Black Heart, page 54
Thatwasasoulintorment,shethought,notreallyunderstanding why. And abruptly she felt sorry for him. Such a burden of agony should not be borne by any one person. What alien torture must he have suffered to have obtained those eyes? She could not imagine. But just the thought of it drove all fear of him away. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, crooning, rock him to a safe, deep sleep.
The airport was crowded with members of the company and attendant personnel. There was still an hour before they could board and nothing to do but talk with other dancers. It bored her and, inexplicably, she found herself looking around the departure lounge as if she suspected she would see someone she
knew.
This peculiar feeling grew until she became nervous with its weight. She scanned the clouds of people passing by with their hand luggage, pausing to buy paperback books or a newspaper
to help pass the time.
Her earlier feeling of fear returned and at last she was forced away from her friends, their confines too restricting. She walked to the news-stand, searching the racks for something thick she could read to fill up the long flight hours. She chose a recent Robert Ludlum novel, reading the last page as she stood in line waiting to pay for it. She could not bear to be surprised, wanting instead to feel safe within the structure of the prose. She paid for the book, returned to the area of the company.
Not long after, their flight was called and, forming a sinf 1 line, their boarding passes extended, they trouped onto the 74 SP.
Khieu took a deep breath, exhaled it slowly. He felt like condemned criminal who had been given a last-minute reprie*. * His hands were trembling from the force of emotion coursi"
through him.
He stood now in one corner of the crowded newsstand whi
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he had been for the last several minutes and stared at the empty departure lounge. Well, it was done now. She was gone, perhaps she would never know how close she had come to death.
At the moment she had joined the line to pay for her book, Khieu had slipped in behind her. He wore an unlined and therefore lightweight Burberry trenchcoat in regulation tan. Perhaps hundreds of people in the terminal were similarly dressed. Hands in the enormous pockets that were open at the top of the inside, he had thought of a half-a-dozen ways in which to terminate Lauren without the slightest attention being drawn to him. He felt the warmth of elation he had once experienced after his first beheading as a Khmer Rouge. Like the gilt on his wooden Buddha, the civilized veneer had been scourged away by one atavistic act; he all of them in the Khmer Rouge had slipped back in time thousands of years.
'In this, we cut ourselves off from the bonds of our past,' they had chanted as their brown arms had lifted, a second shining stand of trees, bending swiftly in the gust of wind coming from inside themselves, their butchers' blades falling like scythes against the vulnerable backs of their enemies' necks.
Enemies.
They had been priests, teachers, artists: the free thinkers of Cambodge. Not Kampuchea. But the old, the French, the colonial Cambodge.
Away, away, away.
How the black birds had lifted from their perches in the treetops at the quick, silver movement in concert, the bright crimson spurting of blood. Enemies' blood. The earth muddy with it as the stakes went up and the head jammed atop their pointed ends like a line of modern lights along the jungle road as a reminder for all those who passed of the power of Angka, the inexorability of Kampuchea's future.
Death and its implementation. He ran through the list again, part of him still reeling beneath the force of his memories. It would be so easy to do; he knew that he must do it. For the sake °f his father, for the sake of the angka, everything they had both worked for for fourteen years.
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Accordingly, he chose the correct method, moving towards her as smoke drifts through a summer's day. Unnoticed.
He was in position, he meant to do it. His brain sent the proper messages, the synapses moving in galvanic response. All his senses were directed at the soft nape of her neck, exposed above her clothing. Her hair was swept up, pulled tight at the top of her head. All he needed was one square millimetre, exposed. He had that. It was about to happen.
Mali's Malis Malis!
The shrieking inside his head battered him like the swift and awful descent of a fighter chopper. He gasped and almost stumbled against her. Only his lightning-like reflexes prevented this.
But he must terminate her. He must! What was he thinking about? Why was he hesitating. Do it! he screamed silently at himself. Do it!
