by James Samuel
“You know perfectly well what I’m upset about. This is reckless and wild. An unnecessary risk.”
James shrugged and smiled to himself as he nestled back into his seat. Of course, Sinclair’s assessment was correct, but they were in a race against time. James couldn’t figure out another way of getting to Narith. Trying it in the capital, the seat of Cambodian power, didn’t seem like the best idea.
James and Sinclair passed along one of the country’s only well-maintained roads. Their bus commanded the highway, with a driver who wouldn’t allow anything but the nippiest bike to squeeze by.
“This is madness,” said Sinclair, once again. “We should have at least waited until Blake could fight.”
“Fuck Blake. He’s a liability. Always has been.”
Sinclair turned away from him towards a herd of cows being whipped along the side of the road. “This again?”
“Yes, this again. I can’t trust him.”
“Why not? He’s an arsehole, but he can fight. You’re trying to take on a whole army by yourself.”
“He’s here to kill me,” James blurted out.
Sinclair didn’t reply. He eased himself up in his seat. “What?”
“I heard him on the phone in Kampot. The walls in the hotel were thin, and I heard everything.” James let out a sigh. “Gallagher wants him to kill Thom after we finish the job.”
“So why does that mean he’s going to kill you?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.”
“He knows I’ll step in, and I’ll die in the fighting. It’s Gallagher’s way of getting rid of me. You know he wants me out, especially after Mexico.”
Sinclair dismissed his explanation with a wave of his hand. “You’re paranoid.”
“Don’t believe me? When Narith’s dead, Blake will find a way to be there with Thom during the debrief. Wouldn’t be surprised if Gallagher gives us the order himself.”
“Paranoid.” Sinclair resumed window watching.
The rest of the trip to Siem Reap continued in silence. It hurt him that Sinclair of all people wouldn’t even entertain what he’d just said. After so long working together, James thought he would believe him.
The bus soon bore down on the city of Siem Reap. The city consisted of that wonderful mix of modern buildings jostling with temples and old stone buildings. The streets were clean, and the roadside restaurants all looked freshly opened.
The bus struggled to bully the traffic out of the way. Their driver spent the last few minutes with his head lolling out of the window screaming at the traffic with a cigarette lazing from his fingers.
They were soon assaulted by a gaggle of guides the moment they stepped off the bus. Colourful laminate cards were shoved in their faces. All advertising tours of various kinds to Angkor Wat. James stared straight ahead, his eyes hidden by dark sunglasses.
“Quick, let’s hurry up,” said Sinclair. “He’ll do.”
Sinclair picked out one of the few tuk-tuk drivers not trying to assault the new arrivals, and they were off to the Krong Siem Reap Guesthouse.
What became clear as they rode through the streets was Siem Reap had become one big tourist town. Every building seemed to offer tours of some kind. Each word written in broken English, not a single inch dedicated to the Khmer language.
“Well, we have two days to set this up,” said Sinclair. “Tomorrow we should visit Angkor Wat and see what we have to work with. I’ve already picked out some of the quieter areas.”
James looked around him at the orderly unKhmer-like streets. “If there is one.”
“There’s always somewhere. As much as I think this is a terrible idea, you made the decision. My job now is to make sure it works out for the best. Can we contact Dylan?”
“Yes, I have his number. He should make the call to Shao soon. He’ll tell me when it’s made.”
“Fine. Let’s make it quick. I’ll send a message to HQ and try to get as much help as possible. We need some weapons here for a start. Something heavy.”
“In two days, is that possible?”
“Remember who we work for.” Sinclair gave him a wink.
The tuk-tuk driver dropped them off at the Krong Siem Reap Guesthouse. The three-story building sat at the end of a dead-end street. A collection of wicker chairs and a sofa huddled outside the door. It barely looked more than a couple of years old.
After being directed to their rooms, they set about their work. James booked a private guide to visit Angkor Wat the following day, and Sinclair started tapping away on his computer. For once, they didn’t bicker or debate. Each of them knew their roles as part of the well-oiled machine.
James sat downstairs with a beer late that evening when his phone rang. The mosquitoes already danced beneath the hanging lamps. He finished slathering some tiger balm down the sides of his neck to keep the insects away. The thick waxy substance opened his nostrils with its stench.
“Hello?” James said.
“It’s done,” Dylan confirmed.
“What did you say?”
“Shao was so happy with what I told him. He never complimented me like that before. You’re meeting with your contact at 6 am at the Phnom Bakheng temple.”
James screwed his face up. “Wait, wait, what?”
“Phnom Bakheng.”
“Why did you choose the location?”
“It’s quiet. It’s the sunset temple. The rest of the time it’s quiet. I already did my research.”
“Fine, fine. It’s too late to change our minds now anyway.”
Sinclair shrugged and gestured opposite him.
James mouthed the name of the temple.
“So, you still have time. You have tomorrow to make a plan,” said Dylan.
“How do we know he’s going to send the general personally?” asked James.
“He said as much.”
James nodded. “Good, call me again with any updates.”
