Cambodia

by Nick Carter

  I heard Chong fire two shots from behind me. The two remaining generals bumped into each other and fell bleeding to the ground. Tonle Sambor had reached the archway leading to his chambers. He was running very fast. Isolated gunshots were being fired around me. The lines of soldiers split and scattered. Lieutenant Rice told everybody to freeze. He was shouting in Cambodian.

  Tonle Sambor was not the kind of man you let get away. Even without an army or generals, he was still a threat. Few men would have the ability of recruitment like Tonle Sambor. He could start from nothing as he once did before and soon have another stronger army, an army always on the lookout for such traps as Tonle was now in.

  As I reached the top of the stairs I was aware that somebody was coming up behind me. I didn't look around because, in front of me, Tonle Sambor was rushing with one of his silver daggers.

  I spread my legs and kept my weight on the balls of my feet. I had Hugo in my hand. Tonle Sambor was moving in panic. Behind him, I saw flames in his chamber, papers that had to be burned. His small dark eyes held the same look of a fox. He was running and fighting in fear. He had to kill me to move past me, and the next man to move past him. He would have to keep on until he either got away or one of the men got him. I intended to get him. I took another step forward; my arm was back, ready to swing forward and stab the thin blade through him.

  "Wait!" The voice came from behind me. I twirled, ready to meet whoever it was. Chong stood there with a Chinese rifle aimed at me. "Don't kill him, Nick," he said quietly.

  I frowned at him. "What the hell is this, Chong?"

  Chong's face was without expression. "You have no right to kill General Tonle Sambor," he said in a toneless voice.

  I nodded toward Chong. "What are you trying to say, Chong? Are you part of Sambor's army?" I knew taking him would be a problem. He was too far to jump with Hugo. And he had that rifle while Wilhelmina was empty. But more than that I was confused. I didn't figure Chong. A lot of things didn't surprise me too much, but I just didn't figure Chong. "What are you going to do?" I asked.

  Chong said nothing. Behind me Tonle Sambor started rising to his feet. He was grunting with effort from the broken arm. He moved in staggering steps to my side. Then Chong did another puzzling thing. He swung his rifle away from me and pointed at Tonle Sambor.

  "Just don't get any cute ideas about running off anywhere, General," he said.

  I cocked my head and squinted at Chong. "Just which damned side are you on, Chong?" I asked.

  He flashed me a large grin. "Hell, man," he said lightly, "I've always been on your side. I didn't want you to knock off this worm just yet, that's all. There are guys he duped waiting downstairs. We got plans for the little general, dig?"

  I returned Chong's grin. "I dig." I stepped back one step. "After you, General."

  In the courtyard, the strike patrol had everything in hand. They had lost one man, another was wounded; they had killed 22 of Sambor's soldiers. We marched through the archway with Sambor in the lead. His troops watched him being herded out by Chong and me, and they looked at him with their eyes filled and with questions he couldn't answer. While Chong jumped up on the back of one of the trucks, Lieutenant Rice came over to flank the other side of Tonle Sambor so the general was between us.

  Chong was facing the grouped men who had once belonged to Sambor's army. He started rattling off to them in Cambodian. Lieutenant Rice twitched his magnificent mustache, dug in his shirt pocket and handed me a cigarette.

  "What is he saying?" I asked.

  The lieutenant gave me a small smile so that the pointed ends of his mustache raised only slightly. "He's telling them about how they were used by this little guy here and the other."

  Suddenly Tonle Sambor rose his voice in loud speech. I thought about clipping him one and even stepped over to do so, but Lieutenant Rice held up his hand.

  "The little bastard is fighting for his life," the Lieutenant said. "Let him have his say."

  Even Chong listened with the men to what the general was saying. When he finished, the men looked at Chong. Chong had a look of pure disgust. He started tearing loose one of the crates on the truck.

  "So what did he say?" I asked.

  The lieutenant was looking at Sambor with a half-smile. "He said that we and our raiders are enemies of Cambodia. He thinks his men should attack us or something."

  I had to match the Lieutenant's smile. Strike force raiders were stationed at each corner of the courtyard, in three doorways, and the rest paced back and forth on the roofs and on each side of the gates. All of them were armed with submachine guns. All the weapons of Sambor's army had been piled in the back of one of the trucks.

  Chong had one of the arms crates broken open. He pulled a machine gun from it and tossed it over the edge of the truck to the men's feet. Next he pulled out a rifle and did the same thing.

  Lieutenant Rice turned to me. "He's telling the men to check the markings on the weapons, to make sure they are Chinese weapons. He's saying that Tonle Sambor and his generals were Chinese agents." Tonle Sambor shouted a few words. The Lieutenant shook his head. "Our little friend here is calling Chong a liar."

