by Kae Bell
The bravest boy led the way. There was a barely discernible path. In a forest where wild animals roamed, there were always paths to follow. The children did not think to wonder if it was the path of a tiger or a bear or a monkey. They pushed ahead, excited and happy in the way unique to children, on sensory overload from the jungle’s richness.
It was the youngest boy who spotted the truck first. He thought maybe it was a vast gray elephant. He called out to the others, look over there at that big sleeping thing. The others followed his pointing finger to the left, about 50 feet away. From there, the ground swelled up and they could see the edge of a road high above.
“What is that?” asked a girl named Prina. She thought it looked like a truck but she had learned that boys liked to be asked questions, rather than to be told, so they could look smart in front of others.
“It's a truck,” said the oldest boy whose name was Guy. “It must have driven off the road.”
The young boy who spotted it didn't want to lose the limelight.
“Let's go see what's inside! Maybe it's filled with money.”
“Or candy,” said a stocky boy.
“It's probably filled with bags of rice.” Guy said. “Prina and I will go take a look. If it's something good, we'll call you all over.”
“You'll try to take it all,” the chubby boy complained. Life, he thought, was unfair.
“No,” Guy said. “I promise. You stay here. You there,” he called to the youngest boy. “You keep watch while we walk over there.”
“Ok.” The young boy looked annoyed to have to follow orders, he was always being told what to do, but also thrilled to be in charge for the first time ever. His chest puffed out as the older boy moved off the path, toward the still truck.
Prina smiled at Guy, who was half-French on his mother’s side. He took her hand and ignored the others as they giggled. “Come on, let's go see.”
*******
The young couple walked toward the truck, while the other children waited along the path. Someone called out something inappropriate but Guy ignored them, holding Prina’s hand tightly. They approached the truck from the front.
When the truck had landed on the ground at a high rate of speed, its front collapsed and was embedded in the dirt. As they got closer, Guy saw a form in the front, but could not make it out exactly. He called out “Hello?” but no response. By a large Banyan tree, he told Prina to wait while he walked forward. The truck was about ten feet away.
From five feet away, Guy saw the driver, slumped over the steering wheel. He walked to the cab and with a tug, and then a second tug, he opened the door. The driver’s body, slumped forward, also leaned heavily against the door. When the door opened, his weight pushed it hard and the body came tumbling to the ground, surprising Guy, who jumped back a couple feet.
Seeing this, Prina screamed and ran back to the others who were waiting on the path, craning their necks to see what the commotion was about. This was certainly more exciting than a childish game of hide and seek, they thought.
Guy, recovered from the surprise, looked at the body in a pile on the ground. Guy did not need to check if this man was dead, he could tell from the smell. And the attendant flies that buzzed around the man’s exposed flesh.
He glanced along the length of the white truck, which had no markings or signage but looked pretty beaten up. A burnished glint of metal on the ground near the rear of the truck caught his eye. Guy stepped closer. Still a safe distance of a couple feet, Guy could see exactly what it was. Every Cambodian child knew; they were told by their parents over and over again to be careful. It was a land mine. Guy knew they were everywhere in the country, but they were supposed to have been cleared the land this close to the temples, near to where tourists walked. But the jungle was vast and sometimes things were overlooked.
What was more troubling than the glint from the land mine, was that the canister that had been inside the truck had rolled onto the dirt and landed on the edge of the metal. Guy wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it was bad. He returned to Prina and yelled to his younger brother, “Run and get our father!”
*******
The Cambodian man approached the white truck, taking small, hesitant steps through the jungle underbrush. He was a brave man, but he did not wish to be blown up. He glanced back to the trail, where a small but growing audience of locals stood watching him. They murmured as he walked but grew silent when he stooped down to look at the canister, disappearing from their view behind the brush. A young boy craned his neck. The man’s youngest son tugged on his mother’s sleeve and asked, “Where’s daddy?” The mother shushed him, staring, transfixed at the greenery where her husband had just stood.
