Saigon Page 14

Nick choked back nausea and padded over to where Saito still stood in his half-crouch. The severed head was ghastly in the starlight. Saito's startled face was only several degrees handsomer and Nick felt that his own was probably pea-green and twisted with revulsion. He forced himself to pick up the machine gun and give it to Saito.

  "Sorry," he muttered. "It was all I could do. Take this. Don't use it unless you absolutely have to. I'm going back to the house. Talk to your men and join me in back of the house as soon as you can. Have one of them come with you — and only one, for now. Be sure that you can trust him! And hurry."

  The two men parted, each on an errand of his own. The girl was still in the kitchen, but no longer seated at the table. She was on her feet near the window, and she was fighting like a cornered animal. The Vietnamese officer — a Lieutenant, Nick noticed — had thrust his thick body against hers and his mouth against her lips. His body squirmed and thrust while the spatulate fingers clawed and ripped; her head went back as his mouth bore down roughly, mauling and chewing at her swollen lips.

  She fought almost silently, jabbing her long fingernails into the heavy-lidded eyes and kicking out desperately with now a knee and then a tiny foot, and only when her lips were momentarily free of his crushing pressure did she snarl just once and then bite viciously.

  The officer snarled back and laughed. His fingers did something to the front of his tunic and then he swiveled himself against her with renewed zest. Nick saw the man's left hand tear at the bottom of her clinging dress, and then he saw no more because he was flitting silently from the window to the heavy back door whose mechanism Saito had already described to him. A moment's silent picking with the simple device from his first-aid kit was almost enough to do the trick. Nick manipulated quietly, hearing a thud from the kitchen and a muffled cry. Something moved inside the lock. Hugo, the knife with the icepick blade, jabbed once in silence to complete the job. The door opened inward with a low creak of complaint.

  Nick glided down a short hall with its three doors all ajar. To the night a pantry. To the left, the kitchen. Straight ahead, another passage lined with doors — storage closet, wine cellar, cloakroom, and so on — and leading to the main living rooms of the house. He took one quick look down the main passage, heard nothing and saw nothing, then backtracked to the kitchen door.

  The lieutenant was much too busy to hear him entering. His short, thick body lay sprawled upon the slight figure of the girl and while she moaned and struggled he exercised himself — up, down, up, down — with the ponderous regularity of a piledriver.

  It was a delicate time to intrude, but intrusion was necessary and the timing had to be perfect or things could be made even more unpleasant for the girl.

  Nick's feet were soundless on the kitchen floor. In a few swift strides he was behind the writhing couple, towering over the brutal attacker and reaching down with two powerfully corded arms.

  A second's pause — the upbeat — then the snakelike strike. Both arms reached around the topmost body, one beneath the raised chest and the other underneath and tightly hooked around the straining neck. He heaved upward in one galvanically sudden jerk, bringing all the concentrated power of his muscular right arm to bear against the rapist's throat and driving his left thumb savagely under the fat-padded rib cage.

  "Aaarrgh!" Fingers clawed desperately at Nick's right arm. The chunky body lashed about beneath him. He lifted it and released Fang's striking tongue. He heard the girl's bitter sobs and saw her roll over to hide her semi-nakedness, and then he felt Fang's swift bite take effect. The body heaved once and then collapsed in Nick's clutching arms. He lowered it lightly and turned quickly to the whimpering girl.

  She scrambled to her feet and shrank away from him, clutching her arms around her body as if to shield herself. "Non, non, non!" she moaned, her eyes wild with terror. Nick suddenly realized what he must look like to her — a wild man from the forest, caked with mud and dried blood, armed to the teeth with his guerrilla's weapons.

  "Lua, hush!" he whispered. "I am your friend. Please try not to cry. Saito is here with me. Do you understand? I have come back with Saito."

  She stared at him blankly, quivering like a wounded bird.

  "I am here with Saito," he repeated in French. "Don't be afraid. We have come to help."

  He saw the wild, lost look change to one of hope and pleading.

  "Saito? Where… where is he?" she whispered.

