by Medina, KT
‘Yes, that’s what Johnny told me.’
‘And Huan was where?’
‘Johnny just said he hadn’t turned up.’
MacSween looked questioningly at Jakkleson.
‘I’ll find out,’ Jakkleson said.
MacSween nodded. ‘Huan. He’s been with us for a while.’ He wrote something down on a pad of yellow paper, already covered in his notes.
‘Where was the mine Johnny stood on?’ he asked, looking up. ‘Did he miss the marker somehow and walk too far down the lane into ground that hadn’t yet been cleared?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘It’s important. Take your time. Think about it.’
Tess dropped her gaze, trying to picture the field in the seconds leading up to the detonation. Mine tape. Johnny, confident, cocky even. The quiet bang that was the mine exploding. The tide of panic. Clearers running. Mud. Heat. Blood. The screaming. The taste of fear like tinfoil in her mouth.
What else?
Where was the metre length of wood – painted red and white – that Huan would have laid across his lane to indicate how far he had cleared?
‘The marker—’
‘Was where?’ MacSween prompted.
The grip of a hand on her arm. Men huddled shock-faced around the Land Cruisers. Her combat boots dragging at the muscles of her legs. The leaves of the tree casting flickering shadows over Johnny’s face. The splintered bones of his leg visible through rags of flesh—
‘What else?’
She shook her head.
‘Oh, come on.’ Openly scornful now.
‘Jakkleson.’ A warning tone from MacSween.
She met his gaze. Then she sensed someone else. She glanced behind her and saw Alex leaning against the filing cabinet by the door. He was wearing the same clothes she’d seen him in at the hospital yesterday and he looked wrecked.
She turned back to MacSween. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see it. But I didn’t pass it.’
‘The marker?’ he asked.
‘Yes, the marker. I didn’t pass it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I was looking down as I was running. I definitely didn’t pass it.’
‘A hundred per cent sure?’
Tess nodded. ‘A hundred per cent.’
MacSween leaned back in his chair. ‘So if you’re sure you didn’t pass the marker, either someone had moved it, which is unlikely, or the mine Johnny stood on was in ground that had already been cleared. So maybe Huan missed a mine.’ He steepled his fingers. ‘And if he had only cleared just beyond it, he wouldn’t have walked over it, wouldn’t have had a chance to set it off himself. There are quite a few minimum-metal plastic anti-personnel mines out here that are fucking hard to detect.’ He sat back and sighed. ‘That’s one theory at least – a sensible one. Anything else?’
‘No,’ she said, then paused. ‘Yes, one thing.’
MacSween tilted forward, laying his hands flat on the desktop. ‘What?’
‘The helicopter. It didn’t come. We radioed it from the field but it didn’t turn up. We radioed again but there was no answer. So Johnny had to be taken to hospital by road. Our first-aiders bandaged his wounds as best they could in the field, but it’s still a miracle he didn’t bleed to death during the journey with the extent of his injuries.’
MacSween turned to the window again. ‘Jakkleson?’
Jakkleson shrugged.
‘Check it out. I know we don’t own the bloody thing, but we pay those fucking fly boys enough to be there when we need them.’
Jakkleson nodded. MacSween turned back to Tess. ‘That it?’
‘Yes,’ she said with a nod.
‘Sure?’
‘Yes,’ she repeated, holding his gaze across the desktop. ‘I’m sure. There’s nothing else.’
Except Luke.
MacSween sat back. ‘OK. Well, I’ll need to talk to Huan, but a missed mine sounds the most probable scenario. And if that’s the case, then Johnny’s accident was just that – terrible and totally avoidable, but an accident all the same.’ He looked towards the door. ‘What do you think, Alex?’
Alex pulled at one of his shirtsleeves as if the material was chafing his skin, and gave a half-shrug. ‘Makes sense.’
‘Jakkleson?’
‘It sounds like a sensible conclusion.’ There was an edge to his voice. ‘But—’
‘But what?’
‘But you know what Johnny’s like.’
Tess caught the warning look that MacSween shot him.
‘Oh, come on, MacSween.’
