Black Heart, page 69
'Yes. I remember it well. I was the officer in charge. Retribution was up to me.'
'And what did you recommend?'
'Kim came to me. He was practically on his knees, begging me to allow him to be the one.'
They were standing toe to toe now, heads thrust forward like
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a pair of rams about to crash horns.' What did you recommeno. the Director spat out.
Tracy closed his eyes for a moment. 'That Kim be the one.
'That Kim be the one,' the Director echoed. 'And he was. He took the traitor down, he put him through articulated interrog'"
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(j0n that lasted seventy-two hours without surcease. And at the gnd of that time, we had all our answers. How much of the unit jiad been compromised; how many missions; how much information had been passed on before he was picked up.'
'I remember all that. Kim did it better than anyone else. He j,ad a taste for it.'
'That he did,' the Director agreed. He stepped back into the protection of his umbrella. 'And do you know how he finally (Jjsposed of the traitor?'
'I don't remember.'
'Think!' the Director hissed into the wind.
Tracy had been there when Kim did it, having taken down On tape all that the traitor had to give. 'He strangled the man slowly with a piece of wire flex, squeezing until the loop sides met at the top of the spinal cord.'
The Director heaved a great sigh. 'Good,' he whispered. 'Oh, good. You do remember.' He leaned forward. 'Then think on this. That was precisely the method of your father's death.'
Tracy seemed to stop breathing. His hands were whitened fists at his sides.
The Director continued to watch him with the intense scrutiny of a hawk.
There's something I want you to do,' Tracy said.
'Anything.' The Director was preparing to leave.
'When HK staff picks up my belongings at the Princess, make certain they bring back a small package I put in the safety deposit box there.'
'Gladly.' The Director smiled. 'Take your time. I'll wait for you in the car.'
It was only after the Director had left, fading into the mist and rain, only when he was all alone with his thoughts, his memories of his father, the knowledge of what he was going to do, that he noticed the plot next to his father's grave was VJcant, awaiting its permanent tenant.
J°Y Trower Macomber had just finished reading it the dark Despicable heart of her husband's past, the last burning leaf of
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his soul when she scented the powerful, magnetizing maleness enter her room, moving within it towards her.
Her hands were trembling and her mind was in shock, recoil, ing from the monstrous description on the six sheets of yellowed paper she held. She had inadvertently come upon this mini, journal through a most banal turn of events. She had somehow misplaced her lint brush and, recalling that her husband kept an antique silver-backed clothes brush in the upper drawer of his dresser, had gone there to find it. As she had picked it up it had slid out of her hands and the resultant drop had caused the back
to slip slightly.
At first she was terrified, thinking of Macomber's wrath when he saw what she had done. Only then, on second look, did she see the corners of the journal sticking out and, twisting the back even further had discovered that it was on a latchlocked swivel. The fall had obviously dislodged the latch.
She had hesitated but a moment. She had come this far, she reasoned. How could she stop halfway? Now she almost wished she had. The words still burned their way through her mind like a hideous fire. It was beyond belief, she told herself. No one could be that cruel. Her head had turned, and she had stared at the bed where for so long she and Macomber had slept side by side. She had shuddered. Not for some time, however, and she was grateful for small favours. For the first time she fully welcomed the fact that he no longer slept here or even came here very often; she knew she could no longer bear to touch him. Not after discovering what he had done.
Quickly now, she began to stuff the papers back into their hiding place. But she had failed to re-fold them correctly and they would not fit in quite the same way. In a panic now, she left them, began to close the drawer.
Then she felt his presence directly behind her and she had run out of time. She turned and put her arms around him. Her gaK went to his haunted face and seeing the obvious pain there knowing what she now did her heart broke and she began to
cry.
'Oh, Khieu,' she whispered. 'Khieu.'
CK» «,« filled uo with love for him; love and pity and remorse
She was filled up wit
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and, yes. guilt, too, because no matter how unwittingly she had been a part of this unholy scheme. With all her soul she longed to tell him the truth, even opened her lips to do so but then her eyes locked onto his and she thought, doesn't he have enough pain to bear already; and before she could think again she had pressed her mouth against his, pushing her warm body against jjjs, wanting to give him her warmth, her passion, her love of
lift. He was barechested and she ran her delicate fingers over the
hard outlines of his gleaming copper muscles and she began to burn with passion for him. She felt her nipples harden through ^e thin neglige and, shrugging, felt the shoulder straps drop down her arms, baring her firm breasts. Her hands snaked down between their bodies, unzipping his trousers, feeling inside for his hardening length. The heat there made her gasp as both hands converged on him, urging him, teasing him, one stroking the tip while the other moved inward to cup his balls.
Khieu's eyes closed and he shuddered. His half-opened lips began to move as if in silent prayer.
Joy moved one hand, freeing him from his trousers, then pushing her neglige all the way down. She spread her legs and moved in on him, bringing him upward so that her heated mons came in contact with the tip of his erection.
