Satori - Don Winslow [81]
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Haverford asked.
“Hel’s gone over to the other side, and you know it,” Diamond said. “And I’m not so sure you’re not happy about it.”
“That’s a goddamn lie.”
“You calling me a liar?” Diamond jumped up from his chair.
Haverford stood up. “A liar, a torturer —”
They started for each other.
“This is not your sixth-grade schoolyard. Sit down, both of you.” Singleton waited until both men took their chairs.
My straight line and my circle, Singleton thought. We shall see which one wins. It is a basic law of Go and of life — the side that wins is the side that deserves to win.
Haverford thought of resigning on the spot. He could probably find a job in academia, or in one of the new “think tanks” — there’s a concept — now sprouting like mushrooms in the damp intellectual soil of the greater Washington metropolitan area. The place had, after all, once been a swamp.
But there was unfinished business, so he clamped his jaw tight and listened.
“Assume Hel is out there,” Singleton said. “Lure him in.”
“How?”
“You’re clever young men,” Singleton answered. “You’ll think of something.”
The meeting was concluded.
90
THINK LIKE NICHOLAI HEL, Haverford told himself as he left the building for his hotel in Dupont Circle. No easy task, he admitted, as it was probably true that no one else in the world thought like Nicholai Hel.
Well, try anyway.
He ran his thoughts through Nicholai’s options.
Would Hel …
Could Hel …
Yes, he decided.
Both.
91
“I’M GOING TO DELIVER the weapons,” Nicholai said.
It was a bold, even risky move. A breakout maneuver on the go-kang that had small chance of success and could only place him in great danger. Still, when one is surrounded there are few choices other than to surrender, die, or break out.
“Please don’t be ridiculous,” Yu answered. “Your cover as an arms merchant was just that, a cover. Not a reality.”
“I saw the rocket launchers,” Nicholai said. “They looked quite real.”
“Props,” Yu answered, “for your little opera. The play is over, Mr. Hel.”
“And yet here you are in Yunnan,” Nicholai answered, “for weeks now, near the Vietnamese border. Perhaps that is mere coincidence, or perhaps you are overly solicitous of my recuperation, but more likely it’s because you intend to take the rocket launchers across the border into Vietnam.”
“Even if that were true,” Yu said, “it hardly concerns you.”
“Let me tell you why it does,” Nicholai said. “I have demonstrated skills that might be very useful. I’m fluent in French, have an established cover as an arms merchant, and I’m a kweilo, which would give me certain advantages in the French colonies. So much for my utility, here is my offer: I will deliver the weapons to the Viet Minh and retain the payment as my recompense for services rendered. Once the weapons have been safely delivered, you will provide me with a new identity and documentation. Then we are quit of each other.”
It seemed the perfect solution, Nicholai thought. The Americans, through the gift of the rocket launchers, would unintentionally honor their deal with him, and it would have the added effect of harming their interests.
“You think a lot of your value, Mr. Hel.”
“It is simply an objective evaluation.”
Yu stared at him. “If you reemerge anywhere in Indochina, the Americans will find you.”
“Just so.”
Yu agreed to consider his offer.
The Americans will find me, Nicholai thought when Yu left the room. No, we will find each other, and I will hold Haverford accountable for his treachery.
And then I will find Solange.
92
DIAMOND PORED over the Hel file.
Goddamnit, he thought. How could Hel have escaped the trap in the Beijing temple and that Chinese kung-fu son of a bitch who was supposed to have been so good? Yeah, so goddamn good that he let Hel put a bullet in his head and kill the rest of his men as well.
Two swings at Hel, he thought, two misses. First he dispatches the two would-be killers in Tokyo, then the massacre in Beijing.
Three strikes and you’re out, Diamond told himself.