Free Assignment - Cong Hai Kill by Edward S. Aarons Page A

like this, do we?” Her eyes were dark.
“Must we quarrel? We’ve never been like this before.”
    “We’ve never worked
together before,” he said. “It would be easier if I knew you were in the
Embassy on Wireless Road in Bangkok, on your way home.”
    “Is any place safe, in
this world today?”
    “Some are better than
others.”
    “But  you’re  here,
and I want to be with you. Is that a crime?”
    “It makes things
tougher.”
    “Because you worry about
me? And love me?”
    “Yes,” he said flatly.
    She smiled sadly. “We’re
like a married couple in their first serious quarrel. But you always refused to
marry me, to avoid the emotional burden of worrying about me. But is it really
so bad? I was trained at the Farm to take care of myself. Why can’t you accept
that?”
    “Because you don’t know
what this business is like. You didn’t see what they did to ‘Uncle Chang.’ ”
    “Anna-Marie told me. He
was a tine old Chinese gentleman. Chang and his brother Paio often
took care of her when her papa was drunk or with a native woman. Paio is
still at the plantation, you know, working as manager for Pierre Danat,
her father. But Chang was the special one in her life.”
    “Does she realize that Orris might
have killed him?”
    “She refuses to consider
it. And she’s not a stupid girl. Do you think he could have fooled her so
completely? And why should he pretend to come back to our side? She’s only
afraid that something happened to Orris, too. Why didn’t he show up? Maybe
he doesn’t trust us because he knows Muong is with us, and Muong hates
him even more than you. Why should he risk being shot down, as this Doko Dagan
was shot down?”
    Durell shrugged. He had
no answers yet. He felt boxed in, forced to obey orders that went against his
intuition and common sense. He had no tolerance for traitors, and Orris Lantern
was one of the worst. Yet when he looked at the French girl, sleeping with her
blonde hair tumbled on the pillow about her piquant, vulnerable face, he
wondered if Deirdre could be right. Deirdre did not proceed so much from logic
as from faith. Maybe he had gone too far in this lonely business and had missed
something that Deirdre could provide. He felt lonely, and knew he needed her as
never before.
    Yet he still felt right
in trying to shelter her from the ugly dangers of the world in which he worked.
As long as desperate men fought and died to keep some rational balance, some
order in existence, he felt needed, and he could never go back to the world
Deirdre had now deserted, and to which he wished she would return. He wondered
how long it would be before it was too late for her, too.
     
    Lunch consisted of  kuo   pat ,
made up of crabmeat, chicken, pork, onion, and egg, served with slices of
cucumber, soy sauce, and chopped chilis. Durell ordered more Singha beer
with it. Anna-Marie, still sedated by the French hotel doctor, tossed and
moaned in her sleep.
    Durell moved the table
away from the window, where they could be targets for someone on the crowded
embankment below. He regarded Deirdre with dark, irritated eyes.
    “How long will you keep
up your game?” he asked.
    Her eyes were innocent.
“What game?”
    “You know what I’m
talking about, Dee.”
    “Sam, darling.” She
wrinkled her nose slightly in amusement. “Let’s not mix business with
pleasure.”
    “Since when?”
    “Since you showed how
low a regard you have for me as a fellow—member of K Section.”
    “Deirdre, it’s silly to
keep that between us.”
    “Do you think so? It’s
not my mind that wanders off business,” she reported. “You ought to be thinking
about Major Muong. From What you tell me, he shot Dagan deliberately.”
    He lowered his voice and
signaled her to do the same. He didn’t want Muong’s listening post to
hear their plans.
    “It certainly looked
that way.”
    “To keep Dagan from
talking?”
    “Possibly. And I haven’t
been merely brooding