The Corsican (52 page)

“No,
you
push too far. I warned you not to interfere. You think because Faydang protects you in the north, he protects you here as well. I assure you no such protection exists. If I find out you were involved, you'll wish Buonaparte Sartene had found you years ago.”

Francesco's jaw tightened as he watched Lin extend a cigarette holder and then flick the ash with a long, polished fingernail. “I don't like being threatened,” he said.

“Is that what bothers you, Francesco? I don't think so. You just don't like being threatened by a woman.” Lin stared coldly across the chamber. Then she smiled.

Chapter 35

“I can understand your sending Luc to back me up. And, given what happened, I certainly can't object. But why didn't you tell me?”

Buonaparte Sartene sat on the hotel terrace, shaded from the late-afternoon heat by a canvas canopy. He allowed his eyes to drift from his grandson, out toward the distant harbor. “Sometimes it's better not to know, Pierre. Sometimes when there is protection a man depends on it and becomes careless. It has happened to me that way.”

Peter was forced to recall his own carelessness. His foolish walk into a deserted area; his obviously indiscreet meetings with Lin. He felt a mild rebuke in his grandfather's words, and he knew it was deserved.

Buonaparte smiled at him. “Anyway, we know now Francesco is watching. The hound sniffs for the fox.”

“How do we know that?” Peter asked.

“Colonel Duc,” Sartene said. “It was Francesco who told him of your friendship with his daughter-in-law. It's a coward's ploy that fits this man. A surrogate assassin.”

Peter's thoughts, raced back three weeks to the dark, swarthy man behind him in the street. He shook his head. “Three weeks ago I thought there was someone following me. I was with Lin at the time. But I dismissed it when it didn't happen again. And, to be honest, I never thought Francesco would dare get so close.”

“Remember Papa Guerini's words about the fox and the hound,” Sartene said. He thought about the possibilities. “If it was he,” he said at length, “he did it well. Even Luc did not see him. But then, Luc was also a child when Francesco …” He allowed his words to fall away. He sat up abruptly. “But there is good in all this too.”

Peter laughed softly. “Really,” he said. “Please tell me what it is.”

Sartene looked at him sternly. “There is no need to pursue this heroin matter now, and expose yourself to others. Now we can lure him out. But still you must be careful. He may try again to use others.” Sartene thought of the woman, and for a moment he was tempted to tell his grandson. He decided against it. If Lin knew Francesco had gone to Duc, had betrayed her, then their relationship, if it still existed, had ended. If not, then Francesco might try to use her again. He decided he would watch for a while. He was uncomfortable with the decision. But if Pierre was told and his attitude toward her changed, they could lose this advantage. And it would also place Pierre in danger.

“Have you seen the woman since this happened?” Sartene asked.

Peter shook his head. “I thought it best not to, that it might be dangerous for her.”

“That has been taken care of,” Sartene said.

“Then I'll see her soon.” He reached out and touched his grandfather's hand. “Thank you, Grandpère,” he said.

Robert Brody ran a hand through his soft, sandy hair. It was the only thing soft about him. Years of work in the CIA had kept his body tough; the past three in Viet Nam had toughened his mind as well.

He stared again at the letter that had been hand-delivered to the embassy. Francesco Canterina had been the best double agent he had ever worked. Now, he had to admit, the man had again proved his worth, even at the price they paid for that service. He reached for the telephone on his desk, glancing at the mandatory photograph of the president that hung from his office wall. As he dialed the number he wondered how far up the ladder it all went. How much was known about the deals made, the corruption tolerated, even condoned, just to keep the intelligence machinery operating. The voice that came over the receiver was sharp and correct, shaking away the thoughts.

“Colonel Wallace, please. This is Bob Brody at the embassy.”

A minute later, Wallace's voice crackled into the phone. “Well, well. How's my favorite civilian spook? How's the old dong hangin'?”

Brody grimaced, his square, craggy face wrinkled with disgust. There were Tu Do Street pimps he liked better than Wallace. “Flaccid,” he said. “But I think I have something that will put life in yours.”

“What's her name?”

“Not a her, a him,” Brody said, enjoying the conversation for the first time. He was well aware of the military's paranoia about homosexuals.