  Chong moved from the crates to a line of dead Chinese soldiers. He cut the body loose and tossed it at the feet of the men.

  "He's telling the men to check the body closely. They will see that the soldiers were Chinese."

  Three of the men checked the body, then stood straight. All eyes turned to Tonle Sambor; and there was no mistaking what was in those eyes — pure hatred. The little general started looking around like a man on the run.

  Tonle Sambor roughly pushed both of us and took off at a dead run for the open gates. Three strike patrol raiders stationed on the roofs raised their submachine guns to their shoulders. Lieutenant Rice held his hand straight up. The raiders lowered their weapons. As the little general reached the gates and disappeared through them, Chong jumped down from the truck and took off after him. Sariki's two brothers then started running after Chong. Soon all the men were streaking out the gates.

  The Lieutenant and I smoked our cigarettes and stared at the ground and listened. I had no doubt who was going to reach Tonle Sambor first. I don't think the Lieutenant did either. And then after a few minutes I was positive. There had been the silence, a stillness without the men where the Lieutenant and I could hear the boots of the raiders on the roofs.

  First there was the stillness, then there was the most agonizing death scream I had ever heard. And I knew Tonle Sambor had died the most horrible of deaths. I also knew that Chong was the first to reach him.

  * * *

  For the first time since I had met her I saw Sariki actually smile. But it wasn't a smile aimed at me in gratitude for a safe return. No, she smiled to have her two brothers home safe. We had brought the trucks, which made the traveling much easier. We had picked up my equipment left in the ruins, and with the radio carried by the strike patrol raiders, we had already notified the American helicopter that would pick us up the next morning.

  It was about four in the afternoon with nothing to do but lounge around until the copter came. The people of the village were happy with all the food in the trucks. There was talk of a large feast that night, and a celebration because of the return of the brothers. To a lot of the villagers, the strike force and I were great heroes. But not to Sariki. She seemed to go out of her way to avoid me. I hadn't seen Chong all day.

  I took the opportunity to wallow in the downside of the creek. I shaved off the heavy whiskers and washed my clothes. I kept myself covered with the cool creek water for almost two hours. Then I changed into my clean set of clothes and walked in the coming darkness back to the village. The feast and celebration had already begun. Although I was clean and well rested, I had a deep feeling of fatigue. Up until now I had a goal, something I was going after. But now that it was over, all the outside forces seemed to gang up on me.

  Back in the village I leaned against a hut and watched the festivities
. There was a large fire with a pink pig roasting over it turning slowly. The whole village seemed to be out. They sat in a large circle around the fire. But where was Chong? I still hadn't seen him.

  I joined in the celebration just long enough to have a bit of that delicious meat and drink some concoction I couldn't even pronounce let alone remember. Then with the party still all wound up, I told everyone goodnight and went alone to my hut and turned in.

  For a long while I lay awake while the fatigue kept me from sleep. I listened to the small insects around me, and farther away the strange drumming and voices of the party, and just barely, the gurgling of the creek. I thought about how Chong had pointed that rifle at me just outside Tonle Sambor's chambers. Then I remembered seeing what was left of the little general's body as we left the ruins of Angkor Thom. The mutilation was worse than in any of the villages I had passed through. And Chong had done it. I wondered if Chong was more than merely the greatest guide and fighter in all of Cambodia. And again I wondered where he was. Sleep came to me in snatches.

  * * *

  And again Sariki came to me in my sleep. Her lithe young body was becoming familiar to me. It was so strange, the way we always seemed to know. Her touch brought me swimming up out of the pool of slumber. I felt her hand on my shoulder, then she was over me and down on the other side to face me, fists against my chest, around my knees and against my thighs. She smelled of fresh soap; her breath was sweet with the drink. Far off, I could hear the babble of a creek.

  She started worming and squirming, trying to work one of her legs under me. I raised slightly, and she slid the leg under, then hooked her calf back against me. I felt the other leg lift over me, felt the smooth weight of it on my hip. The fists on my chest opened and her hands went around my ribs and flattened against my back.

  There were no words; no thanks for bringing my brothers back to me; no this is not for me but out of gratitude; none of the lame excuses and reasons why. There was no speaking this time, only the movement.

  And then there was the blind searching in the dark, the guiding touch, the pressure steadily increasing, probing, feeling the moist resistance and then the soft release and penetration. I heard the little gasp of air through her nose as we coupled, and then we were sleekly and deeply together. She wiggled herself a little higher, changed her position, moved her hands further around me, and made a small warm sound of contentment.

  My hands slid down the small of her little-girl back until I reached her lovely bottom. I cupped a warm, smooth, solid fanny and with a touch and pressure turned her into a loving little machine. And then it started, the slow, rhythmic pumping of her hips, rich and demanding.

