Saigon Page 16

  "No, no!" she protested. "It is not necessary."

  "It may not be necessary. But it will be nice. For me, at any rate."

  He smiled down at her flushed face and carried her toward the door. She said no more, but put her arm lightly across his shoulder.

  When he opened the door to her room he bent his head to kiss her hair. Perhaps she didn't notice. But she did not object.

  Love Is Love But War Is Hell

  "That wasn't so bad, was it?" He put her gently on the bed and beamed down at her. It was impossible to avoid thinking how big and comfortable the bed looked and how desirable she was as she lay back against the pillows.

  "No, that was not so bad." Suddenly she laughed. It was a sound of pure pleasure, and he loved to hear it coming from her. The only trouble was that it made him want to hold her close and say things to her that it was too soon to say. "It's a pity," she was saying, "that we don't have inquisitive neighbors. What fun they would have, talking! Madame La Farge was put to bed just here dawn by a man wearing nothing but a bathtowel and a scar!"

  "Unfortunately it is very difficult to remove the scar," said Nick, bending over her and kissing her lightly on the cheek. He almost wished he hadn't. His lips felt as though they had touched something heavenly, and every cell in his body suddenly started clamoring for equal rights. "If our lives were very different," he added softly, "we could give them even more to talk about. Goodnight, Claire. Sleep well."

  She touched her cheek where he had kissed her.

  "Goodnight, my — friend." Her arms went around his neck. She drew his face down to hers and kissed him on the lips.

  It began gently enough, but once their lips had met they could not bear to part. All that he had begun to feel for her and tried to hide welled up inside him and escaped into that kiss. And she, who had started it with a soft touch of her sensuous lips, could not draw away. And didn't try to. The gentle kiss grew passionate. It lengthened… burned hot… paused… and merged into another clinging, searching meeting.

  Claire sighed and lay back, looking at him. But her arms still held him close to her. For a while they stared at each other in silence. Just stared. Each could see what was in the other's eyes.

  At last she murmured: "Do we really care about the neighbors?"

  His heart leapt. He wanted her; from the first minute he had wanted her. But it had seemed too much to ask.

  Nick brushed the tousled hair back from her eyes. "Let them talk," he said. Her hand reached out and turned off the bedside lamp.

  There was no more robe, no more gown, and no more towel.

  She touched his back and felt the strip of heavy tape that stretched across it. "I didn't see that," she whispered. "How much you have been hurt!"

  "No more than you," he said softly. He held her very gently, wondering if the exquisite calisthenics of lovemaking would not be cruelly hard on her. She seemed to read his thoughts. "Let's suffer together," she murmured.

  What they did together was the sweetest kind of suffering.

  They lay side by side and felt the twin sparks of desire grow into tiny flames in search of something to burn. Two aching bodies forgot what they were aching about and began to revel in the delicious agony of wanting. Her legs entwined his and her fingers traced the contours of his face until they knew it well. He, in turn, caressed her breasts and kissed the sensuous lips until he knew that she — and he — were ready for more than kisses. His hand went lightly down the length of her perfectly curved figure, finding the bruises and the tender places and moving on to where there was no pain. At first she trembled slightly at his exploring touch, but as he sought the softness of her body she grew relaxed and warm and found the need to seek his body with her own hands. She felt the smooth skin, scarred here and there by battles of today and long ago, and the firm, supple muscles of a male body more wonderful than any she had ever known. This was a man; strong but gentle, magnificently formed, sensuous and hungry.

  Claire was hungry, too, and not for food. She had waited a long, long time for a man like this to come into her empty life. And she had forgotten nothing of what it was to love and please a man. The little movements of her fingers made Nick tingle, and sent small arrows of passion shooting through him. The larger, involuntary movements of her flexible body were instinctively voluptuous, and what they sent through Nick's body was even more gratifying and yet more demanding. He drowned out all memory of pain and tiredness and gave himself up to the pure delight of being with her.

  The bed became a paradise of a thousand and one pleasures. He sensed what she needed, and played her body like a lovely instrument. She moaned softly, wanting more and getting it. They discovered each other slowly, without urgency, picking up tempo as they learned how best to please each other. She wanted to be kissed, and he kissed her tenderly all over. He wanted her close to him, so that he could feel the softness of her breasts and the firm thrust of her thighs, and she came close and made him feel the vibrant warmth of her whole body against his.

  For long moments they lay beside each other, scarcely moving, saying the things that lovers say and letting the passion slowly rise within them. It was too good to put an end to, even a temporary end, and so they went on drifting as long as they could drift.

  He was floating on a cloud. But it was a most unusual cloud — one that wanted him to become a part of it, that wrapped itself around him with loving arms and sent little sparks of electricity coursing through his titillated nerves.

  "Claire, oh, Claire…" he whispered.

  "Love me… love me…" Their lips burned together and their bodies clung.

  Then he found that he could drift no more. He turned, pulling her down to him so that his weight would not press down on her bruises, and drew her even closer than before. And suddenly the floating cloud was full of storm and hot with crackling passion. She came to him as though that was all she had ever wanted, and when their bodies became one it was as if each had been aching for the other through all eternity. They both forgot that they had intended to be gentle. Two battered but beautiful beings moved together in a mounting rhythm.

