The Second Saladin Read Online Free Page A

but what about the other side, his father’s side, the Hungarian side, which was moody and sullen and turbulent?
    At that moment a class of kids came spilling out from behind the church onto an adjacent blacktopped playground. So much energy; they made Speight feel his age. The panorama was raucous and vast and not a little violent, and the one bearded old geezer in a raincoat, who was supposedly in command, stood so meekly off to one side that Speight feared for him.
    It was nearly noon. What lay ahead filled him with melancholy and unease; he wasn’t sure he could bring it off. Sighing heavily, he pulled the car into the church’s parking lot and found a place to park, marked VISITOR —he searched for it at some length, not wanting to break any rules—and began a long trudge to the buildings, his briefcase heavy in his hand.
    His walk would take him through the playground, where balls sailed and bounced and kids hung like monkeys off the apparatus. All the boys wore scrawny ties, he saw—now that’s not a bad idea; his own kids dressed liketramps—and the girls kilts. But the imposed formality didn’t cut any ice with the little brutes. They still fought and shoved and screamed at each other, and at one point the supervisor had to bound over to break up a bad scuffle. Kids. Speight shook his head, but he wasn’t really paying much attention.
    He was worried about Chardy. You don’t just go crashing back into somebody’s life after seven years—or was it now eight?—and take up where you left off. And it was true that at the end, at the hearings, Bill hadn’t done Paul much good. He’d just told the truth, and the truth hadn’t helped Chardy at all, and maybe even now Chardy would hold it against him. Chardy had a famous temper; Chardy had once slugged a Head of Station.
    Bill stopped in the middle of the playground. He felt a little queasy. He wished he had a Gelusil. The church building loomed above him; he was surrounded by children. He had to go to the bathroom suddenly. Maybe he could find a john and get settled down, get himself composed.
    But then, maybe the best thing would be to get it over with. Get it over with fast. He’d come this far, quite a way.
    He reached into his pocket, pulled out a Binaca canister, and squirted a blast of the mouthwash into his mouth. Its cool sweetness pepped him up considerably, burying that sour taste that had collected in his throat.
    I’ll just do it.
    He turned as a basketball glanced off his knee and a horde of little jerks roared by in pursuit.
    “Hey, excuse me.” He hailed the old duffer, who was bent in conference with two sniffling children. “Is there an office around here? Where would I find an office?”
    “Are you sure you’re looking for the office, Bill?” asked Paul Chardy, rising.

    It was the coat, cloaking the man’s size. And it was the beard, surprisingly shot with gray, masking the dark half-Irish face, blurring that pugnacious chin. And the hair, longish, almost over the ears, where Paul’s had always been short, after the military fashion, like Bill’s own. And it was also the playground full of kids, the bright sun, the bouncing, sailing balls, the noise, the church: it was all so different. The last time Bill had seen Paul had been at an arms dump on the border. Chardy wore baggy khaki pants then, and an embroidered coat and a black-and-white turban and sunglasses and had magazine bandoliers crisscrossed on his chest like some kind of bandit and had been almost mahogany from the sun. He’d carried a Soviet assault rifle, the AK-47, and had a couple of rocket-propelled grenades in their launchers slung over his back, and a belt full of Russian F-l grenades.
    “I-I didn’t recognize you, Paul. The beard—you look so different.”
    “Old Bill, Jesus. I saw you getting out of the car. They still make you rent cheap little Chevys, huh? How are you?” He took Bill’s hand and shook it. “You’re looking good,