Assignment - Cong Hai Kill Read online

  make a deal for him. Amnesty for a traitor in exchange for information.”

  “I Wouldn’t buy it,” Durell said.

  “Joint Chiefs think the price is right. So you don’t lay a finger on him. Not even if he spits in your teeth.” McFee sighed slightly. “By good fortune, Anna-Marie Danat wrote to Deirdre, her old school chum, and Deirdre turned it over to us. Anna-Marie insists on dealing with your girl, Cajun. It’s a tricky business, and I’d rather not send her, but she has to go. And you go with her. The meet has been arranged and Orris will surrender to you in Anna-Marie’s presence. Bangkok Central has been signaled. You’ll work with Major T.M.K. Muong, of Thai Security. We think he’s all right, but you never know. There’s a lot of money involved; we might stick our thumbs into a big pie of opium-smuggling money that finances the Cong Hai, and that might complicate your job. Where there’s that much money, there’s a knife sharpened for your back, eh?”

  Durell picked up the dossiers on Orris Lantern. “When do we go?”

  “Tomorrow morning. Deirdre is all packed and waiting. In your apartment.”

  4

  “SAM?”

  He ignored her.

  “Sam, darling, please don’t be angry.”

  He studied the dossiers McFee had given him.

  “Sam, just look at me.”

  He made the mistake of looking at her. And lost. She had been in his apartment, as McFee predicted, when he returned from the briefing. For Sam Durell, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. He knew her intimately; after the years of their alliance, there were no more secrets between them.

  She was ready for bed, and her long black hair was a soft, coruscating wave around smooth shoulders. She had a proud, challenging body, and although she usually did not resort to feminine stratagems, she had gone all out tonight. Behind her gray eyes was an unfamiliar uncertainty; it was in her voice, too. It made him feel guilty, because she was always composed and self-assured. He wanted her to feel safe and happy. Instead, he knew he might have to take her through hell before they could hope to come back here again.

  “Sam, please?”

  “All right, Dee.”

  “My only crime is that I love you and want to be with you and share everything with you.”

  “Not everything. Why share treachery and death?”

  “Because you fight it, so I want to fight it with you.”

  He could not tell her how he felt at the mere thought that she might be the victim of the enemies he fought. He checked his snub-nosed .38 revolver. It was all he would take. He usually dispensed with the gimmicks dreamed up by K Section’s dipsy-doodle boys--the cyanide pens, the small incendiaries in the heels of your shoes, the needle stiletto taped to the nape of the neck. Durell did not need their weapons. He could kill with a rolled newspaper, the edge of his palm, a sewing needle held between thumb and forefinger. You had to know the precise neural centers. You made the hit in twenty seconds, or you never made it at all. His blue eyes turned dark as he wondered angrily how much training of this sort McFee had arranged for Deirdre. He put away the gun. His hands were deft, with long, strong fingers, like a gambler's. He knew all the tricks of gambling, picked up as a boy from his Grandpa Jonathan in the hot backwaters of Bayou Peche Rouge. The old man had been one of the last of the Mississippi riverboat gamblers, and Durell’s boyhood had been spent aboard the mud-bound hulk of the Trois Belles—the old sidewheeler the rugged old gentleman had won on the turn of a card.

  Old Jonathan had taught Durell to be a hunter, and it set him apart, and he knew that never in Deirdre’s quiet, placid childhood was violence ever mentioned. Deirdre’s life had been sheltered, an image of old Maryland aristocracy. His world was not hers, and never could be. Yet here she was, abandoning all she had and all she was. He looked at her as she waited in his bed, her gray eyes patient, a little worried. . . .

  In Moscow there is a square named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Russian Bolshevist born in Poland in 1877. This man had aided the Red Revolution by founding the Cheka, the dreaded predecessor of the OGPU, and he had served as head of the secret police until 1921. At No. 2 Dzerzhinsky Square, in KGB headquarters, there was a tabbed file with Durell’s name, code, and cover identities in a complete dossier on microfilm. There was a similar, if not as complete, report, in Peiping.

  Nothing in either file promised Durell a long or peaceful life.

  “Sam, darling, this is no way for us to begin working together.”

  “We’re not going to work together,” he said,

  “You know we are. I didn’t ask for it, Sam, but I’m glad it happened, anyway. In the past, I’ve died a thousand nights, waiting for you to come back.”