But he could not; something inside him would not allow it. The ramifications stunned him, making him feel nauseated and weak and he backed off, never taking his eyes from the back of her neck.
And then he knew with an absolute certainty the reason why he could not do it. The moment he reached his hand out across the gulf of space that separated them, the connection would be made: he would be touching Malis!
And even as this terrifying revelation washed over him, he saw apsara, celestial in the awesome precision of her dance, separate herself from the corpus of Lauren, turning as she did so, her fingers undulating like serpents, aimed at him. She stepped towards him as her twin, Lauren, began to move away in the opposite direction.
Softly, seductively, she came towards him, making him remember his Buddhist vows of celibacy. She writhed in front of him and now her motions were overtly erotic, her hips rocking, the muscles along her inner thighs rippling as if in anticipation.
And despite himself Khieu experienced the old familiar tightening in his groin. Was there ever a time he could resist Malis? His penis began to swell and at that moment, he felt a
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shivering of the air as of some element unseen and when he looked at Mahs again she was headless, bloodless, her limbs bluewrhite and bloated, mud from the river's bottom left behind her like a slug's glistening trail of slime Vinheanakhan Her spirit pursued him
Even at night the humidity was appalling Tracy awoke out of the kind of deep, almost drugged sleep one experiences at the very end of endurance He climbed to his feet The extended battle in the hospital had taken more out of him than it should have
I'm out of shape, he thought angrily Or the blast was still having its effect on him Either way, he did not like it He shrugged his shoulders Joss It was what they would have said here in this teeming city Fate without quite being the Western term, or karma, as the Japanese would put it There is no controlling it, so better put your mind on something useful, he told himself as he stooped, walking past a couple of the daughters, huddled together on a reed berth He went up the companionway
The running lights were on but that was all Pinpoints of yellow, red and green surrounded him, piercing the shroud of night and it seemed to Tracy that they rode the back of the many-eyed great dragon which, according to ancient feng shut, guarded all of Hong Kong
Along the rail, getting his bearings, he saw they were just rolling past Round Island, then changing course at Wong Ma Kok, the most southerly projection of Hong Kong Island, tacking into the wind, now heading northeast In a little while he was able to make out Lo Chau off the starboard side Up ahead, he knew, was Cape D'Aguilar, where they would change course again, due north into Tahong Channel He'd know that point because he'd be able to see Bigwave Bay on the port side and the great black bulk of Tung Lung Island
The wind did nothing to dispel the humidity and Tracy settled down against the gunwale of the junk, listening to the steady, comforting creak of the fittings, the soft, concealing night with its jewel-like pinspots of lights floating by him The
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slow swells rocked the junk and, dimly, he could make out the churning of the water.
And slowly the night began to permeate his mind, cutting through the barrier of time, sending him tumbling backwards into the pit of his memories. He was recalling with vivid clarity the first mission he had gone on in Cambodia. He had just arrived, fresh from his graduation from the Mines.
Now you know a thousand different ways to kill, Jinsoku had told him before he had left Virginia's rolling verdant hills. But you have not yet killed. Be forewarned. Remember all I have taught you and kill without thought.
That first mission might have been the toughest: only Tracy had been left to make the final approach to the objective: a Khmer Rouge cadre leader. The three other men in his unit had been killed on the way in: Twilley had stepped on a land mine, Dicks had taken a poisoned bamboo stake in the groin, Timothy had bought it in the outset of the final run, carbine fire stitching itself across his barrel chest with indecent finality.
By that time there had been only Tracy and the objective left alive within that area of the jungle. They had come together like two animals, instinctively aware of the fight to the death.
There had been little problem. At hand-to-hand the Khmer Rouge was no match for Tracy and he had gone down beneath Tracy's first powerful onslaught. Jinsoku - one master of death had been forced out along Tracy's working muscles, his training to the forefront and at last the lethal blow was on its way.
