people would have died. You’ll have to take my word for that, Kim Chi.”

  “I would take your word for anything.”

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what happened to Lee. He was a fine soldier—in Laos and, I know, here. It’s why Lester Baldauf killed him.”

  Tears welled in Kim Chi’s eyes. “Yes—but you killed Lester Baldauf.”

  “Baldauf suffered,” Chant replied tersely. “Perhaps not as much, or as long, as Lee and other victims of bangangut, but I made sure he suffered.”

  “Then Lee is avenged,” Kim Chi said simply.

  “And you’ve taken up where Lee left off—giving the Baldaufs fits.”

  “I do what I can. It’s difficult to organize opposition. There’s so much terror and depression.… “ She paused, smiling thinly. “At least there was until you hung Lester Baldauf from that tree.”

  “You’ve learned to speak English very well.”

  “The language of the enemy!” Kim Chi snapped, her dark eyes suddenly flashing with anger.

  “No. The Baldaufs are the enemy; not people who speak English.”

  “Americans allow these things to happen. The rest of the people in Mordan County must have some idea of what the Baldaufs have been doing to the Hmong.”

  “Perhaps. In my experience, I’ve found most people to simply be indifferent to other people’s problems—probably because they can barely cope with their own.”

  “You’re not indifferent.”

  “No. But don’t make me into something I’m not, Kim Chi.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I’m being paid for what I’m doing.”

  Kim Chi frowned, and her eyes clouded. “Paid to help us? Who’s paying you?”

  Chant looked at the Hmong woman and winked. “Wilbur Baldauf, of course. He made the mess, so it seems only fair that he pay to clean it up. Right?”

  Kim Chi shook her head. “I still don’t understand, Chant.”

  Chant pulled off the main highway onto a dirt road, drove a hundred yards, braked to a stop, and turned off the engine. He reached over the seat, picked up the satchel containing the money and placed it on the front seat between them. Kim Chi gasped when he took a long, thin piece of steel from his pocket and began to pick the lock.

  “Won’t that explode?!”

  “I certainly hope not. It’s not supposed to—not yet, anyway. Baldauf doesn’t know bombs from toothpicks, so he never realized that I didn’t fuse it. It will be fused when we drop the dynamite from the helic
opter Baldauf will get his show, and I’ll get his money.”

  Kim Chi threw back her head and laughed as Chant snapped open the lock, opened the satchel, and began removing the money.

  She watched him as he ripped out the false bottom, removed the two sticks of dynamite and triggering mechanism, and shoved them under the seat. Then he began replacing the bills, most of which were piled in her lap, in the satchel.

  “You’ll hang on to this for me for a while,” Chant continued casually.

  “Chant, it’s a million dollars!”

  “So? Put the bag under your bed, or in a closet, or someplace. I can’t get rid of this much cash in this part of the country without questions being asked, so it’s as safe with you—probably safer—as anyplace else.”

  Such a strange and wonderful man, Kim Chi thought as Chant continued to put the money in the satchel. Also a hidden man with many secrets—especially those of the heart. She remembered him so well, the young man with the iron-colored eyes and hair, the soldier with the incomparable strength and combat skills combined with an almost eerie inner calm.

  John Sinclair wasn’t young anymore, she thought; like her, he was past forty. But most of the years showed in his face, not his body, and even those changes she considered flattering to him. There was increased wisdom, and perhaps sorrow, in the eyes, and these qualities were evident even behind the tinted contact lenses he wore as part of his disguise. In that moment she knew, perhaps for the first time, that she’d loved her husband more than any other man—except John Sinclair. And she still loved John Sinclair.

  And that was the secret at the bottom of her heart. She wondered if anyone had ever seen the secrets at the bottom of Chant’s heart.

  “Like the bomb that’s supposed to blow me up, a lot of this business with Baldauf is being done with mirrors,” Chant continued as he closed the satchel and casually tossed it into the back. “The idea is to keep Baldauf off-balance, then constantly increase the pressure until he gives me everything I want. He must come to think of me as invulnerable, an inexorable force that can’t be stopped. If—”

  “Chant, that sounds like a perfectly accurate description of you.”

  “No,” Chant said softly. “I’m just a man, Kim Chi.”

  The woman laughed. “That’s like describing Mount Everest as a pile of ice and rock.”

  “The mirrors are for Baldauf and others like him, Kim Chi, not for you. Don’t buy illusions.”

  Kim Chi reached out and stroked Chant’s cheek. “I’m not,” she said simply. “You just don’t like to be complimented, the same as you don’t like to be thanked. It embarrasses you.”

  Chant took Kim Chi’s hand, kissed it gently. “So far, I’ve been able to get away with certain things because Baldauf is still shaken over the death of his son, and he’s particularly vulnerable because he has so many things to hide. Right now, he’s doing everything he can to check on me, but—because of his situation—my cover should hold. The key to everything I’m doing is Baldauf’s self-imposed isolation because of his fear of exposure and imprisonment. If he could call on outside experts—the right kinds of experts—with certain kinds of experience, I wouldn’t last a day.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s true. Wilbur Baldauf is a moderately sized fish in the very small pond of Mordan County. The world is full of people like Baldauf, and places like Mordan County. He’s nowhere near as clever or tough as he, and a lot of others here, think he is. Obviously, he has a talent for making a lot of money, and some people confuse that talent with other things. What he has is power over a lot of people, because he gives them their paychecks. Those people choose to turn a blind eye to what he is, and what he does.”

