by James Samuel
Blake jabbed him lightly in the side. James knew what that meant. They had to get down to business.
“Rith, one of the tuk-tuk drivers told me you had an uncle. Prahn.”
Rith’s eyes lit up. “Uncle Prahn, yah, he is very famous in Cambodia. Very famous.”
The mere mention of Uncle Prahn brought the children and the women around them. Rith spoke of Prahn like a master propagandist. In Rith’s mind, Prahn was a hero fighting to keep the revolution alive. It was as if they’d never heard of the crimes of the Khmer Rouge.
James and Blake nodded along to Rith’s reverie with polite, tense smiles. He wondered how many of the tales of heroism espoused by Rith were real and how many were pulled directly from storybooks.
“Where is Prahn now?” James ventured after Rith paused for breath.
“He not here.” He moved his hands in jagged lines. “He in mountains. Far away.”
“Would it be possible to meet him?”
“No, no, he is very busy. Very busy.”
James couldn’t hide his look of disappointment. “We would really like to meet him.”
Rith’s smile never wavered as he shrugged.
James glanced over at Blake. He saw the tinder lighting up and his eyes burning into the family from behind his sunglasses. He knew they had only one course of action open to them.
“Blake,” said James.
Blake tore his eyes away from the family. “What?”
“You know.”
Rith turned his head to the side like a curious puppy. But it was too late. Blake stood and drew his Glock 19. He pointed it directly at Rith’s head. The whole family screamed and cowered, but none dared make a move towards them. Rith sat transfixed, whereas the women and children scrambled backwards until their backs hit the wall.
“You translate, Rith. This is nothing personal. We want to meet Prahn. Bring him here,” said James.
“No, no, no, I can’t.” Rith shook his head.
Blake made a show of switching his Glock’s safety off. “You can and you will or I’m going to start shooting you one by one.” He gritted his teeth. “And I’ll leave you alive so you can watch everyone die.”
Rith’s eyes bulged. Tears formed on the edges of his eyelids, like a banana leaf after the rains had fallen.
“Call him.” Blake gestured with the gun. “Now. I know you have a phone and I know you’re capable of calling him in an emergency.”
Rith looked back at the family sitting just a little behind him. The women held the kids tightly. They exchanged some hurried words in Khmer. James didn’t understand a word, but he could tell the women were begging Rith to summon Uncle Prahn.
“Okay, okay, I call him, yah.” Rith fished his phone out of his pocket. “I call him now.”
Blake lowered the gun and leaned against the side of the door. James joined him as Rith spoke in hurried Khmer.
“We should have given him a script. Who knows what he’s saying or who he’s really speaking to?” said Blake. “I wouldn’t trust this guy. You know how they are when you point a gun at them. Maybe I should put a bullet in his leg to make sure he knows not to screw around.”
“Even if we told him what to say and who to call, he’s speaking a language we don’t understand.” He glanced at the animated Rith. “He’s calling Sambath, I know it. You can tell just by looking at him.”
“Well, I don’t trust him.”
“Leave them alone. Unless they do anything that deserves it, let them be. These people are defenceless.”
Blake’s expression tightened. “Don’t get soft on me because you want to start having misguided principles again.”
Every inch of him wanted to fire back at Blake with what he knew about him and Gallagher. Blake, once again, had his own secret mission. He took a deep breath and bit down on his tongue. This wasn’t the time for that.
Rith gesticulated like a wild animal as he spoke into the phone. He paused, and then his voice quietened before he let his cell phone drop to the floor beside him, the dust shifting.
“Well?” said Blake. “When is he coming?”
“I don’t know, but he said he come. He come soon.” Hatred sprang from Rith’s brow. “He kill you.”
Blake roared with laughter. “Sure, he will, kid. Sure, he will. I guess we’ll just have to put that theory to the test. Time to hunker down for the night.”
James and Blake conferred. They agreed to keep a watch of six hours each. Watching the family and the land around the farm at the same time wouldn’t be easy, but they didn’t have the manpower to do anything more.
James settled in for the first watch as Blake moved to the adjoining hut to get some rest. Soon, Prahn would come. And James knew that Prahn wouldn’t come alone.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Poipet, Banteay Meanchey, Cambodia
Dylan and Adam continued to stakeout the guesthouse across the road. Prahn emerged, his movements sharp and jumpy. The two foreigners peered at him with curiosity from their vantage point at the bar.
“He never looked like that before,” Dylan remarked. “Something’s spooked him.”
“Just watch him closely. We don’t know what it means.” He dug into his wallet and threw a pile of dollars on the table. “We have to be ready to move fast. Do you have your car here?”
“Sure,” said Dylan. “It’s just around the corner.”
Prahn moved down the street towards his vehicle, the much-beloved Cambodian staple, a silver Toyota Camry.
The two field agents rose from their seats and dismissed the waiter.
“Get to the car. What is it?” asked Adam.
“The same car as his. Since the Camry is the most popular car in Cambodia, I figured it would help us blend in.”
“Nice one.” Adam gave him a quick clap on the shoulder.