He lowered the phone. He didn’t appreciate Dylan deciding for him. It changed the game entirely. Now he had to make this work.
“Do you know it?”
Sinclair clicked his tongue. “Not in detail. All I know is it’s on a large hill. There’s only a single trail leading up to the temple at the top. It’s surrounded by sheer cliffs and the jungle, based on what I saw on the maps.”
James nodded. “It might be the best candidate after all.”
“The odds will still be in their favour.”
James picked up his beer and drained the last of it. He understood that by accepting this showdown he had backed himself into a corner. With no help forthcoming, hope had become little more than a fading star on the edge of the night sky.
If they got it wrong, he wouldn’t get out of this alive.
Chapter Fifty-Six
The towering structures of Angkor Wat gleamed with ancient history. Eroding winds softened the features of the faces carved into the rocks. Dark stone bleached white by the relentless sun created strange colour combinations and odd shadows depending on the time of day.
“Is that a tree?” James jabbed his head at a temple to their right.
“Ta Prohm,” Sinclair explained. “The trees have grown undisturbed for centuries.”
James viewed Ta Prohm with wonder. An off-white tree of some kind had grown over a crumbling wall at least ten feet high. Its thick, skeletal roots climbed over the rock and formed its own miniature jungle canopy above them.
Their guide stayed quiet and maintained his distance. The squat man had a round face and a carefully shaved head of black hair. Every time they stopped, he would bark out their location and little else.
“Phnom Bakheng,” he said at last. “Why you want to go here? This for sunset. There’s no sunset now.”
“We’re archaeologists. It’s part of a private study,” Sinclair chipped in. “University of Oxford.”
The overweight Khmer nodded. “Okay, you enjoy very much.”
The two men left the tuk-tuk
behind as they proceeded on foot. They were on the left side of the main Angkor Wat temple. Crowds descended upon every entrance like a plague of locusts. Elephants dressed in crowns of gold and red skirts were held to order by a sadistic Khmer with a long pole and sharp stick on the end. They threw their trunks to show their displeasure at being ridden but none dared put a foot out of the line-up.
“He’s right,” said James as they followed the steep jungle trail towards the temple. “There really is no one here before sunset.”
They soon lost sight of the rest of the complex as they climbed into the sky. The jungle pressed in around them on each side. In the humidity, both men became walking sweat stains.
“There’s a break in the trees.” Sinclair, suffering in the heat, pointed towards a spot where the path crested. “This is awful.”
James ignored his unfit partner and leapt up the path towards the viewpoint. The small gap in the jungle showed them to be far above sea level. The countryside stretched into eternity, with lakes, rice paddies, and an unblemished blue sky rolling away from them.
“I can’t see another way up,” James commented. “This must be the only way.”
Sinclair trudged up behind him and leaned for support on the information board. “I can’t take this much longer. It’s killing me. I should have taken the bloody elephant.”
James shrugged. “Less than halfway there. This looks like our best option.”
Sinclair opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. Phnom Bakheng sat at the top of a small mountain. The long, steep path curved around its side like threads of wool. Every opening seemed like a false summit.
The second half of the trek elevated them above the jungle. Atop the mountain were the ruins of a charred temple in the centre of a flat summit. These same stones would glitter with specks of gold come sunset. James wasted no time in approaching the deserted temple and hopping up the stone steps.
“Yes, yes,” Sinclair panted. “Plenty of levels. A lookout point. They won’t be able to surprise you.”
“You’re right. From up on the temple, there’s open ground, and then the path going down. No other openings.” James paced across the top of the temple. “Still, I don’t like my chances.”
“They won’t bring in heavy weapons or equipment. You can be sure of that.”
“What gives you that idea?”
“You’re not an enemy of the state. Narith will be misappropriating military equipment to attack you. He’ll bring his loyalists, and he’ll want to keep it quiet.”
“If he comes early enough, I’ll be the only person around for miles.”
Sinclair shook his head. “No, no, it would make too much noise. There are thousands of foreigners at any one time a couple of miles down the road. Attack helicopters and artillery couldn’t be used without blowing his cover.”
James saw the logic, but he still didn’t like the odds. The Cambodian army was hardly known for their proficiency, but numbers alone could overwhelm him. It depended on how seriously Shao took him. And he wouldn’t know that until the shooting started.
“Do we have enough to give me a chance?” asked James.
Sinclair walked to the edge of the temple. A sheer twenty-foot drop to the earth.
“There’s a chance,” said Sinclair. “Not much of one but a chance. In my expert opinion, the risk is too high. We should pull out. There must be another way.”
“But what other way? If there is one, I’d like to hear about it because I haven’t seen it yet.”
Sinclair’s mouth moved like he wanted to say something, but nothing came out.
“Then let’s do this. On the way down, I want you to map out all the choke points. Where I should make a stand and where I should run away. I’m relying on you for that, Sinclair.”
Sinclair only grunted in response. After mapping the main Phnom Bakheng temple, they returned to the main path. He recorded notes on his phone and would step off the path at intervals to examine a seemingly innocuous patch of foliage.
