by Jay Brandon
The kid did what he’d never done before in his life: raised his rifle and fired at another human being. He did it well enough. The bullet took the middle-aged man in the chest. It knocked him down and then it killed him. The kid who had fired was no less surprised than anyone else in the room.
It cost him his life as well. The next member of the mob had a gun, not a bat. He fired it at the kid, missed, kept running forward, fired again. The kid was still stunned by the rifle’s recoil and his own fatal instinct. He stood there and let himself be killed. The merchant ran right up to him and hit him in the head with the handgun, then fired it into his face as he went down. There was no glee in it. There was only fear and desperation and long-held rage.
The mob lost its festive spirit. Their eyes turned dead as glass. Linh took charge. He took up the fallen rifle and handed it to one of his merchants. Quickly he dispatched a small contingent of them to the front door, which they locked and guarded, cutting off nearly a third of Khai’s men outside the house. The rest of the merchants Linh led up the stairs. They didn’t run now, and they didn’t loose any wild yells. They were grim as mourners.
Far up the tunnel, almost back to the hated house, Carol came across the body of her hapless rescuer. Chui looked like a wrecked doll. In death his face had lost its plumpness. John Loftus had ruined its planes with his knee. Chui’s nose was indented almost flush into his face. Carol spared him a long glance. Inadvertent as the act had been, Chui had saved her life. And Loftus had killed him for it. There had been no reason. Almost from the moment Loftus began working on him, Chui had no longer been a threat. And Carol, Loftus’s original target, had been getting away. Yet Loftus had taken the time to do this gravedigger’s work. He had undoubtedly enjoyed it. And now he was back inside the house, inside with Daniel who had come to save her. Daniel who must still be inside searching for her. Carol left the body behind and went on. Her footsteps were trudging but resolute. When she passed through the doorway her skin turned clammy. She knew the house would never let her go again.
Daniel thought he heard sirens in the distance, but he didn’t trust his hearing. There was an incessant whine in his ears, a white noise that was cutting him off from the world. He was fading away. Soon he would be a ghost, able to move at will through Khai’s soldiers.
He reached the bottom of the attic stairs slowly, expecting any second to be face to face with an armed Vietnamese appearing in the doorway. None did. He reached the doorway and glanced around the comer. There were some of Khai’s men, all right, but their backs were to him. Daniel stared. He had some bullets left in his gun but he didn’t fire. Something made him hold off. The soldiers had forgotten him, and for the moment he wanted to keep it that way.
One had not. Khai had not forgotten Daniel. He was concentrating on him at that moment.
The second floor of the old mansion had erupted into chaos. Khai’s men had been preparing for their final assault on Daniel. Khai knew what Daniel did not, that there was another staircase to the attic. Khai had sent a few men up the back stairs. The others had been positioning themselves to rush the American’s position on the main stairs. That’s when Linh and his merchants had arrived on the second floor. If they had come whooping and shouting—the way they’d entered the first floor— Khai would have had moments to prepare for them. But instead the merchants came silent as a funeral procession. They fell on Khai’s men from behind and were already wreaking damage before the soldiers knew there was another foe in the house. Though both sides were armed, the fighting quickly became hand to hand. And it was as if someone had suddenly turned the soundtrack back on. Screams of rage and pain filled the air.
Khai was caught unprepared. He had expected his men below to guard his back. But he was no startled innocent. He saw at once what was happening, who was attacking him. He realized that Daniel Greer had been the forerunner of this army. And Khai was a man for whom personal revenge meant more than life or death.
His men had been driven back, but a hard core of them had regrouped around their leader. They were firing into the melee, sometimes hitting their own men. Hearing the noise, Khai’s men from the attic came back down the back stairs and Khai ordered them into the fight.
And Khai himself slipped up those dark stairs behind the door. He was armed, and he knew where Greer was hiding.
