Their waiter, gaunt and silent, set two bowls of noodle soup on their table and vanished through a pair of swinging doors. In the kitchen, pots clanged and voices chattered over a cleaver’s staccato. The swinging doors kept slapping open and shut as waiters pushed through, bent under the weight of their trays.
The police agents were staring.
Willy, by now brittle with tension, reached for her chopsticks and automatically began to eat. It was modest fare, noodles and peppery broth and paper-thin slices of what looked like beef. Water buffalo, Guy told her. Tasty but tough. Head bent, ignoring the stares, she ate in silence. Only when she inadvertently bit into a chili pepper and had to make a lunge for her glass of lemonade did she finally put her chopsticks down.
“I don’t know if I can take this idle-tourist act much longer.” She sighed. “Just how long are we supposed to wait?”
“As long as it takes. That’s one thing you learn in this country. Patience. Waiting for the right time. The right situation.”
“Twenty years is a long time to wait.”
“You know,” he said, frowning, “that’s the part that bothers me. That it’s been twenty years. Why would the Company still be mucking around in what should be a dead issue?”
“Maybe they’re not interested. Maybe Toby Wolff’s wrong.”
“Toby’s never wrong.” He looked around at the crowded room, his gaze troubled. “And something else still bothers me. Has from the very beginning. Our so-called accidental meeting in Bangkok. Both of us looking for the same answers, the same man.” He paused. “In addition to mild paranoia, however, I get also this sense of…”
“Coincidence?”
“Fate.”
Willy shook her head. “I don’t believe in fate.”
“You will.” He stared up at the haze of cigarette smoke swirling about the ceiling fan. “It’s this country. It changes you, strips away your sense of reality, your sense of control. You begin to think that events are meant to happen, that they will happen, no matter how you fight it. As if our lives are all written out for us and it’s impossible to revise the book.”
Their gazes met across the table. “I don’t believe in fate, Guy,” she said softly. “I never have.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“I don’t believe you and I were meant to be together. It just happened.”
“But something-luck, fate, conspiracy, whatever you want to call it-has thrown us together.” He leaned forward, his gaze never leaving her face. “Of all the crazy places in the world, here we are, at the same table, in the same dirty Vietnamese café. And…” He paused, his brown eyes warm, his crooked smile a fleeting glimmer in his seriousness. “I’m beginning to think it’s time we gave in and followed this crazy script. Time we followed our instincts.”
They stared at each other through the veil of smoke. And she thought, I’d like nothing better than to follow my instincts, which are to go back to our hotel and make love with you. I know I’ll regret it. But that’s what I want. Maybe that’s what I’ve wanted since the day I met you.
He reached across the table; their hands met. And as their fingers linked, it seemed as if some magical circuit had just been completed, as if this had always been meant to be, that this was where fate-good, bad or indifferent-had meant to lead them. Not apart, but together, to the same embrace, the same bed.
“Let’s go back to the room,” he whispered.
She nodded. A smile slid between them, one of knowing, full of promise. Already the images were drifting through her head: shirts slowly unbuttoned, belts unbuckled. Sweat glistening on backs and shoulders. Slowly she pushed her chair back from the table.
But as they rose to their feet, a voice, shockingly familiar, called to them from across the room.
Dodge Hamilton lumbered toward them through the maze of tables. Pale and sweating, he sank into a chair beside them.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Guy asked in astonishment.
“I’m bloody lucky to be here at all,” said Hamilton, wiping a handkerchief across his brow. “One of our engines trailed smoke all the way from Da Nang. I tell you, I didn’t fancy myself splattered all over some mountain-top.”
“But I thought you were staying in Saigon,” said Willy.
Hamilton stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Wish I had. But yesterday I got a telex from the finance minister’s office. He’s finally agreed to an interview-something I’ve been working at for months. So I squeezed onto the last flight out of Saigon.” He shook his head. “Just about my last flight, period. Lord, I need a drink.” He pointed to Willy’s glass. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
“Lemonade.”
Hamilton turned and called to the waiter. “Hello, there! Could I have one of these-these lemon things?”
Willy took a sip, watching Hamilton thoughtfully over the rim of her glass. “How did you find us?”
“What? Oh, that was no trick. The hotel clerk directed me here.”
“How did he know?”
Guy sighed. “Obviously we can’t take a step without everyone knowing about it.”
Hamilton frowned dubiously as the waiter set a napkin and another glass of lemonade on the table. “Probably carries some fatal bacteria.” He lifted the glass and sighed. “Might as well live dangerously. Well, here’s to the trusty Ilyushins of the sky! May they never crash. Not with me aboard, anyway.”
Guy raised his glass in a wholehearted toast. “Amen. From now on, I say we all stick to boats.”
“Or pedicabs,” said Hamilton. “Just think, Barnard, we could be pedaled across China!”
“I think you’d be safer in a plane,” Willy said, and reached for her glass. As she lifted it, she noticed a dark stain bleeding from the wet napkin onto the tablecloth. It took her a few seconds to realize what it was, that tiny trickle of blue. Ink. There was something written on the other side of her napkin…
“It all depends on the plane,” said Hamilton. “After today, no more Russian rigs for me. Pardon the pun, but I’ve been thoroughly dis-Ilyushined.”
It was Guy’s burst of laughter that pulled Willy out of her feverish speculation. She looked up and found Hamilton frowning at her. Dodge Hamilton, she thought. He was always around. Always watching.
She crumpled the napkin in her fist. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go back to the hotel.”
“Is something wrong?” Guy asked.
“I’m tired.” She rose, still clutching the napkin. “And a little queasy.”
Hamilton at once shoved aside his glass of lemonade. “I knew I should have stuck to whiskey. Can I fetch you anything? Bananas, maybe? That’s the cure, you know.”
“She’ll be fine,” said Guy, helping Willy to her feet. “I’ll look after her.”
Outside, the heat and chaos of the street were overwhelming. Willy clung to Guy’s arm, afraid to talk, afraid to voice her suspicions. But he’d already sensed her agitation. He pulled her through the crowd toward the hotel.
Back in their room, Guy locked the door and drew the curtains. Willy unfolded the napkin. By the light of a bedside lamp, they struggled to decipher the smudgy message.
“0200. Alley behind hotel. Watch your back.”
Willy looked at him. “What do you think?”
He didn’t answer. She watched him pace the room, thinking, weighing the risks. Then he took the napkin, tore it to shreds and vanished into the bathroom. She heard the toilet flush and knew the evidence had been disposed of. When he came out of the bathroom, his expression was flat and unreadable.
“Why don’t you lie down,” he said. “There’s nothing like a good night’s sleep to settle an upset stomach.” He turned off the lamp. By the glow of her watch, she saw it was just after seven-thirty. It would be a long wait.