‘Jakkleson.’
‘He’s a maverick. You know what he’s like.’
‘Jakkleson, enough.’
Pushing himself away from the window, Jakkleson stepped forward, his face tight with anger. ‘You know that Johnny’s a complete bloody liability, MacSween, so why the hell are you—’
‘Goddammit, Jakkleson.’ MacSween exploded from his seat. ‘I said enough. I will not have that kind of talk.’
They faced each other across the desk, the air in the small room crackling with animosity. Finally, Jakkleson turned away, his shoulders rigid. He made his way back to the window and stood, staring out, arms folded tight across his chest. MacSween slammed both hands down on his blotter, then, as if he had short-circuited, he slumped, silent and glazed, into his chair. It was some time before he spoke again.
‘This is a bloody tough country to work in. It’s corrupt. It’s dangerous. There are a hell of a lot of people out there –’ he gestured irritably towards the window – ‘with their own agendas. Cambodian military and government who would seize any opportunity to cause trouble for NGOs like MCT if it meant more money to line their own damn pockets. Donors who’d run a mile if they got a whiff of anything they didn’t like. We’re in the middle of it, trying to keep everyone happy and trying to make some kind of a difference for the poor bastards who have to live in this country. This whole Johnny issue could be a complete nightmare for us.’ He sighed, a man on the edge of his patience. ‘It sounds harsh, but I have to protect the operation because we’re making a real difference out here. And I know it’s what Johnny would want. If we start using words like maverick, we open ourselves up for every dickhead to take a pot shot at us. Does everyone understand that?’
He looked from one face to the next. When he met Tess’s eyes, she looked back evenly and nodded.
‘Good, right. I’m glad we’ve got that straight.’ He sat back. ‘I’m going to suspend clearing for a couple of days until everyone calms down. We need to protect our Khmer mine clearers – keep them sensible – so I’m going to move Johnny’s troop from that part of the field.’ Hefting himself to his feet, he turned to look at a map of Battambang Province tacked to the wall behind him. The minefields were marked on it in red, so many that the map looked diseased – Koh Kroneg the largest by far. He traced his finger side to side before planting it. ‘Here, they can join Alex’s troop at Sung Pir village on the eastern edge. Their case is urgent and there’s a lot to clear. A kid lost his foot in the grounds of the school last week. The village is at the bottom of a steep valley, which has been deforested. There’s a logging operation up there. Illegal, of course, like most of them are. I reckon some of the mines are moving into the village with the floodwater. We’re at the tail end of the rainy season now, so the ground is already sodden. The forecast’s for more rain, which is going to make things even more fucked up than they already are. Tess, I’m going to ask you to take over Johnny’s troop, for the moment at least.’ He twisted back to face them. ‘That OK with you?’
She nodded.
‘Good. As I said, I’ve given the Khmer lads a couple of days off to get their heads back in order, so I want you lot to take time off too. Go home. Take a day off.’ He glanced at Tess and rolled his eyes. ‘One day on, one day off.’ His gaze found Alex. ‘Get some bloody sleep. And we’ll start again the day after tomorrow. Now get out of here. Go.’ He swivelled to face the window. ‘A
nd Jakkleson—’
‘Yes?’
‘Cut the divisive crap.’
*
Tess stood leaning against the windowsill on the landing and watched Alex climb into one of the Land Cruisers below and drive off. A minute or two later, as she pulled open the front door, MacSween caught up with her. He seemed to have shrunk a couple of inches and aged a couple of years in the time it took to reach the bottom of the stairs.
‘I’m going to the hospital to catch up with Dr Ung, see how Johnny is. Want to come along for the ride?’
She turned to face him, her hand on the doorjamb. ‘I’ve already ticked the hospital off my list of places of interest to visit in Battambang.’
MacSween met her gaze with a weary smile.
‘I’m only going to stay for a few minutes and then you get to sink yourself into a bottle of gin, or whatever you’re planning to do for the rest of the day. There’s a kid, Ret S’Mai, who works there helping out Dr Ung with odd jobs. I have a little gift to give him. I’m sure he’d like to meet you, and it would be interesting for you to meet him too. He’s a bit of local colour, if I can put it that way. He’s a good kid who’s had a bad run of luck.’
