Fearless ; The Smoke Child

by Lee Stone

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  DEDICATION

  For Nancy, a champion story teller.

  More by Lee Stone

  Charlie Lockhart Thriller Series

  Fearless

  The Smoke Child

  Helter Skelter

  The Road North

  Bookshots (with James Patterson)

  Break Point

  Dead Heat

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  With thanks to everyone who helped with the process of creating this story, and in particular those who reminded me to eat and sleep at regular intervals.

  1

  The police helicopter touched down in the middle of a tiny market square in a remote village in Svay Rieng province. It only rested on the dusty ground long enough for a man called Lim to spill from its belly, and then it lifted away into the dark night sky. Lim watched it disappear and then melted into the shadows at the corner of the square. The village was remote and isolated, and the tiny marketplace was the only flat surface for twenty miles in any direction. It was not the first time Lim had arrived this way. There was yet some lingering support for the old regime within the police force, and the loyal ones were still willing to turn a blind eye to Lim’s comings and goings. So from time to time, the helicopter would touch down in the marketplace just long enough to unload, never stopping its engines. Then it would soar away again, and none of the villagers would pay any attention to it at all.

  Lim slipped along an alleyway between two rice farmer’s houses. The buildings were traditional, anchored in the sloping ground with bamboo stilts. He slipped underneath them as he headed towards the river, careful not to cast shadows in the moonlight. When he reached the water, it was a thick muddy soup, waiting for the approaching monsoons to swell and dilute it. Someone had staked the rickety wooden boat to the opposite bank, and Lim cursed his luck. He slipped off his shoes and began wading through. He did not like the water at night. The clay on the riverbed cloyed and sucked at his bare feet, and he shuddered as he imagined strong silent water snakes wrapping themselves around his ankles and pulling him down. The water reached his waist, sticking to him like oil, and still he pushed on. It reached his chest, but there was no time to find a safer place to cross. He inched forward through the water, careful to keep his balance as the current began to pull at him, until eventually the stream began to shallow. When he reached the other side, he found the mud path between the trees and pushed on into the thick rainforest.

  Lim always arrived in the dead of night. He was the only person Ta Penh trusted to make the journey, but even that honor was not enough to stop him shuddering as he pushed into the dense leaves and hanging vines. As the mud path narrowed, he began to hear noises in the darkness. There were tigers here, high in the Cardamom Mountains. Animals with better eyes than his, stalking through the trees. Leaves brushed against his shoulders and he imagined deadly spiders crawling onto his skin. Despite fear tingling in his spine, Lim pushed on. He could not afford to be late for the old man. Ta Penh was far more dangerous than anything else lurking in the trees.

  Lim stopped walking when he heard the gurgling of the spring in the darkness and followed the sound until his outstretched hands felt water trickling down the cool rock face to the right of the path. He was heading in the right direction, and he took a moment to wash his face and clean the clay from his feet. It would not be smart to arrive at the camp caked in mud. Especially as he was delivering bad news.

  Once he was clean, Lim pushed further into the heart of the rainforest where the trees blocked out the moonlight altogether and he had to stretch his hands out in front of him to keep on the path. Torches were forbidden and although he could no longer see the path at all, he knew better than to break the rules. Especially now that he was so close. Ta Penh’s place was hidden below the jungle canopy, out of the view of any prying eyes that might fly overhead. Hanging vines brushed across his face and he lashed out at them in panic. He heard laughter in the trees high above him. Someone was watching.

  He reached the clearing three minutes later. The canopy opened and in the moonlight he could see huge holes in the earth where the gang had ripped trees right out of the ground. A familiar smell began to perfume the air. A sickly fragrance, masked by the stench of burning wood. The sweet smell was oil. Tree roots were being boiled up in the giant cauldron, and the liquor slowly distilled. The smell of burning came from the giant fire under the cauldron. Lim stepped into the moonlit opening, walking between huge piles of felled trees. He took a moment to catch his breath and to let his pulse settle. Then he waited. After a minute he turned on the spot and stared back into the blackness, but he saw nothing. In the silence, he began to rehearse his message. He imagined how the old man might react, and what instructions he might have to take back out of the forest with him. Before long he heard a movement behind him. A voice called out to him in Khmer.