  "Talking to his men," he answered, taking her gently by the hand and steering her into a chair. "Lua, you must please answer one or two questions and then go to your room, or wherever you can rest. But tell quickly — where is Madame?"

  "Madame! Oh, God, Madame!" Her face twisted with the agony of sudden recollection. "They have her in the wine cellar to ask her questions. I have heard nothing. I do not know…"

  "Who's 'they'? How many?"

  Lua choked back a racking sob. "Three, now. First the General and a sergeant. Then another man, Chinese I think."

  Chinese. So Lin Tong had made it. Nick's jaw tightened grimly. With plenty of help, too, like a squad of soldiers and the Big Brass himself.

  "Where is the wine cellar?"

  Lua gestured. "Through the…"

  "Sshh!" Nick held up a hand for silence. There was a slight sound in the rear hall, and it was not repeated. But his senses told him that someone was moving outside the kitchen door. And there lay the body of the soldier, sprawled unbuttoned on the floor in a grotesquely twisted heap. Nick's hand went to Wilhelmina's waiting butt.

  "It is I, Saito." The big man glided in through the open door with a glance of satisfaction at the corpse. The smaller man behind him stopped and stared. "This is Xuan, whom we can well trust. Lua, little one…" His big hand clasped her shoulder. "Forgive us for being so long. Where is Madame?"

  "In the wine cellar," Nick said crisply. "With three men, me or all of whom are probably torturing her. Leave Xuan here, Saito, with Lua and that gun. Have him get that body out of sight and let's get into that cellar. Is there any other entrance besides the one in the hall?"

  Saito shook his head angrily. "No, only the one. I will rip the devils apart with…"

  "Sure, but not if they see us first. Any more men in the house, Lua?"

  She shook her head.

  "Only that — that — " She gestured at the dead thing on the floor, and shuddered. "I… stayed here because I… wanted to be — near Madame." The tears rolled down her cheeks. "I would have let them hurt me instead…"

  "It would have done no one any good. Come on, Saito. Show me that cellar."

  Saito nodded and gave the machine gun to Xuan with rapid instructions. Then he pointed down the hall.

  The two of them walked quietly along the stone flooring of the service hall and through the connecting door to the passage lined with other doors. Saito stopped outside one that was a heavy oaken slab bound with curlicued bands of well-worn brass. They waited for a moment, listening. No sound came through the solid door.

  "Lock oiled?" Nick whispered.

  Saito nodded and placed a huge hand on the heavy handle. It went down silently and the door swung inward without a whisper of a creak. There were no stairs below them, only a stone ramp leading sharply downward to a crude stone floor that was bathed in harsh light. Voices floated up to them. Nick took a few paces down the ramp and saw that the walls to either side were solid and that the only way down to the cellar was virtually a sloping tunnel. Nothing of the tunnel was visible except what lay directly beyond the arch-shaped opening at the bottom of the incline.

  The muffled voices became distinguishable words. "But I insist, Mon General," someone was saying smoothly. "You have done your share, and we agreed that it is now time for me to try my methods. And I can assure you that they are most effective."

  Lin Tong's voice. Nick had heard it once before. The language and the accent had been different, but the timbre was the same. "The girl was a menace to us both," the voice had said. "Now that she no longer tr
oubles us we can pool our knowledge without fear…"

  Saito stiffened beside him. Nick held him back; he wanted to hear more.

  "Is there any reason why I cannot stay here and take part in this interrogation?" a high-pitched voice asked querulously. "After all, it is I who started on the woman…"

  "Yes, it was you, and see how much good you have done." Lin Tong sounded angry. "I have had enough of your interference, General. I did not need you and I did not ask for you in the first place. Now I order you to leave, do you understand?"

  "You cannot…"

  "I can. Now take yourself and that grinning aide of yours out of my way. Oh, and leave your men posted on the grounds. I do not wish to have any interruptions until I send for you. Goodnight, General."

  "When will you…?"

  "Goodnight, General!"