The man knelt near the silver canister and looked at it from every angle he could manage, without disturbing the ground below it. He stood, glanced forward and saw the dead driver.
Satisfied, the man took one last look and jogged back to the path, his lithe brown frame moving with ease through the greenery.
Back at the safety of the path, he spoke to a few local men who had gathered to watch him approach the truck. Their pushcarts filled with goods for sale - trinkets, temple replicas, carved wooden elephants, t-shirts bearing the phrase “I Heart Angkor Wat” and of course food and drinks, all for the tourists - stood unmanned by the temple road.
Instead, the men stood on the spare path and listened, murmuring to each other in agreement, as the man explained that they must guard the truck until the authorities arrived. There was a dead man, he said.
In case that was not enough of a deterrent to leave well enough alone, as he knew sometimes his friends’ curiosity sometimes outweighed their share of wisdom, he explained that the truck was haunted with angry ghosts from Pchum Ben whose relatives had neglected to bring them offerings and they were now feeding on the dead man. The listening men looked horrified.
That should keep them from approaching the truck while he puzzled on how to reach the Prime Minister. It wasn’t every day a tuk-tuk driver had such important news. He wondered if anyone would listen.
Chapter 36
The spotlights of the helicopter pierced the night, blinding the two guards standing in the clearing, as the helicopter swooped high over the trees then low toward the clearing and the two guards. The men bolted for cover but were cut down, as Andrew blasted the helo’s machine gun. The men dropped in their tracks, cut down by the spray of bullets. The helo swept up sideways and away into the night.
Once away from the stable, Andrew had raced out of the clearing, down the brief scrubby hill by the stream to the rustic helo landing pad he’d seen on his hike up. There, he’d broken in to the helicopter, Hakk’s transport to and from his camps and town. The heavy machinery had been acquired at an exorbitant cost on the black market a year ago from a disgruntled Chinese military pilot who’d needed fast cash.
Andrew had tried several times to start the machine, unfamiliar with this particular make, glancing repeatedly over his shoulder, worried that the guards would notice his absence and that of their colleague. He breathed a sigh of relief when the rotor began to move. The Chinese-made helo was a stretch even for Andrew’s pilot skills but it had at last lifted up, seeming to prefer the sky to the earth.
Having heard the sound of his only transport overhead, coupled with the sound of gunfire, Hakk burst from the hut, an RPG launcher at his shoulder. He looked at the dead guards by the tree, then at the empty sky. He watched the tree line for the helicopter to reappear. In the quiet night, he could hear the helicopter grow louder as Andrew circled back. Hakk stood in the middle of the clearing, the launcher set against his firm shoulder, and waited for the helo to reappear above the trees.
Its nose down, floodlights on, the machine breached the night and flew at Hakk like an arrow. Hakk aimed the launcher, waited a heartbeat, and then fired for the window, the widest and weakest spot in the reinforced cockpit.
Andrew saw the blast gases light up behind Hakk’s left should
er and he lifted the helo sharply up and sideways to the left to evade the launched grenade.
Its accuracy dependent on a shooter’s skill, not a smart armament, the grenade projectile missed its mark, taking out only the right engine, not blasting the helicopter’s cockpit and pilot as Hakk had intended. The helo rocked from the blast, side to side, as Andrew struggled with the controls. The left engine immediately picked up the slack and Andrew lifted up into the sky and pushed beyond the clearing. He would circle around one more time and this time he would take Hakk out. There was no more reasoning. There was no more time.
Circling back around the clearing, Andrew looked down and did not see Hakk anywhere in the open area. He shone the spotlight on the edges of the clearing, the helo doing a low circle. Lifting up, Andrew blasted the huts with machine gunfire. No movement, no sound. Nothing. Either Hakk had ducked into the jungle or he had been sliced in two by a spray of bullets.
Andrew set the helo down in the center of the clearing to investigate.
*******
Andrew grabbed a long black flashlight by the seat and jumped out of the helo. Staying close and low, he shone the light along the clearing’s perimeter, looking for movement. There was none.
