by Adam Hall
Let there be a rose, then, for Moira.
Chapter 12
EXECUTION
Three half-tracks, two personnel carriers, a dozen Chinese-built jeeps and an armoured car. Five or six rows of bamboo huts, a concrete building next to the cell, a big wood-fired stove with a corrugated iron roof over it to protect the camouflage net.
A dozen rebels standing around leaning on their vehicles, laughing and chattering in Khmer when they saw me led out of the cell by the two guards: a round-eye in the camp was an event.
I couldn't see my jeep anywhere; maybe it was still out there on the track through the mountains, and they were going to bring it in later.
My guards hadn't put the blindfold back on; I don't think they'd forgotten to; it was just that they knew it didn't matter now what I saw here, I wasn't going to tell anybody.
They pushed me into the jeep, my arms still tied behind me by the sleeves of my jacket. One of them got behind the wheel and the other sat beside me with the muzzle of his assault rifle dug into my side. I could smell his hair oil: he was the one who'd spoken in French when they'd seized me.
The air came in hot waves against my face as we set off, and when we left the shade of the camouflage net the sun was below the foothills and the sky deepening towards the west. The infra-red had been pouring into the canyon all day long, leaving a flood of heat for us to drive through.
'I told your colonel the truth, you know,' I called in French to the man next to me above the rattling of the jeep. 'I haven't any interest in politics, or who runs this country.'
He didn't answer, dug the gun harder into my side. The driver twisted his head round and called out something in Khmer, asking what I'd said, I suppose. I was glad he was interested: it could make a difference.
'All I want is to increase my employer's business. The airline's doing pretty well already, and this would make me quite a bit of money, as a bonus.'
The shadow of the jeep ran ahead of us, twenty or thirty feet long, rippling over the stones and the tufts of scrub in the middle of the track. Farther ahead I saw my jeep, standing where I'd left it, and we began slowing. So it had just been a joke on the part of Colonel Choen when he'd put his finger against his head like that: what he'd barked to the soldier in Khmer was an order for him to take me back to my jeep and let me go, because I'd convinced him I'd lost my way.
Then there's the one about little Red Riding Hood and the wicked wolf who dressed up as her grandmother and everything.
'So I'm just a business man,' I said to the guard, 'that's all, looking for profit. Are you a business man?'
The gun prodded. He knew perfectly well what I was saying: his French had been fluent, idiomatic, the few times he'd spoken.
'My freedom means a lot to me,' I told him. 'So what about tern million riel to share between you and your comrade?' His head turned to look at me as we slowed alongside my jeep and pulled up. They were going, then, to drive it back to the camp when they'd finished with me.
'Ask your comrade,' I told the guard, 'what he thinks of ten million riel in cash.'
He went on watching me. In Cambodia that amount of money would set them up in business as travel agents, buy them a brand new Trabant.
He didn't say anything. The engine of the jeep idled.
'With ten million,' I told him, 'you could buy a brand new Trabant, or set yourselves up in business, or buy enough raw cocaine coming through from Thailand to turn ten million into a thousand. You want to think about that? A thousand million riel?'
The man behind the wheel switched off the engine and looked round at us, jerking his chin up, wanting to know what was going on.
'Tell your comrade,' I said, 'that you're looking at a thousand million riel.'
He went on watching me for a bit and then turned his head and spoke to the driver in Khmer, and the driver laughed and swung his fist to the side of my head and knocked me half out of the jeep and left me dizzy, couldn't see much for a while except a blinding light that went on throbbing as I got my breath back, both of them laughing now but I swear to you that the one who spoke French had been interested, I'd seen it in his eyes, we could have made a deal and I could have got into my jeep and driven away, just a mental exercise, that's all, it's of no importance.
Then they dragged me out and we began walking across to the ravine not far from the track, maybe fifty yards.
It was quiet here except for the sound of our boots. The sky was turning from saffron to rust red in the west, and I saw the first star pricking the twilight. Three water fowl threaded the air above the ridge, homing to the Tonle Sap, and as I looked down I wondered if I would see the leopard again.
