The main room of the junk disintegrated into chaos.
Earp’s bomb bounced with a ringing sound and exploded. Bits of wall and doors vanished in a white hot blast, and a shower of dust and bits of wood clattered into the room. Flames licked the bulkhead of the junk.
Fong crouched in one of three small cells in the fore section of the junk adjacent to the cubicles of the opium den. Sloan sat on the floor leaning against the bulkhead. Fong leaned over so his face was inches from Sloan’s. ‘I will enjoy killing you, Harry,’ he said softly.
Sloan laughed. It wasn’t big laugh, but it was sincere. ‘You’re stupid enough to do that,’ Sloan said.
‘I’m going to kill you a little bit at a time!’ Fong said, his voice rising with his anger.
‘Your smoke’s been doing that for a long time,’ Sloan said with a wave of his hand. He was staring at the floor, trying to get his bearings, trying to make his way through the hazy slow motion induced by drug and concussion.
‘I’ll wait until you come down,’ Fong said. ‘When it will hurt the most. I am going to kill you and every gwai-lo that Yankee bastard Hatcher knows. I will kill the world out from under him. Then he will come to me.’
‘I wouldn’t look forward to that if I were you,’ Sloan said.
A moment later, Earp’s bomb went off.
Fong was knocked to his knees as the junk shuddered from the explosion. He whirled toward the sounds of gunfire, and Sloan slammed his foot into his back, sending him sprawling out of the cell. The gunman spun around and fired a shot at Sloan. The bullet ripped into his side.
‘Ahh, damn!’ Sloan bellowed and rolled into a tight ball against the bulkhead.
The stoned opium heads in the house of Dreams, awakened from their dreams by the explosion and the gunfire that followed, swarmed from their cubicles and rushed toward the main hold. Screaming, bumping into each other, babbling, tumbling down the narrow passage, they choked it from wall to wall, their vacant eyes suddenly alive with fear. The door to the House of Dreams burst open. Earp, Potter and Corkscrew were raking the interior of the junk with shotgun and rifle fire. A bullet smashed into Corkscrew’s leg but he kept shooting. House of Dreams customers stumbled into gunfire, flames, smoke and destruction.
Faced with the insane nightmare, Fong forgot Sloan and dashed into the middle of the mad scramble, slashing his way with his gun through the crazed mob toward the exit. Then as he looked up he saw his deadliest enemy at the other end of the passageway. Hatcher, his eyes aglow with determination, was waiting for him at the exit to the main hatch.
Forgetting his own peril for the moment, Fong started firing at Hatcher. Hatcher ducked but did not back off. He charged into the screaming mob of Chinese, zigzagged directly toward Fong, his Aug chopping away at the wall as Fong ducked into the mass of fleeing men and then veered off into one of the opium cubicles.
A second bomb exploded, bursting another cache of produce to bits. The explosion sent Hatcher, Fong and the terrified dopers sprawling. More flames spewed from the side of the boat, and then from the center of the pile of shattered vegetables a geyser of white powder poured out. Tollie Fong’s precious cargo of China White showered from its ruptured hiding place as flames roared up the side of the junk.
Hatcher fell against the wall as the turmoil intensified. Fong jumped into one of the cubicles of the House of Dreams and crouched there, waiting him out.
Hatcher started down the passageway, hugging the wall, his gun ready.
Behind him, Potter searched the bulkhead, saw the telltale bulge of the two hundred-gallon gas tanks. He cut loose with the AK-47. The 9 mm. slugs thunked into the tanks, rent them, blew off the nozzles. Gasoline sprayed out into the hold, hit the flames started by the two bombs.
Fire streaked up the streams of gas, burst into the tanks and exploded. Two tremendous swirling yellow balls of flame boiled out under the deck and swept through the hull. The blazing gas spilled out over the heroin and ignited it, melting it into black charcoal. The junk was transformed into an orange inferno.
Hatcher dived for the floor and covered his head with his hands. Fire roiled over his head and set the passage aflame.
