Chant Read online

  Baldauf nervously licked his lips and took a step backward. “Try again for a laugh, Sinclair. Tell me what you think would happen to me if I called the state police and the FBI.”

  “I really don’t know,” Chant replied with a casual shrug. “I imagine you might be able to work out some kind of deal with the prosecutors and only end up with a few years in prison. They might never find out that you’ve ordered your Hmong goon squad to break arms and legs, and kill close to two dozen men. Personally, I think you should die—especially in view of what you did to Le Duc hi. But, as you see, I’m willing to compromise on these matters when it facilitates taking care of the business at hand.”

  “That gook fell out of a tree up at the logging camp and broke his back! Three weeks later he died of a heart attack! I didn’t—!” Baldauf abruptly cut himself off when he realized how defensive he sounded. He sucked in a deep breath and shuffled forward, using both hands to steady his aim on the stranger’s head. He stopped when he was three feet away.

  “That isn’t what happened,” Chant replied simply. “For reasons nobody yet understands, the Hmong suffer from a peculiar affliction. Le Duc Thi was organizing opposition among the Hmong to you and your family. You decided to take care of him yourself; you beat him up, broke his back and paralyzed him. In absolute despair, Le Duc Thi succumbed to bangangut. Because of the trap the Baldaufs have put them in, at least a hundred Hmong have died from bangangut in the past year.”

  “What the hell is … whatever you said?”

  “Bangangut. The affliction. ‘Dreams of death.’ When under certain kinds of severe stress, the Hmong are unable to awake from nightmares. They literally dream themselves to death. The official cause of death is usually listed as a heart attack, but it’s the bangangut that brings on the heart attack. You murdered Le Duc Thi when you left him paralyzed and without hope.”

  “Get on your feet, Sinclair,” Baldauf said, flexing his knees slightly. “You and I are going for a little ride up to the high country. For you, it’s going to be a one-way trip.”

  “Am I to understand that you’re turning down my offer?”

  “Get up and walk, or I’ll shoot you in the kneecaps and drag you out to the car myself. You choose; it’s all the same to me.”

  “I had a strong feeling that you’d turn me down,” Chant said. He sighed softly, smiled. “It’s going to put me to a great deal of trouble, but I can’t honestly say I’m disappointed.”

  Suddenly Lester Baldauf found himself staring into a swirling blizzard of bits of torn newspaper. He fired into the maelstrom of newsprint, wincing when he heard the bullets ricocheting around inside the cell. He started to swat at the pieces of paper floating before his eyes, and was still swatting when something hit him in the small of the back, directly on the spine. He heard the bone snap, but felt nothing except for a slight tugging sensation between his shoulder blades. Then he crumpled to the floor.

  Lying on his stomach on the cold cement floor, Baldauf watched in dismay as his fingers slowly uncurled from the butt of the gun; his hand might have been that of a stranger. The fact was that he could no longer concentrate on even such a simple task as keeping his grip on the Colt, for he had something else on his mind—the total lack of sensation in his body below the waist.

  He grunted in surprise and fear when the big man grabbed the back of his uniform with one hand, effortlessly lifted him up and dropped him face down on the bunk.

  Then Lester Baldauf began to scream.

  Chant reached down and, with thumb and forefinger, broke something in the county sheriff’s throat. Baldauf found that he was continuing to scream in his mind and soul, but only catlike, mewling sounds were coming from his throat. His eyes rolled, following the stranger as the big man walked toward the rear of the cell and temporarily vanished from Baldauf’s field of vision.

  Baldauf shifted his gaze and found himself looking down the cellblock through a latticework of steel bars into the impassive, staring eyes of his Hmong prisoners.

  Help me, Baldauf screamed to the men, mouthing the words as all sound seemed lost somewhere behind his eyes. Please help me!

  Of course, the Hmong could not; would not if they could.

  Then Chant reappeared, holding the aerosol can from the paper bag in his right hand. Baldauf glanced from the can into the icy, iron eyes … and realized with horror what the can was for.

