Then he heard the voices. Low, cautious. At least two of them, talking rapidly. He strained to make out words. The beam of a flashlight filtered through the cracks of the shed. They were nearer now, at the door. He heard the latch lift from its rusty hook.
Corrigon sat straight up. He held the .45 in both hands and aimed it at the door and waited, biting down hard on the bullet, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. The flashlight beam fell on his face. He squeezed the trigger and the pistol plinked. Empty.
Corrigon’s shoulders sagged. He lowered the gun to the floor and spat out the bullet and raised his head toward the ceiling, closing his eyes and waiting for it to come.
The flashlight beam lowered and picked out the gun.
“Americano,” a voice said.
“Si,” came the answer.
“La ferita è molto sanguinosa. E gravemente leso.”
“Ummm,” said the other one.
“E morto?”
“No.”
“Buono.”
Buono? That was good. What were they saying? Something about blood, death. A jumble of words he could not understand.
One of them was very close now, leaning over him. Then he said, very slowly, “You are lucky, amico. That the gun was empty. I would not want to kill you.”
Corrigon opened his eyes.
The Italian lowered the flashlight and in its reflection, Corrigon could see the two men. The man who had spoken to him was tall and lean with gray hair and a jawline like granite. The other one was younger and shorter and had shoulders like a football player.
“My name is Francesco. Capisce? Francesco.”
Corrigon managed a feeble smile.
“Hi, Francesco,” he said in a voice hoarse with pain and exhaustion.
“That is Dominic. He does not capisce English.”
“No capisce,” Dominic said and smiled from embarrassment.
“That’s okay, I no capisce Italiano.”
“E ufficiale?” Dominic said.
“He says, Are you an officer?” Francesco said.
“Shit, I’m a goddamn corporal.”
Francesco turned to Dominic. “No. Sottuficiale.”
Dominic shrugged. Then he held up a tommygun. “Abbiamo udito colpi e trovato una mitragliatrice.”
“We heard the shooting and we found this gun on the hill.”
“I think it’s mine,” Corrigon said, then: “Who are you?”
“Farmers.”
“Not partisans?”
“Non siamo guerriglieri, ma siamo simpatizzanti.” Dominic said.
“He says, we are not guerrillas, but we are sympathetic to the Americans.”
“Grazier.”
Everybody nodded.
“Do you know La Volte?”
Francesco looked puzzled. “La volte? The fox. What is that?”
“Shit,” Corrigon said, “I’m too tired to go into it.”
Dominic said, “I tre altri sono morti.”
“Si,” Francesco said and, turning to Corrigon, told him, “the other three Americani are dead. I am sorry.”
“Ah, Jesus.”
“Pray for yourself. It is too late for them. What are you called?”
“Corrigon. Johnny.”
“Buono, Jah-nee,” Francesco said and he took a dagger from a sheath in his boot. Corrigon’s smile vanished and he stiffened. “Easy,” Francesco said, “I must cut the shirt. There is much blood.”
Corrigon lay back and listened to the blade slicing through the cotton shirt. He felt a finger probe his side and it exploded with pain. He decided to think of something, of Major Halford calling him in, giving him the pep talk, telling him Harry Younger thought he was ready for a mission. “It’s really fairly simple,” Halford had said, “just drop in, make the connection, supervise the drop and get out.” Sure, nothing to it, Major. Like falling into a bear trap. And Younger, all full of piss and vinegar, dreaming about all the broads lining up to rub his Silver Star. Only now it would be a Purple Heart. Posthumously.
And where was the big shot La Volte when all the shooting started?
“Hey, Jah-nee,” Francesco said. “You are lucky. It just went in one side and out the other.” He whistled softly through his teeth. “Just like that, eh, paisan? Lots of blood, but it could be worse.”
He reached into a first-aid kit on his belt and took out a small cylinder and a bandage roll. “You have how you call it, uh, a nose cloth, capisce?”
“Handkerchief?” Corrigon asked.
“Si, si.”
“Back pocket, left side.”
Francesco took it out, tore it into two strips, and made patches of them. He sprinkled gray powder on the entry and exit wounds. “Penicillin,” he explained. Then he and Dominic bound up the wound.