Dylan had bought the Camry from a local on the outskirts of Phnom Penh soon after his arrival. He’d thought about renting but considered that a private purchase would make it harder to track. Not that he’d got any papers. The car was still registered in the original owner’s name.
He opened the door of the Camry, parked on the adjacent corner of the bar when Adam nudged him in the side.
“Let me drive. Just in case he wants to play silly buggers and start a chase.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure, you’re right.”
Dylan jogged around to the passenger side. Adam had extensive experience in high-speed driving. As much as he wanted to handle everything himself, he couldn’t let his ego get in the way of keeping track of Prahn.
By the time they pulled away from the curb, Prahn had already started negotiating the border traffic. Hemmed in by the buses, tuk-tuks, and backpackers, Adam slammed the horn and gesticulated at the mess in front of them. It would be easy to lose Prahn in the scrum of Poipet.
Dylan took out his phone and picked out Shao’s number. Prahn’s behaviour didn’t match his descriptors. So calm during his journey to Poipet, Prahn sped out of town like a man afflicted with some wild phantasma.
“Yes?” Shao answered.
“It’s me,” said Dylan.
“I told you never to call me directly. Do you Americans not know how to follow orders? You are putting me at risk here,” said Shao, his tone uncharacteristically irritated. “Make it quick. I have business to attend to.”
“Sambath’s on the move. We arrived at Poipet and now he’s turned around and he’s moving quickly back into Cambodia. Something must have happened.”
A long pause followed.
“Mr. Fen?”
“This is a curious development.” Shao’s voice slid through the phone like ice. “A curious development indeed. Either way, follow him. Do not intervene under any circumstances. We must find where Prak is hiding. Once you are sure you have found Prak, only then, you may kill him.”
“Yes, Mr. Fen.”
“Good.”
The line went dead, and Dylan took a deep breath. Adam shifted through the gears as they kep
t pace with Prahn on the horizon.
“This isn’t right,” said Dylan. “He’s moving like someone’s chasing him.”
“Someone is chasing him.”
“You know what I mean. Shao Fen ordered us to stay back. Without him, we don’t stand a chance of finding Prak. He’s the only one we know of who knows where Prak is.”
“We won’t be getting our hands dirty just yet. It’s not the first time I’ve tracked a man across a country. Something’s gotten to him.”
“What do you think it is?”
Adam shrugged as he cranked on the gear stick again. “God knows, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s either something to do with family or something big has happened within the Khmer Rouge. One way or another, all’s not well.”
Prak’s Camry continued to overtake trucks and buses at speed. One wrong move would send the car flying through the air. As they crashed over the potholes and enormous cracks as black as night, Dylan knew they were in for a bumpy day.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kampot, Kampot Province, Cambodia
The first watch passed without incident. In the Cambodian countryside, the sunset managed to struggle through the relentless dust that knifed through the heart of Kampot. The tall palmyras became silhouettes as the sun hung low and Blake emerged from the hut, roused by the alarm on his phone.
“It’s a nice sunset,” said James.
Blake barely glanced at it. “Sure, it’s something. You can get some rest now. Make sure you set your alarm.”
James got up from the stool he’d managed to scrounge from another hut. He stretched his creaking joints and glanced back at the family again. The women and children slept in fits. Rith hadn’t closed his eyes for a second. In the darkening light of the hut, the whites of his eyes never left James. He could feel the fury bubbling beneath Rith.
“Watch him,” said James. “When Prahn comes, expect him to fight.”
Blake took a long look at Rith. He saw it too. The young man wanted just a chance to take a shot at them. If he managed to grasp a weapon, no matter how rudimentary, he would fight tooth and nail.
“Good thing I brought these then.” Blake took some cable ties out of his pocket. “Just in case any of them want to make trouble.”
Rith didn’t react to the appearance of the cable ties. He just glared with undisguised hatred at the American.
“Get down on your front, boy,” Blake commanded.
Rith didn’t move.
“You want to feel what it’s like to be in America, you better get used to this. The small-town cops are going to love you.” Blake approached Rith and seized him by the back of the head, forcing him down onto his front. “You’re a strong one, ain’t you?”
“Just do it,” said James. “We don’t need any speeches.”
“I’m just playing with him.” Blake patted Rith on the head. “He wouldn’t need to be tied at all if he just played nice.”
James watched in silence as Blake attached the cable ties to Rith’s wrists. The plastic could cut into the skin leaving angry red marks that wouldn’t dissipate for weeks. To his relief, Blake didn’t tighten them fully.
“I’ll tighten them more if you don’t play nice.” Blake hauled Rith back into a sitting position again. “Just remember, we’re being nice to you. It’ll get a lot worse if you try anything.”
James left the hut just as Blake took up position on the low stool. Outside, the mosquitoes whined, lightly touching him on the side of his face. The swarm had arrived, and they’d already started to probe the white flesh. A rare change of menu for pests in this part of the country.
By now, the sun had half-dipped under the horizon, the burning light growing in its intensity. James had a strange feeling about the way the sun glowed. Splotches of blood painted the sky. Was it an omen for what was to come on this night? He hoped he would live to see the morning.
