‘Mijn God!’ the Dutchman said.
Hatcher turned and looked. The barge was halfway around the bend. Standing on the front of the boat was Sam-Sam Sam. Hatcher felt a momentary jolt, a combination of fear and surprise — he had expected them to come the other way. Now Sam-Sam was between them and the Cigarette boat. They were cut off, and there were at least twenty men and women on the barge.
In the bar, Leatherneck John said, ‘Jesus, the shit just hit the fan.’
‘It’s Sam-Sam,’ the Dutchman whispered to Hatcher with awe. ‘Get out uf here, man! I don’t even know you.’
Hatcher grabbed his jacket in a tight fist. His tormented voice left little room for argument.
‘Have you seen him there? The warden?’
‘He has been seen,’ the Dutchman quickly stammered. ‘He does some business over dere now. He is passing himself off as a Thai.’
‘A Thai? You know what he calls himself?’
‘Vol Pot,’ cried the Dutchman, squirming out of Hatcher’s grasp. ‘He calls himself Vol Pot.’
THE BEST DEFENSE
With the information that Wol Pot had once been the warden of the Huie-kui camp, Hatcher’s heart was racing as he rushed down the pier to the snakeboat. Cohen was watching Sam-Sam’s barge through binoculars.
‘I don’t think he knows we’re here yet,’ Cohen said. He lowered the glasses and looked at Hatcher. ‘Maybe we ought to run for it, back to the Cigarette boat.’
Hatcher took the glasses and studied the barge. ‘He’ll cut us off once he recognizes me. “Why don’t you people take the snakeboat and I’ll go overland, back to the cutoff and meet you there.’
‘No!’ said Daphne. ‘We came together, we’ll leave together.’
‘This is no time for heroics,’ Hatcher whispered, still watching the barge.
‘She’s right,’ Cohen said.
‘Look, I’m the only one he wants. The ch’u-tiao is between us, not you people.’
As they watched through their binocu1ars, Sam-Sam Sam strolled the deck and stretched. One of the women came out of the cabin. She was still getting dressed and was as ugly as Sam-Sam.
‘See him?’ Cohen asked, without lowering his binoculars.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Had himself a little matinee,’ said Cohen. ‘Phew, look at that woman, she’d gag a maggot.’
‘This isn’t the Miss Universe contest,’ said Hatcher.
‘More like Miss Mud Fence of 1912,’ Cohen said, swinging his glasses around and checking out the rest of the barge.
As Hatcher watched, another man joined Sam-Sam, a swarthy olive-hued man wearing a white cotton shirt open to the waist. Two gun belts crisscrossed his chest from shoulder to waist and an M-16 rested casually across his shoulders. There was a pistol in his belt and a machete. The three men stood on the foredeck of the barge, looking at the water and chatting.
‘You’re right, they look like they expect an invasion,’ Cohen said.
‘That must be the Iranian,’ said Hatcher.
‘Yeah. Batal.’ Cohen lowered his glasses. ‘So, now what do we do?’
‘I’ll hit the woods, go overland back to the Cigarette boat,’ Hatcher said.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Daphne, pointing behind them.
Far out at the end of the pier, Billy’ Death was talking into a walkie-talkie.
‘Think he made me?’ Hatcher asked. He focused his glasses on the Haitian, who was pointing toward them as he spoke. ‘Yeah, he made me,’ he added.
He swung his glasses back to the barge and was staring straight into Sam-Sam Sam’s binoculars. The pirate lowered his glasses. His mouth curved into a grin, then a leer, then formed the word ‘Hatcher.’ lie raised his AK-47 and charged it.
‘Love at first sight,’ said Cohen.
‘Behind us,’ Daphne said.
Billy Death and another brigand were coming down the pier toward them.
‘Sing, you and Joey take care of those two,’ Hatcher snapped.
The Chinese gangster nodded curtly and he and Joey took their Uzis, climbed up on the pier and walked slowly toward Billy Death.
Watching from the doorway of the saloon, Leatherneck John said, ‘Christ, it’s beginning to look like High Noon.’
At the snakeboat, Hatcher made an instant decision. They were outnumbered twenty or thirty to one. Hatcher grabbed Cohen by the elbow and shoved him into the snakeboat. ‘Daphne,’ he yelled as loud as he could, ‘get inside the saloon, out of range.’
He turned the key and cranked the snakeboat’s engine to life.
‘Take the tiller,’ Hatcher ordered Cohen, and grabbing his briefcase, he ran to the front of the long, narrow boat and lay down flat on the bottom. He opened the case and took out a small square of gray C-4 plastique. He molded it quickly into a thick rope about two feet long and two inches thick.
‘Where the hell are we going?’ Chen demanded.
‘Head for the barge,’ Hatcher yelled back.
‘What?’
‘Trust me!’
‘You’re nuts, Hatcher, you’re just plain fucking nuts,’ Cohen yelled as he steered the skinny boat toward Sam- Sam’s barge.
Daphne backed slowly toward Leatherneck John’s saloon, watching the snakeboat and the face-off between Cohen’s men, Sing and Joey, and Billy Death and his man. Leatherneck John reached out and, grabbing Daphne by the arm, pulled her inside the door of the saloon.
‘You’re gonna get yourself killed out there,’ he snapped.
‘Can’t you help, please?’ Daphne pleaded.
‘Not my fight, ma’am,’ Leatherneck John said emphatically. ‘I gotta live up here.’
‘Then give me a gun!’ she hissed at him, her eyes afire with anger and fear.
The black man with the ponytail stared out the door.
The snakeboat was zigzagging its way toward the barge. Half a dozen gunmen were firing at it. Bullets tore through the thatched hooch at the rear of the boat and erupted in the water around it. Cohen was guiding the boat’s dodging course toward the barge while Hatcher lay in the front firing intermittent bursts at it while he wrapped the coil of C-4 around the prow of the boat.
‘Keep dodging them,’ he growled.
Onshore, Sing and Joey reached the pier. They were half the length of a football field from Billy Death and his man. The two Chinese stopped.
‘No farther,’ Sing ordered. As he held up his hand another of Sam-Sam’s river rats jumped from behind the corner of the saloon and jammed a knife into Joey’s back, just above the waist. Joey turned with a roar of anger and grabbed his attacker, but the wound was lethal. His arms went limp and he fell off the pier into the river.
Sing grabbed the man around the neck and snapped it with one hard twist. The man dropped. Sing turned toward Billy Death and his sidekick and fired a burst down the pier. It hit the sidekick shin-high, and he toppled to the dock with a scream. As Sing fired a second burst into the fallen thief, Billy Death got off a double burst. The bullets ripped into Sing. He fell to his knees but tried to get up, still firing. Death shot him again. Sing fell facedown, dead.
‘Pretty tough Chink,’ Leatherneck John said.
‘I make that about twenty to two now, not exactly what I’d call fair odds,’ said the man with the ponytail.
‘Odds don’t mean shit up here,’ leatherneck John said.
The man with the ponytail walked resolutely to the bar and took down the M-60 hanging behind it. Curled below it on a shelf was a fully loaded ammo belt. He threw the ammo belt over one shoulder and headed for the door.
‘Hold it!’ Leatherneck John demanded.
‘Don’t worry,’ said the ponytailed man, ‘I’m going outside.’
‘Not with my piece.’
The man swung the muzzle of the M-60 toward Leatherneck John.
‘I’m borrowing it,’ he said flatly as he walked out the door.
Leatherneck John said nothing. He stood watching with his mouth hanging open and his hands on his hips.