The Vulcan Disaster

I would, too, I thought, watching her slip off the delicate, expensive Italian pumps and stretch long, exquisitely formed legs. She wasn’t wearing stockings; the off-white polish on her toenails gleamed like pearls against that beautifully tanned skin. “Do you ever dress Vietnamese?” I said, changing hands on the gun. “You’d look nice in an ao dai.” Or out of one, I thought, giving the legs the once-over. When I looked up I caught her eyes on me, mocking, confident.

She stood and reached for the zipper at her side.

I cocked an ear at the door. Was that a sound in the hall?

The eyes, dark and liquid, were still on me with their searching, insolent gaze. A slender and delicate hand held the dress to her bosom as the other slowly tugged at the full-length zipper. I saw a flash of warm naked skin at her thigh. And she felt the air on her body. Her eyes were slightly out of focus; she was beginning to breathe hard. Her small pink tongue darted across her already moist lips. That left hand, polished nails glowing, held the dress to her breasts; it was all that held it to her bare flesh.

She took a deep breath and stepped out of it, letting the soft folds fall about her feet, holding the classic pose, one foot flat, the other raised on the toes. And it was time for me to take a deep breath.

I was getting a quick and comprehensive look at the kind of body you don’t see every day. Deeply, goldenly tanned in every part, with soft, dark-nippled breasts that jutted pertly up at me; with generous hips flaring below a tiny waist; with long legs as smooth as ivory, slim and shapely; with, at the point where they came together, a flash of curling, sensual black...

Then I heard the sound she’d heard. The light whistle at the end of the hall. The footsteps, coming closer, closer.

I got up in a hell of a hurry, the pistol ready in my hand. And when I dived for her, sex was the last thing on my mind. The free hand that might, under more promising circumstances, have come to caress, went for her mouth. I had perhaps a second to shut her up. And I was a second too late.

“Walter!” she screamed. “Walter, run! I...” And then I had her down on the bed, pinned with the gun hand, the other shoving a pillow into her face.

But he’d heard. And now the footsteps were twice as loud, and they were going down the hall away from me at one hell of a clip.

“Jesus,” I muttered. And then I said a couple of other things. I took the pillow from her face just long enough to show her the disgusted expression on my kisser. Then I laid Wilhelmina alongside her temple with a practiced swing that landed in just the right place with just the right amount of force. She went out like a light.

Fine, I thought. At least I can do one thing right, I was across the room and out the door before I could get another peek at that golden body. I reminded myself to say goodbye sometime.

The hall was empty in one direction. In the other, all I could see was a tallish man, grey-haired and with a military rigidity to his stance, standing before the elevator. He had a black patch over the eye that faced away from me, and as he turned my way I saw that he was missing his left arm.

“Did somebody go by here?” I said. I’d stashed Wilhelmina, but I still must have looked as if I meant business; the one good eye widened slightly, the brow lifted.

“Why... why, yes,” the man said. The accent was one I couldn’t place. “Through there.” He pointed to the exit door, the one that led to the stairwell. “But I...”

“Thanks,” I said. I didn’t stop for conversation. I made for that door as fast as I could. I couldn’t afford to blow this one; I’d most likely never get another shot at him. Within hours — this was evident from every glance I’d taken out the window — the Cong troops, battle-hardened regulars, flushed with victory, would be rolling into town, and Corbin would disappear into that forest of soldiers like a bug into the woodwork.

He’d be taking with him a roll of microfilm I wouldn’t have traded for half of Saigon once I found out what was on it. That roll of film had already cost two men’s lives, and would, I reflected, cost me my skin if I let it fall into the hands of the victorious Cong.

I was keeping quiet as I poked my head through the door. But inside me something whistled, long and low, as I thought of the repercussions back on Dupont Circle in Washington. My boss, David Hawk — Director and Operations Chief of AXE, the U.S. agency for special espionage — didn’t waste Killmaster hits. Getting me into Saigon, at a time when all available copters were needed for getting Americans out, had cost the government a small fortune. Worse, it’d cost Hawk telephone calls to people he didn’t like, clearing the path for me.

So, when I stuck my head through the door, as cautiously as I could and still be in one hell of a hurry, I shivered. And fear of Walter Corbin was hardly the reason.