The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller

by Peter May

  Tuk nodded thoughtfully. ‘And?’ he asked.

  ‘There was no intercourse,’ the doctor said.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  The doctor smiled. ‘Because she is still intact.’

  Tuk was surprised. A virgin! ‘What age would you say she is?’

  The doctor shrugged. ‘Late teens – eighteen, nineteen.’

  ‘You will make your report to the police, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  *

  Lisa opened her eyes and saw nothing but white, a brightness that almost blinded her. She felt as though her head were stuffed with cotton wool, and through it there was a distant sensation of pain. She closed her eyes and opened them again more slowly. This time, form gradually took shape in the light. Something dark passing in long, slow sweeps over her face. She tried to focus. It was a ceiling fan turning lazily in the heat. Now she felt the draught of it. As she tried to lift her head the pain drew closer, but she saw that she was in a large, square room with white walls and slatted wardrobes. Full-length white curtains were drawn on tall windows and a curious scent of spice hung in the air. A big soft bed enfolded her, her head sunk deep in a voluminous pillow. And then she realized that under the sheets she was naked, and she had a momentary, flickering image of Sivara standing over her, a face distorted by lust.

  But full recollection was slow in returning. It came in fragments, pieces of a jigsaw that made no sense. Then, suddenly, the whole picture was clear to her, the full horror returning, and she tried to sit up, panic rising in her like bile. But her body would not respond.

  She heard a door open, but could not raise her head far enough to see who was there. Then a man’s face leaned over her, smiling, kindly, with fine black hair brushed back from his forehead. ‘And how are you now, my dear?’

  ‘Where am I?’ The fear was clear in her voice.

  ‘Now, you mustn’t be afraid.’ He sat lightly on the edge of the bed and carefully brushed the hair from her eyes. ‘You are quite safe. My name is Tuk Than. You were coming to see me, I think. The police found my name and address in your handbag. When they contacted me, of course I insisted they bring you here. Unfortunately your passport and money were gone with your assailant.’

  She looked at him, trembling. ‘Did he – am I . . .?’

  ‘The doctor says you were not violated, my dear. Perhaps he was only after your money. Perhaps he was interrupted. We will only know when they catch him. Now you must rest. The doctor has given you a sedative and we shall see how you are in the morning.’ He rose from the bed. ‘Perhaps, though, you might tell me what a pretty young English lady was doing carrying my name and address around in her handbag.’

  ‘I’m looking for my father.’

  He frowned. ‘Your father?’

  ‘Yes. Jack Elliot. I was told you might know where he is.’

  And a shadow fell across Tuk’s face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  An estimated one hundred and twenty thousand Vietnamese troops are making sweeping advances in the face of crumbling resistance from the Revolutionary Army of Kampuchea. Outnumbered in the region of three to one, almost half the nineteen divisions of Kampuchean troops committed to the border by the Khmer Rouge have been encircled in two massive flanking movements by the Vietnamese – at the Parrot’s Beak in Svay Rieng and the Fishhook in Kampong Cham. Independent sources say that Kampuchean tanks and artillery are being destroyed by superior Vietnamese firepower, and there have been reports that Khmer Rouge cadres are being murdered by their own troops rebelling against what is said to be intolerable repression within the armed forces. A brief silence. This news comes to you in the World Service of the BBC.

  Slattery switched off the shortwave radio and stowed it away in his backpack. He looked grimly at Elliot. ‘Looks like we could be running out of time, chief.’

  They had slipped from one year into the next almost without noticing. But 1979 had not brought them much nearer to their target. From their vantage point high up among the trees they looked down on the main road east from the northern town of Sisophon. Their progress had been much slower than Elliot had allowed for. Tangled subtropical jungle had reduced their advance south to only a few kilometres a night. Almost impenetrable in places, it had forced them to take several detours to find a way through. The previous night they had reached Sisophon and made a wide sweep round the eastern flank to avoid risking a possible encounter with Khmer Rouge patrols. Having reached a point several kilometres south-east of the town, they laid up during the hours of daylight, catching a few hours’ sleep and watching the activity on the road below. Armoured vehicles and trucks full of troops had been heading south-east to Siem Reap all day. The war with Vietnam was not going well, and the Khmer Rouge were having to commit more and more troops to the conflict.

