"Whipsaw" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pendleton Don)

5

Frank Henson slipped behind the wheel of his Land Rover and leaned across to open Bolan's door. The big guy climbed in and dropped his bag over the seat into the back.

"They give you a hard time today?" Henson asked.

"I've had worse."

"They say anything about Harding?"

"Collazo referred to him obliquely, but didn't really give much away. I don't know what he knows, but I don't think it's much. It was more like he was trying to pump me than anything else."

Henson laughed easily. "Son of a bitch! I'd love to know where the holes are. We're leaking like a sieve. And everybody in Manila seems to know what we know before we know it. Guy I bought this rattletrap from, some damn assistant something or other at the British embassy, told me about Harding two days before I heard his name from anybody else."

"You think it's on your end or back in D.C.?" Bolan watched Henson carefully while the older man composed his answer. It would be easy to blame it on the other guy. That was the way in any bureaucracy.

"I wish to Christ I knew," Henson said, laughing again. "I'd like to blame it on Washington. Those bastards are always looking for something to talk about at their cocktail parties. But I just don't know."

Bolan made a mental note to be circumspect in his dealing with Henson. It wasn't that he didn't trust the man, but if there was a leak in Manila, it could get him killed. In the back of his mind was the not so sneaking suspicion that the airport scene had not been a coincidence. He also had to consider the possibility that he himself had been the target.

Henson negotiated the traffic with a casual hand, flowing with it rather than trying to outrun it. Like most Far Eastern capitals, it combined the slowest of traditional commerce with the frenzy of blaring horns.

"I think we can talk more freely at my place," Henson said. "I have it swept a couple of times a week. Had it done this afternoon, as a matter of fact."

"I'm beginning to think this thing is a lot more complicated than Walt Wilson told me."

"That's Rosebud for you. Walt's a crackerjack, but he's never liked to tell a guy more than he has to. In this case, I think, probably even less."

"Tell me what you know about Charles Harding."

"First off, Harding's just the tip of the iceberg. I don't know where the hell he gets his money, but he's got backing, big backing."

"But what does he do here?"

"What I know, or what I think?"

"Both."

"I know he fronts some sort of political action organization out in the boondocks. They're on some sort of paramilitary trip. They got more guns than the NPA, more money than you can shake a stick at, and they are plugged into the Philippine Army six ways to Sunday. There's a dozen laws, at least, against what he's doing, but he's never even gotten a parking ticket, so far as I know."

"What sort of politics?"

"I know what you're asking and, no, no way he's a Communist front. If you know anything at all about the guy, you know he's out there on the fringe, somewhere between Tricky Dick and Attila. No, that's the puzzle, really. I mean, most of these right-wing diehards sit home running beer companies and shit. They send money, but they don't put their asses on the line. Harding's different. He's out there with the grunts. Except nobody really knows where there is." Henson rapped on the horn to nudge a particularly slow-moving truck along. "And that, my friend, brings us to the end of what I know."

"What about what you think?"

"Ah... what I think... that's something altogether different. That is very scary stuff indeed."

Bolan waited patiently while Henson thought about how to begin. Finally Henson cleared his throat.

"Okay, here's what I think. I think Mr. Harding is a madman. I think he wants to see Cory take a pratfall and lay there in the mud with her skirt up around her hips. I think he is working for that very thing, and I think he will stop at nothing, including provoking a civil wart to get it done."

"What's the percentage?"

"Hey, am I a madman? How the fuck should I know? He's one of these guys looks under his bed every night, and not just to see if the maid did the floor. You know what I mean?"

"Still, why here?"

"Why here? That's an easy one. Charlie-boy did his time in Southeast Asia. He's a domino player from the old school. You look at a map of the Pacific, and what do you see? Who controls it? From Hawaii on to India, the Philippines is basically what we got. You lose Subic, you're stuck with Australia and New Zealand, and neither one of them wants nukes in port on three day leave. That creates a power vacuum in the Pacific basin. And not just for Mr. Charles Harding, either."

"So you think he wants to install a government that will let us keep Clark and Subic? Is that it?"

"That's part of it. Part of it's some weird megalomania, though. I think he thrives on chaos. There's been a gradually escalating terror campaign in the big cities, especially Manila. I'm convinced he's behind it, but I can't prove it. And I'll tell you something else. If anybody's running him, he's got his hands full. There is no way in hell to control this guy. He's too flaky. I'd rather play football with a bottle of nitroglycerin than try to ride herd on Harding."

"Where's the NPA fit in?"

"Good question. I've been getting reports that they're suffering heavy losses in the mountains. But there hasn't been any significant army action up there in months. Aquino has too much else to worry about. They go on punitive expeditions if there's been a serious assault by the NPA, but there hasn't been one that amounted to anything since last year."

"You think Harding's behind it?"

"Who else? The NPA might be amateurs, but they don't shoot one another. Not that often, anyhow." Henson lapsed into silence, as if the conversation had drained him. He drove like a robot, his eyes staring straight ahead through the bug-splattered glass.