  No! Oh merciful God, please not that!

  He flailed away with his arms, clawing at the other man’s eyes as the stranger squatted down beside his head. Chant’s left hand sliced through the air, twice. Suddenly, Baldauf found both his arms flopping helplessly, broken at the elbows. There was absolutely nothing he could do to prevent the other man from gripping his head firmly, by the hair, with one hand; with the other he brought the nozzle of the aerosol can up to Baldauf’s mouth, pressed the button on the top of the can.

  Baldauf held his breath for as long as he was able, but was finally forced to breathe in the sealant. The aerated solution blew into his mouth and nose, and was sucked down into his lungs as a foam that immediately began to expand and harden. Baldauf felt it swelling in his head and chest like some deadly balloon made of concrete. His stomach and chest heaved in a vain attempt to draw in air.

  First, his teeth began to crack as his mouth was forced open, and then he heard his jawbone crack; excruciating pain was to be his sole companion on his journey to death.

  The last thing Lester Baldauf saw as his vision began to blur was John Sinclair sitting cross-legged on the bunk across from him, staring calmly into his face; the last thing he heard was John Sinclair’s deep, resonant voice.

  “Sweet dreams, Lester,” Chant said.

  THREE

  Vietnam, 1971

  “Chant, it’s me!”

  Chant removed his fingers from around his CIA controller’s neck. Fully awake from the moment the other man had slipped quietly into his room, Chant sat up on the edge of the bed and watched as Greg King, shaking his head and rubbing his throat, walked over by the window and stood in a shaft of moonlight. The man’s blond hair and trim mustache glowed golden, while shimmering drops of perspiration tracked down his forehead and cheeks. Chant wondered if the other man knew how close he had just come to dying; it was the first time in six months that Chant had been out of the jungle, and all of his senses and reflexes were finely tuned to the task of warding off the quick, silent death that came in the night wearing black pajamas and sandals made of tire tread.

  “Sorry, Greg,” Chant said evenly. “Sneaking up on me in the dark really isn’t a good idea.”

  “Jesus Christ,” King said, arching his neck. “This is a goddam army base.”

  “And half of the Vietnamese civilians who work here are probably Viet Cong. Just before I left the bounty on me was doubled, and I’m sure the VC would be just as happy to pay it as the Pathet Lao.”

  King, a CIA career professional and a man Chant considered his friend, grunted, then quickly raised his hand as Chant reached out for the bedside lamp. “Don’t turn on the lights, Chant This is a strictly unofficial visit, and my instincts tell me it’s definitely best that no one knows I’ve spoken to you.”

  “Why not?” Chant asked, rising and walking across the room to stand beside the other man. Outside the barracks window, beyond the barbed wire and guard towers around the perimeter of the base, the lights of Saigon glittered in the distance “You’re my controller.”

  “Yeah, but you’re not on my schedule, I’m not even supposed to know you’re here I’m being cut out of a lot of things.”

  “What schedule?”

  King frowned, nervously stroking his mustache. “Something very heavy is going down, Chant.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know—but if desperation has a stink, that’s what this smells like. They may try to cut me out, but I have my own sources.”

  “If you don’t know, then what—?”

  “Listen to me, Chant. You think you wer
e brought out of Laos for a little R and R—which, God knows, you need and deserve. It’s not true. By tomorrow afternoon, you’ll be on your way back to the jungle—maybe.”

  “Why maybe?”

  King blinked rapidly, then turned away. “There are some things I suspect that I don’t want to talk about, at least not yet. I’m here to warn you to watch your ass in the morning. Actually, it’s your mouth that I want you to watch.”

  “What’s happening in the morning?”

  “You’re meeting with the Great Spook himself.”

  Chant felt his stomach muscles tighten slightly. “What the hell does Maheu want with me?”

  The controller smiled thinly. “He probably wants to tell you how disappointed he is that you’re still alive. He sent you, alone, to the hottest spot there is in that secret war up there, and you turned things around in less than a year.”