Slowly, tantalizingly, she moved him in a circular motion through her pubic hair, feeling herself getting wet, rubbing him in it, the moist secret folds of her opening up like the petals of a fragrant flower. And now she heard him groan deeply as his penis entered her slowly, just the head disappearing inside her Wore she pulled away. Then pushed up. And away. Again and again, teasing him, arousing him to the point where he shuddered and, closing his eyes, reached for her, drawing her to him fully.
This was what she had wanted, why she had teased him, *anting to break down the strange barrier that had somehow cotne between them during the past few weeks, missing terribly "tot intimacy that had made some sense of her life here on Gramercy Park South. For without him, without the pleasure "e provided her body and her soul what business had she being
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here? It would be back to Texas for her, a return to the moneyed boring life she had led before Macomber had appeared to VOQ
her away.
Khieu flexed his muscles, lifting her off her feet. And Joy dangled there, exquisitely impaled, breathless, her heart hammering, an indescribable heat suffusing her loins, waiting. He made her so hot she could scarcely stand it. Drugged with lust she was only aware that when he began to stroke inside her, her head went back, her eyelids fluttering and she lost all control.
It felt to her as if his heart had been torn loose from its moorings and through the motions of sex had contrived to enter her most intimate parts. The core of the sun burst inside her bringing her joy beyond description. She laughed with it, elation and ecstasy combining, filling her with life.
He had backed her against the wall in the movement of their passion and now she climbed it, up and back, as his heart moved
within her, roaming.
And, as it did so, she felt the gathering storm within his thighs. His bull-like thrusts were coming more rapidly now, ragged as he approached the end. Still she sensed him holding back, even through the veil of her own unending passion, and she began a rhythmic squeezing of her inner muscles, stroking him fiercely as he drove in and out.
'No, no, no!' he seemed to be saying.
'Yes, yes, yes,' she replied, wanting him to come with an
intensity she never thought possible, and she reached down
beneath them, held his balls in the palm of her hand, squeezing
gently in concert with his thrusts. Then, using the pad of her
thumb, she stroking the line of soft skin just above his prostrate.
It was too much for him. He cried out and Joy felt his balls
draw up and squeezed harder as his deeply buried erection began
to tremble and spurt hotly.
'Ohhh, yes. Yes!' She cried triumphantly, the feeling and the knowledge of his coming, that she had made him come wanning her, bringing her to another, higher brink and, feeling him gushing hotly inside her, she writhed and groaned, coming
again.
And, as she did so, his right forearm whipped up, the muscles
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bunching powerfully, and he smashed it against her exposed throat so hard she jumped, her fluttering eyelids snapping open, pupils focusing on him. Confusion clouded her face and she said, once, 'Khieu ...'
'Khieu,' he said. His voice seemed thick and strange. 'Who is Khieu?' His face was full of fire, his intestines burning as if with streaking napalm. 'I am ... Chet Khmau.' The moving sea of the Black Heart pulsed within him, all the years in Europe and America burned away from him in one cleansing flash of brilliant scorching heat.
Lust had overtaken him, despite his sacred vows of abstinence. He had failed Lok Kru, Preah Moha Panditto; he had failed the Way; he had failed Buddha.
Apsara had come crawling on her bloated belly as he had been rutting like a sweaty animal, her headless neck white and scarred with dried blood and cauterized arteries. But her fingers had danced for him and slowly he had come to understand their message. Then all at once as the incendiary spark had ignited the firestorm within him, burning away the dross, he had come to understand fully.
His years away from his home, his years of Westernization had made apsara's message to him indecipherable.
But now he had returned; now he was Black Heart. And Chet Khmau could translate freely the signs to the gods. Kill her, apsara's dancing fingers had sung to him. She has caused you to break your vows; she has seduced you. She must die. For you must remain pure for me, for Lauren, for me, for Lauren for me for Lauren for me ...
Slipping down, Chet Khmau slept.
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Macomber awoke near dawn and checked the system. They were still green-lighted all across the board. Wiping the sleep from the corners of his eyes, he went across his vast office to the shower. Stripping off his sweat-stiffened clothes he stepped into the scalding needle spray, lifting his head upward to ease the ache at the back of his neck.
He was very pleased at the precautions he had taken, especially now that he had had the report of the non-delivery of the last shipment Mizo had imported into New York. If he had waited to move until this moment he felt certain he would
have been too late.
The moment the report of the breaching of the Mauritious Company's security had reached him, he had radioed the captain of the Jade Princess then two days out from New York, and had ordered him to dump his cargo of four wooden crates designated 'Clockwork Orange' in the system's angka program.
He was not concerned with cost. Built into the program was the expense of a second, backup shipment that was at this moment as he soaped himself thoroughly being offloaded at the Newark rail terminal. Macomber knew it would be safe there. As for the birdcages of nuclear waste, the seeds of his elite corps of terrorists the Monk was providing him with would be spreading all across Manhattan during the waning hours of New Year's Eve, part of a lost shipment bound for burial somewhere in the heartland of America, were being transshipped now.