“Don't play that game,” Wallace snapped. “Not even for God and country.”

“How about for Cao?” Brody listened to the silence that met his words; he was smiling, something unusual for him.

“What do you have on that slippery little fuck?” Wallace asked at length.

“One of my best people just offered to hand him to us. How does that sound?” Brody asked.

Wallace grunted. “We get five offers like that a week. So far we've been offered everybody from Colonel Ky to Uncle Ho himself.”

“You haven't been offered anything from my man,” Brody said.

“You think he's that good?”

“How good is a white man who lives in Hanoi and works for us?”

“And them too, I suppose,” Wallace snorted.

“Of course,” Brody snapped. “Listen, if you don't want it, I'll take it myself.”

“I didn't say I didn't want it,” Wallace said quickly. He paused, thinking over the embarrassing possibility of someone else finding Cao. “He can really ID Cao for us?” he finally asked.

“Nope. But he can do better than that. He can take us to Cao's hole and guarantee he'll be there when we arrive.”

Wallace let out a low whistle. “And you think he can deliver?”

“All I can say is that he's never bullshitted me yet,” Brody said. “I take it you're interested?”

Wallace began to chuckle. “Indeed,” he said.

“Good. Then be at the safehouse at nineteen hundred hours sharp.”

“I'll be there, and I'll bring the officer assigned to the hunt,” Wallace said.

“No dice,” Brody snapped. “My man says it's me, him and the top military man in charge. Anybody else and he walks.”

Wallace grunted again. “Okay, you got it. Fussy sonofabitch, isn't he?”

Chapter 36

They lay next to each other. Peter gently stroked Lin's naked back and arms, feeling the tears roll from her cheeks into the hollow of his shoulder.

“There's nothing to weep about,” he whispered.

“It's my fault, Peter,” she said hoarsely. “And because of it you could be dead.”

“But I'm not dead,” he said. “And if you'll stop crying I'll show you how alive I am.”

She slapped weakly at his chest. “How can you think of sex after all this?” she demanded.

He began to laugh softly. “I don't know,” he said. “I guess having a beautiful naked woman lying in my arms might have something to do with it.”

She sniffled, then ran her index finger under her nose. “It's perverse,” she said.

“Didn't you know? All big hairy Americans are perverse. That's what you Vietnamese ladies love about us.”

“Is not,” she said. “We're after your money, not your bodies. We are a poor people, exploited by rich American industrialists.”

He felt her shoulder shaking, and tilted his head to the side to look at her. “You're laughing,” he said, reaching across her body to slap her buttocks. “I almost die and you lie there laughing.”

She stretched herself and kissed him, filling his nostrils with the rich smell of lotus, her smell. “Don't talk about it,” she said. “Make love to me. Make me forget it all.”

He turned toward her, then pulled her closer. He kissed her eyes, her nose, chin and neck. He would kiss every part of her, he told himself. Starting at one end and working slowly to the other, then returning again. Thinking of her, he felt himself grow and harden. The soft skin, the scent of her.

They made love slowly, gently, taking time with each other, for each other, moving individually, then as one. He felt closer to her, more so now than before, almost as though he had earned the closeness, paid a price for something worth having. When he entered her this time, her body seemed to engulf him, pull him down within her and hold him.

He heard her breath coming in gasps, grabbing for air as he was grabbing for her; the smell of her, the sweet pungent scent, overpowering him, arousing him even more than the friction of their bodies rubbing together.

She groaned, her voice out of control, as she reached toward her final climax, and inside her he could feel the spasms of her muscles, pulling on him, pulling him down deeper within her, making him wish he could remain there, never leave, simply lose himself within her and hide there safe, happy, secure in his feelings.

“Oh, Peter,” she groaned. “I never want to leave you. Stay close to me, Peter. Stay close, stay close.”

“I will,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, weak from exertion. Now it was right, he told himself, and it would remain so. Nothing would change it. Nothing.

“This is the big one. I feel it.” Wallace paced behind his desk, the morning sunlight streaming past his bulky frame and flooding the office. “Now we catch the bastard, once and for all.” He slammed a fist into his hand for emphasis.