  “I didn’t turn anything around. The Hmong turned it around; it’s their lives and their villages they’re fighting for, and they rather enjoy their freedom.”

  “They needed a leader.”

  “They needed American arms, and somebody to show how to use them.”

  “And you’re a very modest man. I’ve heard rumors that a lot of those tribespeople—and even some Pathet Lao—think you may be some kind of reincarnated god. Any truth to that?”

  “You’ve been reading too much Conrad.”

  “We won’t argue about it. The point is that Maheu is no friend of yours; he sent you up there with every expectation that you’d be killed inside a week, and you know it. You’ve been on his shit list ever since you refused to volunteer to head Operation Phoenix, and then told your army CO what you thought of it.”

  “Operation Phoenix was, and is, a stupid idea. I don’t assassinate civilians. People get pissed off when you kill their tribal leaders; you might as well run a recruiting service for the Cong. Half the population of a village might have been VC before the hits, but all of them usually ended up VC afterwards.”

  “You were the youngest captain in the U.S. Army. That one remark probably prevented you from becoming the youngest colonel.”

  “It’s not something I worry about.”

  “Worry about Maheu. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why he’d want you. But then, maybe he doesn’t; I think somebody’s pulling his strings.”

  “What are you talking about, Greg?”

  “How many Japanese do you know?”

  Chant laughed. “Quite a few. I grew up in Japan.”

  King stared at Chant for some time. “I didn’t know that,” he said at last.

  Chant shrugged. “Now you do.”

  “Come to think of it, there’s a great deal I don’t know about you … even if you are my friend. Chant, you’re a very closemouthed, rather mysterious man.”

  “If you say so, Greg,” Chant said with a smile.

  “Maheu thinks so, too. He spent four hours yesterday grilling me on what I knew about your background.”

  “For Christ’s sake, all he had to do was look in my personnel file.”

  “Oh, he did. But he’s almost obsessed with the idea that there’s something about you he doesn’t know, and should know. It’s one of the reasons I think somebody else is pulling his strings, forcing him to deal with you. That somebody wants you, even if Maheu doesn’t. Maheu wants you vetted, and vetted good; he wants you vetted a lot deeper than what’s in your personnel file, and I think I understand why.”

  “Why?”

  King stood silent for some time, then seemed to reach some kind of decision. “I’m not supposed to know this, but for the past few months Maheu has been personally contacting men, quite a few from Operation Phoenix, and quite a few who are real loonies. Some have been pulled out and reassigned; their new assignments are classified Top Secret. It’s almost as if he’s putting together an all-star assassination team. You don’t fit the profile. Maheu is nervous, and a nervous Maheu is a dangerous Maheu. Maheu owns Southeast Asia; if he’s being pushed, the push is coming directly from Langley.”

  “Why did you ask me if I knew any Japanese?”

  “All the time Maheu was grilling me, he kept muttering under his breath something that sounded like ‘Langley’s Jap.’ Now, I’ve spent some time at Langley, and I know the command structure of Operations; I don’t know of any Japanese there who’d be in a position to push Maheu’s buttons. You have any idea who ‘Langley’s Jap’ might be?”

  “I’ve never been to Langley,” Chant said evenly as he felt a chill move up his back and settle in a cold pool around the base of his skull. “I was recruited here, as you know; you recruited me.”

  “Well, ‘Langley’s Jap’ may know you—and want you for whatever it is they have in mind. Just watch out for Maheu. What I’m saying is that I don’t think you can afford to turn him down this time—assuming he has something to offer.”

  “I hear you, Greg,” Chant replied softly. “Thank you for the warning.”

  “Yeah,” King said with a sigh. “How’re things going?”

  “They’re heating up. The bad guys don’t like the fact that we control a three-mile hunk of the Ho Chi Minh trail.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me, considering all the shit they have to lug on their backs. How are those special friends of yours, the husband and wife?”

  “Le Duc Thi and Kim Chi. They’re fine They coordinate the rotation of the villages and huts where I hide out; they keep me alive and truckin’.”

