Assignment - Cong Hai Kill

by Edward S. Aarons

  The house the old man pointed out was larger than most, beyond a row of wooden godowns along the steamer dock. Durell wondered if any boats would come up here again soon. He doubted it. And he wondered how, even if he were successful, he could get back to the coast. It would not be the same as getting here—and that had not been easy.

  In the few minutes it took to walk to the house that stood on pilings over the river mud, the village came back to some semblance of life. Pigs and chickens were let loose, and the thin cries of hungry children rose through the gathering dusk. More lanterns were lit; the people reassured by Muong’s scanty platoon. A woman stepped from the shadows and offered Durell a pink liquid to drink, smiling shyly. He shook his head and went on.

  At the foot of the steps leading to the veranda, he paused. “Danat! Pierre Danat!”

  A lamp shone inside the house. This place had been untouched by the terrorists, and several pirogues were beached in the mud under the house. Chickens scratched, and Durell thought he heard a distant roll of thunder in the terraced hills on either side of the valley. It was not yet the monsoon season, but rain was in the air, thick and heavy, making the lungs labor for each breath. He was drenched with sweat.

  “Danat!” he called again.

  The house had a roof with upturned eaves like a Chinese pagoda. Behind it were small godowns that had escaped burning. Nothing stirred. He put one foot on the lower step of the ladder to the veranda and a man appeared, outlined hugely against the dim light that oozed from inside.

  “Who calls Danat?” he answered in French.

  Durell spoke deliberately in English. “I’ve come back here with your daughter, M’sieu Danat! Is it you? My name is Sam Durell. You should have been expecting me.”

  “But of course?’ the man bellowed. He sounded drunk, and his stout frame swayed as he grabbed at the veranda rail above Durell. “Come up, come up, my dear fellow. No need for your gun. I am alone here —except for Giralda. My woman. Her real name is Thac Phong, but my first wife was Giralda, an Italian from Turin. Wonderful woman. But she died a long time ago. She was Anna—Marie’s mother. Is my little girl safe?”

  “She’s here. She’s all right.”

  “Come up, come up!” the man said again.

  Durell kept his gun ready as he mounted the ladder. Pierre Danat was a stout barrel of a man, wearing khaki trousers and jungle boots and a rough brown shirt. His bald head had a grizzled halo of thin hair, and he brandished an empty bottle of Stravei vermouth as if it were a club. Durell was reminded of nothing more than Friar Tuck, out of a tale of Robin Hood. Here was the same round face, the roguish eye, the sense of strength mingled with earthy blasphemy. But the Frenchman’s coordination was poor. He staggered and grabbed at a teak post for support, laughed, and rubbed his mouth with the back of a hand that looked like a slab of oak. He winked, twisting one side of his face in a caricature of conspiracy.

  “I taught Giralda-——the second one, that is—a taste for Stravei, which is made in Turin.” He laughed again. “And you made it, eh? We despaired of you, when the damned Cong Hai appeared today. But your friend, who waits for you, said you were due. He has remarkable faith in you, M’sieu Durell.”

  “Is Lantern with you now?” Durell asked.

  Pierre Danat put a fat finger to his lips. “Ah, how those devils hunted for him! They tore the village apart. They knew he was here, but they could not find him.”

  Danat slapped his huge belly with both hands. “After all, I had to hide him, did I not? My poor little Anna-Marie loves him so madly. And he is not such a bad sort, you know.”

  “Where is he?”

  “One moment.”

  Danat started for the door, staggered, and Durell caught his arm to steady him. It was like grabbing the hard trunk of a young tree. There was an odor about the man that defied easy analysis—sweat and drink, cheap perfume and liquor. And something else.

  “Are you all right, Danat?“

  “I have been indulging myself. My poor villagers! One tries to erase bad things from the mind.”

  “With what?”

  “Anything. A woman. Stravei.”

  “And a pipe of opium?”

  Danat grinned. “That, too. You are a Puritan, eh? All Americans frown on the sins of others. But you can lecture me on my sins later. I have go many of them, you will need much time. Please, please. Come in.”

  “You first,” Durell said grimly.

