Free Assignment - Cong Hai Kill by Edward S. Aarons

side to side in the brittle, yellow grass. He had stopped sweating. His
open mouth was an empty hole in his tormented face. No sound came from it,
except for the uneven surge of his breathing. He stretched his lips in what
might have been a grin of irony and triumph.
    Then he died.
     
                                      10
    FAT thunderheads loomed
over the muddy sweep of the harbor and the swampy coastline. The air was heavy
with the smell of the sea, which had taken on the color of pansies, while the
river looked like polished brass, streaked with lettuce green and maroon. The
tides of bicycle riders in mixed Oriental and Western costumes were like
tumbled jewels tossed helter-skelter on a shopkeeper’s velvet pad. The big
freighter was gone from the harbor. Heat shimmered over the waterfront,
insufferably oppressive. Durell thought that paradise might look good from
afar, but close up, it consisted of mud and blood and ooze and slime. Someone
had repaired the power, and the wooden fan in his hotel room ceiling pushed at
the overheated air as if it were taffy candy.
    Durell insisted that
Deirdre and Anna-Marie stay in his room for now. The French girl had been
sedated and slept in his bed, her face feverish in her nightmare-ridden sleep.
    Deirdre was calm and
remote when Durell returned. “I don’t like being shunted aside, darling. I have
my own job to do, and you didn‘t make it easier by turning Anna-Marie against
us with your opinion of the man she loves. Whatever you think of Orris Lantern,
you should have hidden it better from her. Except for her school years with me,
she’s really a simple child. She’s spent all her life alone on her father’s tea
plantation.”
    “She knows the
difference between men and women,” Durell said dryly. He took off his shirt,
ready for a shower.
    “She learned the hard,
ugly way, Sam. Her papa likes women—native or European, whatever is available.
He’s lived like a feudal lord ever since he came here as a boy from Dijon, in
France. His boredom led him to indulge himself—”
    “And Anna-Marie learned
about his amorality?”
    “She’s a fine girl,
Sam.”
    “She’s in love with a
renegade killer, a guerrilla murderer and terrorist—”
    “Hush.” Deirdre looked
quickly at the sleeping girl.
    Deirdre managed to look
cool and serene, as always; but she was still a stranger to Durell, who could
not accommodate himself to the fact that she was Working this mission with him.
“Surely, darling, you’ve been cruel enough to her?”
    “Dee, you don’t know the
man we’re dealing with. Muong knows. If what happened this morning is
any hint, Orris Lantern will be shot down like a mad dog, the moment
we get to him. If we get to him.”
    “Our job is to bring
Lantern and his information safely to Washington. You may find it disagreeable,
Sam, but those are our orders.”
    “But Muong won’t
help, after a certain point.”
    “Then you’ll have to
take care of him, somehow,” Deirdre said serenely. “Now take your shower,
darling. You really look a mess.”
    “So did Chang,” he said
bluntly.
    He ordered lunch brought
up while he cleaned up. He couldn’t help it if Muong’s bug had
recorded their conversation. He and Muong were professionals and had
each other’s measure now.
    In the huge bath he
stood under tepid water and then shaved and wrapped himself in a towel and
returned to the bedroom overlooking the embankment. Deirdre sat beside the bed
where Anna-Marie tossed in her feverish nightmare. He opened his suitcase. It
hadn’t been tampered with. The Cong Hai surely knew of him and might
prepare a booby trap to blow him to bloody bits. But there was nothing
suspicious. He took a fresh shirt and linen and drank a bottle of Singha beer
from Bangkok. It washed away some of the bitter dust in his throat. He looked
big and brawny in the hot shadows.
    “Sam,” Deirdre said
quietly, “We don’t really have to be