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

on your lovely body, either, Deirdre, You’re going to code
a cable to Saigon Central for me, to relay to Washington. I want a more
detailed dossier on our friend Muong. Crash priority.”
    “Will do. And then?”
    “Then you go and flirt
with the major”—he grinned at her flash of anger—“and keep him out of my way
While I check out his quarters.”
    She was dubious. “Sam,
do you think you should?”
    “Not only should, but
must.”
    “How much time will you
need?”
    “Half an hour, at
least.”
    Her eyes were cold.
“I’ll flirt with him, if I must; but I won’t like it. And afterward? It doesn’t
settle anything about how we’re to contact Yellow Torch now.”
    Durell spoke flatly.
“We’ll go upriver after him. Tonight, if necessary. If the mountain won’t come
to Mahomet, we’ll damned well go to the mountain.”
    “Sam, he may be dead.”
    “If so,” said Durell,
“good riddance.”
    He looked at Anna-Marie,
sleeping on his bed, and went to work.
     
                                      11
    THE Thai government
building was on the river, cheek-by-jowl with the Hong Chow, a Chinese theater.
A sign in Thai, English, and French read Sampeng Road, and the
street, following the crowded riverbank, was a bedlam of bicycles,  samlors ,
and a noisy parade of Thais, Burmans, Cambodians, Javanese, and East
Indians. The Buddhist monks were everywhere, with their shaved heads and yellow
robes, since all Thai men entered the priesthood for at least three months of
their lives as good Buddhists.
    There was a plot of
grass and drooping flower beds before the concrete Government House. The
afternoon heat smashed down from a sky of pure brass.
    He waited in a tearoom
nearby, watching the river traffic, until he saw Deirdre and the tall, thin
Major Muong leave the building. Deirdre looked cool in white linen
and white gloves, outstanding in the sweep of colors around her. He waited five
minutes, then crossed the garden where dragonflies made flickering sword-sweeps
across the flower beds. He had checked in here before, and the Thai police
clerk knew him. When he was told that the major had just left, he was given
permission to wait in Muong’s temporary office. .
    This was a corner room
overlooking the  klongs  that branched off the river. The view
faced inland toward the green carpet of coastal plain running north and south
along the emerald Gulf of Siam. There was no visible line between the Thai and
Cambodian border, but far off could be seen the violet haze of the uplands that
reached into the heights of the Cardamomes, in Cambodian territory. Beyond
was the fabled Angkor Wat and the ancient seat of the mighty Khmer
Empire.
    The sky changed from
brass to lime green. Durell lit a cigarette as the police clerk bowed his way
out of the small, severe office. In one corner stood a  small jasper
Buddha on an ornate bronze pedestal. He looked at Muong’s clean desk
and the row of wooden filing cabinets inherited from an earlier administrator.
The fan in the ceiling was no more help here than elsewhere. Incongruously, a
modern air-conditioner was fitted into a window, but it wasn’t working, of
course.
    Muong’s   simple
living quarters were behind the office, provided expressly for his temporary
duty here. The door was a carved double panel with a brass lock. Originally,
the building had been a hotel built by French speculators forty years ago, and
some of the rococo furnishings still persisted. He tried the brass handle. It
was firmly locked. From a pocket, he took what looked like a switchblade,
pressed a button on the handle, and brought forth a series of picklocks that he
tried rapidly in the ornate door. The third prong found its target and the
double leaf swung inward to Muong’s quarters.
    The Thai’s asceticism
was evident in the lack of personal equipment in the room. There was a low bed
with iron head and feet, an old-fashioned dresser and wardrobe