  ‘It’s Lim,’ he replied.

  A torch shone through the darkness and he squinted. Four men approached and set about searching him with rough, workmen’s hands.

  ‘You should know me by now,’ he complained.

  ‘Just stand still,’ one of them said, ‘and let us do our job.’

  Soon it was over, and the man who had spoken took Lim across the clearing towards the glow of the fire. He could see the heavy forest machinery caught in flickering light. Machines with teeth that could grind through root and soil. Saws that could chew through the giant trunks in seconds. Soon he was close enough to hear the cauldron bubbling away, breaking down the roots of the Mreah Prew Phnom trees until they released the Sassafras Oil that the men in the camp were producing. He felt the heat of the flames on his face. The fire was at the heart of the operation. Soon enough they would carry the oil away over the border to Thailand, and Ta Penh would make enough money to compensate them all for the noise and the smell and the dangers of the mountains.

  It took them nearly five minutes to reach the house. The clearing is growing, Lim thought as he trudged along, and he wondered how long Ta Penh would stay. It took four trees to produce a barrel of oil and another six to keep the fires burning. They were producing a lot of barrels. They were felling a lot of trees. Ta Penh was a man who valued his privacy, and if the clearing got big enough someone would notice. Even out here, in the middle of nowhere.

  His house was constructed in the traditional fashion, but it was much bigger than those Lim had passed in the village by the stream. Dim light spilled from small windows and made the place look warm and welcoming. The center of the spider’s web, Lim thought. A huge man stood guard at the front door. His head was completely shaved and his scalp was covered in ugly scars. Lim knew that he had been a decorated soldier back in the days when Ta Penh had been a great General, in the time before history had chosen a new future for Cambodia and sent him into exile. The soldier’s face was set in a permanent scowl, and his jaw was crooked where it had been broken and badly reset. He set about searching Lim all over again.

  ‘They already did this in the forest,’ Lim said.

  The soldier shrugged.

  ‘Maybe I don’t trust them,’ he said. ‘Or maybe I don’t trust you.’

  He was old and grizzled, like they had all become, and Lim knew that he had killed many people in his life. Lim was wary of the soldier the same way he had been scared of the water snakes in the stream, because he suspected the soldier had the same reptilian instinct for lashing out without fear of consequence. For most people, an argument with the soldier would end badly. But despite his caution, Lim was safe. Ta Penh favored him, and so nobody in the camp would dare to cross him.

  ‘You don’t trust me?’ he asked.

  The soldier fixed him with a glare and grunted, not committing himself to an answer either way.

  ‘Ta Penh trusts me,’ Lim pushed. ‘Are you doubting his judgment?’

  The solider looked uncomfortable. He knew Lim was important. Nobody in the camp used a telephone because telepho
nes could be bugged. Government satellites could intercept cell phones. And the Internet. And television. And email. So all of them were all banned by Ta Penh. He ran his entire empire from the middle of the forest using one connection with the outside world: Lim.

  ‘Well?’ Lim asked again. ‘Do you think Ta Penh is a fool?’

  The soldier swallowed.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘He is not.’

  Lim nodded tersely. The soldier led him into the heart of the building, without saying another word. He ushered him into the usual reception room, with its heavy rug and European furniture. For a temporary place, it was luxurious. Lim imagined it was how Emperors used to live on the battlefront. Despite having won the argument, he had to force his hands to stop shaking as the gnarled old soldier made his way back outside. He tried to make himself comfortable in a leather back chair. Sometimes, Ta Penh kept Lim waiting for hours, but not today. He swept into the room seconds after Lim sat down. He was near seventy, a decade older than Lim himself, but discipline and drive had kept him lean and sharp. Lim stood up when he entered the room, but Ta Penh waved him down.

  ‘Lim,’ he said, greeting him as a father greets a son. ‘How are you?’

  Lim nodded. ‘I’m fine.’

