“L’Union Corse.”
“Just so, by the cursed blood of Bonaparte, may it boil in hell,” De Lhandes said.
So it’s the Corsicans, Nicholai thought. Their first attempt turned into a bloody burlesque, so they decided to hire their best talent for the next attempt.
But why?
Realizing that this wasn’t the time to ponder that question, he asked, “Did you see her?”
“She said she will come to you.”
“And the papers?”
“Safely stored, Michel.”
146
DIAMOND LEFT THE HOTEL frustrated and angry.
The blonde bitch that had cuckolded the emperor wasn’t in her room.
He put men out on the Saigon streets.
Himself, he went to lead the search for Nicholai Hel.
147
BAY VIEN WALKED into Nicholai’s room at the brothel and said, “You have to leave now.”
“Not until I hear from her.”
“The Sûreté are coming,” Bay argued. “Don’t just think of yourself. You’re endangering everyone in this house. We’ll keep looking for her, we’ll bring her to you.”
It’s true, Nicholai thought. He had no right to do that. “Where are we going?”
Bay told him.
“What about Solange?” Nicholai asked. “She thinks I will be here.”
“I’ll get word to her,” De Lhandes offered.
“And my men will bring her to you,” Bay said.
Appropriately, Nicholai thought, to my hiding place – the Swamp of the Assassins.
148
THE RUNG SAT LAY southeast of Saigon, east of the mouth of the Soirap River where it drained into the South China Sea. A wilderness of swamps, mangrove forests, bamboo, and countless little tributaries formed an impenetrable maze to all who didn’t know it well.
The Binh Xuyen knew it well.
This was their birthplace and sanctuary, where their old pirate raids had originated and returned, the place from which their famed assassins emerged to slip into the city, kill, and then slip back again.
Nicholai lay in the bottom of the skiff as it came downriver then turned east on a small channel in the dense swamp. The terrain was surprisingly varied – now a flat, sun-drenched stretch of low vegetation and algae, then a dark, dense stand of mangroves, then a wall of bamboo. This pattern repeated itself for an hour, and then the boat slowed onto narrower channels, pressed hard by the mangroves that loomed beside and above and at times shut out the sky, casting the boat into a diurnal darkness.
A man could get lost in here, Nicholai thought.
Get lost and never find his way out.
Finally the skiff pulled up alongside a houseboat anchored against a line of mangroves. The boat was squat and wide, with open decks fore and aft and a cabin in the center. Binh Xuyen troopers, machine pistols slung over their shoulders, stood on guard. Bay Vien emerged from the aft cabin door and stood on the deck as Nicholai stood up.
“You are nothing but trouble, Michel,” he said, helping him onto the boat.
“Is she here yet?” Nicholai asked.
“No,” Bay said impatiently.
He led Nicholai into the cabin, which had a small kitchen with a gas cooker, a table, and a couple of chairs. A narrow set of stairs led down into the hull where there was a small hold and sleeping quarters.
“You’ll be safe here,” Bay said, “until we can get you on a ship out.”
That was the plan – hide him and Solange here in the swamp until the next night, then take them by boat to a freighter coming out of the Saigon docks.
“Have you heard from her?” Nicholai asked.
“You’re monotonous,” Bay said.
“Answer my question.”
“No,” Bay Vien said.
“I’m going back to look for her.”
“In the first place,” Bay said, “no one will take you back; in the second place, you can’t get back on your own; in the third place, even if you did, you would only be killed. Her karma is her karma now.”
Nicholai knew that he was right.
“You want tea?” Bay asked.
He shook his head, lit a cigarette instead, and sat down in the bamboo chair at the small table.
“Relax,” Bay said.
“You relax.”
“A man in love,” Bay said, shaking his head. He jutted his chin toward the hatchway. “Go get some sleep.”
“I’m not tired.”
“I said go get some sleep.”
Nicholai went down the hatchway into the hold.
The crates were there.
Crates of rocket launchers.
Bay nodded. “I’ll go back to Saigon and see what’s happening. Besides, there are pursers to bribe.”
“I’ll pay it.”
“Yes, you will.” He called for the skiff and left.
Nicholai went down into the hold, lay down on one of the beds, and tried to rest.
His promise to Yu was almost fulfilled, he had money and papers.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
Get Solange to safety.
149
DE LHANDES WADDLED down the aisle of the cinema.
Michel had said that Solange loved the films. The screen was dim, some film noir, he thought, of the type that he couldn’t bear. De Lhandes preferred comedies or period pieces, with low bodices and heaving bosoms.
Then a daylight scene brightened the screen and he saw her in the third row. He slipped into a seat behind her. She was staring up at the screen and weeping as she dabbed a tissue to her eyes.
“Mademoiselle,” De Lhandes whispered. “Michel is waiting for you. Go out the back. There are men to take you to him.”
He saw her neck stiffen with doubt.
“You have no reason to trust me,” he said. “Only that I am an admirer of beauty and, like all cynics, a disappointed romantic. And I am his friend. Go now, Mademoiselle Solange, before it is too late.”
He waited as she decided what to do.
Then she got up, slid down the aisle, and walked out the back door of the theater.
150
GUIBERT WASN’T at the House of Mirrors.
Nor at Le Parc, nor the Continental, nor Le Grand Monde. He wasn’t on Rue Catinat, the Central Market.
He was gone.
Diamond cruised the streets. If he couldn’t find Hel, he’d find someone who would tell him where he could.
151
HAVER FORD WALKED the narrow alleys of Cholon.
If the Corsicans had sent another killer, it meant that Nicholai was still alive, and he figured that Hel would most likely run to a neighborhood where he spoke the language and knew the customs.
But no one had seen a tall kweilo who fit Hel’s description, or at least no one was talking.
152
BERNARD DE LHANDES was looking for a decent meal, reading the sidewalk boards that listed the evening’s fixed-price menus when the men jumped out of the car, grabbed him, and shoved him onto the floor of the backseat.
“Where is your friend?” Diamond asked.
“I-I-I don’t know.”
“Tell me before I hurt you very badly.”
But De Lhandes did make them hurt him very badly. He made them bruise organs and break bones but, in the end, he couldn’t stand the pain.
“Forgive me, Michel,” he wept. “By the sacred blood of Saint Joan, forgive me.”
He told them what they wanted to know.
153
“THE RUNG SAT?” Signavi questioned.
“That’s what the little bastard said,” Diamond answered. “Believe me, he was telling the truth.”
The French paratrooper found the information troubling. “The Rung Sat is Binh Xuyen country.”
Diamond didn’t want to hear it. He’d already gotten the word that La Corse had botched the hit on Haverford, and that the smart-mouthed son of a bitch now knew about his connection to Operation X and the heroin trade. And now Hel had made it out of Saigon, into the so-called Swamp of the Assassins, which could only mean that he was under the protection of Bay Vien.