A gas-fed fireball swept over Fong. His face was seared by the flames. His clothes burst into flames. Then the second tank blew, exploding the side of the junk, and the screaming Fong arced like a blazing skyrocket through the hole into the river.
The regulars rushed up the stairs and out of the roaring tomb, leaving behind Fong’s dead or dying mobsters. Earp and Potter, dragging the wounded corkscrew, rushed down the gangplank with the terrified Thai produce men into pure chaos on the wharf. A fire truck came through the crowd with its siren screaming. Behind it a police car appeared, then another. Riker spotted them and dropped the van into gear, pulling over beside his friends. Earp shoved Corkscrew in the side door before rolling in himself, and was followed by Potter, who slammed the door shut.
‘Let’s move it,’ Earp said, and Riker turned the van away from the blazing junk, and headed away from Chinese Town.
‘How’d it go?’ Riker asked.
‘We did the job,’ Earp said.
‘Three minutes, twenty-five seconds,’ Potter said.
Earp checked the wounded Corkscrew. ‘How’s the leg?’ he asked.
‘Think it’s broken,’ he groaned.
‘I got an old Purple Heart you can have,’ said Potter, lying on his back gasping for breath.
‘Already got one,’ Corkscrew said and mustered as much of a laugh as the pain would allow.
Inside the burning passageway, Hatcher crawled quickly toward the bow of the junk. The fire roared around him, flames snatching at his clothes. He kicked open one of the small hatches, then the next, and saw Sloan crouched against the bulkhead clutching his bleeding side. Flames roared overhead like a furnace. Heat devoured oxygen. Hatcher dashed in, grabbed him by the collar and, dragging him to his feet, rushed toward the only open side hatch that wasn’t consumed by fire.
‘Can’t do it!’ Sloan cried out.
‘Bullshit,’ Hatcher answered.
‘Hatch, over here!’ Sy yelled, still in the snakeboat and hanging on to the side of the junk. Hatcher dragged Sloan through the flames and shoved him out of the open hatch and into the boat and tumbled in after him.
‘Get the hell out of here,’ he said, and Sy turned the slender boat and roared away from the inferno.
FINISHED BUSINESS
Sy eased the snakeboat up beside the wharf and Hatcher helped Sloan out. The wound in his side was still bleeding, despite a makeshift bandage Hatcher had fashioned from Sloan’s shirttail.
‘See you around sometime, Sy,’ Hatcher said as he and Sloan struggled out of the boat and onto the wharf. Three blocks away the waterfront was pandemonium. The flaming junk cast a yellow glow over the river and the fire trucks, police cars and spectators on the pier.
‘You be okay?’ Sy asked.
‘We’re fine, pal. Head up one of the klongs and dump the boat. And stay away from the Longhorn for a couple of days.’
‘You okay guy, Hatch,’ the little Thai said.
‘And you’re a great fighter,’ Hatcher answered.
He hoisted Sloan, helping him away from the wharf and across the street to an alley. It was deserted and quiet, the clamor from the fire scene barely discernible in the background. Finally Sloan fell against the wall and, sliding to the ground, squeezed his riddled side. Hatcher knelt beside him, pulled his hand away and inspected the wound.
‘A bee-sting,’ he said, ‘you’ll get over it.’
‘It’s killing me,’ Sloan groaned, pressing his jacket against the wound.
‘I should kill you. You’re a menace. You lied to me, double-crossed me, set me up If anybody deserved to die, it was you, not Cody.’
The customary smile played at Sloan’s lips. ‘No sympathy, huh, laddie?’
‘I’d sooner have sympathy for the devil.’
‘Hell, you couldn’t kill me,’ Sl
oan said wearily. ‘I’m family.’
‘Oh, I could kill you, Harry. But I’m not going to and it has nothing to do with family.’
‘I did what I had to do, you did what you had to do,’ said Sloan. ‘I don’t have to explain that to you.’
‘There was no other way to deal with the problem,’ Hatcher said.
‘I’ve got the same trouble all over the world.’
‘No, Harry. This was survival. Your job is political expediency.’
‘Whatever you call it, you do it and forget it.’
‘No, you do it and forget about it. I think about it.’
