Then his black eyes took on a quickened interest. The lime
of the dawn sky gave him enough light to see the logs quite clearly.
Some of them were
bodies. Headless human trunks, mostly men, some women, some children. They were
twisted indiscriminately in the jungle trash that the river was taking to the
sea. He began to count the corpses, but when he passed twenty, he decided the
numbers were of no importance. There they were; and then they were gone. He
heard quick, padding footsteps on the bridge overhead, and he knew the captain
would be down soon to tell him what he, too, had seen.
They were too late.
Now it had begun, coming
out of the darkness of the jungle. Muong trembled with his outrage
and hatred.
“Lao?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think Durell
knows about the Grass Basket?”
“His inquiry went
through. The merchant in Ho Bin Minh Road, the Portuguese Enrico Rey, will give
him an answer. We know Enrico Rey works for K Section.”
"True."
“One cannot hide the
past forever, Major.”
“Better if it could be
buried or burned or torn from the pages of the cycles of these
times.”
“You did what you
could.”
“It was not enough.”
He knew that Lao, the
young Chinese, would gladly die for him. Death was not important, for Lao had
been there with his brothers and sisters, his father and his mother, and they
were all gone but Lao, their graves unknown, their bodies mingled with the slime
of all the other slaughtered bodies in the eastern jungles. Muong had
picked him up, a frightened boy, dying, and had carried him on his back along
the forest trails, far up in the highlands, and nursed him and fed him and
tended the savage wound on Lao’s chest that had convinced the Cong executioners
that the boy was dead with the others. It was a long time ago, in Lao’s life;
but only a short time for Muong. The larger part of Muong’s life
had been spent in the Grass Basket at Peiping.
He was released as a
Communist, an infiltrator, a member of the cadre to teach, train, and
indoctrinate others. It had not been easy to fool them. They were so clever. So
persistent. So ruthless.
But they had turned him
loose, in his native land, a year ago, and the government had put him back in
his old job with internal security.
How easy it really was
to subvert, terrorize, and confuse, to shout slogans and manipulate mobs!
An intricate history had
been created for him, some in Peiping, the rest in Hanoi. There were people in
Hong Kong and Manila who would swear that T.M.K. Muong had lived with
them all those years. His dossiers were impeccable, on both sides. And it was a
fact that neither side knew his true and secret thoughts. None knew of his
hatred.
Except Orris Lantern,
the American renegade.
Yellow Torch would know
him when they met. And everything would end, then.
Muong knew
that Durell would obey orders and try to keep Lantern alive.
It must not happen.
Whatever Lantern’s motives or usefulness, the renegade must die.
Lao would see to it.
Durell saw the bodies
floating in the river, like smooth brown logs twisted in the brush that drifted
with them. He, too, began to count them, and then gave up. He heard the captain
descend to Muong’s cabin soon afterward. But no one came to tell him
about it.
No matter.
On the morning they
started upriver, the reply came to his request for a more complete dossier on
Major Muong. It confirmed his suspicions. In his business, you often did
better with a team than alone; it was General McFee’s despair that
Durell preferred to depend on himself rather than on the mixed decisions of a
team. He felt safer that way. He trusted his own judgment. Even his own
hunches.
He had known from the
start that Muong was a real problem. But he hadn‘t expected Muong to
turn out to have been a cell-mate of Orris Lantern’s, up there in
Peiping.
The convoluted pattern
still wasn’t clear. He only knew he was alone now, except for Deirdre. He
hadn’t
of the dawn sky gave him enough light to see the logs quite clearly.
Some of them were
bodies. Headless human trunks, mostly men, some women, some children. They were
twisted indiscriminately in the jungle trash that the river was taking to the
sea. He began to count the corpses, but when he passed twenty, he decided the
numbers were of no importance. There they were; and then they were gone. He
heard quick, padding footsteps on the bridge overhead, and he knew the captain
would be down soon to tell him what he, too, had seen.
They were too late.
Now it had begun, coming
out of the darkness of the jungle. Muong trembled with his outrage
and hatred.
“Lao?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think Durell
knows about the Grass Basket?”
“His inquiry went
through. The merchant in Ho Bin Minh Road, the Portuguese Enrico Rey, will give
him an answer. We know Enrico Rey works for K Section.”
"True."
“One cannot hide the
past forever, Major.”
“Better if it could be
buried or burned or torn from the pages of the cycles of these
times.”
“You did what you
could.”
“It was not enough.”
He knew that Lao, the
young Chinese, would gladly die for him. Death was not important, for Lao had
been there with his brothers and sisters, his father and his mother, and they
were all gone but Lao, their graves unknown, their bodies mingled with the slime
of all the other slaughtered bodies in the eastern jungles. Muong had
picked him up, a frightened boy, dying, and had carried him on his back along
the forest trails, far up in the highlands, and nursed him and fed him and
tended the savage wound on Lao’s chest that had convinced the Cong executioners
that the boy was dead with the others. It was a long time ago, in Lao’s life;
but only a short time for Muong. The larger part of Muong’s life
had been spent in the Grass Basket at Peiping.
He was released as a
Communist, an infiltrator, a member of the cadre to teach, train, and
indoctrinate others. It had not been easy to fool them. They were so clever. So
persistent. So ruthless.
But they had turned him
loose, in his native land, a year ago, and the government had put him back in
his old job with internal security.
How easy it really was
to subvert, terrorize, and confuse, to shout slogans and manipulate mobs!
An intricate history had
been created for him, some in Peiping, the rest in Hanoi. There were people in
Hong Kong and Manila who would swear that T.M.K. Muong had lived with
them all those years. His dossiers were impeccable, on both sides. And it was a
fact that neither side knew his true and secret thoughts. None knew of his
hatred.
Except Orris Lantern,
the American renegade.
Yellow Torch would know
him when they met. And everything would end, then.
Muong knew
that Durell would obey orders and try to keep Lantern alive.
It must not happen.
Whatever Lantern’s motives or usefulness, the renegade must die.
Lao would see to it.
Durell saw the bodies
floating in the river, like smooth brown logs twisted in the brush that drifted
with them. He, too, began to count them, and then gave up. He heard the captain
descend to Muong’s cabin soon afterward. But no one came to tell him
about it.
No matter.
On the morning they
started upriver, the reply came to his request for a more complete dossier on
Major Muong. It confirmed his suspicions. In his business, you often did
better with a team than alone; it was General McFee’s despair that
Durell preferred to depend on himself rather than on the mixed decisions of a
team. He felt safer that way. He trusted his own judgment. Even his own
hunches.
He had known from the
start that Muong was a real problem. But he hadn‘t expected Muong to
turn out to have been a cell-mate of Orris Lantern’s, up there in
Peiping.
The convoluted pattern
still wasn’t clear. He only knew he was alone now, except for Deirdre. He
hadn’t
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