The floor was dirt. Tyreen said, “Mix some mud and smear it over the bullet holes in that jacket. You’re a guerrilla officer. A dai-uy in the Vietminh army. Did you find any papers in those clothes?”
“Not much. Guerrillas don’t monkey around much with written orders.” Khang took a small oilskin pouch from one pocket. It was scabbed with dry blood. “His name was Kao. Blood type, height and weight, description, fingerprints, all that jazz. I guess I can pass for him if they don’t take my prints. It doesn’t say anything about his mustache. But suppose I run into somebody that knew the cat?”
“Doubtful,” said Theodore Saville. “Long odds against that.”
“The papers say he came from Na Ranh. That’s twenty miles from here, no more than that.”
“That’s enough, in this jungle,” said Tyreen. “It will take you ten minutes to walk down there. You’ve got thirty-five minutes to get back here.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll move without you,” Tyreen said. “On the run, Sergeant.”
“More power to you,” Khang said, “as the fellow said to the cat on his way to the electric chair.” He walked to the door and lifted a hand. “See you guys around,” he said, and slipped outside.
“Now what?” said Theodore Saville.
Tyreen tried to blink tiredness out of his eyes. He said, “We clean our guns.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
1120 Hours
The heat of the oil lamp burned against his face, and Eddie Kreizler sat half alive in the chair. The room moved crazily around him. He tossed his head back, throwing hair back from his eyes; he met the Vietnamese Colonel’s amused glance with unvanquished eyes.
Bruises were stiff all over his body. His nose was crushed against his face. Both arms throbbed, unwelcome parts of him. His right eye was half closed; his scalp was cut open, soft and sticky to the touch of a knuckle-crushed finger. His lips were squashed raw and stinging against his teeth. Dull red flames pulsed, coloring his vision.
The Colonel said, “My methods have been crude, wouldn’t you say, Captain?”
“Fuck yourself.” Kreizler could hardly talk.
“Be calm,” the Colonel purred. “My friend, you are letting the misguided blindness of your stupid loyalties lead you around like a trained bear. I would suggest for your consideration that the only way to preserve your own self-respect and freshness of character is to act impulsively. When a man stops to think about whether it is prudent, then he loses his dignity — he loses it to the dictates of caution and public opinion. Like most children, you have been trained to think in certain rigid patterns, and you have a dyspeptic terror of anything out of the ordinary — exactly like a spoiled child’s fear of new foods. I had hoped you were more imaginative.”
The Colonel chuckled politely. “Of course, you feel that I am not part of your world, that I have no business advising you. But the truth is that we all live in the same world. It’s easy enough to despise it, to be sure. But find yourself another one. The trick, my friend, is to make something of life as you find it. It’s no good hiding behind illusions — that’s a treadmill. The values that meant something in America mean nothing here. No one will condemn you for speaking up. I can promise you the greatest comforts. A soft bed, Captain. Medical attention, a pliable nurse perhaps. Good food and drink.”
Kreizler sat in his own pain as if it were excrement. His eyes were not focused. The Colonel leaned forward and slapped his face. “Please pay attention, Captain.” The voice was effeminate, soft, cajoling. “My methods of persuasion will become less subtle as the hours wear on. Do you honestly believe yourself capable of withstanding me?”
Kreizler purposefully concentrated on a haze of swaying recollected visions, colors dimmed by pain. He slumped. The lamp’s dusty shafts of chalk light fell on the Vietnamese Colonel’s complacent face, the uniform meticulously pressed, the black bill of his cap polished with wax, the hollows of the eyes glowing. The Colonel’s high-pitched voice suddenly thrashed at him:
“I lose patience with you, Captain! Resistance will gain you only unbearable pain. You must talk now.”
“Come ahead, then,” Kreizler said drunkenly. “Try me.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
1125 Hours
Graven-faced, Sergeant Khang squatted on the hill behind the battalion motor pool, fingering his jaw. The big truck park was almost deserted. A few soldiers moved around near the big repair garage, shifting in aimless patterns. Beyond and below, he had a vista of the garrison compound: drab, low buildings surrounding the muddy parade ground. The city climbed its slopes behind the garrison, sprawling across the hills; that was the way they had come, and the way they would have to leave.
He began to make his way down the mountain. His only weapon was an old Nambu automatic pistol, liberated from the dead North Vietnamese officer whose uniform he wore. He did not lift the Nambu from its brush-scarred leather scabbard. He walked boldly until he stood directly above the parking lot; across the tops of silent trucks he watched the soporific activity around the garage. He dropped onto the tarmac and threaded a path between rows of trucks and halftracks, jeeps and tanks. A vague plan of action took form in his mind. He circled the back of the garage and approached the front with a careless, mild air. Behind him he heard a side door latch open; he glanced around casually.
A stocky lieutenant emerged from the doorway, stiff and correct in a starched uniform. The Lieutenant lifted his hand to salute — an automatic gesture; then his hand became still, and his mouth twisted.
“Nguyen Khang!”
Sergeant Khang’s head rocked back. Panic froze him. He felt the hammer of his pulse; the crazy awareness of one thing seized his attention: it had stopped raining. He stood that way, baffled, and his mind grappled with a search of his memory, trying to recall when the rain had stopped.
The Lieutenant’s pistol came up. “So.”
“Luc Chau,” Khang said. His mouth clapped shut.
“I am.”
“Why do you put the gun on me?”
“Do you think I am a fool?” the Lieutenant demanded. “Where did you get that uniform?”
Sergeant Khang moved with care, turning his body around to face the man. “It is my uniform. I am a—”
“You are a liar,” said Lieutenant Chau. “Take out your pistol and drop it here.”
The Lieutenant walked forward. Nguyen Khang slowly withdrew the Nambu with thumb and forefinger and dropped it in front of him. All his Special Warfare training came back to him in a rush, and suddenly his greatest concern became the uncertainty whether one of the motor-pool soldiers might suddenly appear around the corner. No one was in sight. Lieutenant Chau said, “Colonel Trung will be very interested to see you. He will be pleased with my work.”
“You would sell your mother to Colonel Trung for a pat on the back from him. So Colonel Trung is here still?”
“He is our chief of intelligence.” Lieutenant Chau’s smile was a hard glisten of teeth. He held the gun steady on Khang’s chest while he stooped slowly to pick up the Nambu automatic.
The Lieutenant’s fingers touched the Nambu, and Sergeant Khang’s boot lashed forward. The heavy metal-soled jump boot cracked against Lieutenant Chau’s wrist. The pistol dropped. Chau shot upright; Sergeant Khang gripped the soft bill of the Lieutenant’s fatigue cap and jerked it savagely down over his eyes. Khang drove his bladed hand into Chau’s stomach, and when the man coughed, Khang wheeled behind him and took a precise grip on the back of his neck. It was an academic matter, then, the product of careful training — a few seconds of pressure on the carotid artery, behind the ear, produced immediate unconsciousness and quick death. There was not a sound.