  Nick pushed Saito back through the open door and closed it softly behind them. His thoughts were racing. It seemed pretty clear that Lin Tong was not working with the General, although their presence here was for roughly the same reason. That meant that the General — and all the aides and men he had brought with him — would have to be disposed of somehow. And that, in turn, could result in disastrous consequences for Madame and all the loyal people of the plantation… Yet the consequences could be even more disastrous if he let the General live. It was an impossible decision to make. There was the dead lieutenant to consider, and the encampment on the nearby hills…

  The encampment on the hills. That did it. A possible solution flashed across his mind.

  "Back into the kitchen, Saito," he whispered. "If one of them goes in there — kill!"

  Saito sped away. Nick glided down to the opposite end of the passage and drew himself into a darkly shadowed corner. Next to him was a pair of double doors through which the General was bound to pass if he intended to walk through the house to the front entrance and his car.

  The door from the wine cellar flew open and the General stomped out, muttering angrily. A man in less resplendent uniform followed closely behind him and swung the door shut with a decisive thunk.

  "Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" The General's head darted angrily, his reddish eyes searching for the man on duty. "Where in Satan's name are you? Hah? Miserable worm, where are you?"

  General Ho Van Minh of the Fifth North Vietnamese Army stamped his foot and screamed a curse.

  "Sergeant! Find that fool and tell him he is to stay outside this door until the Chinaman sends for him. And when he comes to me with the message I'll tear his kidneys out for not being at his post. Tell him!"

  The Sergeant scuttled toward the kitchen. The General's quick, angry steps brought him rapidly toward Nick.

  Killmaster Meets The Lady

  He would wait until the little man was inches past him, and then smash down on the crown of that bullet head with the knuckle jab he knew could fell a man with all the deadly force of a mightily swung axe.

  But then the General stopped, poised and alert on the balls of his feet like a bantamweight boxer, his eyes narrowing in the gloom. Nick heard the scuffling and grunting sounds that had stopped him and saw the head slowly turn to scan the shadows. It was too late to wait; for all the General's idiosyncrasies, his mind was quick and his body well-trained to respond. Nick could almost hear his thoughts — Diversionary tactics in the rear often mean attack on flank or front — and he launched his attack a split second before the darting eyes flickered over him in his concealing shadow.

  His right hand, stiff as a knife blade, led his body in the sudden charge. The paunchy figure in front of him moved with incredible speed and the dagger point of Nick's outstretched hand slid harmlessly past the General's short neck. The two small hands that grasped his arm caught him with surprising strength and pulled him forward to catch an agonizing blow on the right shin. He let himself drop limply, rolling with the painful twisting motion rather than resisting it, and brought up his left hand to ram a swift knuckle blow against an elusive brown temple. The General screamed and loosened his twisting hold. Nick cursed softly at the piercing sound and leapt to his feet. He came down with a vicious double stomp kick on the General's rib cage. The cracking sound was gratifying, but the bellow of pain must have wakened the dead. He threw himself down on the squirming figure, suddenly feeling all the weariness and wounds of the last two days, and pressed both hands against the soft neck. Minh shook his head like a terrier and thrust a hard palm up against Nick's chin.

  Fang clicked gently. Nick felt the little jabbing tongue dart from his finger and retract. In a matter of seconds the General would be dead beneath his grasping fingers.

  Minh twisted free, screaming like a soul in hell, and slammed an iron-hard side-arm blow against Nick's head. Nick felt the world swim nauseatingly. All the pain of his bruised body seemed to gather in his head and threaten to drag him down into a dark and bottomless pit. He gritted his teeth and jabbed out once more with Fang.

  Nothing. No result but a harmless little bite into the fleshy cheek and a smashing blow against his abdomen.

  Goddamn! Fang was finished, like a cheap toy broken after one day's use, and this little blob of a man was calling on all the fiends of hell for help. What's more, they'd come, with Lin Tong in their lead, and that would be the end of everything. What in hell was Saito doing all this time?

  For the luvva Pete, Carter! part of Nick's mind addressed him furiously. If you can't fight off this little blob without calling for your bodyguard, what in hell can you do?

  The heavy door leading down to the cellar opened suddenly and a shiny gun barrel nosed out into the passageway.

