Hour of the Assassins by Andrew Kaplan Read Free Book Online

Grade 9, which paid about eleven hundred dollars a month.
    Twenty-nine months later Caine was on a jet to Laos.
    He lay next to C.J., his bare arm touching hers, a world away, staring into darkness and listening to the occasional sounds of night traffic along the coast highway. From somewhere came the sound of a late newscast, muffled and indistinct—something about a kidnapping. Insomnia must be the major disease of the twentieth century, he thought. C.J. stirred restlessly beside him. After a long silence she snuggled against his shoulder and whispered,
    â€œAre you asleep?”
    â€œYes,” he said, and smiled.
    â€œI’m sorry I snapped at you before. It’s never really good the first time. Oh, hell, it’s lonely lying here by myself. Put your arm around me,” she said in a little girl voice.
    â€œI’m never any good the first time, either. Nerves, I guess,” putting his arm around her.
    â€œYour bracelet is scratching me. What is it anyway? I’ve never seen one like it,” she said, running her fingers along the dull metal ring around his wrist.
    â€œIt’s from Asia,” he yawned.
    â€œWere you in Asia?”
    â€œWeren’t we all?”
    â€œYou’re like a politician,” she laughed. “You have a way of answering questions without saying anything. What kind of a bracelet is it?”
    â€œIt’s a Meo bracelet,” he replied, remembering Dao. “It’s supposed to protect you against evil tlan spirits.”
    â€œYou don’t really believe in spirits, do you?” she asked, amused.
    Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could blame it all on the tlan the way the Meo did? he thought. What do we Westerners know about spirits anyway? Just the Bible. They knew about it all right. The spirit of man will sustain his infirmity. But a wounded spirit, who can bear? But then, no one with a white skin knew much about Asia.
    â€œIn a way,” he said.
    â€œWhat’s a Meo?” she asked in a sleepy voice. “It sounds like a cat.”
    â€œThey’re a mountain tribe in Indochina,” he said. That had been his first mistake. He remembered Dao correcting him the first time they met at Airstrip 256. As they ducked under the air blast from the helicopter blades and ran to the edge of the clearing, Caine had shouted something about being glad to be with the Meo force at last. The chopper pulled heavily into the sky with an incredible clatter as Dao remarked pedantically:
    â€œWe are not Meo. Meo means ‘barbarians’ and is a name the Chinese gave to us thousands of years ago. We call ourselves Hmong , which means ‘free men.’”
    â€œI’ll remember,” Caine said, shouldering his pack. Thorns tore at his fatigues as he stumbled through the dense undergrowth, following Dao’s wiry body tirelessly scrambling up the trail. He quickened his pace as Dao’s blue air force jumpsuit almost disappeared into the dense jungle shade. Cunningham was right, Caine thought. It’s going to be tricky. He’d met Cunningham, a hard hawk-nosed Yankee, ten minutes after he had landed at Long Tieng Air Base, CIA headquarters in Laos, The fan in Cunningham’s tiny office barely stirred the air, stifling in the dense noon heat Cunningham handed Caine a lukewarm Coke, sizing him up in a brief speculative glance. He took in Caine’s muscled shoulders, sandy hair, bright green eyes, and almost too-handsome features. He looked like what you like to think an American looks like.
    â€œRelax,” he said. “You’ve got twenty minutes till your chopper takes off. You’ll rendezvous with General Dao at Strip two fifty-six in the Annam border sector. I suppose Washington briefed you.”
    â€œThey told me you’d be my control,” Caine replied.
    â€œSure. I’ll have about as much authority over you as you’ll have over Dao, which is to say, zilch. Officially your