  “You don’t know what it’s like, Dee.”

  “Yes, I do. And I know you regard me as an albatross around your neck. But I promise you—”

  “You can’t promise anything, because you just don’t know.”

  “Sam, it’s foolish to argue. You know you’re not going to disobey McFee’s orders.”

  “I’m not taking you with me, Dee.”

  He faced her and saw that his words had changed her gray eyes. The quiet plea faded, and her mouth tightened ever so ‘slightly. It wasn’t often that she looked at him with hostility. They had been in love for a long time, and had come to accept each other as integral parts of themselves. He wondered if he could make love to her, and when she was asleep, perhaps abandon her in his bed and pick up his papers and cover forms and take the first plane out of Dulles for the Orient. By the time she Caught up, he might have settled the whole thing. It was dangerous to rush any job, but to accept Deirdre with him and feel a constant concern for her safety would make him more vulnerable than otherwise.

  As if reading his mind, she said, “Sam, I can take care of myself, I assure you. I’ve been training at the Farm for over a month.”

  “Deirdre, we won’t argue about it.”

  “You’re being stubborn and masculine,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “Prejudiced and stupid.”

  “Right.”

  “Maddening and hateful.”

  “And I love you, Dee,” he said. “I only want to take care of you.”

  “I told you, I’ll take care of myself.”

  “You wouldn’t know how, out there.”

  She started an impatient reply, then bit her lip and regarded him with cool gray eyes. He smiled and stood up to turn on the heat under his pot of Louisiana coffee, a thick brew heavily flavored with chicory, which he preferred. It was hot and quiet in his bachelor apartment facing Rock Creek Park. He looked at Deirdre and suddenly wanted her with an ache that could not be denied.

  He moved toward her.

  “Sam, you stay away from me,” she said tightly.

  He halted in surprise. “But you just asked—”

  “That was five minutes ago. You had five minutes. You lost them. Now it’s going to be different.”

  “Dee, that’s silly, you know how it is with us—”

  “Yes, and now it’s going to be business,” she said. “And only business. Until you change your mind about me. Or until we get back to the States together.”

  He sat beside her and took her fine face between his hands and kissed her deliberately on the mouth. Her lips were carved of marble.

  “Dee, this is probably our last night—”

  She spoke against his mouth. “You made the rules, Sam.”

  “I didn’t say anything about you and me—”

  “You said enough. Too much. Now go away and get some sleep. Over there, on the couch.”

  He did not leave. He understood her game and he resented it and yet could not avoid an inner amusement. Her lips were even colder when he kissed her again.

  “Don’t think, darling, that you can wheedle me into making love with you,” she said with finality. “I’ve quite made up my mind.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “And don’t touch me that way.”
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  “I can’t help it, when I’m so near you—”

  “Then go away from me.”

  “It’s my bed,” he pointed out.

  “Then I’ll take the couch.

  “It’s hard and uncomfortable.”

  “Make up your mind, darling, I’ll take discomfort, anything until you accept me and trust me and rely on me and respect my judgment. Until then, nothing else happens between us.”

  “You’ll break down," he said confidently.

  “There speaks the arrogant, primeval male. And don’t think, as I’m sure you were so craftily thinking, of slipping away from me while I’m asleep. I won’t be dreaming of you, darling, and if I do, the dreams won’t be rosy. Make sure you know it, sweetheart; I’m going with you to Dong Xo. Otherwise, you’re out of the business, right now.” ‘

  “What does that mean?”

  "That’s what darling Dickinson McFee said.”

  “ ‘Darling Dickinson McFee’?”

  “The dear man. He knows I’d like to have you out of K Section. He knows that my second-best choice, since you won’t quit and they seem to renew your contract forever, is simply to join you. But if you disobey Bangkok Central or Control this time, you’re out. And that wouldn’t make me unhappy at all, either.”

  “So I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.”

  She smiled with sweet venom. “Precisely. And now, do you take the couch, or the bed?”

  “The couch,” he said, and surrendered.