By the time they reached the bottom again, James had everything he was going to get. It would all come down to experience, skill, and dumb luck.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh Province, Cambodia
Dylan’s time with Song Wen consisted of little more than following him around. Song rarely left the luxury apartment in Camko City. The Camko City area of Phnom Penh was a new development financed through investment from South Korea. This ultra-modern district of the capital represented the future of the country.
From the top floor, Dylan found it sterile. The white tower blocks and planned city streets could have been anywhere in the world. Even the parks, designed for relaxation, had a sterile, meticulous feel about them. Most of his time in the apartment was spent in the sitting room. Song preferred to hole himself up in his bedroom and usually only came out for meals. He wondered if Song feared him.
“Sir Richard?” said Dylan into the phone as he reclined on the sofa in front of the TV. He turned the volume down on the Khmer pop video.
“Your update?”
“Shao has me protecting a man named Song Wen. He’s a Chinese sent by the Party. I was told that when Shao’s work is finished, Wen will be the man to run the country from the background.”
“Predictable,” said Sir Richard, sounding bored by the explanation.
“Is there anything you want me to do? I can’t even communicate with Song because he doesn’t speak English. I’m not sure that I can do much good spending time with him all day.”
“Your brief is clear,” said Sir Richard. “Your role is to obey Shao Fen. Whether he takes Sen or not is unimportant. We get paid either way.”
Dylan’s mouth dropped open. “What? You told me that our job was to advance the coup.”
“Our work will advance Shao’s little coup against Hun Sen. However, we are paid based on our time, not a target. The longer he takes, the more he pays us. Don’t trouble yourself with matters that are none of your concern. Obey your orders and nothing more.”
Dylan bit down on his tongue. He hated being a glorified armed grunt. When he considered the mission undertaken by James and Sinclair, it sent him into a bitter spiral. They had control over their destinies, and they made a difference. If he wanted a life like this, he may as well have taken an easy but boring job of guarding celebrities against their rabid fans.
“Anything else, Dylan?”
“Yes,” said Dylan. “Blackwind is moving against Shao and General Narith. If I sit here all day, one of them is going to die. I feel that I have to inform you that they’re way ahead of us in everything.” He paused for dramatic effect. “They’re making us look like fools.”
Sir Richard raised his voice. “Now you listen here, we stick to our mission. We do the job we are paid to do and nothing else. Your orders are to stay where you are. Regardless of what Blackwind is doing, your role is to protect Song Wen from harm.”
“But what if our client is making the wrong decision?”
“Then he makes the wrong decision. That is none of our business.”
“We’re not going to get paid anything more if both of them are lying in caskets, though, are we?”
“Silence!” Sir Richard snapped into the phone. “That’s about enough of your lip. You will do as you are asked. Our interest in a successful coup is precisely zero. If both of them die, so be it, but you will do as you were ordered. That is your mission now.”
Dylan tossed his head like a petulant child. “Yes, Sir Richard.”
He dropped the phone on the cream-coloured cushion next to him. Dylan lingered for a couple of seconds before hopping up from the sofa. This wasn’t why he picked up a job with Xiphos. It wasn’t the life he wanted to lead. Bodyguard duty and being talked down to by Sir Richard never figured in his ambitions. Perhaps it was time for a change?
He looked to the closed-door hiding Song from the world. His charge would be fine. Nobody was coming to kill him, and if they did,
he wouldn’t fight James. The American was tired of doing what he didn’t believe in for people who didn’t believe in him. No amount of money was worth this life.
Dylan closed the front door behind him, abandoning his Xiphos posting forever.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Siem Reap, Siem Reap Province, Cambodia
Blackwind moved quickly to leverage its contacts and outfit James with everything Sinclair had requested. It still shocked James how impressive the organization could be when necessary. He inspected the array of weapons and explosives Blackwind had sent them in an unmarked crate.
“You know that the guesthouse owner isn’t going to believe this, don’t you?” said James.
“Who cares? We’re leaving later today. We’ll never see him again, and he doesn’t even have our real names. You need to worry less about Cambodian guesthouse owners and more about General Narith.”
Suitably chastised, James equipped himself for battle like he’d done hundreds of times before. To keep himself mobile, he wore just a Kevlar vest. It could only stop shrapnel and low-velocity rounds, but it kept him agile. Taking a stand and fighting a pitched battle would get him killed no matter what he wore.
He holstered a set of Beretta M9 short recoil pistols and then looked over the piece that could save his life. A new M4A1 carbine. They’d used one in the Cardamom Mountains on their mission to assassinate Tep Prak. Unsuitable for a hike in the mountains, the best there was for a major battle.
“Is this going to be enough?” asked James. “We don’t know how many men Narith will send.”
“That’s why we’ll hide some ammunition crates in the temple. We don’t want you having to rely on stealing someone else’s weapons, do we? I’ve also got something rather special for you.” Sinclair gestured at the only unopened crate sitting underneath the small colour TV. “Open it.”
James lowered the carbine onto the sheets and bent to open the box. He eased off the wooden lid.
“How did you get that into the country?”