  Papa Danat thought his caution was a great joke, and let out a bellow of laughter that startled the herons across the river. They were invisible now, but the sound of their heavy, awkward bodies splashing through the reeds and then taking flight came clearly across the river valley. The sound of laughter must seem strange, Durell thought, in the ears of the stunned villagers, after the Cong Hai had visited them.

  He could see no resemblance between this gross man and the delicate Anna-Marie. But such things happened. He followed Danat into the big native house.

  The room was floored with teak planks, highly polished, and the Woven Walls of bamboo reflected the yellow glow of an oil lamp on a low Japanese table. There were Japanese tatami mats and a sleeping block in a corner and a thin Thai silk coverlet like a huge butterfly’s wing. A naked woman lay under the silk sheet, her dark hair a glossy tumble about her brown shoulders. Her eyes were pale brown, and reflected an agate-hard resentment of Durell’s intrusion. Her soft, everted lips were garish with lipstick that spoiled her native beauty, and she was adorned with many rings, jingling bracelets, and an amber necklace. There was a finely carved opium pipe and smoking kit on a low table near her. The bamboo screens were rolled down, and the air in the room somehow had the smell of a sick-chamber.

  “Giralda, my dear . . .” Danat began.

  “I will go,” she said in English.

  “Not yet,” Durell suggested.

  “It is unpleasant to be stared at so. I will go.”

  Durell said sharply: “Stay until our business is finished.” He turned to the huge, weaving figure of Papa Danat. “Does this woman know where you’ve hidden Orris Lantern?”

  Danat chuckled, and put a finger to the blob of his nose. “No, I did not tell her, although I must say that, like most women, she was most curious about the business.”

  The brown-skinned woman sat up, careless of exposing her full, proud breasts. She smelled of saffron and strange spices and anger. “You kept him here? With us? While those devils searched all around for him?”

  Danat roared. “Where else, pet? Ah, you are beautiful when you are angry. You would have told them, eh? To save yourself—”

  “To save you, you fool!”

  “Well, it worked, eh? They knew me, they did not touch me, eh? They think I sympathize,” he said, turning to Durell. “I speak of so many French mistakes in Indochina. I curse them and ask for justice from the people. They mistake my words and accept them for what they hope to hear. Now, come, M’sieu Durell, and I will show you our fine treasure.”

  “Is Lantern alive?”

  For a moment, Papa Danat looked utterly sober.

  “Can one kill the devil?" he whispered.

  They descended the ladder to the muddy ground below. From the main street came renewed sounds of native voices, but along the river’s edge, all was dark and deserted. A duckboard walk led them to the small godowns a hundred yards up the river. This part of Dong Xo had been spared by the guerrillas, and Durell wondered why, and how much influence this Papa Danat really had with the Cong Hal. He felt as if he were groping through a miasma of conflicting loyalties and deceits.

  “Here we are,” Papa granted.

  “You first.”

  “Again?”

  “Always.”

  “I would like to see my little daughter.”

  She’s safe. You’ll see her later.

  The godown looked small and rickety, but it was built of teak and age had only tightened its peg-and-beam construction. The door was low. Papa Danat called inside and then sh
ambled in. A flashlight bloomed, blinding them.

  From a corner of the little warehouse came the sound of labored breathing, like that of a Wounded animal. And then a thin, hillbilly drawl, filled with irony and amusement, spoke from the darkness behind the glare.

  “Welcome, Cajun. Don’t shoot, huh? I give up, like we said when we was kids.”

  16

  DURELL stood unblinking in the explosive glare of the flashlight. Papa Danat sucked in a long, hissing breath. Durell said quietly: “I ought to shut the door.”

  “Right, Cajun. Do it slow, like. And don’t shoot until you see the whites of my eyes.”

  “You have the drop on me, haven’t you?” Durell closed the door. The darkness seemed darker, the flashlight brighter. “Papa, is there a lamp in here?”

  “Oui, oui, I have it.”

  “Then light it.”

  The voice from the corner said: “I ain’t sure—”

  “You’ve given up," Durell said. His voice was hard. “You’re my prisoner. You’ll obey orders.”