The two men weren't talking any more, and I thought it possible that as Buddhists they were aware that a life was soon to pass, here in this quiet place, and that even though they themselves were going to take it, there should be peace until the thing was done.
'What, then,' I asked the man who spoke French, 'can I offer you?'
One has to try, however late the hour.
There was no answer. He was walking beside me, his assault rifle at the slope. The other man was behind, the muzzle of his gun pressing against my spine.
'Talk it over,' I said, 'with your comrade. This is a unique chance for you - there's nobody more generous than a dying man, and I have plenty to give.'
He didn't answer. Our boots crunched over the stones in the silence, and I changed the subject.
'I saw a leopard,' I said, 'earlier,' simply to engage his attention as I swung round hard and forced the gun downward with my elbow and smashed my head into his face and drove the nose bone into the brain as the first shot banged before his finger was jerked clear of the trigger. I'd practised twisting in and out of the jacket five times in the cell but it seemed to take a long time now before I got my hands free and went for the one who spoke French as he started backing off to give himself room, suddenly learning that a gun at close quarters is useless, a dead weight, just something that gets in your way - I wouldn't have stood a chance if they'd kept their distance on the walk here from the jeep, couldn't have tried anything at all.
He got out a short burst but it was wide because he hadn't had time to swing the thing round into the aim and I was there now, forcing the barrel down and bringing his shoulders down with it, his shoulders and his face, then I smashed upward again but missed because he was ready for that, had seen what I'd done to the other man, didn't want it to happen to him, he was worried now, crouched over his gun and trying to find his balance again because when I'd tried the upward smash he'd half twisted round to avoid it, so I had a half-second to work with but it wasn't enough because I was off balance too and he recovered first and began swinging the gun into me - he'd forgotten already, forgotten the bloody thing was no good at close quarters, they hadn't taught them that at the school for revolutionaries, all they'd been taught was bang and you're dead, forcing, I was forcing the gun down again and the muzzle hit the stones and then he was on me, learning fast, remembering he'd got hands with strength in them, had them closing on my throat and I relaxed, went limp and dropped as far as he'd let me before I went for his eyes and felt his hands come away from my throat but they'd been squeezing hard and my breath was sawing in and out as we both went down now and he put a lock on me and trapped one arm, Christ he was strong, strong and lean and athletic and with the spirit in him, the spirit of the die-hard revolutionary, red flags in his eyes, the Khmer Rouge forever and all that jazz and it wasn't helping me, it was giving him the strength of two men, three, and I wasn't getting in there with the centre-knuckle strikes, kept missing him because he wouldn't keep still and I was on my back now with the last of the daylight in the sky and his head and shoulders etched in black against it, the silhouette of the death-bringer bearing down on me as he trapped my other arm with his leg across it and I couldn't find the force I needed because of the breathing thing, couldn't get the oxygen to the muscles and it felt like drowning, not being strong enough
to use purchase, leverage, the twilight fluttering now as the man above me raised his hand and in his hand I saw the rock and it looked heavy, black against the sky, and as it came down I jerked my knee and connected with his tail-bone and he screamed and his arm went limp and as I twisted round the rock crashed down beside my head and I took it from there, kneeing him again and this time hard enough to paralyze and he screamed again in agony and I rolled clear and lay there listening to him, listening carefully in case he came out of the trauma with any strength left, but he wasn't moving, couldn't move.
I was getting my breath back but it wasn't easy, it was taking time. A lot had been happening and I think I must have hit my head on the ground somewhere along the line because the fading light of the day was still fluttering, vibrating in slow waves, while I tried to get a grip on things mentally - had they heard him scream, down there in the camp? If they had, they would have thought it was me, screaming for mercy, would have or might have, the difference was very great, potentially lethal, because if they'd heard the scream and hadn't thought it was me, they'd have jumped into a jeep and would be on their way here now.
