WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  ‘I can’t believe how much you’ve got stored here,’ Cole said in wonder. ‘Where do you get it from?’

  Boom smiled at him; a wide, beaming smile which revealed a mouth bereft of half its teeth. He took the gun back from Cole, placing it on a nearby table. ‘I have guy in Cambodia, right? Plenty years of war and terrorists and freedom fighters and all that make for plenty guns, okay? Place full of them. And the guy I buy from, he the best! Guaranteed! He even sells his stuff to the big groups, you know, terrorist groups in southern Thailand, tribespeople in Burma, you name it.’

  ‘Pirates in Indonesia?’ Cole asked, realizing too late that he’d been too obvious, too eager to get an answer. The months in the jungle had dulled his people skills; he would never have made a mistake like that in the past.

  The look on Boom’s face changed in an instant, and Cole could tell that the old gun dealer realized that his first paranoid fears might be true; Cole had been sent by someone – maybe the police, maybe someone else – to get information.

  Boom’s gun appeared again as if from nowhere, but Cole was anticipating it already and gripped the man’s wrist with one hand as his other snaked out to grab the man’s throat, fingers tightening around Boom’s windpipe like a vice.

  Boom’s eyes bulged as he struggled to breath, disbelief and indignation all across his reddening, sweating face as his gun dropped to the floor beneath him.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, Boom. Really I am. But now you haven’t left me any choice. Tell me where I can find your source, or I’ll kill you.’ Cole gripped tighter to emphasize his point. He meant what he said; he was more than prepared to kill the man. He liked Boom, yes; but at the end of the day, he was a gun-runner who sold arms to anyone who had the money, and his death wouldn’t be the worst on Cole’s conscience.

  After trying to resist Cole crushing his windpipe for a few agonizing seconds, until he started to black out completely, Boom sagged and blinked his eyes in defeat.

  Cole released his hold on the man, letting him breathe. He pushed Boom down, picking up the man’s loaded pistol from the floor in the same smooth action. His people skills were off, but his body seemed to remember how to move just fine.

  Cole pointed the Beretta at Boom’s head. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘now talk.’

  5

  It was far from ideal, but Cole had had to take Boom in the car with him for the four hour drive to Siem Reap.

  If he had left Boom back in his village, the arms dealer would undoubtedly have warned his Cambodian colleague of Cole’s impending visit. The only other option was to kill him, which he hadn’t wanted to do if he could avoid it.

  Besides which, after he’d been persuaded to start talking, Boom had made it quite clear that the arms market where his colleague traded was very hard for an outsider to find, hidden in a jungle clearing near the Angkor Wat temple complex.

  Cole had therefore decided to take Boom with him, to act as a guide. And in the end, Boom appeared glad to be there, especially after he’d decided that Cole was trying to find out where the Indonesian pirates were hiding the Fu Yu Shan. ‘Oh, very good!’ he’d said with great excitement, ‘it will be big adventure, right? You and me like Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson! We solve the case! Like Batman and Robin, then we kick ass! Right?’

  Cole hadn’t wanted to talk about what he was doing, but Boom was convinced he was right anyway – and on the long drive down Route 214, across the Thai border before continuing south on National Highway 68 and – as the huge red sun had rapidly descended past the horizon to leave a land of dark shadows in its wake – south-east on NH6, Cole had done nothing to dissuade him.

  Boom told him that the arms market was held after sundown on an almost daily basis, and was tolerated by the local government due to large bribes and – when they failed to work – violent threats. The only time the market was cancelled was on religious festivals, or if the central government was taking an interest – which it did, if only periodically. Luckily for the gun-runners, they were warned well in advance of any raids.

  People came to the Angkor Wat gun market from all over Southeast Asia – often dealers themselves, from smaller concerns – and the military wares they had on display rivalled anything seen at an American or Middle East small arms expo.

  Boom also explained that the dozens of temporary stalls that made up the physical market were only half the story; they were the shop front for Cambodian arms dealers, so that they could forge and cement relationships that could then generate real money – more advanced military equipment, and even vehicles. Sales of fighter planes had even been made as a result of friendships made at the market, deals worth millions of dollars; or so legend had it.