The first floor was cloaked in an eerie silence. The mob had swept it clean, but Carol didn’t know that. She could hardly force herself forward, her skin was tingling so. There was no one about. It was as if everything that had happened in the tunnel had been illusion designed to lure her back inside, and now the illusions had vanished leaving her alone in the house. She expected the hallway to begin closing in on her.
In the kitchen she found a cleaver. Gripping its handle made her slightly more confident. She hurried back down the hall and when she stepped into the living room, she could hear the noise from above. She hesitated at the sight of the two bodies, then moved faster, to the stairs and up them. Now she believed again that Daniel was there. If she just caught a glimpse of him she’d know what to do next.
Khai’s men were in retreat. Some of them had been forced back the length of the hall and had fled down the back stairs. Daniel watched them go, still hidden on the attic stairs. It had finally occurred to him that that’s where Carol might be, in the attic. He had searched all the rooms on the second floor already. His mind wasn’t working very well. He had dropped his gun somewhere. “Carol?” he called hopefully, and opened the creaking door into the attic. Silence answered him. There was a fresh breeze on his face.
In isolated clusters the fighting continued. The mob was taking its revenge for years of forced tribute and humiliation. Sometimes the vengeance was impersonal. Middle-aged men clubbed down young men just for being in the house of the man who had dominated them. Sometimes, though, a merchant would recognize a particular one of Khai’s men and lunge toward him, screaming. More often than not, the young man attacked so intimately would drop his weapon and try to flee. Few succeeded.
In some instances the revenge was most personal. When Carol reached the head of the stairs she saw Linh open a bedroom door and look inside. Carol ran to him, touched his arm, and pointed across the hall. He looked at her, took a long moment to register her presence, and nodded. He moved quickly across the hall, opened the door, and disappeared inside.
Carol had passed on by the time Linh emerged again. He had one arm around his wife, supporting her. She was walking, rather hesitantly, but with no sign of crippling injury. Linh had her disfigured hand in his and was rubbing it, turning the hand over and back again. She murmured something into his ear and put both arms around his neck. Her husband held her tightly, his eyes squeezed shut.
The fighting no longer interested him. When they moved again it was back toward the front stairs, away from the chaos. But they didn’t reach the stairs. As they passed another bedroom door, it opened and the ratfaced man stood there. The woman flinched away from him, hiding her face against her husband’s shoulder. But that reaction passed in an instant. She turned back and lunged toward the man, her hand becoming a claw. Ratface stood there groggily, staring at Linh not as if he knew him but as if he thought he should.
Linh laid a hand on the man’s chest and pushed him back into the room. His wife came with him. She was talking in a rush of Vietnamese.
Linh closed the door.
Khai heard the attic door open, heard Greer’s voice calling for his wife. Khai wondered fleetingly what had happened to the woman, but it didn’t matter. Nothing happening in the house below mattered now. He could recoup. This madness of merchants would pass. It was an aberration of middle-age glands, nothing more. They would be sheep again afterward. Khai’s hand would fall on them more ruthlessly than ever.
Dealing with the American had made him vulnerable to this. Daniel Greer had somehow inspired them. He had made them think they were Americans too, immune from the old forces from the homeland. Khai must show
them no one was immune. Greer and his wife must die as horribly as possible. He was thinking no cautioning thoughts now. Khai hoped he could somehow preserve their mutilated bodies, for display to merchants who showed the least sign of recalcitrance.
He made his way softly across the attic, holding the gun up close to his cheek. He had come up the back stairs slowly, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. He could see like a cat by this time. The American would have no such advantage. The main attic stairs were lighted. When Greer opened that door he would be stumbling in blindness. Khai moved close to the door and waited.
It opened. “Carol?” came the American’s fearful voice. He was a sharp-edged silhouette in the lighted doorway. Khai permitted himself a smile. He waited further. No blunders. Let the American come all the way in. Khai was a patient man, even in the midst of disaster.
“Carol?” Daniel called again, a little louder. He couldn’t see a thing in the dark attic. He stepped inside. His hands groped forward in the darkness.
