The Vulcan Disaster

Chapter One

They were still calling it Saigon that day. They wouldn’t for long. Within thirty hours the town would have not only new rulers but a new name — Ho Chi Minh City — and it’d be full of a lot of new things: new troops, new prisoners, new faces directing traffic. And, most noticeable of all, lots of new pairs of black pajamas. The women of the city had started sewing them when we started moving out. One might call the outfit their trousseau. Only they weren’t getting married. They were getting raped. It was still Saigon, after all, and it was a hellhole. I couldn’t wait to get out of it.

Business comes first in my racket, though, and I couldn’t leave until it was done. The wise thing to do, then, was to ignore the Cong guns banging away down the road, the scattered bursts of M-16 fire in the streets, the sounds of panic below the hotel window. Four divisions of enemy troops were reported only eighteen miles down Highway 1. I’d even seen freelance photographers and wire-service stringers bumming a ride to the Embassy, and they were usually the last rats to desert the ship. But me? I had a job to do, and that was that.

So let the weapons carriers, loaded down with anxious people, go chugging past the window, their shocks clunking audibly at every pothole. Let the refugees file past the hotel door, dragging their miserable belongings, running the gauntlet of teen-aged troops who roamed the streets, armed and leaderless, sticking up Americans and affluent-looking Vietnamese for cigarettes. They didn’t concern me. Only one man in Saigon concerned me.

So, legs crossed, back to the wall, I sat in the big plush chair in Walter Corbin’s apartment, three floors up in the Hotel Grand-Bretagne, and watched the girl across the room from me slowly taking off all of her clothes.

You could, if you liked, blame the commotion outside for the fact that neither of us was giving his undivided attention to what he was doing. But each of us had a better reason. I had one eye on the door, for one thing. And she had one eye on the cocked Luger sitting lightly at the ready in my right hand.

Those were, after all, the principal actors in the little scenario I’d sketched out for myself; only one of the participants was missing. The gun’s name was Wilhelmina; the girl’s, she’d said, was Helene. The 9mm bullet in the chamber was nameless, but its intended recipient was not. His name was Walter Corbin, and I was going to kill him the moment he stepped through the door.

The girl? Hardly more than furniture, I kept telling myself. Corbin’s girl. She called herself Helene Van Khanh, but the dossier had called her Phuong. She preferred the French style, she’d told me. But that was before the Cong had showed signs of winning. Now, I was sure, she was having second thoughts. She’d stand a lot better chance of staying alive if she forgot all about the fancy manners and fancier tastes she’d picked up at the Lycée Marie Curie and dug down into the hope chest for a nice pair of those anonymous-looking, soon to be ubiquitous, black drawers. Unless, of course, Walter could manage to sneak her out of the country before everything collapsed.

And that wouldn’t be too easy. To do that he’d have to kill me. And I take a lot of killing.

The girl was looking at me now, her full lips curving in a smile that told me she was more than a little turned on by what she was doing. She’d folded her smart French jacket and put it neatly on the bedside table. That left a lot of her visible in the smashing cut-to-fit cocktail dress with a top that was breathtakingly brief, showing off softly rounded shoulders and upper arms and letting me have a look at a lot of all-over tan. The breasts beneath the thin cloth were large and there was nothing but that clinging bodice, with its refreshing lack of interior framework between her and me. And she was feeding it to me a little at a time.

She sat lightly on the bed and took a deep breath that showed me even more of her. “Why don’t you relax, Mr. Carter?” she said.

“I am relaxed,” I said, looking her sharply in the eye. But I knew, and she knew, that I wasn’t. Not since the moment she’d said my name. The dossier had strongly implied she wouldn’t know anything about me at all except the fact — which my actions would make quite obvious — that I was somebody who meant Walter Corbin no good. “So go ahead and do your number on me,” I drawled. “I’ll probably like it. But when you’re finished I’ll still kill him anyway.”

I would, too, I thought, watching her slip off the delicate, expensive Italian pumps and stretch long, exquisitely formed legs. She wasn’t wearing stockings; the off-white polish on her toenails gleamed like pearls against that beautifully tanned skin. “Do you ever dress Vietnamese?” I said, changing hands on the gun. “You’d look nice in an ao dai.” Or out of one, I thought, giving the legs the once-over. When I looked up I caught her eyes on me, mocking, confident.

She stood and reached for the zipper at her side.

I cocked an ear at the door. Was that a sound in the hall?