They were on the edge of the city, and the broad avenues gradually spilled into narrow, tree-lined streets. Tropical lushness was everywhere. Most of the houses were all but hidden behind masses of bougainvillea and something that looked like rhododendron. Few lights broke the darkness, and many of them did little more than dart in and out among the leaves as the evening breeze whipped the overhanging branches around.

Henson started to whistle between his teeth, and Bolan watched him curiously. He seemed on edge, as if there were something he wanted to say, but didn't quite know how to phrase.

"Anything wrong?" Bolan asked, trying to prompt him.

Henson sucked his teeth for a few seconds.

"I don't know. I'm arguing with myself. I don't... ah, what the hell..." He slapped the wheel with the heel of his right hand. "I've been working on a pipeline for a few months. I was just thinking, maybe, if I could hook you up, maybe it would get us somewhere. I just don't know."

"What kind of pipeline?"

"An odd duck, a guy named Colgan. If Harding is a mad bomber, and there's no doubt in my mind he is, then this guy's the mad hatter. He's a doctor he runs these clinics. He thinks he's the third way, or something like that. It's all mystical gobbledygook, but he believes it and he's got people who believe it right along with him. I'll tell you about it when we get to my place. Another five minutes. Let me chew on it..."

Bolan stared out the window, watching the trees go by. The homes were few and far between now.

He wondered why Henson had chosen to live so far out of the city. It seemed odd, almost as if Henson were trying to isolate himself from the people he was supposed to understand.

Henson turned the wheel sharply, and the high-riding Rover leaned uncomfortably as they turned into a narrow side street.

"It's at the end of the block," Henson said. "My little hermitage of sorts. Sometimes I think I've been at this business too long. I'm under diplomatic cover, and the ambassador keeps leaning on me to move into Manila, but I can't stand the thought of it. This place can break your heart, Bolan. It's so beautiful you can hardly believe it, but then when you see how the people live, it looks like hell on earth. I've seen enough of that, Laos in particular, in the late sixties. I just can't take it anymore. I got another year, and then I'm out of it."

Bolan opened his mouth to respond when the Rover bounced over a pothole. His teeth clacked together. Henson began to swerve back and forth, slaloming the blocky hover down a pitted lane. A small house materialized in the deadlights a hundred yards ahead.

"There it is," Henson said, "home, sweet home."

He gunned the Rover, then let it coast the rest of the way, raking just as it rolled past the steps to a small side porch. Henson jumped out almost eagerly, as though the place really were some sort of refuge.

"Wait here," he said. "I'll go in the front door and let out in right here." He sprinted back toward the front of the house.

Bolan heard a door slam, then watched as a succession of lights appeared in the windows as Henson made his way toward he rear. A moment later the door opened in front of him, and Henson stepped back with a bow.

"Welcome," he said.

Bolan climbed the two steps and found himself in a small kitchen. Henson immediately turned and disappeared through another door.

"Come on in and sit down," he shouted over his shoulder.

Bolan followed. The first room was a small library, its shelves bulging with the pale blue and green paper bindings of government reports as well as a healthy sampling of more usual volumes in cloth and paper. The next room was twice as large. Bolan immediately noticed the walls.

Henson caught his eye, and said, "Rubbings, my wife, ex-wife actually, taught me how to do them. She was an art student when I met her. We used to practice on old gravestones in Philadelphia. These are mine, though, from every place I've been. Temples from Laos and Burma, mostly, but one or two from every stop I've made on my somewhat circuitous transit through the typical State Department itinerary." He grabbed a stack of magazines from a chair and pointed. "Have a seat. I'll get us something cold." Bolan sank into the chair gratefully. It was nice to sit on something that wasn't moving. He glanced at one of the rubbings as Henson called, "Beer okay? It's Japanese, but it's cold."

"Fine," Bolan shouted back.

The refrigerator door banged back with a rattle of bat ties in its shelves. The next thing he heard sounded like Armageddon. The blast momentarily deafened him. Smoke, boiled through the doorway as he jumped to his feet.

"Henson," he called. "Frank, what..." He covered his mouth with a forearm and charged into the library. It was full of smoke and plaster dust so thick hi couldn't see. He ducked down to try to get under the worst of it, but did no better.

The doorway to the kitchen was blocked with debris.

He grabbed a piece of timber with both hands and tugged but couldn't dislodge anything. The dust was choking him as he backed away a step, then sprinted for the front door.

He leapt from the front porch and careered around the corner, where he stopped in disbelief. The whole rear half of the side wall lay splattered across the lawn. Several beams jutted up at an angle where they had smashed into the roof of the Rover.

Bolan climbed up onto the rear bumper and hauled himself into the wreckage. There wasn't a chance in hell Frank Henson had survived the blast, but he had to be sure. The ruined wall shifted under his weight. The whole room still boiled with swirling clouds of dust.

Bolan realized the bomb must have been in the refrigerator, primed to detonate when the door was opened. He could just make out the ruined hulk, shaped like a bulging barrel, its top split and twisted into modern art.

"Henson," he shouted. "Henson?" There was no answer. And as the dust began to settle, he knew there wouldn't be. Frank Henson had been splattered all over the kitchen.

The settling dust began to crust on the bloodstains, hiding the bright smears with an orangy film.

But he could still see where they were.