'‘Daniel!”
The scream came from behind him. He turned and saw her at the bottom of the stairs.
“Carol?” He couldn’t believe she was real. After these days of absence she had become imaginary.
She said his name again and started up the stairs. He descended to meet her. He stumbled on the steps, almost fell, collected himself, and staggered into her arms. They met violently, lunging at each other as if each could find a niche in the other’s body and crawl inside. But Daniel didn’t want just to clutch her against him. He wanted to see her. He pushed her back to arm’s length and stared at her. Carol stared as well. He looked like hell and she could imagine how she looked. She laughed.
At the sound the reality of her swept through him, he believed in her presence, and he did hold her tightly against his chest then. It was in that moment, when he finally held her after days of terror, that he felt least safe. Now that he actually had her back he felt more vulnerable than ever.
He was right to feel that way.
The stairs yawned empty behind him. Khai stood at the head of them. He was a man who appreciated poignance. He let the reunion moment below continue. His smile was soft and gentle. The malice was only in his eyes. He raised his gun and pointed it at the American’s back. They held each other so tightly the first bullet might pass through both of them, which would be more poignant still. Khai’s finger tightened on the trigger. His joy was even deeper than theirs, he felt sure. Certainly it would be longer-lived.
When the demon fell on him it was like the hand of God, falling from heaven to smash him flat. Khai was thrown forward by the blow. He had a glimpse of the lovers below turning startled faces toward him, then his own face hit a stairstep and he saw no more. The weight was still on his back, driving him even lower.
Daniel looked up, frightened out of his wits, but Khai was already falling by that time. Daniel scrambled down the stairs to get out of his way, pulling Carol. Khai came sliding down toward them.
Thien was on his back. He held Khai’s ears and rode him down the stairs like a sled. Thien was shouting something, but it was in Vietnamese. Daniel and Carol had no idea what he was saying.
Khai landed in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Daniel and Carol had managed to scramble out of the way. Thien had never lost his grip. He sat astride the tyrant’s back, still screaming. And somehow in his wild ride down the stairs Thien had managed to snatch up Khai’s pistol as it clattered along beside him. He leaned down and stuck the barrel of it into Khai’s ear. The gun was a thin-barreled Luger, it went right inside the ear. The pain roused Khai. Daniel saw the gang leader’s eyes open. Thien held Khai’s hair in his left hand and jammed the gun into his ear again. The boy was bending over, telling him something. But his right hand was white on the grip of the gun. In another moment he would squeeze the trigger.
“Thien!” Daniel shouted. He stepped toward the boy and Thien looked up, wild-eyed. Daniel stopped. Thien’s face was frightening. He didn’t look the least bit familiar.
Daniel shook his head. “You can’t kill him.”
Thien grinned like a demon. “You couldn’t. But w&tch ”
“No!” Daniel shouted.
Thien hesitated for another second. He looked more like the boy Daniel had known. Life had returned to Khai’s eyes. They pleaded with Daniel to intervene. Daniel bent over both the fallen figures and spoke into Thien’s ear, loudly enough for both of them to hear.
“He fears prison more than death” was what he said. From the look that came into Khai’s face he still believed that was true.
Thien was unconvinced. “My father,” he said softly. “If this one ever returns ...”
“Think of him in prison,” Daniel said. “A little scared gook who thought he could be king. There are Vietnam vets in there. You know what they’ll do to someone like him?”
Thien’s face was his own again, the face Daniel remembered. The boy looked thoughtful. He spoke as if to himself. “You hear, warlord?” he said softly. “And after what happens to you in there, who will follow you again?”
Khai struggled briefly. Thien casually lifted the man’s head and banged it against the stair. Khai subsided, dazed. Thien leaned down and spoke words for only him.
“When you emerge,” he said, “I will be grown.”
