Assignment - Cong Hai Kill Read Online Free

the door silently behind them. He breathed slowly. He
was not sure that he smelled anything alien or not. But there was a sense of
intrusion, of someone having been here during his brief absence when he’d
chased after Anna-Marie along the  klongs . It was difficult to tell.
His old Grandpa Jonathan, with whom he had spent his boyhood in the green
Louisiana bayous, taught that a hunter should be able to locate an enemy
literally by smell. The converse was true, of course; a hunted man, in danger,
should have doubly keen senses.
    It seemed to Durell that
there was the smell of someone here in his room that had not been there before,
a compound of sweat that reflected fish and rice in the diet, and of a sticky
sweet smoke, not unlike opium. When Durell moved into the big room, silently
pacing the shining tiles, moving with a lithe ease for his size, he found
nothing behind the drapery or in the wardrobe closet or in the huge bathroom
area. The connecting door was locked, the key at the same angle he had left it.
    He went out on the
balcony and looked down at the square with its dark flower beds and pedicabs and
the beautiful Thai women walking beside the sea, and he thought of his earlier
image of death and danger coming into paradise. He was annoyed when he looked
back at Anna-Marie Danat.
    She was an unexpected
complication now, instead of a dependable ally. Back in Washington, General
McFee had been very explicit about her.
    “You can trust Miss Danat,
Cajun. She’ll turn Orris Lantern over to you—provided you’re with
Deirdre. She trusts Deirdre, so she’ll trust you, too.”
    “And if she doesn’t?”
Durell had asked.
    “Cajun, I know how you
feel about people like Orris Lantern. One bad apple spoils the
barrel. But Orris Lantern trusts this girl and he’s turning himself
back to us voluntarily. We need him, Sam. We need him desperately."
    “I don’t want to do
business with a traitor.”
    “He’s changed his coat,
Cajun. He’s coming home.”
    Durell’s voice was raw.
“With the usual guarantee of amnesty? I can’t touch him?”
    “You put a finger on
him,” the general warned, “and your neck goes in a noose. I’m not fooling.
You’ll spend the rest of your life looking at the walls of Leavenworth.”
    “I’d like to kill him,”
Durell said simply.
    “Exactly. So you coddle
him and nurse him and bring him back without a scratch on him. Understand?”
    “Send someone else,”
Durell said.
    “There is no one else.
I'm sending you. It’s simple. I don’t care if Orris Lantern spits in
your face, Sam. And from his dossier, he might just do that. He knows he’s
valuable and he’ll know you’re restricted in how to handle him. Whatever he
does, you don’t lay a finger on him.”
    It had been a hot
September day in Washington, three days ago. Durell, who was a field sub-chief
for K Section of the Central Intelligence Agency, had hoped for a better
release from the desk job he’d held down in Analysis for the past six months.
But you can’t write your own ticket in the business. After his last assignment,
he’d been lucky not to draw down a stiffer penalty for going across
Czechoslovakia on his own, against every order from Geneva Central. But he’d
still hoped for something better when McFee sent for him in his office at No.
20 Annapolis Street, that anonymous graystone house in Washington’s
Northwest that served as cover HQ for Durell’s trouble-shooting K Section of
the Agency.
    Dickinson McFee reported
daily to Joint Chiefs and NSA and the White House, in addition to briefings at
the Pentagon twice weekly. Durell often accompanied him through these ordeals.
McFee was a small, gray man whose impact was felt the moment he stepped into
the room. Durell didn’t know if McFee still drew down a two-star’s pay or it McFee’s status
was that of retirement and his capacity in K Section’s rough-and-tumble unit
solely that of a civilian. No one knew much about Dickinson