by Lee Stone
‘I’ll have the car ready,’ he said. ‘I can at least do that.’
Lockhart thanked Fischer before ghosting across the road and inside the main gate. He found the guard lying on the floor, slumped behind his wooden counter. He was coughing blood and chewing at the air for breath. The two rounds Ta Penh had fired into him had ruined his chest, but he was not quite dead. When he saw Lockhart, he reached out. Lockhart took the guard’s calloused hand and sank down into the shadows with him. He only lasted a minute longer. Neither of them spoke, but Lockhart stayed with him for those final moments until his grip slackened and his hand fell to the floor. Lockhart reached over to him and thumbed his eyes shut and was about to push on into the prison building when he saw the guard’s keys glinting in the moonlight.
He took them for himself and then slipped across the courtyard and into the building. The main corridor was deserted, and Lockhart’s swift footsteps echoed off the uneven tiles that covered the floor. He pushed deeper into the jail, moving through rough hewn gaps in the concrete walls. The wooden jambs had long since been pried from the doorways so that the place had a derelict feel, but the dim bulbs glowing above his head as he walked told him otherwise.
The rough concrete walls gave way to water stained plasterboard, and eventually Lockhart reached a doorway with its wooden frame still intact. The door itself was hanging from its hinges, and it creaked as he pushed through and into the room beyond. The room was a gymnasium, with basketball hoops still hanging from the walls at either end. Tramlines still marked the court’s dimensions on the floor, but in the middle of the room was fresh brickwork. A small compound of eight cells had been ineptly constructed directly onto the court. They were tiny. Not enough room for a man to lie down in, unless he was curled up like a dog. Lime mortar spilled from between the bricks. None of the walls were level or true. There were eight pens, four on each side. Iron gates stood in the openings of each one. The four that he could see hung open slightly, but as he moved across the room, he saw that one gate on the opposite side was locked shut.
He stepped onto the court, closer to the compound. The dim bulb hanging above the pens cast more shadow than light, and it was not until he was touching the bars that he could make out the emaciated figure chained to the back wall in the dark. It was a man, probably in his fifties, although it was difficult for Lockhart to be sure. He looked like he’d been dead for a while. Lockhart pushed on across the court and into another long corridor with the same flagstone floor as the last. At the end of the corridor was a rough-cut doorway like the others, but this one was barred. To the side of it was a desk. And behind the desk was a guard, slumped forward, sleeping on the job. Except that as Lockhart got closer, he could see the guard was too still to be sleeping and thick dark blood coated the top of the wooden desk, pooling on the stone floor beneath.
The guard’s prison-issue baton was resting on his desk, his white knuckles still gripping it hard. Lockhart prized it from him and took it for himself. The guard’s keys were missing, and behind him the gate was already open. Stale air leaked from the doorway: a smell of human sweat and blocked sewers. From some way off, Lockhart could hear a hum of humanity as he neared the heart of the prison. Beyond the gate, a much shorter corridor. The tiles on the floor were red and cream, and dirty yellow walls. Thunder rolled outside as the monsoon rains began to pour, and lightning cracked through high windows, bleaching the scene like paparazzi flashbulbs. Lockhart cast an eerie shadow on the time-stained plaster, and then lightning abated and the shadow was gone, and he hurried on into the gloom.
At the end of the corridor was a thick wooden wall, constructed from hardwood offcuts so it looked like a barricade. The panels were different sizes and colors, and Lockhart imagined some of them had once been dining tables or bank clerks’ desks. The voices had become more distinct now, and when he looked through the slatted window in the heavy door, he could see where the noise was coming from. There were two square cages inside the room, each about ten meters wide. There was a door in the front of each cage, and an adjoining door linked them together. A sign in Khmer above the left-hand door denoted that the cell was for men. Sixty prisoners were crammed inside. Some of them were young and fit; others were older and looked unwell. All of them were beaten and bruised. And all of them were watching with interest at what was happening in the adjacent cell.