“Our town is Malcesine. About three kilometers. Can you walk?”
“How far’s that?”
“Two miles maybe.”
“I’ll do an Irish jig for two miles to get outa here,” Corrigon said.
The two Italians helped him to his feet. The pain swelled back through him, but he clenched his teeth and tried to ignore it.
“Tough guy, eh, amico?” Francesco said.
“Yeah, sure, tough guy, that’s me,” he groaned. I’ll tell you what I am, he thought, I’m a simple, dumb, dogface, eighty-two-dollars-a-month-plus-combat pay corporal from Clearfield, Pennsylvania, and I used to drive a delivery truck for my brother-in-law’s brewery and it makes about as much sense me being here as it would to put army shoes on a fucking French poodle but I ain’t so dumb that I buy that shit about you two being farmers when you have knives in your boots and penicillin on your belts but I’m not gonna argue with anybody right now so let’s stuff all the Dick Tracy bullshit and get the lovin’ hell outa here fast and maybe, later on, when we can put our feet on the table over a little pasta and vino somebody will tell me what happened back there and why everything went to hell so fast.
But Corrigon hurt too badly and was too tired to think much more about it. All he knew for sure was that Captain Harry Younger and Sergeant Joe Pulaski and the other noncom, Devlin, were dead and Major Halford’s operation had bought the farm. And right now four million dollars in gold was lying on the bottom of Lake Garda.
II
Hong Kong, 1959
The morning sun blazed off the wings of the plane from Tokyo as it banked sharply over the edge of the bay and began the long descent to the runway that jutted out over Victoria Harbor. In the back of the crowded DC-6 tourist section the stewardess, a beautiful Oriental woman who spoke flawless English, picked up the interphone and began her final announcements:
“Welcome to Hong Kong. In a few minutes we will be landing at Kai Tak Airport terminating PanAm flight twelve. Hong Kong means ‘Fragrant Harbor.’ The city is divided into several districts. At the front of the plane on your left is Kowloon Peninsula. Kowloon means ‘Nine Dragons’ and was named eight hundred years ago by the boy-emperor Ping, who believed that dragons lived in the eight mountain peaks surrounding the harbor. His prime minister reminded him that there were really nine dragons, since the ancient Chinese believed that all emperors were dragons. The modern section at the tip of the peninsula is Tsimshatsui, the modern shopping center of Hong Kong harbor.
“Hong Kong island is at your immediate left and beyond it is the South China Sea. On the far side of the island is the harbor of Aberdeen …”
The man in the dark gray suit in seat 19B tuned her out. He took off his sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had been flying for almost twenty-one hours with only three stops and his eyes and neck ached. Although he felt cramped in the tourist section, it was safer, less conspicuous than flying in front, where the passengers somehow seemed nosier and quicker to strike up conversations. Tourist section provided anonymity.
He took out the passport and checked it one more time. It identified him as Howard Burns of Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was a good alias, one he had used sparingly. Only Casser
ro knew about it. The passport was over a year old and well-used. He had told Casserro, “Get me something with a little mileage on it, nothing new,” and as usual old Chico had come through.
The man who called himself Burns was of medium height and slender with a few gray streaks in his close-cropped black hair. He was dressed inconspicuously in a business suit and wore dark glasses, and he had slept most of the way from Tokyo, awakening once to eat a warm snack. His food had been cold when he got it, but he ate it without complaint to avoid attracting attention to himself.
He shook off the effects of the arduous trip and, reaching into his suit jacket pocket, took out a small pill which he casually swallowed without water. The amphetamine was mild, just strong enough to get his juices running again. Then he settled back and began ticking off details in his mind, hitting only key words: Peninsula Hotel on Kowloon Causeway. George Wan, Oriental Rug Company, phone 5-220697. Star Ferry to the island. Causeway Typhoon Shelter, Wharf Three. Twelve noon. Brown and tan Rolls Royce.