  “Yessuh.” There was heavy irony in the reply. “To the best of my ever-lovin’ ability, so long as you get me out of here with what’s left of me.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Shot in the goddam back. Why do you think I wasn’t on the steamer with old Chang?”

  Papa Danat scratched a wooden match aflame, like a tiny bomb, and then shakily lit an oil lamp. The yellow glow made the dusty walls of the godown leap toward them out of a black nothingness. Durell saw piles of crates, bales of tea, some teak lumber. The narrow building was without windows except for large triangular vents at the pagoda-like gables. There were louvers all around for air, but they had been shut tight, and it was like standing in an oven. Durell felt sweat trickle down his chest and belly.

  He also felt a certain measure of surprise.

  You always expected the worst, and usually you got it. You expected delays, paperwork, frustrations. It was an occupational hazard, conducive to ulcers if you tried to be patient, and a bullet in the head if you were rash and careless.

  He had been sent halfway around the world to find this man; but he hadn’t expected it to be this easy.

  He was suspicious of it. And when he looked at Orris Lantern, he knew his troubles had just begun. Not merely with the renegade detector. He knew he would have trouble with himself.

  In the glow of the oil lamp, Orris looked like a half-starved jungle leopard. And as dangerous as a wounded beast who has escaped the hunter’s final bullet.

  Yellow eyes blazed back sardonically into Durell’s dark blue ones as they confronted each other. Lantern lay on a pallet of empty tea sacks. Some bloody bandages had been tossed a short distance nearby, and the dirty rags seemed to move with a life of their own. They swarmed with insects. There were some empty GI cans of food, and in Orris’ left hand was a heavy Army Colt .45, regulation issue. Durell wondered briefly where Orris had gotten it. Some dead American boy in a Vietnam jungle had yielded it up, perhaps. But he pushed the thought from his mind. That way could only lead to killing this man here and now, without mercy or hesitation.

  Orris read his face. His drawl quickened for a moment, and the yellow eyes dulled briefly.

  “Better count ten, Cajun. The deal is, you take me in alive, right? No matter how it turns your gut, eh? I know what you’d like to do; but if you want what you came for, you got to keep me in one piece, see?”

  “The deal is to take you in, in exchange for data on the Cong Hai fortress areas here. The Thais want that chart, and so does Washington.”

  “There ain’t no chart.” Orris grinned his tiger’s grin. “It’s all in my head. So if you blow my head off, you blow it all into the mud.”

  “You’ve memorized it?”

  “Everything I could get.”

  “I don’t like qualifications. Don’t you have it all?”

  “Nope. It’s up to you to get the rest.”

  Lantern coughed, a sound that changed to a sudden grunt of pain. A spasm twisted his lean, bearded face. His khaki shirt was ragged, muddy, and blood-stained. His shorts were hacked off above the knees, and his legs were caked with filth. He had only one boot. A crude bandage was wrapped on his left shoulder, and blood made a dark crust on it.

  "Sacré nom,” Papa Danat whispered. “You look much worse, my poor boy.”

  “He’s not a ‘poor boy,’ ” Durell said harshly. “He’s led these murderers for six months, burning and raping and inciting terror.” He looked ‘down at the Lantern. “Who shot you?”

  “I didn’t see him. He came at my back.”

  “But you think it was a man?”

  Lantern grinned. “Who knows? I was in the swamp, waiting to jump on the steamer at the last moment. Papa Danat took me down the trail and then left me. Maybe Papa went back and got the assassin to plug me.”

  “On my word, I did not —!” Danat exploded.

  “Okay, okay. Did old Chang get through all right?”

  Durell said grimly: “No. The Cong Hai got him, aboard the boat. He wasn’t very pretty when we found him.”

  Lantern was silent, scratching his golden beard. “Sorry about that. Uncle Chang was a good enough guy. His twin brother will be right broken up about it. You know Paio?”

  “Not yet,” Durell said.

  “He’s Papa’s plantation boss. He might help us.”

  “We’ll do it alone. Does Paio know you’re here?”

  “Nobody knows but Papa.”

  “Yet somebody shot you.”

