Don Winslow: Satori

“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.

THERE WERE EIGHT OF THEM and they were coming for the guns.

The black-clad troopers from Signavi’s Vietnamese special forces piled onto the deck and came down the hatchway.

Solange whirled out of Nicholai’s arms, spun again, and slashed the first trooper’s throat. She yanked his body clear and then stabbed the second one in the stomach. The third went to shoot his pistol, but she slashed downward, severing his wrist tendons, and the pistol clattered down the stairs. The shocked trooper grabbed his dangling wrist and stared at her. She used the moment to plunge the knife into his throat. Another trooper vaulted the railing over him and went for her.

Nicholai hit him in midair, their momentum sending them crashing into the bulkhead. Grabbing him by the shirt, he threw him, scooped up the pistol, shot him, and pulled Solange aside just before a burst of machine-gun fire came down the stairs. The bullets bounced crazily around the hold as he shoved her into the bulkhead and shielded her as he reached back with his gun hand and fired up the hatchway.

He could hear the survivors regrouping on the deck, and then heard the metallic rattle and saw the grenade bounce down the hatchway. Pushing Solange down, he dove, grabbed the grenade, and tossed it back up.

The sharp crack of the explosion preceded the screams of gutted men.

Then it was quiet.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

She shook her head. “Claustrophobia. I don’t care for closed spaces. Ever since Marseille, they frighten me. Badly.”

“Stay here anyway.”

He went up onto the deck and saw the dead men. A flat-bottomed swamp boat bobbed alongside. Hearing footsteps behind him, he whirled and saw Solange, the knife caked with dark, congealing blood still in her hand.

“I told you to -”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” she said, picking up one of the machine pistols from a dead trooper and slinging it over her shoulder. “Now or in the Basque country.”

She stopped as they heard boat motors and the slaps of hulls on the water.

They were coming and coming fast.

“Stay low at least,” he said.

Then he scrambled down the hatchway.

Nicholai cracked open a crate, took one of the rocket launchers, found the solvent, and quickly wiped the weapon clean of the protective grease.

Even from the hold, he could hear the motors getting closer.

He found a tripod, took it and the launcher in either hand, and hurried back up the hatchway.

“Mon dieu ,” Solange said, “and what do you intend to do with that?”

“Screw the tripod into the barrel,” he said. “S’il te plaît. ”

He trotted back down to the hold, found the ammunition, and came back up with two of the rockets. “Eight-pound highexplosive antitank rockets with a velocity of 340 feet per second, capable of penetrating eleven inches of armor plating at an effective range of a hundred yards. Or so I’m told.”

“Men.”

Now he could make out the running lights of the first boat, and troopers standing in the bow. The boat looked loaded with men.

Nicholai shoved the rocket down the back of the tube, then lay down, adjusted the tripod, and sighted in. Waiting until the boat came inside the hundred-yard range, he took a deep breath and pulled the trigger on the exhale.

The rocket shot out, whooshed through the night air, and plunged into the water behind the speeding boat.

Solange flipped the machine pistol onto full automatic.

Nicholai sat up, reloaded, and settled back in again. He adjusted the sight, waited, and fired.

The boat exploded in scarlet flame.

Men on fire shrieked and leaped into the water.

Solange winced.

The next boat was coming hard.

Nicholai went for more ammunition, came back, and sighted in. The boat was so close he could hardly miss now.

So close he could make out the face of Bay Vien.

BAY’S MEN LOADED the crates onto the swamp boat as he examined the carnage on and below the deck.

“You killed these eight men?” he asked.

Nicholai nodded.

“The two of you?”

Nicholai nodded again.

“Mmmph.”

“How did they find us here?” Nicholai asked.

“De Lhandes gave in, under torture.”

“Is he dead?”

“He’ll recover,” Bay answered.

“That’s good,” Nicholai answered. He didn’t begrudge his friend the betrayal under torture. Bay shouted for his men to hurry.

“We don’t have much time,” he explained. “They’ll be coming with more men. Getting you on the freighter is out now. Police and soldiers are checking every boat. They’re all over the harbor. Maybe we can get her on board, but not you.”

“I won’t leave without him,” Solange said.

“Where are we going?” Nicholai asked.

“Up the river,” Bay said, “into the delta. Deliver the guns to the Viet Minh and then find a way to get you out of the country. It might take some time.”

“We have time,” Nicholai said.

But he wasn’t entirely sure.

“ROCKET LAUNCHERS?” Diamond asked.

Signavi confirmed that rockets had sunk two boatloads of his men and sent them plunging into the Swamp of the Assassins.

God damn Nicholai Hel to a fiery death of his own, Diamond thought.

And God damn that traitor Haverford, who had to have had a hand in this.

“Do you know where he might be headed?” Signavi asked.

“He’s taking them to the Viet Minh,” Diamond said. “Guibert is a Chinese agent.”