There was only one prisoner in the women’s cage. From behind the barricade, Lockhart could see Kate Braganza standing beneath the dim bulb. She looked scared. Her white cotton shirt was torn and dusty, and she had cuts and bruises on her arms. But something of that resilient New Yorker spirit remained. Lockhart could see it, even from behind the door. She stood braced with her legs slightly apart and her chin held high; ready to take whatever Kampot Prison would throw at her next. Not broken. Not yet. Considering the circumstances, Lockhart was glad to see her alive.
But she was not alone. Ta Penh had her hair in his fist and was struggling to tie her with his free hand. For an old man he was lithe and determined, like a spider working his catch. In the center of the cage was half an oil barrel. A dirty green hose ran from a single tap in the wall and Lockhart could hear water running as it filled. If the Khmer Rouge had not invented waterboarding, they had sure as hell perfected it. Ta Penh moved on to tying Kate’s ankles. Why wasn’t she resisting? There was a lightness to his movement. An enjoyment in his work. Work that Lockhart would not stand and watch.
He pushed through the heavy wooden door and into the main jailhouse. The stench of human waste hit him as soon as he was inside. He ignored it and moved swiftly towards Kate’s cell. Ta Penh had closed the cell door behind him, and Lockhart smashed the guard’s baton against the bars in frustration. Ta Penh looked up from his work, surprised. He stared at Lockhart for a moment, and then something registered in his eyes.
‘The man from the airport,’ he said. ‘You’re the man from the airport. Good. Now you will tell me what you know, too.’
Then he called out in Khmer, and Lockhart heard movement behind him. Too late, he realized that the slatted window in the wooden barricade had given him a view of the room. But not all the room. There were blind spots, and in the corners that Lockhart couldn’t see, the two men who had pushed through the front gate with the old man were waiting. They came towards him, the closest of them stretching out a pistol as he approached. Lockhart swung out at it with the dead guard’s baton, striking the man on his arm. The baton connected with bone, and the man’s fingers sprang open on impulse. He cried out in pain, and the gun fell from his hand and discharged as it landed on the floor. Some prisoners turned away from Kate’s cell and began watching this new excitement instead. Lockhart seized the initiative and swung the baton again. This time he hit the guy’s knee, and he crumpled. He fell forward onto Lockhart and grappled with him as he fell. Lockhart felt a hot crack of pain as his bruised ribs stretched and pulled again.
By the time Lockhart was back on his feet, the guy was scrabbling across the floor for his gun, and Lockhart swung the baton again. This time, the man hit the floor hard and stayed down. Ta Penh had been watching on, amused. He rasped something through the bars, and the second man, who had been standing back from the action, raised his gun. He hadn’t been able to get a clear shot at the tourist with his colleague in the way, but now he had Lockhart in his sights. He walked slowly across the concrete floor towards him, but kept out of range of the baton.
‘Throw it down,’ Ta Penh said. Lockhart dropped the baton, and it clattered on the hard floor. There was a murmuring among the prisoners. The man with the gun stooped and picked it up before swinging it hard at Lockhart. He sank to his knees, wondering how far he was from the other man’s discarded weapon. He was sure that he couldn’t kill a man in cold blood, but Ta Penh didn’t know that, and neither did the man who had just bludgeoned him with the baton. If he could reach the gun, he’d at least buy himself a bluff. He moved slowly backwards, skimming the floor with his feet, ready to duck and scoo
p up the gun if he felt it. But he felt nothing.
‘Raise your hands,’ Ta Penh said, and the man with the gun moved closer. ‘You have arrived just in time.’
The buoyancy vanished from his voice and his eyes darkened. He instructed the gunman in Khmer and turned back to his work. Lockhart felt the gun against the nape of his neck; cold steel and hopelessness. The gunman pushed him forward until he was pressed against the bars of the cage, looking in at Kate Braganza and the old man. Ta Penh had threaded a rope from between her ankles and was throwing it upwards. Lockhart’s eyes followed the flight of the rope. A rusting meat hook was embedded in the concrete ceiling above them. A relic of old times. Times the old man knew well. At the second attempt, he lassoed the rope over the hook and pulled on the free end.
When it was taut, he looked at Kate and said: ‘Down.’