What she really wanted to do was to go back to Madam Chou’s, lock the door and sleep for a year, then sit and think for the next two, but time spent with MacSween meant time to talk about MCT.
‘So you’re using me as some sort of consolation prize?’
‘They don’t get to see many Western women out here.’
‘He’ll have posters of Cameron Diaz and Emily Blunt stuck on his wall. Don’t you think he’ll be a tiny bit disappointed when I turn up? All dolled up and not a hair out of place. I’m afraid that I forgot to pack the red one-piece, or the blond wig for that matter.’
‘A bird in the hand, as they say.’
‘Is worth two stuck on the wall. I hope that’s not supposed to be a compliment.’
With a wry smile, MacSween held out an arm and guided her down the drive to his Land Cruiser.
‘Local colour?’ she murmured, as he opened the door for her.
‘Aye. You’ll see.’
*
He found first gear and hauled the Land Cruiser out of the drive. Scenery flowed backwards past the open windows: huge, crumbling colonial houses to their right, many of them bases for other NGOs; flashes of sunlight on the river to their left through the bushes and trees shading its bank; a pack of skinny dogs fighting for scraps in a stinking mountain of rubbish; two children leading a grey cow down the side of the potholed road, all angles and dirty stretched skin. It was 10 a.m. It was hot. The Land Cruiser was a rusting hulk, like all the others MCT owned. Tess’s back was slippery with sweat before they’d even reached the end of the street, and she didn’t need to ask to know that the air conditioning was broken.
She tuned into what MacSween was saying: ‘This province is known as the rice bowl of Cambodia. It’s all small villages, paddy fields and farmland, incredibly fertile. There’s few tourists who bother to come up this way though, so you’ll get to see the proper, unspoilt Cambodia. Problem is it’s also mined up the yin-yangs.’ He took a hand from the wheel to mop at his forehead with a handkerchief. ‘As far as I see it, lass, the land-mine problem is by far the biggest problem Cambodia’s got. It drives everything else. Your typical Khmer doesn’t have enough to eat because the land mines stop them working their fields. And there’s no social security or any of that nonsense. No opportunity to sit around watching Coronation Street and drinking Special Brew while some other bugger pays for you and your kids. Out here, they either find a way to feed themselves and their family or they starve. Eighty thousand kiddies a year dead from fucking malnutrition and sicknesses. That’s the ones who aren’t being exploited.’ He turned to glance at her. ‘And the Western world – the moneyed world – sees land mines as just another trendy cause. We were top of the tree fifteen years ago when Princess Di was around, but now we’ve been shoved out by one-legged lesbians or whatever the fuck the donating public is into this week. And we can’t do shit without money.’
He braked suddenly, cursing, as a moped with an unfeasible number of squawking, flapping chickens tied by their ankles to its pannier swerved wildly into their path.
‘What do you mean they get exploited? Who exploits?’ she asked, when they were back on the road, the moped cackling and wobbling into the distance behind them.
‘Other Khmers: corrupt military, police, government officials. Sexual tourists and paedophiles from the West.’ He nodded at the maze of streets beyond the window. ‘Cambodia is full of the fuckers. International corporations who see things like the logging potential here and realise they can strip the forests for a pittance because the Khmers in power are so corrupt. Foreign governments and NGOs who think they know what’s best for countries like this, but who often have their own agendas, or simply don’t have a damn clue. When a country is in this much of a mess, everyone wants a piece—’ He broke off to brake, controlled this time, and slowed almost to a crawl as he changed down and swung left on to the narrow concrete bridge crossing the Sanger. Crammed together on its southern bank, like cardboard boxes on a landfill site, was a shanty town of bamboo huts, many on stilts over the water. The edge of the river was clogged with rubbish, and a couple of streams of dark brown filth wound their way from the huts to the water – the river where they met ballooning, thick and coffee-coloured. A little girl was squatting naked, relieving herself by the water’s edge, oblivious to Tess’s gaze.
