by Kae Bell
Andrew could see he was wrong. It wasn’t the vendors. But what was it? What was coming?
In the quiet dawn, a tuk-tuk drove down the lane, its driver stopping near the assembled crowd. A lone robed monk hopped down from the open cab, late for the show but still in time for the sun to reach the temple’s zenith, only minutes away. His saffron robe flowed about him as he moved. Around his waist, Andrew saw, wrapped tight to his body by a black sash, was a large round silver canister, a donation bucket to receive alms in exchange for the monk’s prayers. It was carried by all Buddhist monks to accept gifts of thanks.
Andrew watched as the monk walked into the crowd, moving deep into the mass of tourists. Seeing the monk’s orange robes in the early morning light, people stepped aside to let him through. A few took pictures of the local color, so close.
Andrew watched the flowing saffron robes move into the sea of tourists from every nation, the robe a deep orange, a mix of yellow and red - the color of safety, of warning, of hazards. The color of criminals.
Andrew considered how the color orange wove through Cambodian life. It was everywhere, a single rich thread binding all together, orange clad monks on the roads, and sidewalks, in the tuk-tuks and the temples.
Realization hit and Andrew knew that Hakk’s army of men bent on destruction would not be concealed as common street vendors. Andrew had not grasped Hakk’s full intent. No, Hakk had put into motion a farther-reaching plan, intending to annihilate not only the foreign influence and taint, to rid the country of the Ch’kai, but also destroying any organization that exerted influence on the people.
The influence of religion. The Buddhist custom of honoring the past.
To purge the people of all thoughts, to fill their hearts with fear. To set the stage for his Year Zero.
So, Hakk’s army would wear the color of prayer, blending into the fabric of this holy day of Pchum Ben, donning garb to conceal their true intent, a perfect disguise, which offered the perfect vehicle to deliver fear and death to the hearts of the people.
Andrew pictured the monk’s silver canister, tied tight to his waist.
The canister was not filled with thanks. Today, it was filled with hate.
The monk moved forward into the throngs of people. Andrew pulled out his phone. He had to warn people.
*******
Socheat answered on the first ring. He’d been waiting for Andrew’s call. Andrew explained, speaking quickly. There was so little time.
“Hakk wasn’t only after the foreigners. It’s everyone. His men are targeting the Wats. They’ll be packed today with families honoring their ancestors. And with tourists. Everyone. It’s Hakk’s message to Pol Pot, his offering to his ghost, that he has fulfilled the promise to realize Pol Pot’s vision. Destruction.”
On the other end of the line, Socheat listened. “On this day, the ghosts of the damned flock to the Wats seeking succor from the living. How will it happen?” Socheat asked.
Watching the orange monk move through the crowd, Andrew described the threat from the silver chalice, an urn of death, packed full of plastic explosives.
“The whole country is gonna blow,” Andrew said, glancing at the sky. There were thousands of Wats across the country. Dawn was nearly over. He looked at his watch. Sunrise was at 6:09 AM. It was now 6:01 AM. “In eight minutes.”
He hung up. He had one more call to make. He dialed on his local phone.
The man on the other end of the line picked up immediately. Andrew said, “It’s me.” He explained and then added, “Got it? Good. Hit send.”
Chapter 40
The orange-clad monks stepped out into the pre-dawn darkness en route to the Pagodas, the Wats. In the dark, they made left and right turns, their flip-flops clopping against callused heels. They anticipated the fine meal that awaited them at the Pagodas, food prepared by their countrymen, to honor and nourish ancestors long dead.
Several monks held back, walking a safe distance from their brothers.
They too carried with them an offering for this most special day.
These men were not monks. They were neither devout nor holy and had never offered up a prayer for another.
But they were indeed devoted to a cause. They were devoted to destruction, to resurrecting an evil long dead. Devoted to Year Zero.