  He had known no woman quite like her. In every way, she was perfection. And she made love as though she really loved him. Not like a woman who needs a man for a sudden and fleeting sensation, but like one who yearns to give everything she has to someone she loves with all her heart. There was no shame in her feeling for him, and he knew it. There was desire and understanding and companionship and… a sort of gratitude. All those he felt too, and more. They were like two people who had loved and thrilled each other for years, and had come together now after a long parting.

  "Nick, my darling… Nick, my darling…" Their lips met again in a blazing kiss that burst the floating storm cloud and let it wash away everything but the wonderful feeling of being as close together as two people can ever be.

  Their joint pleasure mounted until it was almost beyond bearing. He murmured to her, and she answered with a sigh. He thought he could hear thunder — but he knew that she was gasping with an ecstasy that matched his own. It was not thunder. It was an explosion that enveloped them both and reverberated through their trembling limbs until at last it died away and left them limp, still holding onto each other as if to let go would be to die.

  They were very much alive, and loving.

  But now at last they could let themselves feel tired.

  "My love… wonderful and beautiful…" "My sweet, my Nick…"

  Their words trailed into tiny kisses and the kisses into nothingness.

  It had been thunder. Rain splattered on the roof.

  They slept peacefully in each other's arms.

  * * *

  Dark morning. Late, but dark with overcast. And raining still.

  And there was news. Some time while they had slept, the Army encampment on the hills had folded up its tents and silently stolen away.

  "Hmm. Orders from above, I suppose," said Nick. "I guess they must have radioed what happened last
night and been told to take themselves off the wrong side of the mountain. Any idea where they might have gone?"

  Saito shook his head. "All we know, sir, is that they are out of sight. Xuan went off scouting more than an hour ago, but he is not yet back."

  "Hmm," Nick said again. "And no one's been here to interview the staff about last night's fracus?"

  Saito shook his head. Nick went on with what he was doing — braiding thin strips of rope around the belt until the whole thing, with whatever message it had contained, was disguised as a length of sturdy rope that any farmer might be expected to carry on the back of his truck. Claire watched him, her mobile face a study in conflicting expressions of anxiety and love.

  "Saito…"

  "Yes, sir?"

  "I think I'd better leave at once. I'm sorry, Claire, but I'm going to have to steal one of your trucks. I know you're short of gasoline, but it's the only way I have of getting back. I'll try to make it up to you somehow." He looked into her face and saw the suffering in her eyes. They both knew that she was not thinking of the truck. "I'll change while you get the truck," he went on. "And have Donh give the Chinaman some food and make sure he's tied up tightly."

  "You'll never get through," Claire said tightly. "You know you'll never pass as a farmer if anyone stops and looks at you. Let Saito take you. He'll have a better chance. Don't leave like this! You'll never make it."

  "I'll make it," Nick said quietly. "One way or the other, I'll get there. Saito stays here. You're going to need him."

  "No! You…"

  "Saito stays here," Nick said firmly. "Saito, please get things ready for me."

  "Yes, sir," Saito answered. "Madame…" and his gentle eyes looked down at her. "It is true that you will need me. I help the Master on his way. But I stay here." He bowed, and padded out of the room.

  "Nick." Claire looked at him beseechingly. "I don't know what to tell you. But I don't want you to go."

  "I have to, Claire. I got what I came for — and something else as well. Now I have to go. But I can talk to the French and have them send safe transport for you…"

  "That isn't what I want. I want you to be safe." She swallowed nervously. "I want you to be alive. And to come back here, if you can. Because I'll never leave here."

  His steel-gray eyes were as sad as hers. "I know you won't, Claire. And in a way, I never will."

  He reached for her across the table. After a while they drew themselves apart. Then he left, to dress himself in fresh clothes that Saito had found for him and to rub the alien color into his face.

  Within half an hour everything was ready.

  She walked with Nick to the far end of the southern lands where the truck was waiting in a clearing. Nick's brow was furrowed. There was a noise somewhere nearby that shouldn't have been there. But Claire, sunk deeply into thought, seemed not to notice it.

  They both watched as Saito bundled a bound and spluttering Lin Tong into the back of the truck.

  Claire turned and looked into the strong face with its stain of muddy brown. "Come back," she whispered. "Be with me. But if you can't… I won't think that you can't." She pulled something off her finger. "Please take this, and remember. It is a ring that I… have cherished very much." He took it from her and slid it onto the small finger of his left hand. "It is the dragon design," she said. "It means luck and love, and courage. And immortality. I wish all those things with you. Or for you alone, if need be."

  Afterwards he could not remember what he said. He only remembered the moment that he held her in his arms, that moment when the sound grew louder and became a helicopter hovering only yards away from them.

  Raoul Dupré's face peered down through the Perspex. Then it was a chaos of landing, explanations, and departure.

  Minutes later, Nick was in the air. The rope was tied around his waist, its message still secure. Lin Tong was bound and snarling helplessly. Raoul Dupré was exultant.