The eyes, dark and liquid, were still on me with their searching, insolent gaze. A slender and delicate hand held the dress to her bosom as the other slowly tugged at the full-length zipper. I saw a flash of warm naked skin at her thigh. And she felt the air on her body. Her eyes were slightly out of focus; she was beginning to breathe hard. Her small pink tongue darted across her already moist lips. That left hand, polished nails glowing, held the dress to her breasts; it was all that held it to her bare flesh.

She took a deep breath and stepped out of it, letting the soft folds fall about her feet, holding the classic pose, one foot flat, the other raised on the toes. And it was time for me to take a deep breath.

I was getting a quick and comprehensive look at the kind of body you don’t see every day. Deeply, goldenly tanned in every part, with soft, dark-nippled breasts that jutted pertly up at me; with generous hips flaring below a tiny waist; with long legs as smooth as ivory, slim and shapely; with, at the point where they came together, a flash of curling, sensual black...

Then I heard the sound she’d heard. The light whistle at the end of the hall. The footsteps, coming closer, closer.

I got up in a hell of a hurry, the pistol ready in my hand. And when I dived for her, sex was the last thing on my mind. The free hand that might, under more promising circumstances, have come to caress, went for her mouth. I had perhaps a second to shut her up. And I was a second too late.

“Walter!” she screamed. “Walter, run! I...” And then I had her down on the bed, pinned with the gun hand, the other shoving a pillow into her face.

But he’d heard. And now the footsteps were twice as loud, and they were going down the hall away from me at one hell of a clip.

“Jesus,” I muttered. And then I said a couple of other things. I took the pillow from her face just long enough to show her the disgusted expression on my kisser. Then I laid Wilhelmina alongside her temple with a practiced swing that landed in just the right place with just the right amount of force. She went out like a light.

Fine, I thought. At least I can do one thing right, I was across the room and out the door before I could get another peek at that golden body. I reminded myself to say goodbye sometime.

The hall was empty in one direction. In the other, all I could see was a tallish man, grey-haired and with a military rigidity to his stance, standing before the elevator. He had a black patch over the eye that faced away from me, and as he turned my way I saw that he was missing his left arm.

“Did somebody go by here?” I said. I’d stashed Wilhelmina, but I still must have looked as if I meant business; the one good eye widened slightly, the brow lifted.

“Why... why, yes,” the man said. The accent was one I couldn’t place. “Through there.” He pointed to the exit door, the one that led to the stairwell. “But I...”

“Thanks,” I said. I didn’t stop for conversation. I made for that door as fast as I could. I couldn’t afford to blow this one; I’d most likely never get another shot at him. Within hours — this was evident from every glance I’d taken out the window — the Cong troops, battle-hardened regulars, flushed with victory, would be rolling into town, and Corbin would disappear into that forest of soldiers like a bug into the woodwork.

He’d be taking with him a roll of microfilm I wouldn’t have traded for half of Saigon once I found out what was on it. That roll of film had already cost two men’s lives, and would, I reflected, cost me my skin if I let it fall into the hands of the victorious Cong.

I was keeping quiet as I poked my head through the door. But inside me something whistled, long and low, as I thought of the repercussions back on Dupont Circle in Washington. My boss, David Hawk — Director and Operations Chief of AXE, the U.S. agency for special espionage — didn’t waste Killmaster hits. Getting me into Saigon, at a time when all available copters were needed for getting Americans out, had cost the government a small fortune. Worse, it’d cost Hawk telephone calls to people he didn’t like, clearing the path for me.

So, when I stuck my head through the door, as cautiously as I could and still be in one hell of a hurry, I shivered. And fear of Walter Corbin was hardly the reason.

Corbin was a lot bigger than the dossier had led me to believe. When he jumped, over two hundred pounds slammed into me. His savage rush would have done justice to a pro linebacker. He nearly tore my head off.

His heavy shoulder hit me amidships, knocking me off balance through the door, over the edge of the narrow staircase, end over end down the first flight of stairs that stretched out below me. It was all I could do to get one hand free and grab hold of his collar, just above the knot on his tie, and hang on for dear life. If I was going down that flight of stairs, I thought, he was damn well going with me.

I hit painfully on one shoulder, five steps down, and rolled. Instinct alone saved me; I should have had a broken neck. Instead, I tucked my head in and concentrated on letting Walter Corbin tumble over me headfirst, hoping he’d try kissing the far wall of the narrow well with all that weight behind him.

I went over once, twice, and flattened out on the third roll, back to the stairs, hands beneath me to cushion my fall. And I watched Corbin come out of the tight ball he’d become, carom off the wall, and come at me with a ferocious yell, as cool as if nothing had happened.

