Black Friday (or Black Market) - James Patterson [74]
He remembered that now. Sisyphus had prepared him for enemy interrogation—or so the Army instructors had told him.
You must put your mind in another place altogether.
It had sounded so simple, so coldly, attractively logical as a concept. Now it seemed absurd, infuriating in its stupidity and typical American arrogance. Sisyphus had been another fraud invented by the U.S. Army … The Lizard Man, the North Vietnamese commandant of La Hoc Noh, mechanically raised a white stone game marker.
He put one of David Hudson’s black stones in check.
There was a hard clack of the playing piece against the polished teak board.
The North Vietnamese prison guards, all dressed in muddy black pajamas, tipped homemade rice wine from long-necked green bottles. They snorted ridiculing laughter at this obvious mismatch of competitors.
The prison camp commandant was swift, completely sure of his game moves. He was on a different skill level, Hudson understood.
According to the rules of Go, the game should have been played with a sizable handicap called okigo. Should have been …. But strict adherence to rules meant nothing here because this was a place beyond all decency, all logic, all understanding.
“Yow play!” the Lizard Man once again screeched. “Yow play now!”
He seemed to want his victory right now: the cruel bloodletting—the slow death for the loser in the festering jungle swamps just beyond the prison camp.
The guards were physical extensions of their leader’s personality. They too became impatient now, grumbling and growling for faster action.
Clack!
David Hudson made an obviously ridiculous, almost an arbitrary move on the Go board. He smiled crookedly at the commandant, as if he’d suddenly turned the game in his favor.
“You play!” Hudson snapped. He knew the smile on his face was hopelessly spacey, but he savored the small moment of triumph.
The Lizard Man was momentarily confused.
Then he howled shrill, birdlike laughter.
The Vietnamese soldiers howled laughter as well. They inched closer to the two players as the commandant made a surprisingly conservative move with one of his white stones.
Disappointment etched itself across the soldiers’ faces. Here was uncertainty for the first time. Hudson was amazed at the commandant’s hesitation.
“Yow!” Lizard Man screamed. “Fast play! Yow play riii now!”
“Fuck you, asshole …. Watch this one.”
A smile, hollow and incomprehensible, slipped across David Hudson’s blistered lips.
Once again, he made a bizarre, a seemingly pointless and foolish game move.
“You play!” he said in a barely audible whisper. “You play fast, too.”
The Lizard Man squinted, and studied the exquisite, highly reflective teak board more closely. He gazed into Captain Hudson’s bloodshot eyes, then looked down again at the Go board.
The guards crushed in closer still.
This was getting better, more dramatic, finally. A real game was starting to develop.
The soldiers began to whisper among themselves. They were tike the professional gamblers, the unsavory flotsam always crowded into the fantan parlors of Saigon.
Something interesting and curious was happening in the game of Go now. Even the camp commandant was confused, troubled by his American opponent, by his seemingly unfathomable moves.
For the first time, one of the prison camp guards offered a side bet on the American officer. The commandant threw the soldier the most bitter glance.
Suddenly then, smoothly and so coolly, as if he was performing an ordinary movement such as lighting a cigarette, Captain Hudson removed the revolver from one of the Vietnamese soldiers’ dangling holsters.
Hudson swiveled back to the straight ahead position, directly facing the Lizard Man.
Once again, the faint half-crazed smile crossed David Hudson’s blistered lips. “Fucker. Miserable shit fucker.”
A heartbeat later, the revolver thundered.
It was like an Army field cannon in the tiny bamboo room. White smoke blossomed everywhere around the game table.
Unbelievably, the commandant