  5

  Code File: Yellow Torch 21/O7/0264 INT. 14

  Classification: K/A 105

  Item: INTERPOL (ABLE coma 4 THE HAGUE 21 JUNE ADDRESSEE SECINSPEC USBN SEASDEP)

  Report significant increase raw poppy appearance South Thailand-Cambodian Highlands traced Kuomintang Anny renegades Burma-Thai area. Suspect Syria-Havana pipeline financing via Hanoi Peiping for Cong Hai. No hard evidence Interpol. Urgent co-operation requested Thai Security signed Major T.M.K. Muong. Follow more. Invest Yellow Torch. End.

  * * * * *

  Item: Handwritten memorandum from E. K. Farnsworth, G Dept, U.S. Narcotics Bureau

  Subject: Smuggling; opium; Dong Xo area, Thailand. “Mac, State transfers this to you. We have nothing on it. Who or what is Yellow Torch and Cong Hal?”

  * * * * *

  Item: Tape Extract 56/A, Analyst S, dossier Orris Lantern. Classification K/A 105-T. Informal Assessment for Sub-Chiefs only:

  A make or break situation has developed in southern Thailand along the Cambodian border with infiltration of subversive guerrilla bands known as Cong Hai. A crisis in penetration campaign to outflank Vietnam. Financing from former Kuomintang Army units engaged in illegal opium trade forbids irritation Taipeh. Cong Hai “fortress areas” developed by Code Yellow Torch. Who is he? K/A 105 17/22064

  * * * * *

  Item: LANTERN, Orris, Code YELLOW TORCH, K/A 105 TT URGENT. Profile from DoD, MAAG, Special Forces Unit BORAD, coordinated, USMC. See photos, military history attached. Composites two years old, perhaps not valid for apprehension this date. Caution advised. Tape L/A excerpted from documentary data, Military Assistance Advisory Group:

  “Orris Lantern, born Hemmington, Kentucky, 3 April 1938, family eight children, two boys, six girls. Father tried incestuous relations, mother alcoholic died State Hospital Freeport 1939. Poverty throughout youth. State Golden Gloves Boxing finals. Arrested two larceny charges (State Legislative appendix 556-26) suspect member Kateen Gang illegal mine-stripping. Dismissed. Subject charged manslaughter Freeport Sup. Court (see G-225, Document F ). Dismissed lack of evidence. Apolitical to enlistment US Marine Corps age 18.

  “Physical description on enlistment: Six feet, sandy hair, sallow complexion, very light brown eyes, no visible scars, weight one-five-two, evidence childhood malnutrition, all UCD’s. Military history exemplary. Promoted first sergeant, served drill instructor, volunteered Special Forces Fort Benning Fort Bragg, qualified Psychological Warfare, Counter-Insurgency, Unconventional Warfare, top security clearance granted. Twice decorated as member A team BORAD, missing or captured ambush Luc Bat 13 October. No further official history known of subject.

  * * * * *

  Item: Taped interview, Sgt. Grayman, Edward F., ex-USMC and Senior Sergeant Special Forces Group A BORAD. Taken at home of Mr. Grayman, now an auto salesman, living 2325 Summit Street, Charleston, S.C., wife and two children. Mr. Grayman wounded, left leg amputated hospital Danang. Inter. 17:

  “Sergeant Lantern? Of course I remember the son of a bitch. He was a nut, a kook, y‘know? I don’t recall exactly what he looked like-more like our strikers than a white man—except for his crazy eyes. They were piss-yellah, like a tiger’s, and if you did anything wrong, he chewed your ass in front of anybody so’s you’ll crawl into a hole and want to die, or maybe charge the whole goddam V.C. in the jungle just to show him. He was a grade A, indelible, cotton-mouthed bastard. I seen him hit Johnny Demming with his BAR for bein’ a second or two closin’ up on the trail, long before he got us into that mess at Luc Bat. He almost greased Tom Whitman another time.

  “Personality? I told you, he was a stubborn, crazy, bloodthirsty, mule-brained SOB. You couldn’t trust him. He was a glory hunter, and he like to get us all zapped every time we went out on one of his crazy missions.

  “Politics? We never talked about it. We stayed out of his way. Well, I heard him gripe once how America never gave him anything, so he owed America nothing. We all got loaded on Dewars when he didn't come out of the Luc Bat mess. Only thing was, the Meo kids cried for him; they missed him in the villages. He only got along with the strikers’ kids, don’t ask me why. As for me, I hope the V.C. cut the bastard into ribbons when they got him.”