‘Ah bullshit. You’re a soldier. You did what soldiers do.’
‘You’ve been telling me that for years. I didn’t do what soldiers do, I did what you told me to do.’
‘Why the hell did you come over here anyway?’ Sloan asked.
‘I thought I was doing something decent for a change, a sense of responsibility to an old friend. I’m talking about Cody, not you.’
Sloan said, ‘Ahh,’ and waved the remark off with his hand. There was a moment of awkward silence and then Sloan said, ‘You were the best, the best I ever had. The perfect shadow warrior.’
‘Trouble is, you ran out of soldiers, didn’t you, Harry. One double cross too many, one lie too often, and one morning you woke up and you didn’t have any warriors left. They were either dead, crippled or had quit. That’s why you made your deal with Fong.’
Sloan leaned over and pressed his side harder and groaned with the pain that was burning deep in his side. ‘Just tell me one thing,’ he asked. ‘Is Cody alive?’
‘No, he’s dead,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘He died a long time ago.’
‘I’ll be damned,’ said Sloan. ‘All this fuss for nothing.’
‘It wasn’t for nothing. It was a payoff trip’
‘payoff to who?’
‘You were paying off Tollie Fong.’
‘You’re crazy. Why would I owe Tollie Fong anything. Because I smoked a little of his pipe?’
‘No. Because he took our place. When you ran out of soldiers, you had an execution squad made to order — Fong and his Chiu Chao assassins. He got rid of Campon for you in Atlanta because Campon was too independent, too corrupt. Sooner or later it would have come out and the boys in the State Department would’ve had fits dealing with that. On the other hand, Cosomil was nice and safe.’
‘And he didn’t have half of Madrango’s treasury in bank accounts in Switzerland,’ Sloan added.
‘And Cosomil would be a good little boy and take his orders from the White House,’ said Hatcher.
Behind them, two dozen yards away, Tollie Fong swam out of the darkness and grabbed a ladder on the dock. His arm was burned and his face was scorched. He started up the ladder and heard the voices, He cautiously peeked over the lip of the wharf. Hatcher and Sloan were fifty yards away.
‘I know you too well,’ Hatcher was saying. ‘I’ve done the same things for you too many times. In Paris you were in real top form. You not only got rid of three ambassadors that were giving us a bad time about our bases in Europe, you laid it off on the Hyena and got rid of him too. You always were resourceful. Always looking to cover two or three bases at a time.’
‘Well, that’s the mission, isn’t it?’
‘That’s a matter of interpretation.’
‘Call it whatever you want. ‘The enemy never sleeps, pal, don’t forget it. You want to turn namby-pamby, go right ahead, but let me tell you, if I can get rid of a piece of shit like Hadif and I have to bend the rules a little, you bet your ass I’ll do it. It’s my job. Sure, I made a deal with Fong. He was on the same side we’re on.’
‘He may have been on your side, Harry. He sure as hell wasn’t on mine.’
‘I had that under control.’
Fong clung to the ladder and sneered as he listened to Sloan’s confident explanation.
‘He raped and murdered Daphne Chien in cold blood just to get even with me,’ Hatcher said hoarsely. ‘He was about to hand you your brains. He was training antiterrorists upriver, that’s what ex-SAVAKs and Tontons were doing up there.’
‘He was training them for me,’ Sloan said bluntly.
Hatcher shook his head. ‘And what was the big payoff, Harry? Were you going to set him up so he could smuggle a thousand keys of 999 past customs?’
‘What the hell, if it wasn’t him it’d be somebody else. It’s good for the economy.’
‘Fifteen years ago you sent me upriver to get rid of the Chiu Chao dope smugglers. Now you’re in bed with them.’
‘Water under the bridge, laddie,’ said Sloan. ‘You’ve got Paris, New York, Chicago, your buddy in the insurance company. I’ve got Thailand. What the hell’s the diff?’
Hatcher stood up.
‘For years I thought you had mined me into a judge, jury and executioner. It finally got to me in Los Boxes, when I had nothing else to think about. Now I know I was never judge and jury — that was your job. I was just the executioner. Anyhow, somebody else will have to judge you. I’m through with all of that.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Home.’
