The Asian Mantrap

Prologue

The tall, muscular man tossed the butt of a pungent-odored, hand-rolled, brown-papered cigarette on the uneven floor and ground it out with his foot. He looked at himself in the piece of mirror still on the wall of the latrine in the bombed-out building where he had taken refuge. The only light was that of an ivory moon that seeped through gaps in the crumbling walls. He fastened together the tabs of the quilted, choke-collared, black pajama jacket he wore. It was the same as the type worn by most peasant farmers toiling in the fields and rice paddies of Northern Vietnam.

The furtive man concealed his dyed black hair with a snug-fitting beret over which he placed a cone-shaped coolie hat. It was fastened securely with tie strings knotted under his square-jawed chin. His legs were encased in black, snug-fitting stretch pants which were tucked into calf-high combat boots. For his camouflage to be perfect, he would have worn thong sandals on his feet.

From an efficiently organized backpack, the man removed a small, flat tin can. Although his face and hands were already stained to give them a jaundiced appearance, he smeared a coating of black boot polish over the reflective surfaces of his face. He looked at his wristwatch, replaced the shoe polish in his pack and shoved it into a dark corner. The final check in preparation for his departure from his hiding place was a reexamination of his weapons, the most deadly of which was the loaded, eleven-shot Lekoyev 9 mm. machine pistol. He looked over the extra ammunition clip as well before tucking it back into a convenient pocket.

He removed the wedge from under the bottom of the unlocked latrine door, then opened it. He walked noiselessly through shadows caused by shattered walls, twisted girders, and the rubble of broken concrete. At a still-standing corner of the far end of the ruined building, he pulled aside some splintered planking to uncover a bicycle.

The reefer he’d smoked had brought him to a sharp edge. Each movement, every sound, seemed amplified to his tuned-up mind. He was adept at bringing himself up to a carefully calculated personal high. He had no intention of risking a sudden marijuana disintegration by delaying what he had to do.

As he dragged out the bicycle, he felt dampness on the palms of his hands. The last-minute application of water-dissolvent paint he had used to render the bicycle unidentifiable had not yet dried completely.

The disguised interloper used back roads and little-travelled streets to reach his destination. It lay adjacent to a narrow lane flanked on either side by high walls. The hunched-over rider pedaled slowly, his face glistening with perspiration. The sultry atmosphere of a warm, humid day had lingered on long after the sun had set. It was typical of the uncomfortable summer weather found in the North Vietnamese capital city of Hanoi.

The bicycle rider coasted to a stop midway along a smooth wall on his right side. He knew what was behind it. Days had been spent studying scale drawings and memorizing every detail of the villa and the landscaped grounds around it. That knowledge was essential to the success of his plan.

The only variable was the assigned guards. One was known to be posted at the driveway gate at the beginning of the twenty-yard graveled lane leading to the residence. The other guard had no assigned station, roaming at will. He could be a problem.

Having assured himself that he was unobserved and oriented with the help of moonlight reflecting off the leaves of a lemon tree growing behind the wall, the dark-clad cyclist dismounted. He carried the bicycle across a shallow drainage ditch that ran between the street and the wall. He deposited his ungainly coolie hat in the depression, then propped the bicycle up against the wall.

He looked up and down the street once more. He was alone. He stripped off the thickly padded jacket with a single, practiced motion. Using the leaning bicycle as an improvised ladder, he stood on the crossbar, then flipped the padded jacket so it fell across the top of the wall. It formed a bridge across the jagged-toothed broken glass imbedded in the cement.

The beret-capped figure went up and over the wall like a panther. As he did, he kicked backward. The bicycle fell flat, its previous telltale silhouette against the wall erased. The stealthy figure dropped lightly between the far side of the wall and the row of hedges growing close to it. The same faint smile that had creased the man’s face any number of times during the planning stage showed again when he looked hard and found the gnarled lemon tree standing exactly in its diagrammed position. The tree would make his exit as simple as his entrance.

The grim-faced man moved to the end of the line of yew shrubs. There he waited and listened; a faint shuffling sound had reached his straining ears.

The crunch of approaching footsteps came from the gravel lane. With a swift, silent motion, the crouching man drew a stiletto-bladed commando knife from his boot. A uniformed Vietnamese soldier came to a halt no more than four feet from where the man was hiding near the end of the yew hedges.

He leaped, encircling the guard’s head with one arm, smothering the mouth and crushing the cigarette inside it while he thrust the knife to the hilt between the second and third ribs.