  Lantern looked startled. “Yeah. But I figured it was a lucky gook from the Cong Hai on the trail. He plugged me in the shoulder and it hurts like hell. I also got a fever that’s killing me and I’m never gonna make it unless you get me out pronto, Durell. That won’t be easy, with the Congs all around. Lucky they didn’t find me when they came rompin’ through the town. But they’re lookin’ for me, all right. And they’ll get me, unless you’re fast and smart.”

  “Has your wound been looked at?” Durell asked.

  “No need to. It’s through my shoulder. Missed the lung but scraped some bone. I could use one of Papa’s dream pipes, except I never went for the stuff.”

  The man’s eyes gleamed with bitter amusement. “So make up your mind, Cajun. Either pull me out of here—what's left of me—or grease me now, as you’d like to do.”

  “Don’t tempt me,” Durell said shortly.

  “You think I’m scum, huh?”

  “Worse than that.”

  “Nothing lower than a traitor, right? Well, I could cite you chapter and verse from a nifty little magazine called Hung Chi, the Red Banner, where I been called a hero of the people’s revolution and a shinin’ example

  of integrity. It depends on your point of view, I reckon.”

  “From where I stand,” Durell said slowly, “you’re just carrion meat. I don’t want to bring you back. I didn’t ask for the job. I tried to get out of it. For my part, the Cong Hai are welcome to you. You might as well know how I feel.”

  “I knowed that from the start.” Again came the grin, the spasm of pain on the bearded face. “That‘s why I put all the data in my head. Like insurance, right? You want what I got, you have to bring me back alive.”

  “I’ll do it,” Durell said.

  Papa Danat sighed and sat down on a crate. His bald pate glistened in the glow of the oil lamp. He looked as if he were going to cry. “And my daughter loves him,” the Frenchman whispered. “She loves him.”

  17

  DURELL left Danat with the wounded man and walked back through the darkness to the main street. He felt a rare tension within himself. He knew he had come close to shooting Orris Lantern out of hand. Yet he had to protect him, whatever provocation Lantern offered. Lantern plainly was enjoying the situation. He could look forward to more goading and taunting by the man, and it wouldn't be easy to check his temper.

  Neither would it be easy to keep Lantern alive. So far, only Papa Danat knew where L
antern was hidden. But the man was wounded. And now he would have to let Major Muong know, and ask Muong’s help. A showdown with the Thai officer was sure to come. But perhaps a truce could be arranged as long as they were mutually trapped here. Durell had the feeling he was watched by a hundred enemy eyes as he walked away from the godown. Not only Lantern, but all of them would be lucky to leave Dong Xo alive.

  The villagers were moving about uncertainly in the glow of their lamps, searching the wreckage left by the Cong Hai raid. Some women sat, rocking quietly and weeping, in front of their ruined houses. The old men who were left stood with stunned, vacant eyes, or helped to clear what rubble they could. Burial parties were being organized. As always, with the astonishing resilience of the human spirit, some women were cooking evening meals, and other men were gathered about Muong’s three jeeps, asking for arms to help scour the jungle for the Cong Hai marauders.

  “M'sieu Durell? Vous étes M’sieu Durell?"

  The voice was high and thin, the French Words issuing from a Chinese-accustomed throat. Durell halted in the village street. It Was like standing in a spotlight on stage, with the dim native houses rising on their stilts around him and beyond, the dark glimmering river and the loom of the black hills closing the valley around them.

  “Mr. Durell?”

  He thought he was seeing the impossible, that the mutilated Uncle Chang on the riverboat had come back to life. The fat and elderly Chinaman waddled quickly toward him. This must be Paio Chu, the dead man’s twin brother, the estate manager for Papa Danat’s tea plantation.

  “Paio?”

  “Yes, Mr. Durell. Major Muong sends urgently for you. But first—you have seen M’sieu Danat?"

  “He's all right.”

  “He was with his woman-Giralda. Unfortunate. But every man has his weakness. Mr. Durell?” The Chinese paused. “I am sorry, you are a busy, important man. But I must ask about my poor brother, Chang. The major says you found him.”