  It was dark now, and Elliot was examining several maps by the light of a pencil torch. McCue was on watch. Elliot acknowledged Slattery’s observation with a solemn nod. ‘We’re going to have to make Siem Reap by tomorrow night at the latest. If they’re moving troops in large numbers they may start to move civilians. I don’t want to get there and find Ang’s people gone.’

  ‘Shit, chief, that must be a good seventy kilometres or more. How are we going to do that?’

  They turned sharply as McCue slipped through the undergrowth to join them from where he had been watching the road. ‘There’s a truck pulled up almost immediately below us. Supply truck with a driver and two armed guards. Looks like they got a puncture.’

  *

  The truck driver glanced at the two guards smoking idly at the roadside and cursed under his breath. They would not condescend to lend him a hand to change the wheel. And he knew that while he had to drive through the night, they would be curled up in the back of the truck sleeping. He manoeuvred the large unwieldy wheel into position, lined up the holes with the bolts, and slipped it into place. Quickly, he screwed each nut as tight as it would go by hand, and then used the brace to finish the job. He lowered the jack and chucked the tools in the back.

  ‘That’s it. We’d better move,’ he told the guards, and climbed up into the cab. The guards threw away their cigarettes.

  From his position, lying flat in the bushes not five metres away, Slattery saw one of them hand the other his automatic and start walking towards him. Jeez, he thought, he can’t have seen me! The other guard swung himself up into the back of the truck where Elliot’s hand closed like a vice across his mouth, and a long blade glinted in the dark before it slipped between his ribs and into his heart.

  Slattery watched the silhouette of the approaching guard until it was less than a foot away. The guard had stopped almost above him and was loosening the cord on his trousers. For a moment Slattery wondered what he was doing, and then truth dawned and he pushed his face down into the earth with sickening anticipation. A warm jet of urine splashed over his head and trickled down his neck. Slattery swore inwardly. Where the fuck was McCue! The jet lessened, became a trickle and stopped. The guard buckled at the knees and fell forward into the bushes, landing beside Slattery, eyes wide and lifeless and staring into his. Slattery looked up and saw McCue grinning down at him.

  ‘Enjoy your shower, buddy?’

  ‘Bastard!’ Slattery hissed. ‘You waited on purpose.’ He shook his head, like a dog shaking off water, and moved quickly out of the bushes. Crouching, the two men ran to the back of the truck and climbed in. Elliot was bent over the prone figure of the other guard, stripping him of his black pyjamas and kramar. He chucked them at McCue.

  ‘Put these on. You could almost pass for one of them in the dark.’

  The driver revved the engine several times and shouted something from the cab. The three men froze and looked at one another. None of them had any Cambodian. Elliot leaned across and banged twice with his fist on the side of the truck. They waited for a tense moment, then th
e driver gunned the engine and the truck jolted into motion.

  Slattery grabbed the chequered scarf from McCue and rubbed his stubbly wet head and neck with it vigorously. He threw it back. ‘Bastard!’ he said again. Elliot looked blankly from one to the other.

  McCue shrugged and slipped on the black pyjama top. ‘He finally got that wash he was after.’

  The truck bumped and rattled over the broken surface of the road, trying to make up for lost time. Elliot prised open two of the crates stacked in the back. He whistled softly.

  ‘Mortars!’ He lifted out one of the lightweight 60mm mortar launchers and examined it. ‘Chinese-made by the look.’ He handed it to McCue. ‘You can carry it.’ And he turned to Slattery. ‘You and I’ll carry a couple of rounds each. We might need the firepower.’

  McCue took out the dead guard’s cigarettes and passed them around, and they all had their first smoke for days. After about an hour, the truck slowed and they went through a small neglected-looking town. Broken-down shops with corrugated-iron roofs. Decaying houses and empty gaps. There were no lights, no signs of life except for a dog that bayed at them as they passed. McCue sat up at the back beside the open canvas flap, in black pyjama top, chequered scarf wrapped loosely around his neck, AK-47 resting across his knees. Elliot and Slattery lay flat on the floor beside the stiffening corpse.