When she didn’t react, he shoved her roughly, and she fell to the floor. With her hands tied behind her back, she hit the concrete hard. Lockhart pushed against the bars, but he felt the cold steel push harder into his neck, pinning him in place. Inside the cage, Ta Penh pulled hard on the rope, and Kate’s ankles started to rise from the floor. She bucked and twisted like a landed fish. The movement twisted her onto her back and her shoulders started to pull along the floor. Lockhart struggled to get free, but the gunman slammed his head hard against the bars. He couldn’t watch. His last home was that Fischer might have changed his mind, and that he might storm in and shake things up. He had been a soldier, after all. But even as he thought it, Lockhart knew it wouldn’t happen. Fischer was old and drink had dulled his ambition and ability. Besides, the truth was he had read so many stories about Ta Penh’s work that he had become scared of him. Lockhart had seen it in his eyes when they were reading through the case files back in his ramshackle office. So he was on his own. Nobody else was coming.
Inside the cage, the water from the green hose had reached the top of the barrel and was spilling out over the rough concrete, and sloping off into a drain in the middle of the room. Ta Penh pulled at the rope again, and Kate lifted further into the air. Only her shoulders and head remained in contact with the floor. She tried to fight it, rolling and thrashing until her hair became wet from the stream of overflowing water. Ta Penh pulled again, and the rope went taut; but time had caught up with the old man. Years in the jungle and the onset of age might not have dulled his reputation, but it had sapped his strength.
Lockhart watched the old man’s sinewy forearms shaking with effort, but he did not have the power to pull Kate’s trussed body up into the air. He let go of the rope, and Kate slumped back to the floor like a rag doll. As he turned back towards the bars, Lockhart glimpsed something he had not expected to see in Ta Penh’s eyes: surprise. He had expected to haul Kate up to the ceiling, but his body had failed him. Lockhart wondered how long it had been since Ta Penh had lifted someone’s weight. Long enough for his muscles to grow old. So why was he doing his own dirty work tonight? What was so important about Kate Braganza that the old recluse had come out of hiding?
Ta Penh looked past Lockhart and barked an instruction to the man behind him. Lockhart felt the cold steel move into the small of his back and a rough hand land on his shoulder. Ta Penh could not lift Kate’s body without help from the gunman, so he had told the gunman to throw him into the cage with the other men. The gunman opened the iron door and shouldered Lockhart hard into the cage. Lockhart landed on the floor, and as he did, he felt something sharp dug into his thigh. The guard’s keys were still in his pocket. He stood up and moved to the wall of bars that separated the two cages.
‘Tell me what you know,’ Ta Penh said as the gunman pulled at the rope. ‘Then I won’t have to do this to you later.’
He smiled an unctuous, remorseless smile. It was possible that he was one of those people who could detach themselves from violence and from human suffering. One of those people who saw torture purely as a means to an end. But Lockhart didn’t think so. He saw excitement in the old man’s dark eyes. Excitement and enjoyment.
Lockhart said nothing. He moved slowly along the row of iron bars until he reached the adjoining door between the two cells. Ta Penh grabbed Kate’s hair and slowly guided her head towards the oil barrel, and the gunman let out the rope. She bucked at twisted on the end of the rope, but this was a method of torture created over centuries, and refined at the cost of thousands of lives. She could only resist for so long, and slowly her head disappeared into the barrel. Displaced water sloshed over the sides and onto the concrete floor. The gunman kept lowering the rope until her shoulders were submerged too.
Lockhart glanced down at the size of the lock hewn into the metal cell door. It was small and modern. A Yale lock. Inside his pocket he began flicking through the keys, feeling for one that would fit. Kate thrashed around for ten seconds before Ta Penh gave the signal and the gunman pulled on the rope. When she emerged from the water, her hair was cloying over her face and she shook her head to get the water out of it. She coughed and scraped in breath, mucus and bile pouring from her mouth and nose. Ta Penh looked at her and smiled. Didn’t bother with a question. Nodded to the gunman. As the rope started to descend again, she screamed. The gunman dropped her into the water while the breath was still coming out of her. She thrashed hard again, contracting her stomach muscles in an attempt to pull her face from the barrel. The gunman lowered her further.
