She smiled at him, but she was already beginning to feel the longing that went with his absences. ‘Then let’s not waste time,’ she said. ‘You can sleep on the plane.’
He took her hand as she stood up and drew her close to him. He slowly unbuttoned her white button-down shirt, let it fall open, slipped his hands around her hips and drew her closer, kissing her hard stomach. Then loosening her belt and zipping down the fly, he slid her jeans off. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, his hands slipping under her buttocks, lifting her up slightly so that his thumbs slid under the edge of her panties, and began caressing her lightly with both thumbs, felt her tighten, felt her wetness as he gently probed while he moved his head lower, felt the hair under her panties, began to nibble very lightly while his hot breath caressed her. He spread his fingers up and drew down her panties and buried his face in her hair, smelling her sex, tasting her, felt her hands pressing his head harder into her. She stood on her toes, her head fell back and she sat on the edge of the table and put one leg over his shoulder. Her breath came faster, her muscles tightened, she began to move in tight little circles.
She had this wonderfully erotic habit that drove Hatcher crazy. As she neared her climax she began to count, low, almost under her breath, gasping between the numbers:
‘One . . . two . . . three . . . f-fo-ur . . uh, oh-oh, m’God. . . five, six, seven. . . uh-huh. . . uh-huh.
eight-nine-t-ten . . . my God,
Her back arched and she jammed herself against his mouth and held herself taut for ten o r twelve seconds and then, gasping, she relaxed, collapsed forward and, wrapping both hands around his head, drew him up to her, searching for his mouth and, finding it, began kissing him ravenously.
He picked her up and carried her back to the king-size bed in the sleeping cabin, laid her gently on the bed and stripped while he kissed her. Then he slid into bed beside her, drawing her tightly to him, and she felt him hard against her. She slipped one leg over his hip and pulled him to her, moving up until he entered her smoothly and without effort.
‘Oh God,’ he whispered as she surrounded him, tightening her muscles, sucking him in deeper and deeper and deeper.
Still out of breath, she whispered, ‘A month, huh?’ and he whispered back, equally out of breath, ‘Maybe .
just . . . a couple of weeks . .
She lay on her side, dozing. Hatcher moved easily off the bed, pulled a down quilt over her and began to pack. There had been a time when Hatcher’s Gurkha bag was always packed and ready to go — two suits, a casual jacket and slacks, half a dozen shirts, a couple of ties, an extra pair of shoes and his underwear and toilet articles. Basics. No frills. And he quickly fell back into the routine of preparing for the trip.
The mental checklist was still in his head: Check out his credentials, review his finances, select the right equipment, and pack everything into two pieces of luggage, his suit bag and an aluminum case, which he always hand-carried,
While Ginia slept he slid back a panel in the bulkhead over the head of the bed, opened a safe built into the wall and took out a small strongbox. He carried it back to the main cabin and checked the contents. He took out a $50,000 letter of credit from his bank, $20,000 in traveler’s checks and $10,000 in cash. He never used credit cards, too easy to trace. He also took out two passports, one his valid U.S. passport, the other a forged French passport. Both identified him as a free-lance television journalist and cameraman. Then he returned the box to its hiding place.
On the way back to the main salon, he got a medium- size aluminum Halliburton case from the closet and carried it forward. Then he got down on his hands and knees and crawled through a hatch under the stairs leading to the cockpit and into a tight compartment below the afterdeck. A waterproof chest was built into the hull. When Hatcher opened it, a light turned on automatically. Inside was a small arsenal: two .357 pistols, an H&K 9 mm. pistol, an M-16, a 9 mm. Uzi submachine gun. There were several loaded magazines for each weapon. There were also four ten-foot reels of extension cord, which was actually C-4 plastique. One weapon was wrapped in a green Hefty bag. Hatcher took the bag, two reels of C-4, closed and locked the compartment, and went back to the main cabin.
He spread a blanket on the dining room table, took the weapon out of the Hefty bag and laid it on the blanket. It was an Aug, an Austrian automatic assault rifle that broke down into three simple components: the barrel, which was sixteen inches long; the tubular sight, which was capable of instant target acquisition; and the stock and trigger mechanism, which were high-impact plastic and rustproof. The weapon was totally waterproof. All other weapons, with which Hatcher was familiar — the M-16, Uzi and Mac 10 — were vulnerable to moisture in the barrel and would explode if water got in them. But not the Aug. It literally could be fired while coming out of the water.
His memory began to stir again, a common ailment since Los Boxes. He called it an ailment because he had learned early from Sloan that memory had value for one thing only — reference. But now, staring down at the Aug, he remembered the first time he ever used the gun.
Sloan had sent a slick upriver to the Boston drop, a hook in the Chu River near a small village. The chopper picked up Hatcher and flew him back to a forward base in the Mekong Delta. Sloan was waiting for him in a hooch he had commandeered for the night.
‘I’ve got a problem,’ Sloan said over a glass of gin. ‘We have a Southern papa-san working for us, name of Di Tran. He’s a good slope. Charlie killed his wife, mother, two small kids. So he’s got plenty to get even far. He’s been working behind the lines for us, six, seven months. Very reliable information.’
He paused for a moment, flattening his hands on the desk. ‘He knew the odds, it wasn’t like he didn’t know the odds,’ Sloan said, his fingers splayed out. He stared at them for several seconds before he went n. ‘He contacted the Swing Man about a week ago and asked for a drop. We met him and he passed us this tape.’
He put the tape in the cassette deck and pushed the play button. The man’s voice was high and tinny, laced with fear: ‘I have just this yesterday receive information that an American is sell information to the A.RV. He has given up the names of three Vietnamese agents working in the North for Shadow Brigade. One of the names is mine. I am feared it will take them very shortly to break through my real name. I must warn my two friends of their danger before I run. Please arrange meeting for us at the Boston drop in two days. Wednesday. Sunset. If two hours passed, you may think we have been taken. This American was paid ten thousand dollars for each name. He promise to sell them more. His name is Norgling.
Hatcher looked up sharply where he heard the name Norgling. ‘Do you know who this Norgling is?’
Sloan nodded. ‘He’s talking about Chick Norgling!’ Sloan said. ‘He’s in the brigade, like you. Working with crossovers.’