  ‘Alright,’ McCue said, and they sat up again as the town receded into the night.

  ‘What place was that, chief?’

  ‘Must have been Kralanh.’ Elliot squinted at his map in the torchlight. ‘That would put us about halfway to Siem Reap.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s early yet. We could be there by midnight.’

  *

  The driver turned his truck towards the lights in the centre of town, a refuelling stop for the convoy south.

  Siem Reap was his home town, and a deep sadness ran through him at the ghost it had become. He remembered, as a boy, bathing in the palm-shaded river that ran through the town. People had loved to bathe in it then, dipping themselves in the milk chocolate-coloured water to cool themselves in the noontide heat. The rickety waterwheels that had once turned and creaked all day, feeding water into a crazy, wasteful network of bamboo conduits to water the little pocket handkerchief-sized gardens, stood idle now, broken and abandoned. The houses too stood empty, fallen into disrepair, perched on sinking stilts above long-decayed piles of garbage. Once, in a workshop here, Cambodian craftsmen had etched out scenes from the Ramayana on leather murals, squatting on the ground, dressing and marking out the hide with chalk and then punching out the patterns. They had enjoyed the patronage of the King.

  The driver supposed he was lucky to be alive, but all that life held for him now was a handful of memories, like fading snapshots in a family album. A past that could never be recaptured, a future he was afraid to think about. He pulled the truck into the line of vehicles awaiting refuelling, and supposed he ought to try to find a replacement for his spare tyre, or at least attempt to have it repaired. The chances of either were slim, but if he had another puncture on the road he could at least say that he had tried, and perhaps they would not shoot him.

  He switched off the engine and banged on the back of the cab. ‘You can get out and stretch your legs if you want,’ he shouted. ‘We’ll be stopped for a while.’ He jumped down on to the road and breathed in the cool night air of his home town. But even the air did not smell the same anymore. In his memory it had always been laced with the scent of nuoc mam, a pungent fish sauce that smelled foul and tasted wonderful. It was a taste he had not had on his tongue for years.

  No sign of the guards. He banged several times on the side of the truck. ‘Hey, wake up guys!’ When he got round the back he pulled out the pin to drop the loading flap. As it swung down, the naked body of the dead guard tumbled on to the road, and the driver screamed.

  *

  Elliot, Slattery and McCue moved quickly through the forest, eyes scanning the moonlit gloom for the tiniest movement, ears straining to pick up the slightest sound. Each held his automatic ready, for everywhere here there were signs of human activity. Many trees had been felled and there was a criss-cross network of footpaths and cart tracks. Much of the undergrowth had been hacked away, creating access for more tree felling. From time to time they came across piles of cut and stripped trunks awaiting transport. The moonlight splashed down through the thinned-out forest in irregular patches, like liquid silver, but they stuck as far as possible to the shaded areas.

  They had dropped, one by one, from the back of the truck as it neared Siem Reap, and regrouped in the trees. Elliot had used his compass and the stars to fix, as best he could, their position. According to the refugees’ accounts, the commune where Ang Serey and her daughter were being held lay four to five kilometres north-east of Siem Reap, almost within sight of the temples of Angkor Wat. Beyond the trees, in what had once been open savannah, work had begun on digging a new irrigation network to create more paddies for increased rice production. Further to the east, a new dam was being built to feed the irrigation canals, all part of the Khmer Rouge grand plan to turn Cambodia, now Democratic Kampuchea, into an agrarian Stone Age society based on a self-sufficient rice economy.

  They had made steady progress through the woods for nearly an hour when the sound of a vehicle engine stopped them dead in their tracks. It came from somewhere away to their right. At a signal from Elliot they fanned out through the trees, treading cautiously in the direction of the sound. The ground began to fall away, the trees grew more sparse, and they dropped flat as the lights of a truck raked the ground below. A wide open plain stretched ahead in the moonlight, partially flooded and divided into neat rectangles marked out by irrigation ditches under construction. Along the near perimeter ran a winding dirt track, and it was here that the truck bumped and clattered its way over ruts and potholes. Apart from the driver it appeared empty. It passed below within fifty metres.