“What time are we going in, sir?” Peter asked, though not really caring. It would be one more misadventure, he was sure. There might be VC, probably would be in a tunnel beneath Cholon. But not Cao.

“Seventeen hundred hours, on the dot,” Wallace said. “CIA's man says the little fuck has a meet set then. We'll catch 'em right in his fucking nest trying to hatch some eggs.”

Peter repressed a smile over Wallace's abundant use of metaphors. “How large a force do you plan on, sir?”

Wallace took a cigar from his desk, bit off the end and spat it out on the floor to his left. He lit the cigar, taking time to be sure it was drawing properly. “Well, that's the sticky part. Our source claims the fewer the better. Actually suggested two or three men. Well, I told him where to fuck off, you can be sure. He claims the tunnel is narrow and long and carries noise too well. Says too many men would give too much warning and botch the whole show.”

Peter eyed him, waiting for the number.

“I figure five or six, no more than a squad, anyway. You'll run it underground, I'll coordinate things above.”

“Not too many troops, colonel,” Peter finally said.

“We're only after one gook,” Wallace snapped.

“I just don't want to get down there and find out he invited company today,” Peter said.

“I'm assured that won't be the case,” Wallace snapped.

But you won't be there to find out, will you? Peter mused.

“How about escape routes? For Cao, I mean?” Peter asked.

“There are probably dozens,” Wallace admitted. “All those damned tunnels are connected. All we can do aboveground is fan out and watch for anybody running. And back you people up, of course.”

Let's hope, Peter thought.

“What about defenses, colonel?” Peter asked. “Any possibility of booby traps?”

“According to CIA's man, the tunnel was not mined when he was down there.”

“He saw Cao?” Peter asked. “Actually met him?”

Wallace squinted at Peter, having sensed the incredulity in his voice, then puffed on his cigar again. “Not exactly. But he's met the person Cao's meeting with. Look.” He jabbed out with the cigar. “This isn't my source, but he's supposed to be damned good. SOB's a white man who actually lives in Hanoi. Works for them too, of course. But that's still no easy trick.”

Peter's body stiffened. Francesco, complete with another surrogate. And planned so he could not walk away from the trap. He was beginning to feel a grudging admiration for the bastard.

“I'd like to talk to this guy before we go in, sir,” Peter said.

“Can't do,” Wallace said. “His terms, not mine.”

A thin smile formed on Peter's lips, a sharp contrast to the knot he felt growing in his stomach. There would not even be time to reach out for his grandfather or Luc.

Molly Bloom sat behind her oversized desk, staring into the expressionless face of her man, Po.

“Are you sure? There's no question at all?” she asked.

Po only nodded, his eyes blank, his face a stolid, square mass.

She sat back in her chair, placed the cigarette holder to her mouth and drew heavily. Exhaling, she tapped her fingernails on the desk. “Young Pierre is moving onto dangerous ground,” she said. “But I don't think he's done it by himself. This has a Corsican smell to it, don't you think?”

Po did not answer, knowing it was neither necessary nor required.

Her eyes, gleaming green anger, turned back to him. “You stay especially near to our friend today,” she said. “If he gets close, come to me immediately. He may already know, but I doubt it. But if he gets close enough he will. Then, I'm afraid, our friend's life will have lost its value.”

Cholon was Saigon's twin city, inhabited primarily by the area's Chinese population and virtually run by both the VC and the Binh Xuyen river pirates. It was the VC who dominated the political side, a fact attested to by the repeated night skirmishes fought on its streets, and the inability of the military to flush them from the labyrinth of tunnels. The Binh Xuyen controlled the economic side, which consisted of the endless number of opium dens that flourished in the area, along with equal amounts of outright banditry, smuggling and extortion. The Binh Xuyen had been given status by the French SDECE, to combat the Viet Cong. But the Americans and their South Vietnamese counterparts had not treated the Binh Xuyen well, often driving them to the sanctuary of the Rung Sat Swamp at the mouth of the Saigon River. Rung Sat, translated as the Forest of the Assassins, had become their sanctuary in times of oppression, while Cholon had remained their economic stronghold. And the Viet Cong had become their friends. The ARVN government and the Americans now had no one they could turn to for help in Cholon. It was, in effect, the capital city of the Viet Cong.