  Chant paused, squeezed Kim Chi’s hand, and continued: “Even so, Colonel Fox’s days are going to be numbered after John Sinclair survives this blast and starts hunting Baldauf again. Even if my cover holds, Baldauf is going to be mightily pissed at me. The good colonel is going to have to watch his flanks. Baldauf has great instincts for survival, and I won’t underestimate the lengths he’ll go to in order to save his fat ass and exact revenge for the death of his son.”

  Kim Chi cocked her head, studied Chant through narrowed lids. “You’ve done this kind of thing before, haven’t you?” she asked after a long pause.

  Chant laughed easily. “On occasion. In any case, after this bomb episode, I’m going to have to step up the pressure quickly, while Baldauf is still off-balance. I’m not sure how it’s going to go, and I’ll probably have to do a lot of improvising. In the meantime, there’s something I want you to do for me.”

  “Name it, Chant.”

  “Let’s walk for a few minutes.”

  They got out of the car, walked hand in hand down the dirt road, which was covered with a light dusting of snow.

  “Did Baldauf send in doctors?” Chant continued.

  “Yesterday. Everyone’s being checked, and anybody seriously ill is being taken to the county hospital. How on earth did you force him to do that?”

  “Remember the man’s greed, Kim Chi. Colonel Fox convinced him that it was in his best, long-range financial interests to do it.”

  “But how?”

  “More mirrors, Kim Chi The details aren’t important. I’m looking for a particular result.”

  “Which is?”

  “Since the Baldaufs, through overseas agents, lured Hmong refugees here with promises that Mordan County was a kind of model community for them, I think it only fair that those promises be kept—especially in light of what the Hmong actually found when they got here. Baldauf Industries is the economic heart of this county, and whoever controls that industrial complex controls the county Since the Baldauf family raped the Hmong, with the acquiescence of everyone else around here, it seems only just that the Hmong have their shot at running things.”

  “What?”

  “I want Baldauf Industries turned over to the Hmong, who will run it through a foundation with an elected board of directors.”

  Kim Chi’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she stared in astonishment at Chant. “You can do that?”

  “I can’t set up and administer the model community, but I sure as hell am going to see what I can do to make the Baldaufs turn over their holdings to you.”

  “But how, Chant?”

  Chant laughed. “Basically, by scaring the shit out of them.” He paused, turned serious. “People like the Baldaufs—pornographers, slavemasters, baby-sellers, rapists, killers—nonetheless tend to lack imagination. One of the reasons they’re able to live with themselves and attend church every Sunday while they do the things they do to other people is their inability to imagine others’ pain and terror; these things, along with death, become real to them only when they experience them personally. I’d have killed Wilbur Baldauf when I first got here if I didn’t need his life as a negotiating point. First, I must force him to truly imagine his own death. Then he must become convinced that the only way—and it is the only way—he can stay alive is to manage the turnover of Baldauf Industries to the Hmong. If I can do those things, what these people have now will belong to the Hmong.”

  “Oh, Chant—”

  “The Hmong must begin making preparations now to set up a cooperatively owned foundation. When I think the time is right, I’ll make arrangements to bring in certain specialists to help you—lawyers, accountants, corporate planners. You’ll be their principal contact.”

  “Chant, I don’t know what to say.”

  Chant smiled, caressed the woman’s cheek. “It hasn’t happened yet. Have there been any more instances of bangangut since Lester Baldauf’s death?”

  Kim Chi shook her head “Those were dreams of death; they vanished when you came as our dream of life.”

  “I’m just a man, Kim Chi,” Chant repeated forcefully.

  A lonely man, Kim Chi thought without really knowing why She said nothing.

  “I have special skills which I use as I see fit, but I’m st
ill just a man. It’s a mistake for the Hmong to think otherwise.” He paused, and a smile softened his features. “Besides, I’ve explained to you that it’s mostly done with mirrors Manipulating and killing men who deserve it is relatively easy compared to building and maintaining a just community, which is what the Hmong must do if I succeed. You should think of me as a pest controller. All right?”

  Kim Chi laughed, shook her head. “You’re ridiculous, but I won’t argue with you.”

  “Now, speaking of pests; the four Hmong who work for Baldauf—”

  Kim Chi bit off her laugher, looked away “Please, Chant. I don’t want to speak of those torturers and murderers.”

  “Then you’ve already spoken. What about the sheriff’s deputies? Any good guys in that bunch?”

  “One.”

  “Who?”

  “His name is Mark Curry I believe he’s a good man.”

  “Why? What has Curry done to help you?”

  “There was nothing he could do, Chant—not without losing his job, or being beaten. The point is that he didn’t do the things to us that the others did.”

  “What things did the others do?”

  The question obviously upset Kim Chi, and it was some time before she answered. “The same things Lester Baldauf did,” she said at last, a tremor in her voice. “Except that they didn’t sell women and children. They used our compound … like a brothel. Any time one of them wanted sex, day or night, he would come into the compound with his billy club and gun and choose someone. If a husband or father tried to fight back, he’d be beaten unconscious; sometimes he’d be killed later by one of the Hmong who’d sold out to Baldauf.” Kim Chi covered her face with her hands and choked back a sob. “You can’t imagine how horrible it was.”

  “Did any of them harm you?” Chant asked in a taut, low voice.

  “No. I’m too ugly.”

  “Now it’s you who’s being ridiculous.”

  “With all of the younger women and girls to choose from, perhaps they didn’t want a woman with a scarred face. Also, they were afraid of Lee. That’s why Lester Baldauf killed Lee.”