  Cole would have ordinarily liked to spend some considerable time on reconnaissance, building up a picture of the area, planning the operation carefully and rehearsing his every action. But unfortunately, as he was all too aware, the clock was ticking. He needed to get information about Liang Kebangkitan, and he needed to get it as fast as possible.

  And with the good-natured Boom in the car with him, it seemed almost natural to throw caution to the wind. And so after driving through the colorful Colonial town of Siem Reap, the took a left at the Royal Gardens before the river and headed back north on Charles De Gaulle.

  The ancient temples of Angkor Wat were only three miles away now, and the decidedly more modern small arms market would be right next door.

  Although Cole had spent a lot of time in this part of the world over the years, he had never been to this northern part of Cambodia. Angkor might have been the country’s premier tourist attraction, but he had never been here as a tourist.

  And on reflection, this time was no different.

  As he drove north along the illuminated streets, Cole saw a pagoda to one side of the road; next to it was a small shrine filled with human skulls, piled chest high, one on top of the other.

  ‘Wat Thmei,’ Boom told him. ‘Memorial for Khmer killing fields.’

  Cole nodded his head in understanding. The history of Cambodia was a sad one, filled with repression and genocidal violence.

  A troubled nation since its sacking by Thailand in the fifteenth century, more recent damage came with the violent protests against French colonial rule during the 1960s and ‘70s, which eventually led to civil war and the rise to power of the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

  What followed under the psychotic leadership of Pol Pot were the mass killings of over two million Cambodians. People were killed for the slightest reason – for not working hard enough, for being too clever, for being too weak; and many more died from starvation and illness. Most were buried in mass graves and quickly-dug trenches. Even now, skeletal remains were still being found all over the country.

  The regime was as short as it was brutal, only lasting until 1979 when Vietnam moved in to run the country; an unsatisfactory state of affairs which lasted until 1993, when the King’s power was restored and an elected government was finally established.

  But the remnants of its violent past remained, the nation awash with weapons from less happy times.

  Through the inky dark of night, Cole could make out moonlight reflecting off the wide moat of the Angkor Wat complex ahead of him, ancient walls on the other side hinting at the exotic architectural marvels beyond. He saw signs telling him to follow the road west to the main entrance, but Boom shook his head.

  ‘We go right at moat,’ he said confidently.

  Cole did as he was told, sweeping away from the light evening traffic, the shadowy green waters of the moat now to his left. Not far ahead, the road turned with the moat at a right angle, and Cole followed it so that he was again driving north, slowly now.

  The eastern entrance was right up ahead, but again Boom shook his head. ‘Take road right,’ he ordered, ‘away from temple.’

  Again Cole did as instructed, following the road east as it passed through the thick vegetation of the looming jungle.

  ‘Keep going,’ Boom urge
d. They passed a turnoff to the right, and then they were the only cars left on the narrow, dark road.

  ‘We’re looking for a road on left, after we pass river,’ Boom informed him.

  Moments later, the car passed over the Siem Reap River which flowed beneath the bumpy road, and Boom was craning his head out of the car, straining to find the turnoff, tall trees blocking out the light from the moon and stars.

  Cole was looking hard too, but could see nothing.

  ‘Turn here!’ Boom shouted suddenly. ‘Left! Left!’

  Cole was caught by surprise; there seemed to be no road here at all. But still he followed Boom’s directions, and turned the wheel, edging slowly into the dense black jungle, the huge hood of the 4x4 pushing past rubber plants and banana trees.

  ‘Boom,’ Cole said as he maneuvered the big car carefully through the undergrowth, ‘if this is what you call a road, then I’d hate to see a dirt track round here.’

  ‘Hey Mr. Holmes,’ Boom shot back, ‘dealers come down here with trucks, yeah? Great big damn trucks!’

  Fine, Cole thought. Fine. If this is it, then this is it.

  And eventually, the jungle did open out into some semblance of a road – not paved, of course, but still better than the first few painful minutes.