James took out his phone and called Sinclair on speed dial.
Sinclair picked up before the second tone. “What’s going on? You haven’t called me all day.”
“We’re with the family in Kampot. We had to take them hostage to get them to call Prahn and bring him here.”
“I see,” Sinclair said matter-of-factly. “Did you hurt any of them?”
“No, but we had to tie the boy up. He’s been staring at me all afternoon. I can see it in his eyes that he wants to do something. We can’t take that risk. Did HQ find out anything about Prahn?”
“Yes. They managed to get some sources in Cambodia. Prahn has been seen making regular stops in Kampot. He’s quite well-known in the town.”
“Ah, so he won’t have far to come then?”
“Not necessarily. Like the rest of the Khmer Rouge remnants, he spends most of his time in the mountains and the forests. But you can guarantee that after hearing about his family, he will be moving as fast as he can.”
James nodded along as the sky began to darken, releasing its final flourish of colour as the sun disappeared and the mosquitoes closed in around him. He batted at a particularly large mosquito buzzing across his field of vision.
“Be careful, James. Based on what I have from HQ, Prahn is not going to come alone. Expect him to gather some men on the way. He may have allies in Kampot itself. It’s not too late to leave.”
“No,” James snapped. “This is our only chance. He’ll take the family away if we try to come back later. Someone that high up isn’t stupid.”
“Remember Mexico.”
James did remember Mexico. Blackwind field agent Diego Gutierrez had fallen in a fight resulting from an operation almost identical to this. The difference now was they didn’t have the cover of a large house to protect them. Blake loved a firefight, but if Prahn brought a small army they’d eventually find themselves overwhelmed.
“James, you know I prefer to avoid violence when we can, but you must be prepared to go to any length to protect yourself and complete the mission.”
James tightened his grip on the phone. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that if you do have to use his family to get him to stand down, you do it. Do it without thinking about it. If you have to shoot one of them, do it.”
“No.”
“James, this is serious. Don’t die on a farm in Cambodia. There are better places to die than this one. Nobody will think less of you if you do what you have to do to survive. Remember who we are.”
James shook his head. He wouldn’t start executing women and children to accomplish his goals. Not if the Khmer Rouge closed in on him from all sides and it was his only way out. He’d rather fight to the death and accept his fate than live with the guilt of executing innocents. The family had done nothing other than to have the misfortune of being related to a Khmer Rouge leader.
“I won’t do it, Sinclair.”
“James, see sense –”
James ended the call and switched it to flight mode. He refused to hear this. He would never consider it as an option. As he ventured into the hut where Blake had chosen to rest before, he tried to fight the natural urge to do anything to survive. Unfortunately for him, if he wouldn’t do it, he knew a man who would.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The moon shone over a brilliant sky. Free from the blinding glow of the city, the stars decorated the endless expanse with little lanterns. An errant cloud passed close to the cool silver moon, kissing its edges with a momentary warmth.
James knew the time had come. Something in the air felt strange, like the calm before the deep plunge under the waves. He had no proof. Sinclair wouldn’t have believed or understood him. But he knew it was coming. Prahn Sambath was on his way.
Blake roused from his hut, sweeping across the yard, kicking the dirt aside. The little fluorescent light bulbs cast a sterile illumination across the centre of each hut, a beacon for the flies and mosquitoes.
“Do you feel it?” asked James.
“Feel what?” he replied.
“He’s going to come to
night. We won’t be here for long.”
Blake looked at him for a long time. He perched his sunglasses on his forehead. “I’m getting that impression as well, you know? He ain’t stupid and it seemed pretty animated on the phone.”
“Do we have a plan?”
Blake looked around him, glancing at the family inside. Most of them were already sleeping. Rith remained wide awake, his hands still bound.
“Stay close to the family. We can’t afford to have them sneaking away. Besides, we might need them as hostages.”
James arched an eyebrow. “Aren’t they already hostages?”
Blake gave him a long look but said nothing.
The chirping of the crickets and the occasional shuffle from inside the hut accompanied them as they waited for what was to come next. The family snatched moments of sleep where they could, waking from their dreams to relive the terror of imprisonment, before drifting away again. All but Rith who seemed never to close his eyes, even for a second.
James had already taken a turn of the area during his break. The family had several fields leading down to the road. Prahn would come at night as the little hill in which the huts stood claimed the high ground. They didn’t have much of a plan, only two Glock 19s. This wasn’t the place James wanted to fight a siege, especially at night.
Finally, it happened. James’ head snapped up at the distant sound of an engine. The hum of the vehicle moved across the distance. Suddenly, it stopped. James nodded to Blake in the doorway of the hut.
“Gag him,” said James.
If anyone dared to cry out, Rith would be the first, so Blake grabbed a filthy rag from the makeshift kitchen and stuffed it into Rith’s mouth. The boy almost choked, but then fell quiet.
“You take the right; I’ll take the left. Let them see where we’re keeping them,” James ordered. “Lure them into a trap, and we can end this before it turns into a massacre.”
