Black Heart, page 70
'Listen,' Thwaite said, the note of concern still there, 'I'm real sorry about your father. I figured the Feds corning and claiming the body and all you being in DC that they'd told you.'
'We buried him yesterday.'
'Christ, Tracy, I was out of town when it happened. I'm awfully sorry. I don't know what else there is to say.'
'Nothing. But I appreciate you saying it.' Tracy sat up, mbbed at his dark hair. 'Now listen, we've got some business to discuss. First of all, what happened out in Kenilworth? How did Burke die?'
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'I got to the ME,' Thwaite said. 'It was just like you ha
suspected. The nasal cartilage was intact.'
'That means bur man did it. It's all tied in somehow.'
'You bet it is,' Thwaite said. 'But that's not all.'
'Hold it.' Tracy thought a minute. 'This's an open line. I think
we've both got a lot of information to exchange. Where're you
now, Melody's?'
He heard the slight hesitation. 'No, the office. I'm not... I'm
still sleeping at the hotel.'
'Okay. I've got some business to finish up here but I think I')] be through by this evening. Can you meet the 8 am shuttle tomorrow morning?'
'If I can't, I'll have a mobile unit pick you up. All of a sudden things're beginning to pop. But like you said, we'll talk about
it tomorrow.'
'Yeah,' Tracy said. Til see you then.'
He got up and padded into the shower, turning on the taps. It was then that it hit him - the linkup. He stared at the racing water and said, 'Three-fifty. I'll be goddamned.'
He was showered, shaved and dressed within twenty minutes. But out within the Washington morning crush it took him forty minutes to reach the foundation.
Lauren stared out the Perspex at the blue and grey layered clouds drifting far below her. She was cold and the thin, recirculated air was bothering her sinuses. A muscle on the inside of her left thigh hurt from her recent fall. But consciously she felt none of those physical discomforts.
She was filled with elation and with terror. Tracy had not after all been responsible for Bobby's death, that she saw quite clearly now just as she knew that should she give him the Monk's message she would be placing him in grave danger. And the one made the other more difficult to bear.
That Macomber was Tracy's enemy she had no doubt now. After what she had learned about their past relationships with Tisah, it was obvious. And at the time she suspected Tracy needed the most support she had blown everything apart - just as she had done a year ago. Now she berated herself for ">at'
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even knowing how much emotionalism she brought to the subject of her brother.
It was she who had accused him; she who had screamed at him hysterically; she who had not given him a chance to explain fully the circumstances. But then she had been in no mood for explanations or reason. She had seen red because she herself felt responsible for Bobby's death by driving him out of the house and into the Army.
That knowledge made her skin crawl and she sat now with her arms wrapped around herself so that the flight attendant came over, asked if she'd like a blanket. She accepted gratefully.
Once, she thought now, staring out the window at rippling clouds, folding and unfolding, recreating abstract patterns, once she had been in control of her life and the lives of those around her. But slowly, so imperceptibly that she had not felt its tidal pull, ballet's fierce concentrations had turned her inward and she had drifted from first Bobby and then her parents. She saw that quite clearly now just as she saw that Bobby's enlistment was directed at her.
He wanted desperately to show her what he was made of; he needed her to see his courage, a courage she was certain had been there all the time if she had only taken the time to see it.
There were so many other ways Bobby could have escaped his home environment: marriage, graduate school, a job, even, in another city. But he had done none of those. He had chosen the Army.
Her problem now lay with Tracy. Should she tell him the Monk's message or should she keep it to herself? Her heart told her to say nothing; to return home, go see him and use all her powers to make things right between them, lastingly right. Nothing else was important.
For a moment she trembled on that edge. But then an image °fBobby's face formed in the clouds below and she knew it was time to put away forever the selfish part of her that had dominated her life for so long. She was no longer a sheltered c"Ud; she knew something momentous was happening, that she *as a part of it.
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There was a debt the Monk owed Tracy and in the short but intense time she had been with him she had begun to understand the importance of such a debt. The Monk had entrusted her with the vital information. She had become the link between them and, so, too, she had a duty. She had failed Tracy twice; she
would not do so again.
Duty. The Monk and Tisah, his daughter, had taught her the meaning of that word. She felt it now, burning like a lantern in her heart, leading her onwards and she thought, how strange! To come halfway around the world to learn such an elementary
lesson!
She put her head back against the seat rest, closed her eyes.
Tracy was just eight hours away, concentrate on that, she told herself. Hold that to you, remember always how precious he is
to you.
She could scent the salt tang in the air, feel the soft wet wind on her face, sending strands of her unbound hair fluttering against her cheek. The warmth of the sun on her bare back; Tracy's own warmth pressing against her belly and her breasts, the quivering of the muscles in her thighs. Involuntarily she sighed and the small, quiet sound from the depths of her soul startled her, even as it brought the image of him into such suprareal proximity that she began to weep, the tears hot and salty trickling slowly down cheeks burnished brown by the Chinese
sun.
And the ache for him became so physical that she put her
hands between her legs beneath the thin blanket, warming them. She rocked slowly in her seat and, after a time, she slept and dreamt of home.