Taking short, careful steps, Andrew approached the main hut, the flashlight casting a wide ‘V’ of light in front of him. To his left and right, it was dark and still, the torches burned out.
The hut was empty. The flashlight revealed bullet holes marking the table and chairs, the thatch walls no protection against gunfire. A line of bullets had cut a swath of holes across the map of Cambodia on the wall.
Andrew stepped back into the clearing and listened. He could hear only the stream bubbling nearby and the frightened baby elephant making snuffling sounds outside. Andrew approached the stream, which was dark now in the late night.
Andrew peered down the streambed, shadowed by overhanging trees. The gurgling water offered the only sound that could conceal movement.
Sure enough, twenty feet ahead, Hakk, hunched low, walked in the stream bed, following the water’s noisy path down the mountain, the happy babbling hiding the sound of his splashing footsteps.
Andrew walked then jogged toward Hakk, not caring if Hakk heard. Hakk turned at Andrew’s approach and seeing him, bolted ahead, kicking up spray as he splashed forward. A ways ahead, Hakk knew, the stream fed a wider fast-moving river. If Hakk could get to that, he would be free of this gadfly.
Close enough, Andrew leapt at Hakk, tackling him from behind, both of the men falling into the clear stream. They struggled in the water, grappling and rolling, their feet slipping out from under them on the slimy rocks as each tried to gain purchase on the ground beneath them.
Andrew, gripping the back of Hakk’s wet shirt, pulled Hakk away and pushed him onto his back on the flat stones in the stream’s center, cool water running over Hakk’s face into his mouth and nose. Hakk sputtered as Andrew, sitting squarely on Hakk’s chest, pulled an arm back and blasted his face with a tight fist, bloodying his nose. Hakk took the hit with a grunt, the stream’s flowing water washing the blood away downstream.
For only a second, Andrew’s grip loosened, and Hakk turned on his side, pulled his knee forward and kicked Andrew in the chest, knocking him off sideways. Hakk slipped downstream and scrambled toward the mossy bank, intent on climbing upward and away. His hands grabbed at loose stones and pebbles, his feet slipped on rocks. He neared the top of the bank, when Andrew jumped at him and caught his foot, trying to pull Hakk back into the water.
Hakk stared back at him, blood running from his nose over his lips and down his chin. He gave one last kick at Andrew with his left foot, catching Andrew’s shoulder, and once at the top of bank, raced for his helicopter.
Andrew followed in swift pursuit, scrambling up the bank, slipping and sliding in the rough. He cut his hand on a fine sharp rock, but ignored the warm blood that oozed in his palm. He reached the top and bolted to the helo, which Hakk had started moments before. The rotor was turning, gaining speed. Within moments, the helo lifted off the ground. Andrew dove into the open door just as Hakk tried to swing it closed, the helo lifting higher. The helo gained altitude as Hakk slammed the door again and again, cursing at Andrew who hung on outside, his feet in the door, his fingers wedged into a deep metal groove in the door rim.
“You can’t stop me!!” Hakk screamed as he slammed at Andrew’s fingers repeatedly with a dull end of a screwdriver. The helo flew higher, now several hundred feet above the trees.
Andrew held tight to the door rim with one hand, while he struggled for the stable guard’s gun tucked in the small of his back. Gripping the cold metal, he pulled it forward and pointed the gun at Hakk’s head.
“Tell me the plan for Sunday!” Andrew demanded. “Take us back down and tell me the plan!”
Seeing the gun, Hakk tilted the helicopter nearly on its side, careening to the left through the wispy clouds. With the sudden sideways jolt, Andrew’s feet slipped in the doorframe but he held on with his fingers as the helicopter slid through the air.
“I’m not fucking around!” Andrew yelled and turned his face away as he shot out the front windshield. Glass flew into Hakk’s face. Andrew regained his footing and pointed the gun again at Hakk. “Take her down!”
Hakk’s eyes wild, he took the helicopter higher and higher. Wind whipped through the broken window. Hakk screamed above the noise, his eyes red with rage. “No! Time has been reset. It is the beginning. We can’t be stopped. We are an army of believers, a thousand strong!”