  Nick saw its glint and heard the shout that came out with it, but both sight and sound were vague things drifting through his mind. He had a more immediate problem. He jabbed a knee into the squirming figure beneath him and slammed the heel of his hand up hard beneath the wagging chin. Then both hands came up high and wide and swung down, thumb knuckles extended, like twin hammers against the vulnerable temples.

  He heard running. Then a shot. Something fell heavily.

  His hands clawed at the General's tunic and pulled the sagging body up toward him. One more for the road — He drew his right arm back and slammed it forward with such desperate strength that his fist rammed the windpipe against the spinal cord. The General's head slammed against the floor.

  It was finished. Nick rolled over and heard the second shot. It bit into the wall behind him and made him leap galvanically as though he himself had been shot.

  In one swift glance his eyes caught a tableau that would have been fascinating, maybe even amusing, if it had taken place at some other time and affected other people. But right now it was a sort of Conga line of death, and he was at the head of it.

  Lin Tong was facing him across the General's outstretched body, a smoking pistol in his hand and a killer's light in his eye. Behind him lay the fallen figure of Saito. And beyond Saito stood his friend Xuan, tense and uncertain, the submachine gun clamped against his arm.

  There wasn't even time to reach for Wilhelmina.

  Nick leapt, with all that was left of his speed and agility. He felt the hot breath of the bullet skim over the length of his body as he shot forward in a long, low, diving spring, and almost simultaneously the full force of his lowered head struck into Lin Tong's midriff. The Chinese expelled breath in a short grunting gust and slammed backward like a pounded punchbag. The pistol skittered noisily across the floor. Nick felt a weak flicker of triumph, and slammed what he hoped would be the finishing blow — not the killer-blow, for he wanted him alive, but the silencer — against the handsome head.

  But Lin Tong had not spent half the night being pursued and hacking his way through dense, unfriendly jungle. His shoulder wound ached and he was tired, but he was relatively rested from his hours of sleep in the bouncing jeep.

  His recovery was unexpectedly quick and savage. He jerked his head aside and caught the blow against his wounded shoulder, and the pain gave him strength. He clawed upward wi
th his long, strong fingers and fastened himself around Nick's neck. Nick let him claw, and thrust his thumbs down deep into Lin Tong's staring eyes. The Chinaman bellowed and let go. Then they were upon each other again, seeking holds and clutching each other like a pair of demon lovers. Lin Tong rolled and Nick rolled with him, and like a ball of tumbleweed they wheeled and rose and fell in the narrow passage.

  And suddenly Nick was no longer at the head of the Conga-line of death. He heard a door fly open and he heard the footsteps clattering toward him from the front door of the rambling house. A voice cried out something harsh and unintelligible. He wrenched violently at Lin Tong's flailing body and then the next minute he was falling head over heels down the slope leading to the cellar. His Siamese — or was it Chinese — twin rolled with him…

  Nick heard a single shot. Then a rapid burst of fire. Then silence from above. He saw nothing but the stone walls of the tunnel, the bright light from below, the snarling face of the enemy whose body was wrapped around his like a pair of pincers. His head hit the wall, hard, and his vision blurred. He and the animal that clung to him rolled down another three or four feet. The hands caught at his throat again, and squeezed. The world was a nightmare of swirling red and black, and he felt himself tumbling down again into the pit he knew was always waiting for him.

  He called upon his last reserve of Yoga-trained endurance and willed away the dreadful ringing in his ears. His own hands reached out and found the other straining neck, and his thumbs pressed hard into yielding flesh.

  Lin Tong's stranglehold became a feeble flutter of nerveless, useless hands. Nick increased his pressure on the sensitive carotids, praying silently for the strength to hold out long enough. The face that stared wildly into his own slowly drained of all expression. The Chinaman's strong body was suddenly a limp weight in Nick's hands. It dropped away from him, rolled over once, and lay quite still.

  Nick slumped back against the cold stone wall. He felt like a pricked balloon… a human balloon that had been mercilessly squeezed and bruised and beaten before being punctured into eternity. The light from the cellar seemed to blaze and dim and blaze again. It was impossible for him to move his tortured body another inch; it was too heavy, too racked with pain, too spent from the unrelenting hours of exertion… His breath sighed out in one long, exhausted moan.