  With dark all around, she at last turned her full mouth up to me for a kiss. The beat would remain slow and steady until that time we both went searching for each other.

  And suddenly the fantasy and the unreal world faded far away from me. The Tonle Sambors, and Silver Dagger Societies, and Chongs, and strike patrols, and Hawks, and AXEs, all seemed like pages being flipped in a book. My world was a private one of need, a small and personal and totally shared world. Their faces were masks made of cardboard and spit hanging on strings from an empty tree. They were part of a wind that blew parched and dry across an empty heart. They were not of my world these bodyless faces and names.

  "Ah," said the only other living creature of my world. "Ah."

  * * *

  And yet the next morning she was not there. She did not show as the helicopter stirred the thatched roofs with its whupping blades. The strike force climbed bleary-eyed and sleepy into the huge copter but I hung back, looking, waiting. There was no sign of Sariki, no sign of Chong. The noisy, gas-fuming copter engine loped behind me waiting. Three men were left to be gobbled into its large Air Force belly; three men and one Nick Carter.

  I wondered if I should look for them. Maybe Chong had been hurt; stepped on a mine, or trapped somehow, by someone; but it was only idle thoughts of concern. I had to face it. The American had come. The American had done a job. The American was now leaving.

  "Nick! Hey, Nick!" It was Chong, a wide grin on his youthful con face. He was running toward me. He reached me in a sweat. "Hey, man, glad I caught you before you took off."

  I put my hand on his shoulder, then took his outstretched hand. "So what happens to you now, Chong? More organized crap games? A jaunt to Saigon?"

  "No man, no more of that jazz for me. I spent almost two days talking to those recruits. You know, the new guys and the ones who had been with Sambor for awhile. They're all agreed, finally, to stay together." His grin widened. "Thanks to me they think Americans are okay guys, you know, I mean GI Joe is okay stuff. They think the Americans are really here in Southeast Asia to help all our people. I'm lousing this up, but I think you can dig what I mean. I mean, I'll probably be as great a leader as I am a guide and fighter."

  I roughed up that porcupine mop of his for him. "I don't doubt it for a minute, Chong." And then suddenly I looked just to my left and Sariki was standing there, her hair down and blowing like a flag out behind her. I walked up to her and took her hands in mine. She had a small smile on her full lips.

  She didn't speak. Instead she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me soundly for a long time. Then she stood away from me, still with that small smile. I felt a twinge of longing for her. I had never met anyone quite like her before.

  The pilot was impatient. I turned and started to climb into the belly of the copter. I waved vigorously at Chong once I was inside. Then I saw Sariki wave her hand slightly. As the copter lifted off the ground, I noticed Sariki had a stream of tears running down each cheek.

  Fifteen

  It was raining in Washington. I could see it beating against Hawk's window. His office was filled with smoke from the cigars he had gone through while I told the whole thing to him. In his hands he held the silver dagger Chong had given me the day we bugged Tonle Sambor's chambers.

  Hawk dropped the dagger on his desk. He cleared his throat, pulled the black unlit stub of cigar from his teeth, looked at it with distaste, scratched the back of his neck, then fixed me with a stare.

  "You are right, Carter. It is a wicked-looking weapon." He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "And you say this Chong has taken the trucks and is seeking out and destroying communist forces?"

  "Yes, sir, anywhere he can find them, whether they're Chinese, Viet Cong, or North Vietnamese. He hates communists with a passion."

  Hawk was still staring at me. "And you think he's good?"

  "Very good, sir."

  Hawk snorted. "Maybe we can give him a little help."

  "I think he'd appreciate that."

  Hawk leaned back. "Carter, you did fine on this. I don't have to tell you. I'll see if we can't get you a little extra time off. Janet, I presume?"

  I smiled. "As I told you earlier, sir, Janet and I have an understanding. I would appreciate a few days, thank you."

  Hawk stood and crossed to the window. He clamped the cigar between his teeth, then looked back over his shoulder to the dagger resting on his desk. When he spoke he seemed to be almost talking to himself.

  "So what did we accomplish, I wonder? Have we actually helped anyone, Carter? Have we eased any of the struggle in Southeast Asia simply by removing one pawn? I truly wonder how many Tonle Sambors there are wandering around?"

  "I don't know, sir," I said honestly. "Maybe others like Chong and his small band will provide the answers."

  "Perhaps," Hawk said. "Perhaps. But I wonder?"

  I wondered, too, not only about what Chong was doing, but about what Ben-Quang had told me, about how the feeling runs for Americans in Asia. Then suddenly I felt a twinge across my chest. I thought fondly of a girl named Sariki, and I wondered what would become of her.

 

 

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