“Well, then, “ Andrew said as he steadied himself against the door. “One less believer won’t be missed.” He pulled the trigger and Hakk was no more.
*******
As the helo careened forward and up, Andrew yanked himself into the cockpit, climbing in over Hakk’s inert body to seize the controls. The helicopter yawed right. Andrew trimmed the controls and pushed the dead man out the door into the night, the body falling through the misty clouds to the jungle below.
If Hakk was telling the truth, he had merely been the initiating spark for what was coming.
Andrew had to stop the coming destruction. He set a course for Phnom Penh.
Chapter 37
In the Prime Minister’s headquarters in Phnom Penh, Andrew pushed past the guards into the stately conference room. Thirty faces turned toward the interruption. Andrew stood at the head of the table and said, “You are all in grave danger.”
Behind him, hot on his heels, were the two guards he had fooled into letting him in to the building by pretending to be sick on the stone steps. He had approached the building acting like a tourist, getting a little too close, which had displeased the surrounding armed guards. Then he had proceeded to vomit on the steps, a trick he had picked up along the way - it came in handy in his line of work.
The guards had approached him to admonish him for soiling the grounds and he had bolted past them through the front door, running all the way down to the end of the hall where the Prime Minister was in a special evening session with his Ministers.
The guards burst in after him, looking for the intruder. Spotting him, one guard grabbed Andrew and wrestled him to the table, a meaty sweaty palm pressing Andrew’s face into the wood and a thick elbow digging into Andrew’s back. The other guard pulled out his gun and trained it at Andrew's head.
The Prime Minister stood, surprised and displeased, a combination that did not bode well. He was not accustomed to interruptions and did not take kindly to them. The other men seated at the table watched him for guidance on how to react.
“What is the meaning of this?” The Prime Minister asked.
Pressed against the cold mahogany, Andrew’s mouth was forced open by the weight of the guard’s hand on his head, giving Andrew a fish-like expression, his lips puckered. In his line of sight, Andrew saw three glasses of water, two pencils, a medium-sized yellow sticky pad and a Cambodian Army General with the unfortunate luck to be seated at this end of
the table by the door. The General tried everything he could to avoid eye contact with Andrew, whose face was about a foot from his own.
Andrew spoke, his voice muffled by the guard’s beefy arm, the guard trying to imprint Andrew’s face into the grain of the wood.
Not an uncivilized man, the Prime Minister lifted a finger and the guard pulled Andrew upright, to allow him to speak, still gripping Andrew’s arms in tight right angles behind his back.
Andrew repeated his words. “You’re in danger. Your country is in danger.” That wouldn’t be enough. Andrew knew he had one chance before he was shown outside and permanently retired with a discrete bullet in the back. His government would receive a condolence letter stating that Andrew had had an unfortunate accident while on holiday. He mentally sifted through the words from Hakk’s Manifesto.
“Year Zero is upon us,” Andrew said. He repeated this, slowly, emphasizing the second word.
For a moment, the room was silent, as these words were absorbed by the men seated at the table. Then a commotion erupted, as the Ministers gasped and stood and began to fret and bicker, their well-honed manners wilting in the grip of fear and anger.
Andrew had chosen his words carefully, for maximum impact in this precarious situation. “Year Zero” was a reference to Pol Pot, who had pronounced April 1975 as Year Zero, when the Khmer Rouge regime abandoned and erased all that had occurred before its ascension, all culture, customs, beliefs, and history, wiped clean. Hakk’s Manifesto described Year Zero coming again. Setting the clock to zero, once more, to begin the future anew.
Andrew had figured it out on the flight back - that was the meaning of Hakk’s last crazed rant, that with his plan in place, in motion. Time had been reset to Year Zero.
Starting tomorrow, Sunday, Pchum Ben Day.
Uttering these words, in this room, to these men, Andrew had seeded the doubt he needed to survive this meeting.