Khieu awoke with a violent start, not knowing where he was. He felt lightheaded, his mind suffused with a peculiar clarity he automatically associated with his days with Preah Moha Panditto. He recalled Lok Km reciting to him a small section from the Buddhist text, Cakkavattisihanada Sutta, which is concerned with the eventual evolution of mankind: decline and disaster leading to a Just Society with a change of heart and a change of system:
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Among such humans there will arise a war lasting seven days, during which they will look on each other as wild beasts; dangerous weapons will fall into their hands and they, thinking 'this is a wild beast', 'that is a wild beast', will with these weapons deprive each other of life.
He arose and walked out of the room - he was not conscious of precisely what room he was in - down the hall and into his own room where, passing by the image of Buddha, he went into the bathroom and took a long cold shower.
When he was finished, he dressed in black cotton trousers and loose-fitting shirt and sat in the lotus position before Buddha. NOW he spoke another of Lok Kru's lessons, taken from the Dhammapada:
By ourselves is evil done, By ourselves we pain endure, By ourselves we cease from wrong, By ourselves we become pure. No one saves us but ourselves, No one can and no one may, We ourselves must tread the path; Buddhas only show the way.
Khieu knew this to be absolute and true. Was it not Lord
Buddha himself who said, 'Anicca vata sankara'. All things, both
animate and inanimate must rise and then die away. This is true
of all beings in the world. The everyday experience of the
instability of life is an education. No being lives for ever and
ever, nothing will remain for ever and ever without being
decayed. Why do people wage war? Because they do not know
what they are. Contemplation on the body, internally and
externally, with Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right
I Concentration will enlighten them that the body is transient,
I disintegrating into its basic components: Earth, Air, Fire, Water.
I Concentration.
I To begin, Khieu used anapdnasati, the awareness of breathing I * and out and within several minutes had reached the proper I state where his Citta his consciousness - was bright, cool, calm
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and happy. Then, as Preah Moha Panditto had taught him, he moved on to kammatthdna, passing through all forty subjects in
the Path of Purification.
It was a return to the Noble Eight Fold Path and its three major components: Sila, a code of ethics, Samddhi, insight, and Panna, wisdom. It was the only path to Nirvana, the absolute
reality: selflessness.
And as he proceeded with his meditation Khieu became subtly aware of that memory of Preah Moha Panditto that had never left him, even when he was Chet Khmau, that bright light the energy field that surrounded the priest. How Khieu Sokha the boy, had wondered at it. How Khieu, the adult, still felt that same sense of pure wonder. That at least had not changed.
Then, as he was finishing the one analysis of the four elements that was part of the kammatthdna, he abruptly felt the black swirl of an unaccountable darkness sweeping up from a hidden corner of his soul and the torrent of the war began to suffuse him.
He stood, recalling with unusual clarity the mission he had been ordered to perform; kill Tracy Richter.
Without a glance back at the gilt Buddha, without another thought towards meditation, he went silently out of his room and down the hall of the darkened house. He was aware of the ticking of the clock from downstairs on the first floor.
Without quite understanding why, he made his way to the master bedroom at the far end of the hall and, stepping across the threshold, beheld the twisted corpse of Joy Trower Macomber.
There was a music recital going on at the foundation when
Tracy arrived and he went in the main entrance along with clots
of others sauntering in. But instead of heading straight ahead
towards the ground floor auditorium, he turned to his right,
walking down a short well-lighted corridor. The walls were
blank but behind them he knew were an awesome array of
detection and identification equipment so that by the time he
got to the Oreo door, they knew just who he was. They called
it the Oreo door because sandwiched between the seemingly
normal looking dark wood was a six-inch thick piece of w»lK
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vanadium-alloy steel plate, making the entrance virtually
impregnableThe door opened as he touched the knob just as if it hadn't
been locked.
'Mother!' Stein was up from behind his great sculptured communications console. He shook Tracy's hand with a great sfliik on his face. He was rather short and stocky with a decided Mediterranean cast to his face. His brown eyes danced. 'Say, I've been trying to scare you up since late yesterday but no one knew where you were staying.'
Tracy was trying to get away, his thoughts locked on the secrets he might find in the Library. 'What is it?'
'O'Day called back very late yesterday.' Tracy was instantly alert. 'Said he'd thought of something and wanted to talk to you. He sounded pretty excited.'
'Can you get him for me now?'
Stein nodded, donning his headset. 'Sure. Just a sec.' He pointed. 'You can use that phone there.' He spoke into his mouthpiece. He nodded and Tracy picked up the receiver.
'O'Day, it's Mother. I understand you wanted to speak to me.' He was aware of Stein breaking his own connection, turning to other business.
"That's right. I'm glad you called back. After I got off the line with you yesterday I began to roll that little problem you gave me around in my mind.'
'Do you mean there is another way for Macomber to have sponsored a foreign national.'
