I shook my head. I hoped it wasn’t north, but even as I entertained the thought I knew that that was the direction we were heading. Hanoi? Haiphong? Who could tell? And don’t ask me how I knew; I just knew.
“Damn it,” I mumbled, and tried to sit up again. It hurt, but not as badly as before. Someone had bandaged me up a bit, and fairly expertly, too. And unless I was totally insensitive to that sort of thing, they’d shot me full of painkiller. I couldn’t feel the painkiller; I could just feel the lack of pain. And I’d had ribs busted before. I knew how bad I ought to be feeling just then.
I took inventory of my personal effects. Wilhelmina was gone. Pierre, my little gas bomb, was still in place, as was Hugo, the pencil-thin stiletto stashed in a chamois case up my sleeve. Good enough, I thought. I’m not going to be helpless when someone comes in. Maybe I could take one or two of them with me.
I was looking aft when the door opened behind me — a quick flash of light, then darkness, only with the distinct feeling that now I wasn’t alone. I eased Hugo into my hand and slipped soundlessly to one side, away from the more or less central position in which I’d been left I couldn’t hear a thing because of the steady roar of those engines. I poised, knife in hand, ready to lunge.
“Mr. Carter,” a voice said.
“Phuong?”
“Yes. Oh, here... I was worried about you...” She slipped down beside me; took one of my hands in hers; felt the knife; shuddered. Then she pressed my hand again.
“Phuong,” I said. “What happened? Where are we going?”
“Oh,” she said. “The car... when it stopped, a man got out. A... a man I had known once. A man high in the government of the... of what we called the Republic of Viet Nam.” Both her hands closed on mine. She crept forward on her knees and nestled her head on my shoulder. I sat down, holding her with one hand, the knife still at the ready in the other. She swallowed hard and went on. “I... we don’t have much time, Mr. Carter. I will leave you no more illusions. I... I had been this man’s mistress. I had... I had left him for Walter. He was still... very much taken with me, I think. I... I am afraid I made him promises — anything, anything — if he would help me... help us... escape. I said you were an important State Department employee... a man who could ease his way once he had... made his way out of the Saigon area and had established his base of operations elsewhere. He...”
“Base of operations?” I said. “I don’t understand. And how am I going to help him?”
“He is going... somewhere... oh, I might as well tell you. He is going north to Hong Kong. There he will arrange for transfer of credit and set himself up. Then, once he is secure in Hong Kong, the next stop is, of course, the United States. Only there can he continue in the line of work he has chosen for himself. Only there can be...”
“Line of work?” I said.
“Oh, God,” she said. I could feel her sigh in despair. “He was one of the largest dealers in Long Pot heroin in the Republic. But no matter. Mr. Carter... Nick... I...” She burrowed her little face into my shoulder again. Patting her cheek with my free hand I could feel her face, wet with tears.
“Go on,” I said. “His name?”
I could feel her fingers dig into my arm again. She didn’t answer at first. Then her voice quivering, she named a name.
I whistled. A man high in the government, she’d said. Well, that hadn’t been any overstatement.
I thought of something. “Hey,” I said. “You said you’d made this guy some promises. What promises?”
Her fingers dug into my arm, harder. She tried to speak once, dissolved into a sob, and tried again. “I... I would... simply be... available.” She sighed, long and deep. “He will need... means... of persuading people in high places, first in Hong Kong, then in the United States if he gets there... means of persuading them that they should do whatever it is that he needs at any given time. He will... he will have need of girls like me...” She stopped there, though, and hung on to me like a barnacle.
This was getting complicated. And I had the feeling that those complications, if I responded to them, would only lead me farther and farther away from whatever goal it was that I was supposed to be pursuing.
One thing I did know. Whatever it was that had caused David Hawk to send me halfway around the world, it wasn’t the heroin traffic. It wasn’t that Hawk, and AXE, weren’t concerned about it. It was just that that wasn’t usually our slice of the pie.
But in the meantime, what was I to do about Phuong? Obviously the main thing, once we’d landed, would be to give her associates the slip. That was okay. I could make my way home from Hong Kong easily enough and perhaps look into the affairs of Mr. Meyer, the import-export man from Nathan Road in Kowloon, while the trail was still relatively warm. Perhaps I’d be able to pick up some sort of lead on the guys who had killed him.
Of course, I’d have to dump her and leave her to whatever sort of bargain she’d made with her old flame. And what bothered me was the fact that whatever bargain she’d made, it had probably saved my life. The gentleman in question wasn’t known for his generosity of spirit, or for his weak stomach. Before he’d moved from military to government status, he’d had a hand in a couple of massacres in the mountains. He wouldn’t have hesitated a moment over putting a bullet in me, passed out in the street. And could I just drop her back into his nasty operation and forget her?
My arm must have tightened around her just then. Just a reaction to what I was thinking. But at my touch she melted into my arms; her hands went around my body, pulled me to her. Then they went to my face and guided it to hers. I felt soft, hungry lips on mine, again and again. The little hands forced me down, pushing gently at my chest just above the bandage. Her hands were busy about her body in the dark and when I reached for her as she knelt there above me, I felt only skin — soft, velvety, exquisitely smooth skin. The beautiful body she’d shown me before, almost in contempt of me, she now wanted me to feel, there in the dark, with the roar of the great engines blotting out everything but the sound of her hoarse breathing, just above my face. Her hands guided mine up that slim, flat little belly of hers, to the delicious softly rounded breasts, tipped with rock-hard little nipples, fully aroused now. She guided my hands across these, pressed them to her hard, then moved my palms up to her neck. She shuddered in some private ecstasy of her own; then she climbed over me and slipped me — ready and willing — inside. Instantly another great shudder went through her body; her back arched; she ground her pelvis into mine; her body convulsed once more; she rode me pressing my not unwilling hands to her body all the while, moaning helplessly. And somehow, busted ribs and all. I found myself getting into the spirit of things. I took over the reins myself. She moaned again in that strange hoarse voice of hers; her body shook uncontrollably.
Outside the wind howled. The big engines roared and spat fire. Far behind us was a world in the last phases of a war decisively lost after thirty years’ bloodshed. I hadn’t any idea what lay ahead, and in the meantime, the present was wonderful.
Chapter Four
“How many of them are there up there?” I asked.
The door had swung open slightly; perhaps she hadn’t slammed it shut hard enough. There was a crack of light coming in from the compartment forward. I was sitting up, faying to struggle to my feet; she sat before me, buttoning up the black blouse. The dim light outlined her face for me, showing off those delicate bones, that almost European nose.
“My... employer,” she said. “The pilot. One other. A sort of bodyguard. Mr. Carter, do you think...?” The fine-boned face turned to me. “But no, no, I couldn’t ask you...”