She would not last so long this time, Lockhart knew. His fingers worked fast, eventually closing on a small, sharp key. It was the only one. It was the right one. But what to do with it? There were two of them, and only one of him. They had a gun, and he did not. And Kate. Kate was dangling by a thread. He looked up. Ta Penh was watching him, smiling at him. Enjoying his pain. He was completely in control, his aging body completely forgotten now he was happily at work. Ta Penh, who had always been in control. Who always won. Who always escaped. Ta Penh, feared and hated. And hated, Lockhart thought, seizing on an idea.
He turned to the other men in his cage and pointed through the bars.
‘Ta Penh,’ he said.
The cage went quiet.
Lockhart nodded, watching their reaction. Fear, for sure. Some of them backed away. But there was anger too. Not in all of them, but in enough. And Lockhart had reported from enough riots to know that eventually, the mob always moves towards anger.
‘Ta Penh,' he said again, pointing at the old man.
It was easy for the men locked up in the prison to imagine the old man as a Khmer commander as he directed the waterboarding. None of the prisoners would be Khmer Rouge supporters, Lockhart figured. The lawyer files had shown that Ta Penh’s supporters rarely ended up behind bars. The men in the cage would most probably have lost land, careers, and family to the regime. And according the Fischer, everyone knew that it was Ta Penh who had run the show. In the next cell, Kate had stopped struggling on the end of the rope and Ta Penh nodded to the gunman to haul her up.
‘Ta Penh,’ one prisoner growled, and stepped forward towards the bars.
Then another.
Then another.
Their anger grew to a boil, and they drew themselves up against the bars, clawing towards the old man. Ta Penh smiled. Being hated was nothing new to him. He said something to the gunman and pointed at one prisoner who was reaching out through the bars. Without hesitating, the gunman looked up and shot him. He fell back from the side of the cage and onto the rough floor. Expendable. A dead prisoner who nobody would mourn. Ta Penh had been happy to shoot him. Happy to shoot the guard. But he had not shot Kate. Or him. Why not? What did Ta Penh think they knew?
Blood began to pulse from the shot prisoner’s torso, and some of his cellmates moved back. Ta Penh’s face remained impassive, right until he realized that Lockhart’s key was turning in the lock.
‘Ta Penh,’ Lockhart said again, and he swung open the prison cell door.
23
Deep in the heart of Kampot Jail, prisoners began pouring through the gate betwee
n the two cages like grains of sand through an hourglass.
‘Ta Penh,’ Lockhart said again, pointing at the old man.
The gunman who had entered the prison with Ta Penh pulled the Kalashnikov from his side and aimed at the sea of flesh coming towards him. The crowd was halfway across the cage when he got his first and only shot away. The bullet thumped into a prisoner, and he dropped like a stone to the ground. But there were forty more, and he couldn’t shoot them all. They kept coming and crashed over him like a wave, piling onto him until he was drowned by a mass of writhing arms.
He let go of the rope in the fracas, and Kate plunged headfirst into the oil barrel in the middle of the room, the rope whipping through the meat hook above her. Lockhart was already halfway towards her, and when he reached her, he lifted her out of the barrel. She had a cut on her forehead where she’d hit the bottom, but the water had cushioned most of the fall. As Lockhart pulled her up for air, she coughed the water from deep in her lungs and pulled the hair from her face. He watched hope kindle in her frightened eyes. Hope, that turned to shining elation.
‘Lockhart,’ she said. ‘Thank Christ.’
‘We’re not out yet,’ Lockhart told her. ‘But it’s good to see you.’
He freed her wrists and got to work on her ankles. As he worked the rope free, he felt it being pulled from him, and turned to see several of the prisoners pulling the other end of the cord tightly around the gunman’s neck. His eyes were already bulging, and his tongue was lolling from his mouth. Apparently, a bullet was too good for him. As soon as Lockhart had Kate free, the prisoners slung the end of the rope back over the meat hook, and four of them began pulling the gunman into the air by his neck. There was a sickening crack before they had hoisted him much more than halfway and the job was done, but they carried on pulling him, regardless. Beneath his limp body, they went to work on Ta Penh, the man who had caused so much misery and pain to them and their families. They had scores to settle, and nothing to lose. And there were no guards watching tonight.