‘What about me?’
‘Tell Buffalo Bill his son died honorably on the field of battle. He can die in peace. See you, Harry.’
Hatcher turned and walked away.
‘Wait a minute, damn it!’ Sloan called after him.
But Hatcher vanished into the swirling black smoky mist.
‘The world is divided into the shit-throwers and the shit-throwees, Hatcher,’ Sloan yelled after him. ‘Remember that. The throwees have damn little to recommend them.’
Sloan leaned back against the wall. The pain in his side burned deeper, but he turned his mind away from it as he worked up a story for the Thai major, the Mongoose, when he showed up.
He didn’t hear Tollie Fong drag himself painfully out of the river behind him, didn’t hear him creep across the dock, his feet squishing under him. Fong was almost on top of him before he became aware of his presence and turned — just in time to see the deadly dagger drop silently through the air and feel its awful point pierce his throat.
FISHING
Hatcher lay flat on his back staring at the ceiling. The boat rocked gently in the evening breeze, occasionally bumping the dock. He felt safe here and secure. It was good to be back home. After twelve hours of sleep his furnaces were beginning to fire up again. He watched a sliver of sunlight move slowly across the ceiling and vanish as the sun set. The mantle of darkness brought with it the night birds, who started calling to one another. He heard the car cruise slowly into the parking lot, its wheels crushing the oyster shells under them, and then the familiar footsteps. He felt the boat rock ever so gently. His eyes closed, and a moment later he felt her sit on the edge of the bed.
‘You’re late,’ he said without opening his eyes.
‘I went by the Crab Trap. Got us some shrimp and clam chowder,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think either of us felt like cooking tonight.’
He reached up, puller her gently down beside him, and she nuzzled his neck with her face.
I was thinking,’ he said. Why don’t we crank up the old scow and take a run out to the reef, eat out there, maybe even go for a moonlight swim.’
‘The ocean’s getting cold,’ she said.
‘Sure, I’ll bet it’s a freezing seventy-five degrees out there.’
There was a difference in their metabolism. She was always cold and he was always warm. What was comfortable to him raised goose bumps on her arms. In the heat of summer, air conditioning drove her crazy, while it was his salvation. But he had learned to compromise, something that had been alien to his experience before he met her. Ceiling fans and fast runs through the sound to the open sea worked for both of them.
She lay close to him, stroking his hard arms and hard stomach and wrapping one leg over his, pressing against him, drawing his strength to her.
‘Are you all righ
t?’ she asked. It was the first thing she had asked him since his return the night before.
‘Tired,’ he answered. ‘It’s been a rough two weeks.’
‘Was the trip successful?’
‘Yes.’
She did not ask why he had gone or what had happened on the trip; she was grateful that he had returned as quickly as he had.
As he lay there she noticed that the hair on his arm was singed and his fingernails were cracked and damaged. But she put her curiosity aside. She knew eventually he would tell her what he wanted her to know. The rest was part of the secretness she had come to accept.
‘I had some bad times on this trip,’ he said suddenly, surprising her.
‘Bad in what way?’
‘The Chinese have a saying, “Killing the past scars the soul.” I put a lot of scars on my soul this trip.’
‘Are you sure you want to talk about this?’
‘No, I think it would be better to forget it, but I want you to know there were chapters in my life that needed closing and now they’re closed. There’s nothing more to be gained by looking back or talking about them.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. We learn from the past.’
‘There’s nothing I want to learn from mine.’
Unconsciously she rubbed the stubble on his arm as he spoke.
‘I put a lot of ghosts to rest.’ He sighed.
‘Is that why you went?’
He hesitated for a moment before answering. ‘That was part of it. I also felt an obligation to an old friend.’
‘Did all this have to do with that man who came here?’
‘He was part of it. He was the catalyst. It’s much too complicated to explain. But I’m glad I went. I had to deal with some things I’ve been ignoring for a long time.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘The dark side of my nature.’
‘Ah, so there is a dark side after all.’