He led with a left that went past my head like a bullet. I could feel the brute strength in it even as he missed me. There was iron in that arm. And, I reflected, it wouldn’t do to close with him just yet. I feinted with a left of my own and then gave him a straight right to the Adam’s apple. Then I backed up to the edge of the next flight, giving myself a little room to maneuver.

It wasn’t enough. Corbin was made out of solid steel! A look of cold rage on his heavy features, he looked up and then took another swing at me. I sidestepped and chopped him on the kidney. It was a good heavy blow, with lots of weight behind it. I was damn near behind him by the time the blow landed and I’d followed through. That kind of punch ought to make a man walk with a cane and pass blood for a week.

Instead, it barely bent him over. The breath came out of his flared nostrils, harsh and phlegmy. He gave me a look that showed me he was in pain, all right, but swung a roundhouse right just as I was reaching for Wilhelmina, tucked away under one arm.

He was fast for a big man. Too fast. The gun went spinning over my shoulder, down the flight of stairs. And a left that Rocky Marciano would have been proud of caught me right over the heart.

I’ve never been hit harder and for a moment he had me. The strength suddenly went out of my legs as the wind went out of me. I crumpled, down... down... and over the edge, down the next flight. And this time I didn’t have the presence of mind to tuck and roll. There was a sharp blow at the back of my head, and the last thing I saw was Corbin, leaning over, preparing to jump down on me, to land with both feet and two hundred pounds of weight...

And then something shook me awake.

A concrete stairwell is an acoustic horror. It carries the lows, shoots down the highs. You wouldn’t want to hear what a big French MAB P15 pistol chambered for the 9mm parabellum cartridge, sounds like in there. I heard it, and I don’t want to hear the likes of it again... unless I find myself in similar circumstances again. I was sensitive to loud noises for a week afterward. The P15 has the largest magazine of any handgun in the world — fifteen rounds — and I heard all fifteen of them go off up the staircase from me, from behind Corbin’s unprotected back. I thought it’d never stop firing.

Just take my word for it; you wouldn’t want to see what it does to a man when all fifteen rounds hit him above the groin.

Walter Corbin simply came apart. The first round, I figured out later, may well have been enough to kill him; it hit dead center, in the small of his back, and destroyed enough vital organs to do the job. But Corbin was a big man, big enough to take some time to fall. And as his body slowly crumpled above me, I saw the next eight shots rip through him, carrying bone and guts with them. Three went through his belt and simply opened him up like somebody gutting a fish. Another ripped through the spinal column at the back of his neck; the head swung high, and the neck opened wide, spewing red. Then came another volley of blasts, and Corbin’s head was smashed in like a rotten pumpkin. The face simply disappeared. The parabellum makes a hell of a hole when it comes out in front, poured into a man’s back at short range like that.

At the fifteenth round the sound quit. The marksman above me had been counting, the same as I’d been; he hadn’t even pulled the trigger that sixteenth time to get an answering click. He’d simply stopped shooting.

And then the body slid heavily down to my feet. It splashed. In spite of myself, I drew back a little. And then I looked back up again.

The man with the one arm and the black eyepatch stood, cool and collected, at the landing above. The thin lips were pursed in an expression of distaste; the gun was held high, pointed at the ceiling, the way a military marksman holds a pistol on the range when he’s awaiting firing orders. The one eye looked down at me.

“He would have killed you,” the deep voice said in that same unidentifiable accent. Then, eye still on me, he tucked the gun under the stump of that left arm and deftly extracted the long magazine. He put it in his pocket and quickly reloaded from someplace inside that neatly cut business jacket “You are,” he said, “in my debt I think.”

“Yeah,” I said, letting the breath out at last. “I’ll remember that.” I started to get up, feeling full of aches and pains, wondering dimly why a guy who was saving your life would continue plugging fifteen bullets into a man already dead. “I...” But when I looked up again he was gone.

It took me a few minutes to get myself together. And only when I was more or less sure that nothing was broken did I undertake the. unpleasant task of searching Walter Corbin’s body for the missing microfilm, for the little roll of plastic that had cost two — no, three — lives and had brought me halfway around the world to a city under siege and within hours of utter collapse, a city I had, perhaps, no more than an hour left to get away from.

I got my hands nice and dirty taking Corbin’s pockets apart, checking body cavities, even dismantling his shoes, before I was completely satisfied.

The microfilm was gone.