They walked, without qualm, to the Pagodas, certain of the rightness in their actions, step after step, thinking only that they would at last free the country from the grip of the foreign dogs, from the greed and desires that tainted their countrymen.
As they entered the Wats all across the nation, the smell of warm rice enticed them and they thought fondly of their last meal.
*******
Above him, Andrew heard a sound in the trees, leaves shifting, branches bearing weight. Andrew looked up but could see nothing. He moved closer to the tree for a better view.
There, high in the leafy branches, tucked in the thick crook of the tree, was a man dressed in black, his eyes trained on the rising sun, on the spires of Angkor Wat. Cradled in his arms, wedged against his shoulder, was a long black barrel. A grenade launcher, Andrew could see, its target straight ahead, silhouetted by the sun.
Shit. Andrew started to reach for his gun but he didn’t have a clear shot. And shooting the man in the tree would only alert the monk standing deep in the crowd, waiting for the sun to hit the top of the stone spire.
Andrew knew he had to choose. He glanced once more at the man in the tree, cursed under his breath and began to push his way into the crowd. To yell in warning, he knew, would only spur the monk to detonate himself before the sun had reached its mark.
As Andrew moved forward, following the monk, everything around him slowed. The air thickened and he could hear a thrumming in his ears, as his blood pulsed at his hot temples. His vision narrowed and all Andrew could see was his orange target, standing ahead in the crowd.
The lone monk had stopped and looked now to the sun and the sky, thinking of a new day, his warm hands resting on the silver chalice strapped to his ready body. He did a slow full rotation to take it all in, the rising light, the ancient temple, the tourists with their smiles and cameras and bucket list dreams.
As Andrew leapt at the monk, pulling him down and covering his orange torso with his own body, the rocket launched from the high tree, aimed with precision. It blasted out through the green leaves toward the central dome of Angkor Wat, now tipped in golden sunlight. In a breath, the rocket’s metal cone pierced the central spire, the impact initiating the explosion, the metal momentum blasting the stone to pieces. Sheared stone flew out hundreds of feet, raining down from the sky. The sun shone in the empty space where moments before the spire had stood.
The surprised tourists, standing a safe distance away behind the wide water moat, thought this was part of the morning show. They gasped and snapped pictures on their cameras, catching the moment for all eternity, wondering who would pick up all the pieces.
Andrew had seen the rocket launch, had heard the brutal fracturing of history. But it was too late for that. Beneath him, the monk smiled at Andrew as the silver chalice detonated, one of hundreds of simultaneous explosions that ripped through Wats across the Cambodian provinces, all synchronized with the rising sun. As Andrew’s body absorbed the full impact, as the blast ripped across and through him, he thought of the hollowness of the vessel that exploded into him, how the empty can be filled with good or evil.
*******
In Phnom Penh, the skies were rapt in the throes of dawn. The submarine had stopped by the broken bridges. The Veterans stood on deck looking at the wreckage. Severine sat next to Frank, watching the sunrise in the east. Samnang slept next to them.
Severine’s phone buzzed with a text message. She hoped it was Andrew. She’d been trying to reach him to explain that the men had insisted they go to Phnom Penh but she’d no luck reaching him. She glanced at the text and read the message, her mouth agape. She grabbed Frank’s arm.
“Read th
is. It says it’s from the Prime Minister. He’s telling everyone to stay away from the Wats today, to go home. Now. Says a terrorist attack is imminent.” She looked hard at Frank. “Do you think it’s a hoax?”
Frank read the brief text and turned to look at the hill of Wat Phnom in front of them.
“Only one way to find out.”
Frank turned to the men behind him, who sat and stood, waiting for orders.
“Boys, there’s some shit going down.” He pointed to Wat Phnom. “We need to take that hill.”
“Yeehaw!” Ed yelled, waving his cane as he slid on his butt into the shallow water by the riverbank.
The men clambered together up the bank and scuttled across the street toward the high green hill.