  * * * * *

  Item: Taped interview, Col. Ralph G. Cheyney, USMC Ret. Taped at home, Seattle, Washington, 12 Dec. KA-105 TT. “Sergeant Orris Lantern was one of the finest NCO’s we had in Special Forces B Zone along the Cambodian border. He symbolized everything that makes the U.S. Marine Corps and the Special Forces units the first-line troops in defense of our nation. He was brave beyond the call of duty, dedicated, imaginative, devoted to his men -and the Meos whom he organized for unorthodox warfare. Yes, he was a strict disciplinarian and brooked no foul-ups, but that’s what makes the Marines the fine body of men they are, sir. If the ancient disciplines of the Spartans were remembered and followed in our nation today, we might—His personal record? As commanding officer at B Group, I was proud to have him under my command. I am certain the V.C. did not take him alive at Luc Bat. As I understand it, he was last seen serving one of our .81 mm. mortars at point-blank range. He was a credit to us all. His squad? I understand only four survived.”

  * * * * *

  Item: Taped interview, Sgt. Frederick D. Tompkinson, now a meat inspector, Boston, Mass. Jan. 20 Int.14/K: “Orris was a yellow-eyed cat-footed, slow-tongued, sadistic, vicious, un-American, stinking deserter who left us at Luc Bat the first chance he had and went over to Uncle Ho and the V.C. on his own. He was a nut. He hated America and everything in it, and the first time he read one of Uncle Ho’s comic books out of Hanoi, he decided he was fighting on the wrong side of the war. He acted like a hillbilly who just had a holy revelation. He as much as told me so. . . . Me? Sure, I had trouble with him in the A team. He made fun of my Boston accent. But everybody had trouble with him. He loved guns, for instance. He knew every sterile weapon we used for goin’ over the border, you know? He could field-strip Russian AK’s or Swedish K’s and handle heavy machine guns like the MG-34 from Germany or the Russian 7.62 RPD as Well as our own 60- and 81-mm. mortars. He loved guns like other guys went for omen or booze. He liked to see blood spilled. When the V.C.’s cut up a village and left the people in their own bloody guts, he’d do the same when we caught up with some of them black-pajamaed murderers. . . . Children? Yes, that was a funny thing. Every village we hit, he had the kids following him like he was a Pied Piper. . . . But he was chicken at heart. He sold us all out, walk
ed us deliberately into the ambush at Luc Bat so he could turn his coat. What? I don’t care what the colonel says. The colonel had a rod up his rear all the time. Sure, I’ll swear to every word I said.”

  * * * * *

  Item: TOP SECRET. Report from Group Paratroop Command 44, Kuo-Tse, Intelligence Unit F, Captain Minh Tse-Ling commanding, Taipeh. Captain Minh operated as a civilian employee of K Section and was dropped into Hunan Province of the Chinese Communist People’s Republic for data on troop dispositions toward Hanoi on 12 March. Captured, tried, confined to notorious Grass Basket Prison at Peiping for five months. Convinced captors of innocence through relatives who swore oaths for him. Released, escaped via Macau, Hong Kong. Report on Orris Lantern follows:

  “Of all American renegades in Grass Basket, Orris Lantern was most favored. We understood he had been transferred from Hanoi in North Vietnam at own request for ‘education and indoctrination.’ He went regularly to prison Marxist school as volunteer student of Leninist philosophy and politico-economic attitudes. His Socialist dialectics were always correct according to the Peiping line. He received double rations to report political diversionism of other student-prisoners.

  “No, he was transferred from Grass Basket before my release. No, I do not know where he was assigned. No, I never heard of his being coded as ‘Yellow Torch.’ ”

  * * * * *

  Item: Précis of Analysis, Cong Hai movement this date, State Department SEAS Division, Group Chief Henry Talbot-Smyth:

  The agrarian reform movement currently reported in southernmost provinces must be construed as an indigenous political grouping of peasant farmers and mountain tribes whose avowed aims for self-determination and economic reorganization seem in keeping with this government’s determination to aid and assist according to Policy George paper. While alarmists point to the Cong Hai as a counterpart of the Viet Cong and the Viet Minh movements in Indochina, it is a known fact that land reform has been long overdue since evacuation by former French planters. Their demand for liberty should be respected and it is recommended that agricultural, economic, and financial aid teams be organized to assist their natural and econo-historical destinies.”