  He wondered if his tone would be enough for Ta Penh to guess that he was not in fact fine, and that all was not well. The old man looked at him carefully. He said nothing else, but sat down at a low table in the middle of the room. With a sweep of his hand, he invited Lim to do the same. He took a teacup from a tray in the middle of the table and set it down in front of Lim and then did the same for himself. Then he put a third in front of an empty chair next to his own. He poured tea, slowly and deliberately, into each of the three cups. Lim shuddered, because he knew what the empty seat meant. He knew who it was for.

  ‘I don’t have it,’ he said, when the silence became unbearable.

  Ta Penh’s hand faltered, but after a moment he resumed stirring his tea, and looked up at his messenger.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked quietly.

  Lim was honest. After all, none of it was his fault.

  ‘They couldn’t find it.’

  He glanced nervously at the empty chair.

  The old man frowned. ‘And the money?’

  Lim took his time. Chose his words carefully.

  ‘They can’t be sure where it is,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t in the case.’

  Ta Penh said nothing, so Lim pushed on with the worst of it.

  ‘There is something else,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t on her own.’

  Ta Penh took a sip of tea, suppressing his anger.

  ‘She should have been on her own,’ he said.

  Lim swallowed. After a moment, he half nodded and half bowed his head in contrition.

  ‘Who was with her?’ Ta Penh asked eventually.

  Lim took a breath. He had not been looking forward to this part.

  ‘A man,’ he said slowly. ‘A tourist. They walked through the airport together. She took the bus to Kep, and he hired a dirt bike for himself. Chhan followed the man on the bike, because they already knew where the bus was going.’

  As he spoke, he could see the anger building in Ta Penh.

  ‘Chhan left the girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ta Penh’s brow hooded his dark eyes, and for a moment he looked more frightening than ever. He looked like a devil. Lim reminded himself that he was just the messenger. His job was simple: tell the truth, no matter how difficult. If he did that, he would stay in Ta Penh’s favor. If he stayed in Ta Penh’s favor, no harm would come to him.

  ‘The tourist drove to Kep and hired a place on the beachfront,’ Lim continued. ‘The girl rented a place in town.’

  Ta Penh spoke quietly: ‘They checked her hotel?’

  ‘They are doing it now.’

  The old man put his finger to his lips, thinking. After a minute, he drained his teacup and stood up. Lim did the same. The old man moved to the window and stared out into the blackness. During the day the view stretched across the clearing, and Ta Penh had become accustomed to staring out into the valley when he was thinking. But tonight the window was black and his face reflected back into the room. Lim watched his features for a sign of his mood.

  ‘Call New York,’ the old man said, eventually. ‘Make sure they loaded the case onto the plane.’

  Lim nodded and stood up from his seat.

  ‘I will call New York tonight,’ he said.

  He bowed to Ta Penh and bowed to the empty chair too. Then he turned and started for the door. He was almost there when the old man called him back.

  ‘Don’t forget Chhan,’ he said. ‘He must learn from losing the girl.’

  He pulled a worn black pouch from inside his clothes and held it out. It was well used and frayed at the edges. Lim took it nervously, folding it with care and tucking it into his pocket.

  ‘Take an eye,’ Ta Penh said. ‘It will remind him to use the other one more keenly in the future.’

  2

  Charlie Lockhart was enjoying an ice cold beer in the fierce afternoon sun. He was sitting on an ancient lounger outside a beach bar in Kep. He watched the tourists ebb and flow across the sand, blown in by the wind and blown out just as quickly. They were an endless stream of backpackers and thrill seekers, all of them slowed down by the thick soup of humid air. They were young and wide-eyed and a long way from home. Most of them were in their twenties; gap year students swimming in the unreality of the Far East and trying hard to fall off Cambodia’s beaten path. Lockhart was different. He was a little older than the gap year students, and a little more comfortable in his skin. He watched them for a while, wondered where they came from, occasionally supping his beer. It tasted good. Beyond the sand was the clear blue Gulf of Thailand. He watched it all the way to the horizon where it smudged into a cloudless sky. It was March, and the monsoons were coming. But not yet. Not today.