*******
Wat Phnom was packed with people who had arrived early to the popular Wat for Pchum Ben Day: Men, women, young, old, locals and tourists. Cambodian women, up since the early morning cooking, bore their offerings, their trays of sweet nourishing rice, toward the altar where the great Buddha sat in serene silence.
The color orange was everywhere - every other person in the room was a monk, dressed in a flowing saffron robe. Most of them were busy eating coconut rice, hungry from sitting inside during the months of rain, waiting to offer prayers, to return to the streets to pray for their countrymen. Now they were too intent on satisfying their hunger to notice the katoey scanning the crowded room from the back.
A tiny old white man ran into the main Pagoda doorway, his cane in his right hand. He stopped, staring at the packed crowd. He’d been the first of the Veterans up the steps. He was quick on his feet, always had been. He’d left those old coots behind, anxious for action.
Standing in the doorway, Ed watched a beautiful Cambodian woman, pace behind the crowd, her eyes scanning the innocents as she tried to find a break in the dense mass of people. Her long black hair, white tips at the end, was a stark contrast against her short red dress. She glanced down at the small man who now appeared at her side.
She was a foot taller than he and far broader of shoulder. Noticing her attention, Ed winked, raising his eyebrows twice, ever the rogue, even in battle.
She stepped close to him and leaned down to Ed to whisper in his ear. He leaned forward to hear.
As he listened, Ed’s expression changed, his face hardening in anticipation. The woman leaned away from him, her eyes wide, her face a question.
“We have no time,” she said. “I can’t get through that crowd.”
Ed dropped his cane and saluted the woman. He stepped forward and crouched onto his knees, proceeded in a fast crawl forward, sneaking in between the empty spaces. As he moved forward, Ed stared up, looking and looking, as Socheat had asked him to. There was so much orange and so few seconds separating the present from the future destruction.
Ed spotted the monk with the black sash, near the front, by the Buddha, his silver donation bucket wrapped tightly to his slim frame. As an incense stick burned to its sweet end in front of the golden Buddha, the monk turned to face the crowd. Ed rose to his full height, pushing his shoulders past pointy elbows. A boy of ten stood nearby watching him. He waved at the funny man who had crawled on the Pagoda floor on Pchum Ben Day. The boy wondered if the man perhaps was a ghost, paying penance on his knees, seeking rice to eat. Ed waved back and winked, then reached up for the silver bucket, and grabbing its lip, yanked the monk to the ground, sandwiching the metal between them.
“Not on my watch,” he said.
*****
In the provinces, it was the tuk-tuk drivers who acted most quickly in response to the Prime Minister’s message. In their ubiquity, the drivers were a lightning chain reaction, racing towards the Wats, honking their horns and yelling at people on the streets, warning them to turn around and go home. In a country with no public transport system, these men were the circulation system of the nation, ferrying their countrymen and visitors to and fro, getting everyone where they needed to go, safely, and, when traffic permitted, on time. Today, however, they did not transport anyone but themselves and their selfless hearts, ignoring traffic rules, streetlights and other hindrances to speed. They reached Wats in the farthest corners of a country and they surrounded the threat.
In one large and crowded Pagoda in a province far from Phnom Penh, several drivers overcame the monk with the silver urn secured by a black sash. A tuk-tuk driver named Kiem had led that charge, racing toward the Wat on his shiny red motorcycle. He had not found Severine but instead he had found his purpose. He smiled as he tackled the monk, content with his contribution and with whatever would come next. Perhaps he would visit the Pagoda again one day as a ghost. He hoped there were motorcycles in the beyond.
*******
Somewhere in a remote corner of the eastern jungle, a massive explosion had occurred deep underground. It was not noted by anyone and it would be some time before the thick vein of gold there was discovered. When at last it was found by an Australian prospector, large chunks of the metal were noted already carved from the massive gold vein, strewn about a vast plane next to a previously unmapped underground river. The misshapen lumps were thought to be the result of an earthquake and so were simply added to the newly mined materials. A few of the miners thought it odd that there were so many large chunks of gold lying about but beyond that what could be done. There was no one in town who knew anything about it. Of course, there were a few rumors of antiquities, but there were always rumors in town whenever people talked of the jungle. If there had been antiquities, they were long gone or destroyed.
