Tess Gerritsen - Double Impact

He scrambled to the back of the truck and glanced through a slit in the canvas. “No chance. We’re socked in tight. Trucks on both sides.”

Willy frantically surveyed the gloom, searching for empty burlap bags, a crate, anything large enough in which to hide.

The soldiers’ voices moved closer.

We have to make a run for it, thought Willy. Guy had already risen to a crouch. But a glance outside told them they were surrounded by shallow rice paddies. Without cover, their flight would be spotted immediately.

But they won’t hurt us, she thought. They wouldn’t dare. We’re Americans.

As if, in this crazy world, an eagle on one’s passport bought any sort of protection.

The soldiers were right outside-two men by the sound of the voices. The truck driver was trying to cajole his way out of the inspection, laughing, offering cigarettes. The man had to have nerves of steel; not a single note of apprehension slipped into his voice.

His attempts at bribery failed. Footsteps continued along the graveled roadside, heading for the back of the truck.

Guy instinctively shoved Willy against the rice sacks, shielding her behind him. He’d be the one they’d see first, the one they’d confront. He turned to face the inevitable.

A hand poked through, gripping the canvas flap…

And paused. In the distance, a car horn was blaring. Tires screeched, followed by the thud of metal, the angry shouts of drivers.

The hand gripping the canvas pulled away. The flap slid shut. There were a few terse words exchanged between the soldiers, then footsteps moved away, crunching up the gravel road.

It took only seconds for their driver to scramble back into the front seat and hit the gas. The truck lurched forward, throwing Guy off his feet. He toppled, landing right next to Willy on the rice sacks. As their truck roared full speed around the traffic and down the road, they sprawled together, too stunned by their narrow escape to say a word. Suddenly they were both laughing, rolling around on the sacks, giddy with relief.

Guy hauled her into his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.

“What was that for?” she demanded, pulling back in surprise.

“That,” he whispered, “was pure instinct.”

“Do you always follow your instincts?”

“Whenever I can get away with it.”

“And you really think I’ll let you get away with it?”

In answer, he gripped her hair, trapping her head against the sacks, and kissed her again, longer, deeper. Pleasure leapt through her, a desire so sudden, so fierce, it left her voiceless.

“I think,” he murmured, “you want it as much as I do.”

With a gasp of outrage, she shoved him onto his back and climbed on top of him, pinning him beneath her. “Guy Barnard, you miserable jerk, I’m going to give you what you deserve.”

He laughed. “Are you now?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And what, exactly, do I deserve?”

For a moment she stared at him through the dust and gloom. Then, slowly, she lowered her face to his. “This,” she said softly.

The kiss was different this time. Warmer. Hungrier. She was a full and willing partner; he knew it and he responded. She didn’t need to be warned that she was playing a dangerous game, that they were both hurtling toward the point of no return. She could already feel him swelling beneath her, could feel her own body aching to accommodate that new hardness. And the whole time she was kissing him, the whole time their bodies were pressed together, she was thinking, I’m going to regret this. As sure as I breathe, I’m going to pay for this. But it feels so right…

She pulled away, fighting to catch her breath.

“Well!” said Guy, grinning up at her. “Miss Willy Maitland, I am surprised.”

She sat up, nervously shoving her hair back into place. “I never meant to do that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“It was a stupid thing to do.”

“Then why did you?”

“It was…” She looked him in the eye. “Pure instinct.”

He laughed. In fact, he fell backward laughing, rolling around on the sacks of rice. The truck hit a pothole, bouncing her up and down so hard, she collapsed onto the floor beside him.

And still he was laughing.

“You’re a crazy man,” she said.

He threw an arm around her neck and pulled her warmly against him. “Only about you.”

IN A BLACK LIMOUSINE WITH tinted windows, Siang sat gripping the steering wheel and cursing the wretched highway-or what this country called a highway. He had never understood why communism and decent roads had to be mutually exclusive. And then there was the traffic, added to the annoyance of that government vehicle inspection. It had given him a moment’s apprehension, the sight of the armed soldiers standing at the roadside. But it took only a few smooth words from the man in the back seat, the wave of a Soviet diplomatic passport, and they were allowed to move on without incident.

They continued west; a road sign confirmed it was the highway to Dien Bien Phu. A strange omen, Siang thought, that they should be headed for the town where the French had met defeat, where East had triumphed over West. Centuries before, an Asian scribe had written a prophetic statement.

To the south lie the mountains,

The land of the Viets.

He who marches against them

Is surely doomed to failure.

Siang glanced in the rearview mirror, at the man in the back seat. He wouldn’t be thinking in terms of East versus West. He cared nothing about nations or motherlands or patriotism. Real power, he’d once told Siang, lay in the hands of individuals, special people who knew how to use it, to keep it, and he was going to keep it.

Siang had no doubt he would.

He remembered the day they’d first met in Happy Valley, at an American base the GIs had whimsically dubbed “the Golf Course.” It was 1967. Siang had a different name then. He was a slender boy of thirteen, barefoot, scratching out a hungry existence among all the other orphans. When he’d first seen the American, his initial impression was of hugeness. An enormous fleshy face, alarmingly red in the heat; boots made for a giant; hands that looked strong enough to snap a child’s arm in two. The day was hot, and Siang was selling soft drinks. The man bought a Coca Cola, drank it down in a few gulps and handed the empty bottle back. As Siang took it, he felt the man’s gaze studying him, measuring him. Then the man walked away.

The next day, and every day for a week, the American emerged from the GI compound to buy a Coca Cola. Though a dozen other children clamored for his business, each waving soft drinks, the man bought only from Siang.

At the end of the week, the man presented Siang with a brand-new shirt, three tins of corned beef and an astonishing amount of cash. He said he was leaving the valley early the next morning, and he asked the boy to hire the prettiest girl he could find and bring her to him for the night.

It was only a test, as Siang found out later. He passed it. In fact, the American seemed surprised when Siang appeared at the compound gate that evening with an extraordinarily beautiful girl. Obviously, the man had expected Siang to take the money and vanish.

To Siang’s astonishment, the man sent the girl away without even touching her. Instead, he asked the boy to stay-not as a lover, as Siang at first feared, but as an assistant. “I need someone I can trust,” the man said. “Someone I can train…”

Even now, after all these years, Siang still felt that young boy’s sense of awe whenever he looked at the American. He glanced at the rearview mirror, at the face that had changed so little since that day they’d met in Happy Valley. The cheeks might be thicker and ruddier, but the eyes were the same, sharp and all-knowing. Just like the mind. Those eyes almost frightened him.