He rolled over suddenly, my bold revolutionary, and started vomiting, which I'd been expecting him to do: the knee strike had been to the coccyx and I'd done it twice and the nerve centre there would be a conflagration now, giving him so much pain that he couldn't be more than half conscious, forget the rush of user-friendly endorphins when that area's been hit, you're strictly on your own. I was surprised he hadn't passed out by now and he could do it at any time but I couldn't trust that, daren't rely on it, a man like this would have formidable reserves.
Think: were they on their way, because of the scream? That would be conclusive, the odds unacceptable, so don't waste thought on it, there were other questions: what had they thought of the shots, the bursts of fire, the two bursts, more than an execution required? If they'd thought there was trouble of some kind they would be - once again - in their jeep by now and on their way here. The answer was the same: it would be conclusive, finis. So don't waste thought on that one either.
He'd finished vomiting but the air was putrid and I moved away a little, observing him. His face was bloodless under the dirt, his eyes closed; his breathing was steady but faint, his chest hardly moving. The assault rifle was lying near him, but not near enough for him to reach it before I could if I saw him move.
He began moaning now and I hated that: a scream I can handle because it's simply the sound of shock, but a moan is a plea for help and I couldn't help him.
He's one of the people who blows the legs off little children.
Well said, and timely.
Think, keep thinking. How long would it be before they came out here to see why these two hadn't returned, performed the execution and returned?
Not long.
I crawled towards the man and lay close to him, put my mouth to his ear.
'What will happen on the nineteenth?'
He didn't answer.
There would be a case, there would be a case here of inflicting further pain on him, if I thought it would impress him, persuade him to answer me, and it would have been acceptable for me to do that, to further traumatize this blower-of-the-legs-off-little-children; but it wouldn't physically be possible: pain was already roaring in him, and there was nothing I could add that he would feel.
Fear, then, of death? I felt for his throat. 'What will happen on the nineteenth?'
It would be nice to have something to debrief to Pringle, Flockhart, something perhaps conclusive: a Pol Pot attack on the capital, an assassination attempt on the king, something I could call information, which was what I was here for, putting more pressure on this man's windpipe, letting him think of death, using both thumbs and working inward - and then he moved and I was fighting off a claw-hand strike to the eyes and going down and rolling over, blocking a fist and forcing a heel-palm to the nose and missing, feeling the slickness of blood as the skin came away, my breath coming short as he struck again and the fear of death was mine, not his, until I found purchase for my left shoulder and drove a half-fist into the larynx and felt the cartilage snap and he reeled sideways and dropped, dropped like a sack with blood creeping from the corner of his mouth.
I got up and stumbled across the stones, found my way to the nearest jeep, my own, and dragged out two bottles of Evian water and went over to the other jeep and found the key still in the ignition, here was the trick, the point of no return: I hadn't got the strength to make my way out through the mountains on foot - they'd be here soon now, wanting to know why their comrades hadn't returned.
The engine fired at once and I took the thing through the gears as quietly as I could. The Chinese-built vehicle was larger than mine, would be faster - but they'd hear it from the camp, I knew that, would think for a moment that the jeep was on its way back until they heard the sound fading - then they would react. It was simply a question of time, and I shifted into overdrive as soon as the engine could take it, pushing the speed up and switching on the headlights as the track began turning through the hills.
With one hand I tore the cap off a bottle of water and took swigs at it and then washed the dried spittle off my face, flicking my eyes across the three mirrors in turn as the track straightened and ran between boulders for half a mile and then began twisting and rising, the bottle of water empty now and the mirrors still dark, the waxing moon afloat in the southern sky and the rim of the mountains lying in waves below it, touched here and there by its reflection on flat rock.
The jeep lost traction sometimes over the loose shale, skating at an angle and coming back as I shifted gears to get control; there were something like fifteen degrees of play in the steering box and it was tricky to keep this brute from Beijing on course. I was using third gear now, because –
Lights.