  “Yeah,” King said with a casual wave as he turned from the window and headed for the door. “Take care, my friend.”

  “Greg, there’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

  King paused, turned back. “What is it?”

  “It seems to me that it’s time for the Company to start thinking about what it’s going to do for the people here who’ve helped us, and who we’re leaving behind. The Hmong resistance will collapse when we leave and their arras supplies are cut off. Then the Pathet Lao will close in. What’s the Company planning to do for the Hmong?”

  “Jesus Christ!” King said, raising his arms in exasperation. “Talk about bad timing! That’s exactly what I mean when I say that you have to watch your mouth. Just don’t start talking like that to Maheu!”

  FOUR

  The ten-foot-high door of the enormous Georgian mansion swung open a few inches, and an imperious-looking butler with a hook nose, receding chin, and wavy gray hair peered suspiciously through the opening at the tall stranger standing on the colonnaded porch. The stranger was well over six feet, appropriately dressed in a tailored black wool coat. A shock of brown hair was visible under his black hat, and he had a carefully trimmed mustache. He had brown eyes, finely chiseled features accented by high cheekbones. His imposing physical presence was offset by the fact that he needed a cane; his left foot bent inward at an odd angle, and he favored it slightly even when standing still.

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to speak with Mr. Wilbur Baldauf, please.”

  “I’m afraid that will be impossible, sir,” the butler intoned archly as he started to close the door. “The family is in mourning. They’ve just returned from the funeral for one of their sons.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Chant said quietly as he raised his right hand and rested his fingertips lightly against the edge of the door; the door stopped closing. Balancing his cane against his thigh, he drew a card out of an inner pocket and handed it to the butler. “I believe Mr. Baldauf will see me if you show him my card. Tell him that I’d like to talk to him about the murder of his son.”

  The butler studied the card for a few moments, raised his eyebrows slightly. “Wait here, please,” he said, and closed the door.

  Chant waited. More than five minutes passed, and then he felt, rather than heard, three men approaching the house across the vast, carefully manicured lawn—one directly on his back, and the other two angling in on his flanks. Chant did not turn, and he felt the men stop just
in front of the steps leading up to the porch.

  More time passed, and finally the great, white door abruptly swung open. Like a general about to review his troops, Wilbur Baldauf came marching out of the dimly lighted interior of the house into the bright, late-morning sunlight that slanted across the porch. He stepped up to Chant, stopped so close that Chant could smell an unpleasant mixture of expensive cologne and garlic sweat. The man was chunky and squat, like his dead son, but his faded green eyes glowed with slightly more intelligence. The sides of his head were shaved, with strands on the top left long enough to be draped over an otherwise bald pate; the strands were a dyed, matte black. His eyes, red-rimmed as if he had been crying earlier, were dry now, bright with hostility and suspicion.

  “You Colonel Fox?”

  “Yes, sir,” Chant replied evenly. “Please accept my condolences for—”

  “Your card says you’re with Army Intelligence.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wilbur Baldauf raised a thick, bejeweled hand, brought a stubby index finger close to Chant’s nose. “Where’s your uniform?”

  “Intelligence officers don’t wear uniforms, sir.”

  Baldauf thought about it, lowered his hand. “You told Grant that you wanted to talk to me about the murder of my son.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well?!”

  “Sir?”

  “So, talk!”

  “I think it best that we talk alone, sir.”

  Baldauf hesitated a few moments, but finally stepped to the side and nodded his head. As before, there was no sound—but Chant felt the presence of the three men gradually fade away.

  “May I come in?” Chant asked.

  “No,” Baldauf replied curtly. He abruptly stepped around Chant and headed for the steps. “We’ll walk. I want to hear what you have to say before I try to explain to my family what you’re doing here.”

  Leaning heavily on his cane, Chant limped down off the porch. He hurried to catch up with Baldauf, then fell into step beside the man as they headed down a wide, flagstone walk leading to an elaborate stone-and-rose garden.