'Well, er, yes there is.' O'Day's voice was apologetic. 'I don't I bow why it didn't occur to me right away. Although it's I hardly ever done you could I mean if you deliberately wanted I to circumvent channels and leave no public trace of it - you I Mold, if you had a friend on the proper Senate subcommittee,
18*it done almost immediately.' O'Day laughed, a high horse's I *hinny. 'But I mean why would anyone want to do that?' I Tracy was holding his breath; suddenly he was back on line I !8«n. 'Did you check that possibility?'
I Well, yes. Of course I did, Mother. I pride myself on my Ieve' of efficiency. That's why I rang Stein back. I do have an
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f Delmar Davis Macomber is on record as
zz£ r;rs Ss£ -**~ - -^ -
"%%£****><*" ***"
SfoT*,'.' Tr.cy said excitedly, 'thanks very much fc, ""IS ^a^Sr,. Anything o»« of *. c,din»y is , ««.,
assure you.' Library and asked for the 'Ragman'
Tracy went down to Je Library Cambodia where
file. It had occurred to turn thaA» 35 ^^ rf
the 'Sultan' rmssion took P^ace was ^ Jw
Ragman' operation, tto^one m ^ ^^ ^ ^
?f^J^JST-«SS-. ** one Macomber had
terronst, musaam ^.^-^
Macomber had been on together, the one Macomber had volunteered to remain on after they had found out that Murano
had just died.
Tracy took the file from the Librarian and, signing for it, went across the room to a hard-backed chair. He placed the file on the trestle table and opened it up. He read quickly through the background sections on Murano's birth, growing up in die south of Japan, on Kyushu. He read about an ageing father who had gone mad during World War II when his wife had been incinerated in the awful fire bombing of Tokyo six months before the atomics were loosed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the intense martial spirit of the family of the uncle who had taken the young Murano in; the subsequent mastery of numerous forms of bujutsu, mostly hand-to-hand. It was said Murano felt disdainful of such weaponry as swords or pistols, preferring to inflict death with his hands.
Tracy skipped over his military service. But he paused at the next entry, fascinated. Murano's politics were radical. He was a hard-line militarist who eventually broke with his own countrymen in order to keep faith with his ideals.
Murano left Japan - or was forced outmoving from Burins and Thailand into Cambodia, offering his expertise to the Khmer Rouge, whose radical philosophies and intense an" tagonism towards the West were compatible with his own. H«
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vvas reported working with six encampments starting in 1967 near Battambang. It was said he had a guiding hand in the Sarnlaut Rebellion which really galvanized the new Khmer fl.ouge cause and took them out of the minor role they were playing as rural bandits or maquis, giving them a distinct political skew.
From there he moved on to Baray, Damber, Prey Veng, on and on.
Tracy paused, curious. Even though he had been in charge of the 'Ragman' unit, this full intelligence brief had not been passed on to him. He had been given the broad outlines of fylurano's strength and his potential danger. That was all.
He read on. He had come to the final paragraphs, an entry dealing with the Khmer rumours regarding Murano. These were generally disregarded as a matter of course by the American military command as continuing leaves in the Eastern book of terrorist propaganda.
Here Musashi Murano grew to superhuman proportions, his prowess greatly'inflated. All sorts of highly improbable and, in some cases, impossible deeds were attributed to him. There were also reports that he was training a disciple to take over for him because he knew he was going to die. Intelligence had ignored these, putting them down to a fictitious support for the immortality of the revolution.
But Tracy read on, excited. It seemed as if these particular reports were coming out of only one section of the country: Area 350. After Murano's. death, reports of a living disciple persisted for perhaps four months and then slowly petered out.
His heart was hammering hard in his chest and he thought, it all fits together now. Macomber never saw Murano; he was already dead. But during that week of surveillance in Area 350, lie observed Khieu. Murano's disciple. And if that's true ... He Bought of all the deaths: John's, Moira's, Roland Burke's, his own father's. That had to be the answer. Murano had created toe most potent fighting machine man could devise and somehow Macomber had found a way to harness him.
But how? What could Macomber have said or done to create Sl)ch undying loyalty in a Khmer?
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That was a question fot another day, he knew. As he got up and returned the file, signing out, he knew he had one more call to make. Who had been on that Senate subcommittee? Who had been so close a friend of Macomber's that he would go out on a limb for that semi-illegal sponsorship?
And what was Macomber really up to? Suddenly Tracy felt the weight of all these questions. The enormity of this operation's scope was made clear to him at last and all the breath went out of him.
'I liked her,' Tisah said, after Lauren had left in the chauffeured car. She crossed the living room to the bar, at last drew herself an iced Tsing-Tao vodka on the rocks. She cut a sliver of lemon peel, twisted it onto the ice cubes, took a tentative sip. 'At one point, I was tempted to tell her the truth.'
'I told her the truth,' the Monk said indignantly. Tisah turned towards him, smiling. 'As much of it as you saw fit.' She walked towards him in confident, though somewhat off-balance strides. Without company, she was completely unselfconscious about the limp. She had been injured during her flight from Ban Me Thuot after Tracy had delivered her over
to the conduit.
'My dear, you mind is too pure.' The Monk watched her carefully. 'You were my one and only mistake. I should have known you did not have the temperament for this kind of work.' He frowned. 'I never understood how you could have allowed yourself to enter into it in the first place.'