  The beach bar was little more than a grass roof set on thick bamboo struts. It was nestled into the lush green vegetation on the battle line where the land met the sea. An assortment of weather-beaten chairs and loungers spilled out of the place so that half were in the sun and half were in the shade. Lockhart looked over to the girl lounging on a recliner next to him, trying to look relaxed. Beyond her, a sandblasted black board declared that it was happy hour. Lockhart had the feeling that it was always happy hour. At least, in the three days he’d been on the beach, the sign had never moved. It was forty degrees and too hot to be dragging things through the sand. What the hell. The drinks were cold and cheap. Everything was good.

  The girl in the recliner sighed and shifted.

  ‘Charlie?’ she breathed. ‘Shall we stay here forever?’

  He looked at her. She was fresh from the sea, her skin all the colors of a fall day, and a white two-piece swim suit clinging to her curves. He thought about the question. But not for too long.

  ‘I will head along the coast tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘All good things, and all of that.’

  She rolled over and looked at him.

  ‘Shame,’ she said. ‘You’re good company.’

  She struck Lockhart as good company too. But Lockhart didn’t have the luxury of staying anywhere forever. Not since the Mykola Evanko died. Evanko was a disgruntled civil servant with a story of corruption that went right to the heart of Ukraine’s government. He was paranoid as hell about what he had uncovered and lived his life like a character from a Le Carré novel. Lockhart had been working on the Times in London when Evanko had first got in touch. They met for furtive conversations in remote and unfashionable tearooms, Evanko always twitchy and secretive convinced his government would catch up with him. His story checked out. Lockhart had stood the whole story up, and the Times was twelve hours from going to press on it when Evanko was killed.

  Lockhart was still in the newsroom when MI5 had arrived with the news. It had been a professional hit by a bunch of guys who were already on the security services’ watch lis
t. The type who didn’t mess about. Evanko’s death has been grim and according to the MI5 agent, there was every reason to presume Lockhart would be targeted next.

  ‘We can offer you a new identity,’ the agent had told him. ‘But these guys are ruthless. They might go for your friends or family. And realistically, where do we draw the line? We can’t protect them all.’

  But Lockhart could protect them. He could draw the danger away. So he disappeared that night, slipping out of the country without ever going home. He traveled through France and Spain and crossed the Mediterranean into North Africa, leaving just enough breadcrumbs for the Ukrainians to follow. He’d been on the road ever since, and now here he was in the middle of nowhere.

  ‘Wind’s in the East,’ he told the girl in the recliner. ‘It’s time for me to move on.’

  ‘You’re Mary Poppins now?’

  Lockhart smiled and stood up.

  ‘Spit spot.’

  He looked out across the beach and sighed. What choice was there, apart from moving on? Moving was safe. It made him a needle in a haystack, lost in time and safe from harm. He stayed nowhere too long. Never planned ahead. Never left a forwarding address. And yet even now, in the warm sunshine and the scented breeze, he couldn’t quite relax. There was a guy on the next who wasn’t drinking. He wasn’t eating either. He looked like a local, but locals have jobs. They don’t spend all day sitting in beach bars. So who was he? And why was he sitting so close?

  ‘What time is it anyway?’ the girl asked lazily.

  Lockhart pulled his gaze back to her and smiled.

  ‘When did the time start to matter?’ he asked. ‘Do you have somewhere to be?’

  She smiled at him, and the sun seemed to shine a little brighter. Her name was Kate Braganza. Lockhart had met her two days earlier on a redeye from JFK. He had joined the flight at Frankfurt and chance had ticketed them next to one another. They had struck up a conversation somewhere before Singapore. She had an easy smile and a soft voice. As they traveled, she had told him the story of her life. Lockhart had listened to it all. He was good at that. She was studying in New York City. Working long hours in a bar to make ends meet. She had a sister who was traveling through Asia and Europe, and they were planning to meet up in Cambodia. Those were the headlines. She had a child, although that part of the story she had kept to herself. She had stretched up for her luggage when they stopped over in Singapore, and Lockhart had spotted a linea nigra running down her stomach like mascara in the rain. She’s been pregnant at some point. She had a kid, somewhere. For a long time, it had been Lockhart’s job to notice things like that. Five years working as a reporter on the Times had taught him well. Still, the child was a chapter of her life that she didn’t talk about. He figured she had no obligation to tell him anything, so he kept what he knew to himself.