  Then suddenly, right up ahead, Cole could see more vehicles, lots of them; it was a veritable parking lot of battered jeeps, trucks and 4x4s hidden in the jungle just minutes away from Cambodia’s most popular tourist attractions.

  ‘This is it,’ Boom said. ‘We park car here, yes? Then you walk the rest.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I will point out the man, right? But I no want be seen with you, in case something bad happen, yeah? I just speak to some of the other dealers, maybe buy myself some guns, okay? If you make mistake, maybe you destroy my business, got it?’

  Cole sat in the damp heat of the car, no relieving breeze in the dark, thick jungle, thinking. If he let Boom go, would he warn the dealer? Boom was all-too aware that Cole knew where he lived; if the dealer was warned, and Cole survived, Boom would have to know that Cole would come for him.

  ‘You wondering if you can trust me, yeah?’ Boom asked. ‘What other choice you have? You no idea what this man even look like! And I like this game, I help you find pirates, remember? Like Holmes and Watson?’

  Cole nodded his head. ‘Okay then,’ he said as he rolled the car to a stop behind a big army truck, reversing back in so he could escape quickly if he had to. He could see that Boom already had his head down, so nobody would see that he’d arrived in Cole’s 4x4.

  ‘You’re going to start giving me a complex,’ Cole said. ‘Make me think I’m not popular.’

  ‘Man,’ Boom said from the foot well, ‘asking questions round here gonna make you about as popular as Pol Pot, you know?’

  Cole pulled a canvas hold-all over from the backseats and unzipped it, examined the contents and gave Boom a grim smile. The old Thai gun dealer was right, of course; which was exactly why Cole had brought along a little insurance policy from the man’s garden shed.

  Just in case.

  6

  After Cole had pushed past the shadowy parking lot into the well-lit market beyond, he watched Boom enter the crowd from another direction, drifting through the myriad stalls.

  The sight was about as bizarre as anything Cole had ever seen – a full market, not too dissimilar in size to Siem Riep’s famous Old Market back in town; only that instead of spices and silks, there were AK-47s and rocket launchers. Other stalls sold skewered meats, noodles and Khmer palm wine; music blared from portable speakers, the sounds of Asian pop mixed with local Kantrum folk music from a pinpeat orchestra of cymbals, xylophones and flutes. The overall impression was of a bacchanalian street party, a feast for the senses after the dense darkness of the jungle.

  There seemed to be a busy trade too, hundreds of buyers and sellers swarming the narrow alleyways between the stalls, lit by bare bulbs powered by huge generators chugging away in the background, barely heard above the babble of loud bartering.

  And all around was the ominous presence of the jungle, thick vegetation pressing in on the clearing from all sides, always threatening to overwhelm it all and reclaim this small piece of land for itself.

  Cole watched as Boom strolled casually along one of the alleyways, shaking hands as he went, a big smile on his beaming face.

  Could Cole trust him? It was a risk, but a necessary one. Boom was a gun dealer himself, but seemed excited at the prospect of helping Cole catch an internationally wanted gang of pirates. He’d probably use the story to entertain his own customers.

  Cole followed at a respectable distance, not wanting anyone to see that he was watching Boom, waiting for the signal. He wasn’t the only Westerner at the market, but there were few enough for people to notice him if he wasn’t careful.

  He slowed at a stall selling grenades, feigning interest in some of the products on display as he saw Boom stop at one of the larger stands, embracing a man, nodding his head as the man spoke – once, twice, three times.

  It was him.

  It was Khat Narong – Boom’s contact at the market and the man who allegedly dealt with Liang Kebangkitan.

  Khat was younger than Cole would have imagined, although in the strange light from the dangling bulbs it was hard to tell. He was slim, short, and dark-skinned, his face baby smooth, hair slicked back under a camouflage baseball cap. He wore an open black shirt, camo shorts and tennis shoes. He looked like an average street seller from Bangkok, not a man making hundreds of thousands in arms sales. But appearances could be deceptive, as Cole well knew.