But in that split second, Tracy thought about what he was doing, thought about the taking of life, the snuffing of that divine spark that only God or, at least, nature could create. In the space of the blink of an eye, he was taking it away.
In that moment, his mind turned not towards politics or philosophies'or differing rhetorics but to the sheer humanity of the situation. Thus, he hesitated.
And almost died.
The objective seized upon that instant when all motion ceased, turning the inertia around, reversing the momentum, rising up like a spirit from the grave, a spectral whirlwind
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clothed in the blackness of the night. He was very quick, even more so now because he was mortally frightened and was ready to do anything to save himself.
He did what he had to do and he hurt Tracy badly, taking him to the point of ideath. Then Tracy's own shock was replaced by an accurate assessment of the mortal moment about to encompass him and he reached out blindly, without thinking, allowing the organism to work on its own, to save itself.
On the brink of death, he used what Jinsoku had taught him, jamming the heavily calloused heel of his hand into the point of the objective's nose with an awesome amount offeree.
The other's head snapped back with Tracy's vicious followthrough, the eyes rolling back in the head, rolling with fear at the screamed kiai so close upon him. Then they clouded over as the nose cartilage broke free of its ligamental moorings, a lethal missile penetrating the soft grey matter of the brain.
For some time after that Tracy did nothing. The weight of the objective slumped upon him was heavy, numbing. Then with a grunt of pain, he threw the corpse ofFhirn, staggered to his feet.
It had dawned on him then just what he had done: the process and, just as important, the feelings that went along with it. The enormous intensity of those feelings had rocked him; the power that flowed through him in that moment... he felt as if he could power a city with the energy rolling through him like waves, thunderclaps, sheaves of sparks glittering the night.
He knew this feeling set him apart from all the rest of the people around him. And because of it he knew he would not die here: he had entered into the ultimate phase of the training Jinsoku had so painstakingly taken him through. Now he was wedded to it, one with it. For good or ill, this was the whole of his being now and, as he had turned away from his first corpse that dense humid night, he had known that life as he had come to know it would never again be the same.
He looked up now in the huge darkness, saw Bigwave Bay and Tung Lung. It would not be long now. He stared into the northeast searching the night for High Junk Peak. Too soon yet,
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he knew. Yet his eyes continued to pierce the night, searching for the first signs of it.
He went across the deck, suddenly chill, despite the heat and humidity. He saw a dark shape, small in the lee of the black curl of the aft hawser. Li. At first he thought she was asleep but as he approached he saw her eyes opened, watching him.
He sat down beside her, his back against the hull and said in dialect, 'What's the matter, Little Sister, can't you sleep?'
She stared at him, shook her head back and forth.
He reached out for her and she climbed into his lap. He enfolded her, needing her warmth as much as she needed his. He kissed the side of her head and she sighed, falling immediately to sleep. Then Tracy, too, dozed for a time.
He was awoken by a voice calling softly near him. He opened his eyes without moving a muscle. Li lay curled in his arms, one small hand grasping his elbow in sleep.
Ping Po's face watched him from out of the darkness. 'You've slept well, Younger Brother.' He nodded. 'You bring peace to my little one.'
Tracy was alert now, looking closely at the other. He knew Ping Po had not awakened him to idly pass the time of day.
'I feel much refreshed,' was all he said.
Ping Po's head dipped. 'Good.' He looked up. 'A still night. Very still. We wager on the moment the new day's wind will arise.' He looked cannily at Tracy. 'Have you a good bet?'
'In half-an-hour,' said Tracy immediately without consulting his watch. He knew a quick response was what was required of him. The Chinese lust for gambling was all but insatiable; they'd bet on anything that moved, spoke, lifted or fell. Any hesitation would have marked him as a true quai loh, the foreign devil the civilized Chinese felt all Westerners to be.
'Yaaa!' Ping Po breathed softly. His eyes opened wide. 'That will be late. Very late.' His head bobbed. 'One hundred HK.'