* * *
Loftus was free. He was the only one who’d escaped. That was as it should be. He was the only one with brains. Even Khai was too prone to emotion to think clearly at times. John Loftus, on the other hand, never lost sight of the fact that he was the only one who mattered. He’d come up out of the tunnel with the intention of warning the others, but when he’d arrived on the first floor he’d found too few men there to wage a successful counterattack. So instead he’d slipped aside and let the mob pass him by. He had thought about following them up the stairs and attacking from behind, but again he had no support troops. To hell with them all, he’d decided instead. When it came to gook against gook, he didn’t much care who won this battle.
He was outside now, having slipped out a window. He saw some few of Khai’s men far out near the fence, scuffling along, head down in the pouring rain. Lightning split the sky, followed by deafening thunder. He’d have no trouble slipping away in this storm. He lingered. He hadn’t forgotten Carol. Now that he knew he was safe again Loftus gave up his singleminded pursuit of escape and let his thoughts slip back to the woman who obsessed him. If she had gone back inside the house with that mob she was still within his reach. Loftus waited. He would take one more chance on finding her. He should have stolen her driver’s license when he’d had the chance, but of course then he hadn’t thought he’d ever need her home address. But he needed it now. It wasn’t over between them, not by a long shot. It would be unbearably sweet to find her again after all this, after she thought she was safe.
He sank back into the shadows and wrapped his arms around his chest. He had snatched up his pants as he’d run back out of the tunnel, and put them on again before coming outside, but the rain was cold. It kept him alert.
Long moments passed. Loftus paced around the perimeter of the house, looking up at the second-floor windows. The noise was dying up there. It might be safe to creep back into the house and find out who had won. He had Chui’s gun, he didn’t fear running into a few stragglers from the fight. Besides, surely a mob of clerks, crazed as they’d been, hadn’t defeated Khai’s armed soldiers. Loftus was at the back of the house, out of sight of the front gate. He backed away from the house, staring up at the windows. There was an open one on the second floor. He saw a figure pass by it, but too quickly for him to identify. He just wanted to see who was still standing. He might even get a glimpse of the woman if he backed a little deeper into the darkness.
“You slime,” said a voice at his back.
It was Steve Rybeck. The sirens Daniel had thought he heard had been real. While uniformed officers had burst through the front door of the house, Rybek had slipped around the back to ma
ke sure no one escaped that way. Finding John Loftus was as good a bonus as he’d hoped for. Rybek knew him. Knew he was a fellow Vietnam vet but in the service of Khai now.
“You’re worse than any of them,” he said in a low, scathing voice. “You should be shot just like a traitor in war. How could anybody—”
He had more to say, but Loftus turned and shot him first. Loftus was firing from the hip and the bullet went low, but well enough. It hit Rybek in the thigh and knocked his legs out from under him. Rybek fell into the mud and his own gun fell out of his hand.
Loftus didn’t even know who he’d shot. Pure instinct had saved him again. He stepped closer, heard Rybek groaning, and remembered the cop. And obviously the cop remembered him. Loftus pointed the gun at his head. No one would ever pin this one on him. There’d be plenty of corpses laid to the account of the war inside the house. This would just be another one.
Rybek turned over and looked at him. Loftus gave an apologetic little shrug.
In the next instant he thought he’d been struck by lightning. It wasn’t that painful, of course, but it was as unexpected as a thunderbolt. And it came from above. Something crashed into the back of his head and shoulders and shattered. Loftus turned, dazed. Something was dangling down his back. An electrical cord. It was a lamp. God had dropped a lamp on him.
He looked up at that open window on the second floor. The woman was leaning out of it. She looked like she was screaming, but Loftus could hardly hear her. He looked past her and saw that her husband was there, holding her to make sure she didn’t fall. Loftus couldn’t read his expression.
But they didn’t have guns. They didn’t matter for the moment He’d have time to—
He couldn’t make out the screaming from above but he did hear the click, because it was much, much closer at hand. And he felt the pressure.
Rybek had recovered his gun. He couldn’t rise from the mud because of his leg, so he just laid there and stuck the gun right into John Loftus’s crotch.