In the left-hand mirror, fanning between the hills behind and below me, flashing once as they came directly in line and then fading, blacked-out suddenly by a turn in the track. They would belong to a vehicle leaving the camp: all traffic on this route was strictly Khmer Rouge.
The major road to Pouthisat was still some way ahead, two miles, two and a half, and there wasn't a single chance of driving out of this. Their lights were in the right-hand mirror now, flashing again as they lined up, brighter this time. The crew on board had already found my jeep standing there and this one gone; they might have stopped long enough to take a look around and seen the two soldiers lying there among the rocks. They would therefore be driving flat out and with purpose, and even if I got to the major road before they did I'd be within range of their guns, finito.
The terrain was steeper here, with rifts and gullies filled with shadow in the peripheral glow of my lights, and I began watching for somewhere to ditch.
There might of course be nowhere - I might simply have to stop this thing and get out and walk, run, while there was time. Question: how long would it take those people behind me to raise the alarm and bring a search party of a hundred men here in packed transports, two hundred, five?
The jeep was skating again and I shifted down and got traction. Light came suddenly and in all three mirrors this time as the track ran straight for a while. They'd closed the distance by half, by more than half: their lights were throwing shadows now from the rear window of the jeep.
Then I saw the gully leading away from the track, deeper than a gully, a small ravine, and steep, and I waited until the lights behind me were blacked-out by the rocks and then wrenched the jeep into a spin with the power still on and sent it towards the slope, dousing the headlights and hitting the brakes and jumping clear with enough momentum left in the thing to take it to the bottom of the ravine.
I was lying flat among boulders when the Khmer transport came storming past, and as soon as its lights had died away I stumbled down to the jeep. It had rolled twice, and one wheel was still turning slowly in the moonlight. I took the flashlamp out of its bracket and found the last bottle of water lying
among the rocks and picked it up and took it with me as I moved higher, away from the track.
The moon was down, and in the east a pale flush of light threw the length of a mountain ridge into silhouette. Below and to the west the valley was lost beneath a veil of mist. A bird called, piping thinly in the silence.
I hadn't slept. The Khmer transport that had gone storming past the place where I had ditched the jeep had driven as far as the major road and turned north towards Pouthisat; after a while it had returned and plunged into the valley, following the track to the camp. Within thirty minutes the lights of a dozen vehicles had come swinging east towards the major road, half of them turning north and the others south to take up the hunt. It was long after midnight when I saw them again, threading their way through the valley back to the camp.
I had lain down, then, using the half-empty plastic bottle for a head-rest, listening to the silence that had now come down front the hills to rest along the valley floor. But sleep was out of my reach. Bruises from unremembered blows were throbbing now; injuries I had not been aware of were bringing pain, demanding my attention. And there were thoughts running wild in my head, disallowing peace, baying like hounds at the kill.
Later I would have to deal with them.
When the flush of light in the east became strong enough to cast shadows I finished the last of the water and left my shelter in the rocks to climb into the eye of the sun towards the road.
Chapter 13
DEBRIEFING
'And your wife?' I asked the man with no teeth.
He looked down. 'She dead,' he said in halting French.
So I didn't ask directly about his sons, his other daughters.
'I'm sorry. There's just you and Cham?' It was short for Chamnan.
I had followed her home through the streets this morning, walking slowly. She was perhaps fifteen, though she looked more, hunger and shock and grief having wasted her small sharp-boned face. She was watching me now from the cramped little kitchen, her crutch leaning against the wall. By her eyes I saw she wasn't sure she wanted to share her home with a round-eye and his odd manners. I'd followed her because I needed a safe-house, and if she had a father or a mother they wouldn't favour the Khmer Rouge, wouldn't be informers. We'd had to pause several times, Cham and I, on our way here, because this one had gone off not long ago, maybe near her school, and she was still trying to get used to the crutch - it was rubbing under her arm, and the rag she was using to cushion it kept shifting.