Simple. No wrinkles. He settled back, feeling secure as the plane bumped down and taxied to the terminal. He moved casually through customs, his only luggage a small carry-on bag with a change of shirt, socks, and underwear and toilet articles. No pills, not even aspirin. Once inside the terminal he went to the money exchange and traded five hundred dollars for twenty-five hundred Hong Kong dollars. Then he went outside and found a taxi.
The drive to the Peninsula Hotel took only fifteen minutes. The manager, a short, stubby Oriental in a silk brocaded cheongsam, checked him in and presented him with an envelope.
“You have a message, Mr. Burns. I believe it is a package. May I have the porter get it for you?”
“I’ll do it myself,” Burns said in a flat, brittle voice.
The manager rang a bell and the porter appeared and followed Burns across the lobby to the cluttered office of the concierge, where a small, middle-aged woman sat reading what appeared to be the morning paper. Burns tore open the envelope and removed a receipt and a key. He gave the receipt to the woman and received a new attaché case, which he refused to let the porter carry.
His room was on the fifth floor. It was old and elegant and faced the harbor. Across it, like a jewel shining in the morning sun, was the island of Hong Kong.
“Very nice,” he said and got rid of the bellman with a tip.
He sat on the bed and unlocked the case. Inside were a long-barreled .22 pistol equipped with a silencer, a nylon cord four feet long, and a pair of latex surgical gloves. In the pocket at the back of the case were six bullets and a physician’s envelope containing two pills. There was also a roll of cotton swabbing.
Excellent, Burns said to himself. So far nobody had missed a beat. Burns put on the surgical gloves and then removed the cylinder and silencer of the gun and checked it with the precision of a toolmaker, examining the barrel and firing pin before reassembling it and dry-firing it twice. It was clean and freshly oiled, although not new. Satisfied, Burns loaded the six bullets into the cylinder and replaced the gun. Then he took out the nylon cord and, wrapping it around both hands, snapped it sharply several times. He doubled the cord, tied a squareknot midway between the ends, and put it back. He put one of the pills in his suit pocket and placed the other back in the envelope, took off the gloves and dropped them in the case, locked it and put it in a drawer.
He checked his watch. Eight forty. He opened the carry-on bag and from his leather toilet kit took out a small travel clock. He set it for 11:15, then called the operator.
“I’d like to leave a call for eleven fifteen, A.M.,” he said. “That’s two and a half hours from now.”
“Yes, sir,” said the operator, “eleven-fifteen A.M.”
Then Burns loosened his tie and lay back on the bed, folded his hands across his chest and fell immediately to sleep.
_____________________
At 11:25, Chan Lun Chai closed his antique shop, put a sign on the door announcing that he would be back in ten minutes, and stepped into sweltering Cat Street. Shimmering heat turned the crowded confines of the old Morlo Gai shopping district into dancing mirages as he threaded his way through the crush of Chinese nationals, tourists, and sailors, toward the phonebooth half a block away.
A heavy-set Englishman, overdressed for the heat, his tie askew, and sweat pouring into his shirt collar, was bellowing into the phone while his wife, who was almost as tousled as he, waited outside the booth with her arms full of packages.
Unperturbed by the heat, Chan stood nearby, studying the window of a jade shop. He was short and wiry, a man in his mid-thirties, dressed in the traditional black mandarin jacket and matching pants. Only his glasses, which were gold-rimmed and tinted, seemed out of place.
Finally the Britisher left the booth fuming. “Really! They say you can’t make reservations for the Chinese Opera. Have you ever heard of such a thing? No reservations at the opera!” They trundled off through the crowds toward Ladder Street.
Chan stepped into the booth and looked at his watch. It was exactly 11:30. Seconds later the phone rang. He answered in a slow, quiet, precise voice:
“Royal Oriental Rug Company.”
“May I speak to Mr. Wan, please?” The voice on the other end was sharp and irritating, like the sound of firecrackers exploding.
“Which Mr. Wan?” Chan said.
“George Wan.”
“This is George Wan speaking. May I help you?”
“This is Mr. Johnson.”
“Welcome to Hong Kong, Mr. Johnson. Did you get the package?”
“Excellent. Everything’s satisfactory.”
“I am pleased,” Chan said.