  "I had to come and get you myself, mon ami! It was not easy, but I made them lend me the helicopter. When the other one did not come back, I knew that something must be done. And only I could do it. You have him for me, my true friend! You gave him to me alive! Oh, how he will talk, the Chinese swine, before I lead him to the guillotine!"

  Nick heard him say all this, and more, and he saw how Lin Tong slumped onto the floor in helpless silence. But the only thing he was really conscious of was Claire.

  She was waving from below.

  He waved back, and saw her tall figure grow smaller by the minute. Smaller… lonelier… then very small, and very much alone.

  * * *

  Saigon. September, 1964. A city torn by conflict, political intrigue, and the growing fear of complete disintegration.

  And yet there was some hope that the disintegration could be halted if the rot could be cut out from within. No one could possibly sort out the intricacies of Vietnamese politics with its basic themes of hostility and power grab. But it was possible to remove some of the major sources of agitation and deliberate discontent. That at least was something. Wasn't it?

  Nick sat at the bar of the Continental with Raoul Dupré. Fragments of Hawk's latest recorded message kept on churning through his mind.

  "Listen carefully. I will relay this information only once. You will have no professional use for it, anyway. It is only for your personal satisfaction. Moreau's message has been deciphered by our code experts working in collaboration with certain well-known anthropologists who have of course been sworn to secrecy. Naturally, they also had security clearance. Moreau's message was in the form of a quipu, a device used by ancient Peruvians to convey messages and calculations. There is no need to explain how the words are formed by the arrangement of knots…" That was Hawk at his worst, using his lecture room manner to be a little superior about something he had probably never heard of before the Moreau-La Farge case. Although you couldn't be sure. Hawk had an amazing store of general knowledge. And Nick, in fact, knew something about the quipu himself. He had thought of it at once when he had seen Claire's belt, but he couldn't be sure. Certainly he had no idea how to read it. "The message consists of a list of names," Hawk's clipped voice continued, "preceded by the advice that all the people referred to are top members of the Chinese Communist conspiracy in Vietnam, True names, code names, occupations, and even some addresses are included. These individuals occupy themselves primarily in Hue, Dalat and Saigon, with — quite naturally — a heavy concentration in Saigon. You may be interested to know that a man named Choong Quong Soong heads the list. His code name is Brother Arnold. After his name come the words "Bitter Almonds," the meaning of which we have not yet discovered. I am sure, however, that it is only a matter of time before we will. Further down, we find the name of Lin Tong, also known as Brother Bertram. If this does not excite your interest or surprise, you may be interested in knowing that the name Michele Dumas appears toward the end of the list. Code name Sister Lotus, if you please. I trust that you did hot become too devoted to her during the short time at your disposal."

  Not to her, Nick thought numbly. Not to Michele. There were other names in the message that meant nothing to him. Then Hawk had said: It will be clear to you that this information opens up an entire new field of work in Saigon, throughout South Vietnam, and possibly even across the border. Someone, and more than just one person, will have to be working there fulltime for at least the next few months and possibly for longer. Arrangements must also be made for the protection of the La Farge plantation." Nick's heart had leapt. Months, or even a year, and some of it with Claire! Long enough to persuade her to leave, long enough at least to… But Hawk's voice had ground on relentlessly. "Raoul Dupré, who is receiving his instructions under separate cover, will head the operation. You will stay there only long enough to brief the incoming AXEmen and turn them over to Dupré. Then you will return to Headquarters. The Cuban mission requires…"

  His heart had dropped like a lump of lead. Sitting at the bar and re-hearing Hawk's words in his m
ind, he felt that first agony again. Somehow it kept on getting worse. He fingered the small package in his pocket and wished to God that something would happen so that he wouldn't have to send it. Take it, yes. Any time, and many times, but not send it with the short, cool note that was all he had been able to manage.

  Raoul Dupré was eying him curiously. "What ails you, my friend? Do you not wish to leave our lovely city? Or is it perhaps something else that you are thinking of?"

  Nick took a deep breath. "It is perhaps something else. You're satisfied with the arrangements, are you, Raoul? You don't need my help any more, do you?"

  Raoul shook his head slowly. "I will manage. Your colleagues are fine men. But surely if you wish to stay, you can arrange it?"

  There was too much understanding and sympathy written on his face. Nick was not a man who had much use for sympathy.

  "You don't know Hawk," he said. "Or me, for that matter. I'll be leaving now. Don't worry about coming to the Airport. But… Would you do one more thing for me?"

  "Anything." There was a new strength about Raoul, and it showed in every word and gesture. "Just tell me what you want."

  Nick reached into his pocket and took out the small package. "Somehow, can you get this up to Claire?"

  Raoul took it from him and tucked it inside his jacket. For the first time he noticed the dragon ring that Nick wore on his little finger.

  There are many casualties in war, he thought. Soldiers were one kind. Toni was another. And Claire La Farge and Nicholas Carter were casualties, too.

  "I'll see that she gets it. Good luck to you, my friend."

  Nick left the bar and walked slowly along the damp street. All he could send her of himself was a bracelet, the loveliest he could find in all Saigon.

  Come back. Be with me. She had asked him for his love. And all he could say in return was a short message that read:

  My darling Claire… it is impossible.