The Vulcan Disaster

“I... oh, my God... I...” the General was saying. I looked at the car. There was no sign of life there. Phuong? I hesitated; then I got my head closer to the dying man’s lips.

“Carter, I... I’m sorry about... the girl... her heart...”

“She’s dead?” I said. A black rage ran through me; I mastered it only barely in time. “General,” I said again. “What was your business with those guys? What was it you were going to sell them?”

“I... it was arms. Hijacked... shipload... arms. Didn’t get to Vietnam... arranged transfer...” I could see his face clearly in the dim light by the side of the car.

“What arms?” I said. “American arms? For Vietnam? What? Where are they now?”

“Look... trunk... Carter,” he said. Big beads of sweat were coming out on his forehead. “I... Oh, God...”

“Trunk. The trunk of the car? Okay. But who are these guys? What are they doing here? What...?”

But he was off in his own world by now. I bent over closer. The General spoke English for politics and German for business, at least when he thought he was talking to Hermann Meyer. He was an old-fashioned Westernized Vietnamese right down the line, though, and he spoke French to God. What I was hearing, ever fainter with every word, was a last confession.

I got up and went over to the car. Phuong lay across the back seat, her face bearing a new, peaceful look I’d never seen on it before. I stood for a moment trying to sort out my thoughts; then I turned back to the General. His face was still now, but it wasn’t peaceful. I bent down again, and rifled his pockets. Wallet; ID; credit cards; pocket pieces. I shoved all of it in my coat pocket and checked his own shoulder holster, wondering why he hadn’t pulled his gun and then I stopped wondering or giving a damn. I was too glad to see Wilhelmina back again. I shoved her in her own holster and went back to the car.

I went through all the pockets and compartments, pocketing absolutely everything that could possibly be of any interest. Then I pulled out the keys — they were still in the ignition — and went back and checked the trunk. Even if I hadn’t known what I was looking for I think I’d have recognized the crate. Nevertheless, in the interest of thoroughness, I grabbed a tire iron and jimmied it open.

It was full of brand-new never-fired M-14s, packed in gooey cosmoline.

I stood up and thought about things for a moment, chewing my lip, cursing my aching ribs. Then I dragged both bodies back to the car and dumped them on the floor in back, at Phuong’s silver-slippered feet. I looked at her again, not without a certain pang, but it wasn’t any time for sentimentality. And she wasn’t the schoolkid on her way to the prom that she appeared to be in her pretty new outfit and expensive hairdo. She was a grown girl who’d gotten in over her head, playing with a bunch of desperate thugs. And she’d made herself a bad bargain...

No use. I couldn’t get it out of my head that she had probably saved my life, back in that alley in Saigon, with her phony story about my helping to fix the General’s return to the United States.

That’s the trouble with debts. You never do get to pay them back. Not really...

I drove the Rolls slowly out the door, looking both ways. There wasn’t much traffic in the area and I slipped down the side street to where it met Queens Road Central. This time I really looked both ways. If I ran into a cop here I’d have some explaining to do. After all, I hadn’t even reported in at Customs, entering the colony.

Satisfied for the moment, I turned the car out onto the main drag, still doing perhaps fifteen. I choked it down even further and put it on the hand throttle. Then I set the wheel straight ahead, opened the door, and slipped out into the street, slamming the door behind me. The car putt-putted slowly down the wide road, headed smack-dab for the Government Offices. I watched it go for a moment, wondering if it’d have been nicer to wrap a red ribbon around it before letting it go...

And that was that. I made it to the Star Ferry just in time to miss the boat, so I wandered over to the Queen’s Pier and worked up a deal to share a wallah-wallah over to Kowloon with a bunch of camera-bearing Japanese tourists. I walked back to the Pen.

When I finally sat down in my own room, I almost cut my leg open. I’d forgotten about that lethal instrument the Oriental had pulled on me back in the warehouse. I pulled it out of my belt as I sat down, giving it a long hard look. I’d never seen anything quite like it before.

Then I got out of my ruined coat, called downstairs, and had a man pick it up and take it to the hotel tailor. Another call brought a bottle of thirty-dollar, hundred-proof scotch and a couple of glasses.

I had two highly salutary, pain-killing snorts. Then, taking as deep a sigh as the ribs allowed, I placed another local call, asked for an extension almost nobody below Cabinet level knew about, and waited.

“Typewriter repair,” the nasal voice on the other end said.