  He knew where Khat was now, and so turned to speak to the man shoving grenades towards him, the enthusiastic seller asking in Khmer how many Cole wanted to buy.

  ‘Just looking,’ he said in English, hands out. ‘Just looking.’

  The man stopped barking at him in Khmer and switched to English himself. ‘This no place to be just fucking looking!’ he screamed. ‘You waste my fucking time!’ He moved as if to swing a punch at Cole, but Cole could tell it was bluster and moved backwards easily. ‘That’s right!’ the man shouted again. ‘You best back away! Now go on, fuck off!’

  Cole did as he was told, and turned to look across the crowds towards Khat’s stall. He noticed that Boom was gone; probably didn’t want to be in the area when Cole turned up. Which was fair enough, Cole considered, checking the pistol in his waistband.

  It could get messy.

  Cole’s plan was simple – he was going to kidnap the man right in front of everyone.

  When he had been held captive in that hellhole in Pakistan, he had met an Indian prisoner who had taught him the secret marma adi pressure point strikes of the ancient Indian art of Kalaripayattu, said to be the forerunner of the later martial arts of both China and Japan.

  It was Cole’s skill in this art which had made him so valuable to Charles Hansard and his assassination program. Through subtle attacks to specific parts of the human body, he was able to cause a wide range of conditions in his victim – from shock, to unconsciousness, to death, to a death which could be delayed for several hours and or even days. It was a seemingly mystical power, but one which was based on thousands of years of observation and practice within the holistic Indian health system of Ayurvedic medicine.

  As a ‘contract laborer’ for the US government, Cole could therefore assassinate enemies of the state just by getting close enough to press or squeeze their pressure points, often without the victim even noticing. And by the time the person died, he would be long gone, the death blamed on natural causes such as stroke or heart attack.

  It was hard to use such skills in the heat of a fight, as the art required absolute precision to be effective; but when used on an unsuspecting victim, it was the assassin’s art par excellence.

  Not that Cole wanted to kill Khat; not yet, anyway.

  Instead, he was going to shake the man’s hand whilst pressing into the fo
rearm with the fingertips of his other hand; a simple yet effective attack which would render Khat immediately unconscious. Cole would then apply first aid, make a scene of it being a heart attack, and load him in the Toyota for an emergency hospital visit.

  It would require confidence to pull off, but Cole knew that the scene would cause a panic – and when ignorance was mutual, confidence was King.

  He edged towards the stall as Khat’s last customer moved away, smiling disarmingly towards the dealer as he approached.

  Here we go, Cole thought as he extended his hand in greeting.

  It went wrong almost instantly.

  Cole could see Khat’s gold fillings as he smiled widely at him; yet it wasn’t a friendly smile at all, it was the smile of a spider welcoming the fly into its trap.

  And suddenly Cole realized how stupid he had been, going into such a place with no surveillance, no reconnaissance, no detailed planning; trusting a man he barely knew.

  The gun which came up to press against the back of his head was held by Boom, Cole knew that without having to look. And then Khat’s associates broke away from the stall, drawing their own weapons and forming a semi-circle around Cole.

  At the head of the circle was Khat; still smiling, shirt-front open, relaxed and casual.

  ‘You come behind my tent and we talk, yeah?’ he called over to Cole.

  Damn it.

  He’d been out of the game too long, grown soft; not physically, but mentally. There was no way he would have ever trusted Boom a few years ago, no way he would have approached a foreign gun market so eagerly, with such little preparation. But he had been punishing himself for so long – making things hard for himself, intentionally putting himself in harm’s way, putting himself in dangerous situations with no thought for his physical safety – that it had become a habit.

  And unfortunately, a habit like that could kill him before he ever got a chance to change it.

  He looked around at Khat’s six colleagues; most carried pistols, one aimed a Soviet-era Kalashnikov, all looked like they wouldn’t hesitate for a second before they blew him away. Activity around the rest of the market seemed to have come to a complete halt; all eyes were on the group outside Khat’s tent. Even the pounding music stopped after a time, and Cole felt a deep unease. It wasn’t fear, not yet; but it was close.