'All right.'
Ping Po smiled, his hands rubbed together. 'Yes. Soon we will see.' He spat deftly over the side of his junk. His eyes were half-lidded, the running lights reflected off the curve of the
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whites, turning the pupils black. 'Until then, perhaps you should know Mizo has many names.'
Now it was Tracy's turn to be surprised and, for face, he allowed it to show only in his eyes: that would make Ping Po jiappy and he would not lose face. 'Yaaa! How could you know such a thing?'
'I am but a poor fisherman,' Ping Po said, meaning none of it. 'But am I a blind, dead and dumb son of a sea snake as well? If I did not know things I would be ignorant of the tides and the times best suited for running the fish into this unworthy junk. I would not be able to provide for my prodigious family.'
'That kind of knowledge is not the same,' Tracy said. 'It could be dangerous.'
'Aaaa! Do you not think manoeuvring this junk through the byways of Hong Kong is not dangerous? Pah!" He spat over the side again. 'I believe in only two things: gambling and that all banks must fail. They are quai loh inventions and therefore not to be trusted. But gold, ah, gold is a friend that cannot fail. Don't you agree.'
'Indeed.'
Then listen well, my friend, for as I have already said this Mizo, this slippery mother's turd of a Japanese, is known by many names. Sun Ma Sun. White Powder Sun for one business he is in, Backblast Sun, for the other." Ping Po squinted at him. 'Do you understand all of this?'
'Yes.'
The old man nodded. 'Good. Perhaps it will help.' He yawned and stretched, pointing over Tracy's shoulder. 'High Junk.'
Tracy turned carefully to avoid waking Li, saw the thin string of lights along Cape Collinson and, further away and slightly to the northeast, High Junk Peak, its dark bulk rearing up over eleven hundred feet into the air and rejoiced. High Junk Peak was on the mainland. They were almost there.
Now the junk headed northwest into the Lei Yue-Mun Channel. Directly ahead Tracy saw the blue-violet and deep yellow runway lights at Kai Tak Airport extending out into the water like a long pointing finger.
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Their destination was the Kwun Tong district of New Kowloon. It was as close as Ping Po dared take the junk without attracting the attention of the harbour police. Any further in towards Tsim Sha Tsui and their passage would begin to intersect the well-travelled ferry and pleasure boat routes.
Dawn was coming, tingeing the east with pink mother-ofpearl along the undersides of the low-lying clouds. Perhaps today it will rain, Tracy thought, and ease the water shortage.
Across Victoria Harbour, the clusters of high-rise spires on the forefront of the north side of the island were being gilded by the rising sun, the myriad windowpanes being set on fire, burning their way down floor by floor as more of the sun's bulk crept above the horizon. The hard shell of the sky was wholly pink for a time, the first flat rays of the new day turning the water ahead of them to spangled gold, the troughs dark and mysterious with the last vestiges of the dying night.
Up until a moment ago, Violet Hill and Mt Cameron had hidden most of the layered man-made structures of Wanchai and beyond the massed Central District. Then, abruptly, they had been revealed, almost all at once as the junk breasted the point.
Tracy was thinking furiously about what Ping Po had said. The Chinese had many names, ones they picked up during their lifetime, not just the one they were given at birth. These later names were dictated by personal quirks or disfigurements... or by what they did. Backblast Sun obviously referred to Mizo's school of miniature explosive and listening devices. But White Powder Sun? In Hong Kong parlance that could only mean one thing: narcotics smuggling. If that were so, Tracy knew he might be in far worse trouble than he had imagined.
Narcotics, and gold smuggling out of Macao were such lucrative businesses in Hong Kong that one needed assurances that one would be left alone to pursue these fortunes unmolested. That meant greasing many palms, most notably within the tong-riddled police force. Here, as almost anywhere else in the world, the police were as honest or as corrupt as you could want.
Tracy now believed that if he went to the police and told the