On the other side of the Sanger was the main part of the town, still touched by faded grandeur: more ornate two- and three-storey buildings, their facades crumbling; potholed boulevards streaming with mopeds and bicycles, a few cars trying to force their way through; the huge, low building housing the marketplace, churning and chaotic, bustling with people, animals, colour and noise. The smell of sewage mixed with spices, incense and tobacco, wood smoke from cooking fires, the charry stench of fumes from countless exhausts.
‘And your Khmers in the street,’ MacSween continued, ‘from the old to the very young, kiddies, bairns for Christ’s sake, have to put up with exploitation and abuse.’ He lifted a hand to express their helplessness, then slammed his palm back on the wheel with a force that made Tess jump. ‘So that’s what we’re trying to do, lass. Eliminate the land-mine problem, change their fate.’ He glanced across. ‘And you need to keep that in mind, or you might start wondering whether the hell it’s all worth it. Because none of this is easy.’
8
Five minutes after MacSween’s Land Cruiser had disappeared down the road and out of sight, Jakkleson stepped on to the landing. Laying his feet heel to toe, so as not to make a sound, he moved over to the banister and stood for a moment, listening. MCT House should be empty, he knew, but for what he was about to do he had to be certain. He stood motionless for a few moments, his ears straining to pick up even the tiniest sound. And when he was satisfied there was none, he retraced his steps and pulled the door shut.
Moving over to the window, he cast one last look around the garden: deserted. His hands were trembling slightly as he drew the shutters across the window, blocking out the sun and the limp still forms of the trees sweltering in the heat. Then, in semi-darkness, he made his way across the room to the filing cabinet. Ignoring his beautiful blonde wife and his two perfect daughters smiling out from their silver frame on its top, he withdrew the cabinet key from his pocket and slid it into the lock.
Passing over the top three drawers, he bent straight to the bottom one. Pulling it out as far as its runners would allow, he hooked his hands underneath it and, with a combination of lifting and wiggling, managed to free it from its track. Breathing a little more heavily now, he lifted it clear and laid it on the floor to his side. Then he reached back and scooped up the file that lay flush with the bottom of the filing cabinet.
Still crouching, he flicked quickly through it, just to make sure that its contents were complete. He gave a bri
ef, satisfied nod. It was all here. Nothing disturbed, nothing missing.
Moving back to the desk, he dug in his pocket for a lighter. The blue flame leapt to meet the bottom of the sheaf of papers. He held his hand steady as the papers blackened, the flame unnaturally bright in the half-light as it caught and raced up the edge. Dropping the burning papers into the metal bin at his feet, he stood and watched until he was absolutely sure they were nothing more than ash. Then he returned to the filing cabinet, carefully slotted the bottom drawer back into place and locked it again.
9
The hospital grounds were silent apart from the buzz of insects cutting intermittently through the hot air and the sound of the Land Cruiser’s engine groaning as it cooled. MacSween opened the boot and took out a framed sheet of parchment-style A4 paper: gold letters scrolling across the page, the Mine Clearance Trust logo, navy blue and white, embossed at the top, a name written in fountain pen across the centre of the page. He locked the Land Cruiser and together he and Tess started across the courtyard towards the common-room building.
‘Is that the gift?’ she asked, as they walked.
‘Aye. It’s a certificate, a mock certificate, if I’m being accurate, for graduating from MCT mine-clearance training.’
‘Why are you giving him a mock certificate? Did you fire him and feel guilty?’
MacSween rolled his eyes. ‘Such a poor impression of me already. I got him a certificate because he was desperate to become a mine clearer and couldn’t. Him and his dad. They were both halfway through training with us.’
‘Why didn’t they finish?’
‘Ret S’Mai and his father were on a moped which was involved in an accident. Dad was killed. Ret S’Mai’s hands got caught in the back wheel while it was still spinning.’ He raised a hand and made a slicing movement with the other across the base of his fingers. ‘His fingers were torn off – all of them on one hand, three on the other.’
