Satori

It was a good mental exercise, disciplining him to see a situation from all perspectives.

Now he looked at the go-kang and pondered the whole Nicholai Hel scenario. He reviewed it from all angles, considering Hel’s origins, his killing of Kang Sheng as well as Voroshenin, the arms connection to Liu, Haverford’s Beijing network of spies, Hel’s escape from China into Laos, his liaison with the Binh Xuyen.

He changed his perspective to consider the situation in Vietnam – the intense Viet Minh activity in the north, the relative quiescence in the south since the last failed Communist offensive, the fact that the very dangerous Ai Quoc had been in hiding, that Hel had delivered the weapons to Bay Vien instead of to Ai Quoc, the fact that Haverford had served in Vietnam during the war…

Then there was Diamond, the allegedly secret Operation X, his connection to the Corsican heroin trade, and his visceral hatred for, and fear of, Nicholai Hel…

Now both his agents were on the ground in Saigon, and it would be fascinating to see which of them emerged victorious. He found it amusing that each stone on the go-kang thought that it determined its own moves and never saw the hand that moved them toward their fates.

This Hel, on the other hand…

He did seem to move himself.

155

NICHOLAI HEARD her footsteps on the hatchway steps.

“Solange?”

“Nicholai.”

Her perfume was intoxicating.

Nicholai rolled out of the bed and came to her.

“Thank God,” she said. “I was so afraid…”

Solange pressed herself tight against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, trapped the knife against her back, and whispered, “Per tu amicu.”

She stiffened, ever so slightly, and he knew.

And felt his heart break.

“It’s you,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re the Cobra.”

Then he let her go and took a step back. The light in the cabin was dim, but he could see in her eyes that it was true. Lying in the bed, waiting for her, he had seen it, and realized that he should have known sooner.

The Cobra is deadly with a blade.

La Corse had recruited her all the way back in Montpellier to kill the German colonel. They had taught her to use a knife and she slashed his throat. They took her to their base in Marseille and used her for other missions.

She kept her association with La Corse, but started to freelance, both her sexuality and her other skills. That night in Tokyo, after the attack in the garden, she came in with a knife in her hand and murder in her eyes.

Were you going to use that?

If I had to.

And you knew how, didn’t you, he thought.

She might have killed him during their romantic rendezvous at the hotel, but she knew that she was under observation and would be a suspect. But, the next day, De Lhandes had told her about the House of Mirrors and she had come, as the Cobra, to kill him. His proximity sense had told him it was someone he had encountered before, but now he truly realized it.

Life as it really is.

Satori.

“Is it Picard,” he asked, “or Picardi?”

“Picardi,” she said.

The Corsicans are the best assassins.

“The story you told me,” Nicholai asked, “how much of it was true?”

“Most of it,” she replied. “The hurtful parts, if it’s any consolation.”

It wasn’t.

“How many men have you killed?” Nicholai asked.

“More than you, perhaps,” she said. The knife slid out from behind her back. She held it low at her waist, slightly back, out of his reach. “I make money as I can – as a courtesan, as a killer. Tell me the difference.”

“In the latter case, people die.”

“You are hardly in a position to look down at me from a position of moral superiority, mon cher,” Solange answered.

So very true, he thought.

So very true.

“You must have amassed quite a fortune,” he said.

“I save it,” she acknowledged. “The lives of both my professions are quite short. Beauty and swiftness fade quickly when they fade. I will need to retire young, I’m afraid.”

Nicholai doubted that her beauty would ever fade. Not in his eyes, at least. Nor for her eyes, those amazing, beautiful green eyes. He saw her shift her right hip ever so slightly forward. The muscles in her calf tightened.

“La Corse hired you to kill me,” he said.

“I told you to walk away from me and not come back.”

“Was that my unforgivable sin?” he asked. “Loving you?”

“It’s the one thing a whore cannot abide.”

The tendons in her right wrist tensed.

It was subtle, but he saw it.

Could he stop the lightning lunge he knew was coming? Perhaps, perhaps not. If he did block it, could he counter with hoda korosu and kill the Cobra?

Again – perhaps, perhaps not.

Nicholai stepped back. “Then kill me.”

Her eyes flickered with doubt and suspicion. He understood it – her past gave her no reason to trust a man. He said, “I would live for you and kill for you, so dying for you…”

She shook her head, her golden hair shimmering in the lamplight.

“Please, Solange,” he said, “free me from my prison.”

Just as I freed Kishikawa-sama.

He closed his eyes, both to assure her and to summon his tranquility, and breathed deeply. This life was as a dream and when the dream ended there would be another and then another in an endless cycle until he realized perfect enlightenment.

Satori.

He heard her foot turn on the wooden deck, the preparatory move for the thrust, and readied himself for death.

She burst forward.

Into his arms.

“I can’t,” she cried. “God help me, je t’aime, je t’aime, je t’aime.”

“Je t’aime aussi.”

Over her sobs, they heard footsteps crash heavily onto the deck.

156