Chapter 41
Police tape extended in front of Angkor Wat, across the green lawn, past the broad moat and the long sidewalk, blocking the entrance to the temple from the street. Curious tourists wandered by, too late for the show. Chided by policemen, they scurried on to temples farther afield, Ta Prahm and the Bayon, still intact.
Flint stepped over the tape and walked among the rubble of Angkor Wat’s central dome. She’d flown up from Phnom Penh a few hours after the dawn attacks.
The police detective saw her and nodded. She was not supposed to be there and they both knew it. But she was getting a pass today. Her agent had personally saved hundreds of lives there earlier that morning. His efforts had saved thousands.
Flint knelt down and picked up a broken rectangular stone, its flat surface smooth. A second similar stone lay nearby. She placed the two pieces together, edges aligned. She held them for a moment, looking at the whole, before letting them fall from her hands to the soft earth.
She shook her head. There will always be men bent on breaking things, she thought.
She studied the broken temple. The destruction of that single spire was complete. But the other spires rose up behind it.
Nearby, a massive stone Buddha lay on its side, a hairline crack running diagonally from left to right across its face, under its eye, over the bridge of its nose and through its eternal smile.
*******
In total, nearly half of the Wats in the country were attacked and decimated that Pchum Ben Day morning. Hakk’s message of fear had reached far, enticing both those clinging to a dark-hearted past and others simply bent on destruction, hating for the sweet pleasure that hate brought to simple people.
But thankfully, the text message had gotten through as hoped. Andrew had told the Prime Minister he needed only one thing from him. Had made him promise. He’d explained that on Pchum Ben Day, he might need to reach every man, woman and child in the country. It had seemed a ridiculous thing to ask, far-reaching and nonsensical, and the Prime Minister had told him so, more than once, as the two men had argued about possibilities and potential. But Andrew had asked for it nonetheless, demanded it, as he had anticipated the worst. And in the end, to his credit, the Prime Minister had promised and acted swiftly when he had received Andrew’s frantic call at sunrise.
The brief text had saved countless lives - catching people en route to their local Pagodas, bearing gifts to honor the dead a
nd nourish the ghosts of their ancestors. The people had paused in their journey and read the text, urged to do so by others around them on the streets and sidewalks, their own phones in hand.
They’d read the words once, then twice, surprised at the odd message and its sender, but grateful, deeply so, once the reports of the attacks began to come in and the toll of the dead were released.
The people had turned around and gone home, setting the trays of rice aside. There, they had celebrated Pchum Ben Day, thinking of times past and a future that would bring the unknown, as the future always did. They decided that it did not matter so much where they were on this day, but rather, that they were together, thinking of those they had loved. They lit incense and gave thanks, saying prayers for those they had lost, wishing them peace and succor, and that they would find their way home.
Epilogue
Severine swept the wide courtyard while the children sang. Nearby, on a mahogany bench, Frank sat playing the guitar, teaching Samnang how to strum. In the back kitchen, Bob cooked dinner, while several other Veterans tended to the large garden they had built in a sunlit corner.
Severine smiled to herself. She had known as a girl that she would one day run a home for orphans. She knew that was her calling: Those without family moved her, struck in her the chord of greatest giving. But she had not known until recently that this calling included providing shelter, hearth, and home to orphans of all ages, from all times. She was so pleased to learn this. It mended her heart.
*******
In a pristine hospital in DC, Flint entered a bright white room occupied by a heavily bandaged man, lying on a single bed, his head turned toward the window. At the sound of the door, the man turned his head. He tried to smile at Flint, but the bandages didn’t budge.