“How about tonight?”
“It is all arranged.”
“Good. I should be back to you in three hours. Maybe four.”
“I will be here. May I suggest the sooner the better. It may be difficult, locating the object you seek.”
“I understand,” Burns said. “I’ll try to call back by two-thirty.”
“Dor jeh,” Chan said, “which means ‘thank you.’ Joy geen.” And he hung up.
_____________________
The shower and shave did not help much. Burns still felt sluggish, his senses dulled by time lag and lack of sleep. After talking to Chan he went into the bathroom and took the pill from his pocket, popped it in his mouth, and washed it down with a full glass of water. He was hardly out of the room when it hit him, a dazzling shot, like a bolt of lightning, that charged through his body, frazzling his skin. He felt as though he were growing inside his own shell, that his muscles and bones were stretching out. He became keenly aware of sounds, the hum of the elevator and the muffled roar of a vacuum cleaner behind a door somewhere. His entire body shuddered involuntarily as he waited for the elevator.
Leave it to the Chinks, Burns thought. Whatever it is, it’s nitro, pure nitro.
By the time the Star Ferry was halfway across the harbor, he felt ready again, his eyes bright and clear, his reflexes quivering like rubberbands stretched to the limit. He got out of the cab and let the hot breeze tickle his skin, watched the concrete skyline of the Central District draw closer. The buildings seemed to soar, telescoping up from their foundations and dominating the two mountain peaks at either end of the island. His heart was thundering and he felt a keen, familiar sense of anticipation and his penis stirred between his legs. Without thinking, he began rubbing his hands together. The exhaustion that racked him was jarred, splintered, purged from his body, like torn pieces of paper thrown to the wind. He got back in the cab.
The driver moved expertly off the ferry and down through the crowded slip, blowing his horn and ignoring the catcalls and shaking fists of the crowds of pedestrians. He turned left onto the Causeway, a wide boulevard, and then drove swiftly, due east toward the shelter, passing through Wanchai, the garish night-club colony with its neon signs exploding invitations to the mid-day trade, and away from the skyscrapers of the Central District. A minute or two lat
er the driver leaned his head back toward Burns but kept his eyes on the highway.
“Typhoon Shelter ahead, san. You have a place?”
“You know sampan three?”
“Hai.” The driver nodded.
“Hai, that’s ‘yes’?” Burns asked.
“Yes, hai.”
“How would you say ‘no’?”
“Um.”
“Um, hunh? Um, hai, um, hai,” Burns repeated several times and began laughing and patting his knees like a drummer keeping rhythm with the words. Absolute nitro!
The taxi turned off the Causeway and wound down a curved road toward the waterfront. The Typhoon Shelter was a triangular cove protected on the inland sides by tall concrete abutments. The driver stopped. Burns got out and looked down at the harbor. The cove was choked with sampans. Hundreds of the small flat-bottom boats bobbed in the water, their mid-sections protected by hoods made of rice mats, their pilots standing at the tillers in the stern, beckoning to the tourists and calling out prices. Several of the sampans had woks in the bow and chests filled with beer and soft drinks, like floating delis. The wind carried the smell of cooking fish and shrimp up to the abutment.
Burns was overwhelmed by the sight. This was the China he had envisioned.
The driver stood beside him and pointed to a wharf directly below them at the bottom of the concrete stairs. Sampans hovered around it.
“Sampan three,” he said.
“Great. What I owe you?”
“Seven dollars,” the driver said.
Burns gave him eight and said “Dor jay,” and the driver, smiling at his awkward attempt to say thank you, bowed and replied “Dor jeh,” and was gone.
Burns walked to the eastern wall of the shelter and waited. At 12:05 a brown and tan Rolls, polished like a mirror, pulled up. The man who got out was tall and beginning to show the signs of overeating. He wore a white linen suit and a flowered sport shirt open at the collar. His receding hair was blondish and he wore a thick mustache and dark blue sunglasses. He walked with a cane of finely polished teak with an ornate dragon’s head handle carved out of gold. The man stared down toward sampan three for several moments and then descended the concrete stairway. The Rolls drove away.