  When it had gone they moved back up into the trees and continued east, following the line of the road. McCue again took up point, moving silently and carefully through the shadowed areas, stopping every twenty or thirty seconds to check out the lie of the land ahead. After a while the ground started to rise steeply and they followed it upwards.

  Now Elliot saw McCue crouch down suddenly and signal them to stop. Still crouching, he sidled to his left, then waved them forward again, gesturing that they should keep low. They approached with great care to finally draw level and find themselves looking down on a collection of huts, some raised on stilts, around a small compound. Half a dozen oxen stirred restlessly in a pen beside a large hut raised only two or three feet from the ground. A few metres away was a second, smaller hut, raised to the same level. Facing them across the compound, about a dozen long huts stood high on stilts that rose two or three metres above piles of refuse, sturdy bamboo ladders climbing to small open doorways. The roofs were thatched with dry palm fronds. To the far right, looking out over the fields, and with a view of the compound and the approaching road, stood a rickety watchtower. They could see the silhouette of a guard leaning on the rail smoking.

  Elliot checked the layout against the rough map he had drawn based on the refugee accounts Ang had acquired. ‘This is it,’ he whispered. ‘The big hut houses the cadres. There are about half a dozen of them. The one next to it is the guard hut. The civilians are in those long huts across the compound. According to my information there are ten or twelve armed guards at any given time. As well as the one in the watchtower, there are usually another two on perimeter patrol.’

  Slattery whistled softly. ‘That’s a lot of bodies, chief.’

  Elliot said, ‘We have an advantage over them. Their function is to keep people in, not out.’ He checked his watch. Nearly 0200 hours. There was no sign of life from the cadres’ hut, but a thin line of light marked the door of the guard hut, and through the silence came the faint sound of voices. Elliot
turned to McCue. ‘Check out the perimeter, numbers and positions of guards, and report back.’ McCue nodded, took off his backpack, laid it carefully down with the mortar and slipped off through the trees.

  ‘What’s the plan, chief?’

  Elliot was thoughtful for a moment. ‘We can’t afford to get involved in a firefight with ten or more guards. We’d be heavily outnumbered, wouldn’t stand a chance. We’ll have to remove the perimeter guards one at a time and then take out the guard hut in a oner.’

  ‘Mortar?’

  Elliot shook his head. ‘Can’t be sure of a direct hit. And if we miss, we lose the advantage of surprise. It’ll have to be grenades.’

  Slattery grinned. ‘That’s for me, chief. No troubles.’

  Elliot thought for a moment. Then he said, ‘Alright. As soon as you’ve put them out of commission I’ll let off at the cadres’ hut with the mortar. I’ve got four shots at it.’ He smiled. ‘Bound to get it with one of them.’

  They waited nearly fifteen minutes before McCue crept back through the trees. ‘Two guards, plus the one in the tower.’

  ‘Can you take them?’ Elliot asked.

  McCue nodded. ‘The guy in the tower’s going to be tricky. But, yeah, I can take them.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll not move till we see you up there, and you can cover us when we move in.’

  They spent another ten minutes going over it all, twice, in detail, then Elliot checked his watch. ‘Alright, go.’ And McCue slid away into the night, still clad in black pyjamas and chequered scarf.

  The murmur of voices from the guard hut drifted across the compound on the warm night air as McCue slipped through the trees and into the shadow of the civilian huts. He ran softly among the stilts, making his way to the east side of the compound where he had seen one of the guards sitting on a woodpile, his AK-47 laid carelessly among the logs beside him. He was still there, striking a match to light a cigarette, and McCue saw his face flicker briefly in the light. The guard drew deeply on his cigarette and sighed, contemplating without enthusiasm the long hours of night watch ahead. He heard the faintest sound, like a whisper in the wind, and a chill ran through him as the long, lethal blade of McCue’s hunting knife slid into his heart.