Come Inauguration Day, the terrorists would make their demands. Macomber glowed at the thought of the final fruition of the angka. He would provide the necessary information to Gottschalk, spoon feeding the new President every heart grinding step of the way until New York would be saved from nuclear contamination and Gottschalk's power so consolidated he could do virtually what he wished with foreign policy. F°r<
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after all these heroics, who would stand in his way? Not Congress. And certainly not the people of the United States.
So, Macomber thought now, as he stepped out of the shower and began to towel off, it did not matter who breached the IViauritious offices, it did not even matter if that same someone had found the shipment of heroin with its damnable scroll. As Of yesterday, the Jade Princess's arms shipment was no more, lying rotting on the rocky bottom of the Atlantic.
Macomber opened a gleaming armoir set into one wall of the corridor between the bathroom and his office, began to dress in fresh clothes; lightweight midnight blue slacks, a comfortable white Sea Island cotton shirt, a patterned club tie. He combed his hair methodically, loving the thickness of it, its silver-grey sheen. He groomed his white moustache carefully, stared into the cool blue eyes regarding him in reflection in the mirror.
This was a good dawn, he thought, as his gaze moved to one of the windows. A pink glow like the inside of a sea shell had begun to suffuse the office.
The only cloud in the day was the fact that sometime soon he must return to his house on Gramercy Park South to retrieve some important papers.
He shrugged, putting that thought aside for the moment and, crossing the thick carpeting, sat down behind his desk and began to make the first raft of overseas calls.
Tracy did not for a moment believe what the Director had told him. Kim had not killed his father, of that he was certain. Kim was incapable of such an act. Even had Tracy somehow managed to offend Kim in some basic way in the present, the revenge he might undertake would involve Tracy alone.
Honour thy ancestors above all others.
How many times had Tracy seen Kim halt at the beginning of each mission, kneel by the roots of a banana or banyan tree, implant a small stick of incense into the spongy earth, light it with great reverence and begin his prayers. He prayed to his Parents and their parents before them, asking them to imbue Win with courage so that he could honour their name and their "ngpory.
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r1
Tracy was neither angry nor particularly surprised at the pfo the Director had employed. It was he who had gone back t the foundation, after all. If he wanted their help he knew h would have to play by their rules.
He still needed the foundation's facilities. To reject the quu pro quo on the. spot would have been stupid because he would have been instantly cut off. He could not afford that now. {-u could not precisely say why something floating around in h^ memory, some connection with Macomber and ... Who? Damnit, but he could not say. Yet. Give it time and concentrate on other matters.
Kim for instance. It had begun to dawn on Tracy during his long flight back to the States that Kim's involvement was of a totally personal nature. If that were so, there seemed little doubt that he had deliberately finessed Tracy into the chase. It was not inconceivable that he knew who had killed John Holmgren, that he had known all along.
Tracy began to burn, remembering his old nickname: the ferret. They could give him just one whiff of the enemy and he was off. Was that what Kim had done to him here? Then whf. He knew how much Kim hated him. Yet their mutual animosity ran on a specific level. That Kim was a master torturer Tracy could neither understand nor tolerate. But that Kim was brilliant he had no doubt. He was also fiercely courageous. On their shared missions of extreme hazard, when life could be expunged within the space of the next indrawn breath, they had become closer than brothers ever could.
In situations that were life-threatening time becomes cornpressed or elongated, emotions strung quiveringly taut by almost unbearable tension. Within that time skein, they had viewed each other's naked souls.
It was imperative now, he knew, to locate Kim. Tracy was convinced that the Vietnamese knew enough to bring all the disparate pieces together.
On to other fields. He had been so1 certain that the 'Sultan file would provide him with the information he needed. But there had been nothing there. Not in the formation of the unit. Macomber, Devine, Lewis, Perilli; not in the raft of codes and
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cyphers; not in the location of the Khmer Rouge camp: Area , 30; not in the progress reports; not in the windup.
The windup. In that the Director had been right. Tracy was furious that Macomber had been able to pull off such a stupendous feat right under his nose, turning Tracy's last victory vtrithin the foundation into bitter ash. And worse: a mockery of the original objective.
Something ... something swimming up ...
Sleep.
The sound of the phone waking him at dawn, pulling him up through the layers from delta to beta reluctantly, the intense fatigue not yet fully dissipated even by this full night's uninterrupted sleep.
Echoes inside his head and he almost had it... Now.
Reached for the phone and Thwaite's voice brought him fully awake. 'Hey, Tracy, is that really you?'
Thwaite. It's good to hear your voice.'
'I've been trying to get you since yesterday. Doesn't that hotel believe in giving messages?'
Tracy cursed. He had returned late, his mind full of swirling cross-currents. He had forgotten to ask for messages. 'Sorry,' he said, 'I'm still recovering from the rough time in Hong Kong.'
'Hey, you okay?'
He heard the genuine concern in his friend's voice and thought, I'ts nice to be back among real people. 'Yeah, sure. Couple more night's sleep and it'll be like nothing ever happened."