The Vietnamese gurgled deep in his throat and his knees sagged. The knife-wielder guided the collapsing body to the ground, an arm still clamped solidly over the slack mouth. He withdrew the knife quickly, wiped it on the grass, restored it to his boot, then used both hands to drag the inert figure behind the hedge. There was no need to test it for signs of life.

The intruder had used up an extra thirty seconds of his self-imposed time limit, but he had reduced the hazard during his withdrawal phase by fifty percent. The guard at the front gate might as well have been on the planet Mars.

The infiltrator drew his Russian machine pistol and unlocked the safety. Running forward boldly, he covered the fifteen yards across open ground like a fleeting shadow. In the same manner, he mounted a flight of stone steps that led to a marble-floored veranda. Light streamed from two sets of many-paned French doors which opened into the drawing room and dining room. He eased himself next to the doors on the right and listened.

The gunman had confidence in the intelligence work that had gone into the preparations for this moment. The new Vietnamese government’s Security Minister, Ban Lok Huong, was a methodical man. He liked to listen to light classical music during the early evening. If music came from the drawing room, Huong would be having his pre-dinner aperitif there. If music issued from the dining room, Huong would be seated alone at the head of the table, facing the French doors.

From his position next to the drawing room doors, the man could hear music, but only faintly. With pistol at the ready, he moved to the other set of doors. The strains of a piano concerto were much more distinct.

He counted to five silently, then took a deep breath and burst through the flimsy doors.

Inside, he came to a dead stop.

Strong light reflected from multitudinous teardrop crystals decorating an ornate chandelier that hung low over the huge dining table caused the assassin to blink, but he had his pistol halfway aimed when he saw that — contrary to his information — Minister Ban Lok Huong was not alone.

On either side of the table were a man and a woman, Caucasians, who stared at the intruder in blank shock. A thin-necked Vietnamese woman in traditional national dress was seated with her back to him. The gunman froze momentarily, totally surprised. Huong, formerly General in charge of all military security and prisoner-of-war confinements during the Vietnam War, was supposed to be alone. Who were these people? His hesitancy had already given three of them the chance to identify him, despite his disguise.

He had an impulse to flee, but at that instant the chunky figure of Minister Huong, who was facing the intruder, rose to his feet. Huong’s sudden movement was like that of the pop-up silhouette target on a firing range where the gunman had practiced to react against this very contingency.

Suddenly calm, he leveled his weapon and sprayed the minister with a short, accurate burst. Huong had just started to dive under the table when the slugs caught him in the chest. He fell forward heavily onto the table.

The killer fired continuously, raking the table from right to left. The chatter of the pistol hardly missed a beat as he removed the empty clip and inserted the second loaded one. The Vietnamese woman’s head dropped to one side suddenly, the muscles and arteries in her neck severed. The pallid European in a tailored dinner jacket remained sitting upright, but his head sank slowly as if to contemplate the stitching of blood welling and spreading on his shirt front.

The woman across the table from him was halfway to her feet with her mouth open to scream when the deadly bullets stifled her. A single whistling gasp escaped her before blood gushed from her throat and she was flung loosely upon the chair from which she had risen, at once painting its needlepoint a bright crimson.

The man wearing the black-smudged face and combat boots stared hard beyond the smoking muzzle of his weapon at the collapsed figure of the chubby Vietnamese who should have been his only target. One of the man’s hands spasmed and seized the tablecloth, following which the lifeless body of Minister Huong slid to the floor, dragging silver, china, and exquisite crystal wine goblets from the table with a tremendous crash.

The intruder elevated the automatic pistol and fired two short bursts into the chain supporting the heavy crystal chandelier. It crashed down onto the elaborate floral centerpiece in the middle of the table and a curtain of darkness descended upon the grisly scene.

Fifteen seconds later, the retreating dark figure swarmed up the lemon tree, swung from its overhanging branch, and was over the wall with the shredded peasant jacket in his hands. The hot-barreled machine pistol was safely secured. Both coolie hat and bicycle were retrieved. It was all he could do to hold back his urge to pedal away at sprint speed. But he restrained himself and was almost a mile away before any positive reaction occurred.

He began sweating again, but this time from more than the warm night. He evaluated his mission: nothing had gone wrong except that the old goat hadn’t been alone; but four go as easily as one at close range. Besides, the Vietnamese woman and the two Europeans were in the way of the assignment.

He wondered who the two Caucasians were.

Neither one had had a chance to speak.

And now they never would, which was all to the good.

Dead men tell no tales.

Besides, he told himself again, they were in the way of a mission he’d vowed to carry out to the very end, no matter what the cost.