White Crocodile

by Medina, KT

  ‘I’ve had time to think about it. There were a couple of scorched craters in Huan’s lane beyond where Johnny was injured. So mines had been cleared further along the lane.’

  He shook his head. ‘It was . . . crazy out there. There’s no way you could remember details like that.’

  ‘I can, because I remembered that tree,’ her voice rising against his. ‘That lone tree in the middle of the minefield, that creepy fucking tree that’s bent and twisted. There were shadows – the shadows of the leaves on Johnny’s face. His face was in shadow and his lower body, his . . . his injured leg was in sunlight. And then I looked beyond him, further down Huan’s lane, while I was waiting for the medics, I remember, and I saw a couple of burnt-out craters. I thought they were shadows, but they weren’t – couldn’t have been – because that tree was the only thing out there casting shade.’

  ‘Big fucking deal. So the mine was in cleared ground. Missed mines happen.’

  ‘There was also the skull. In the middle of a field, right next to a live mine? It was a come-on. There to draw Johnny in.’

  A hard light shone in his eyes. ‘This is Cambodia. Two million people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge, in fields just like that one. The skull means nothing.’

  ‘Bullshit. It’s not that easy to miss a mine. And the skull was just sitting there on the earth – it wasn’t buried or anything. You’ve done this job as long as me, Alex. You know what this is about. Laying mines is a game of wits, us against them. If something looks like a come-on, that’s exactly what it is. Someone set a trap for Johnny.’

  He shook his head, but with a little, almost imperceptible delay before he did it, as if he was weighing up alternatives, making a decision. ‘I talked to his troop. They said that you were panicking, shouting at his clearers, yelling at the medics. You can’t possibly remember things so clearly. Your version of events is fiction.’

  Tess met his gaze. ‘I acted entirely professionally. I walked down the lane to prove to the medics it was clear. That saved your friend’s life. What the fuck would you have done?’

  She wondered if she’d made the right decision to confide in him. Now he knew almost as much as she did. She looked past him to the window and the wild garden beyond. Thick foliage, indistinct in the moonlight, the stooping shapes of the trees. There wasn’t a soul out there, not in the garden or on the road beyond the gates. It was just her and Alex. Her eyes dropped to the Browning in his belt and she thought again of her father. He had drummed into her from an early age that emotions were weakness, that it was unacceptable to cry in public or let others see that you were hurt or scared. Female emotions were a Pandora’s Box to him. One day, aged seven or eight, she had come home with a bloody nose and a black eye, having had a fight with a couple of boys in the park who were kicking a pigeon with a broken wing around as if it was a football. They’d turned on her. It had taken her half an hour longer than usual to walk home that day. Dawdling along, crying all the tears that she wanted to cry at the pain, the humiliation of having been beaten, so that by the time she got home she could be dry-eyed and stoic, just how he expected her to be. At times like this she ached for her mother. The idea of a mother anyway; what she imagined having a mother might be like. Her dad had been so proud when she told him what had happened that he almost burst. For him, stoicism and bravery were the only attributes that really mattered.

  Then she had met Luke, Luke who’d been through so much himself that he saw through her immediately, through the accreted layers of defiance and stoicism, seen her terrible need for someone she could confide in.

  ‘I know that mine Johnny stood on was planted.’

  Alex shook his head, but didn’t reply.

  ‘I think Huan laid a mine and planted a skull beside it to draw Johnny in.’

  He still didn’t reply.

  ‘I drove out to Koh Kroneg, last night.’

  He dropped his gaze and met hers. ‘You did what?’

  ‘I drove out to the field.’

  ‘Are you crazy? This is Cambodia for Christ’s sake, not – where the hell do you come from – England? – this is not England. This place is dangerous.’

  ‘It wasn’t dark. It was evening, still light.’

  ‘It was stupid.’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘I can look after myself.’

  Alex shook his head and said almost gently, ‘You could have asked me to go with you.’

  ‘Oh, please. We barely know each other. And you haven’t exactly been engaging company, the couple of times we have met.’ She moved away. Went to stand by the window, staring through the dusty glass. A white Land Cruiser drove down the street, and she tensed, but it didn’t slow as it neared the gates to MCT House and drove straight past.

  A moment later she heard a movement behind her, felt his hand brush her arm. ‘What did you find, Tess?’

  She turned slowly to face him. ‘I found an anti-tank mine, laid under the anti-personnel mine that maimed Johnny. Fuse out. Set to sympathetically detonate.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It would have vaporised him if it had worked.’

  ‘Jesus.’ He groaned. ‘Are you certain it was an anti-tank mine?’ His dark eyes scrutinised her face.

  She gave a grim smile. ‘It’s under my bed at the boarding house if you need proof. And I do know an anti-tank mine when I see one, whatever the hell you might think.’

  He held up his hands defensively. ‘OK, OK, so why didn’t it work?’

  ‘Maybe the distance between the two mines was too great, or maybe the explosive in the anti-tank mine just failed. It was a Russian TN52, fucking ancient. Either way, it does prove that the “missed mine” theory is bullshit, unless Huan forgot to switch his detector on at all.’

  Alex rubbed a hand across his eyes.

  ‘Planted deliberately, Alex. Someone tried to kill Johnny.’

  ‘Planted by Huan? That’s what you think, isn’t it?’

  ‘He couldn’t have missed an anti-tank mine in his lane, he couldn’t have done. He was “off sick” the day Johnny stood on the mine. If he had been there, he would have gone in to check out the skull, not Johnny. And he hasn’t been seen since Johnny was injured. Why? Where is he? If he had nothing to do with it, why doesn’t he just come back?’

  ‘Johnny wasn’t worried about Huan.’

  ‘Does Johnny worry about anything? OK, you know him better than me. But I don’t think he was brought up to think that anything impinged on his world.’ She met his gaze. ‘Do you know Huan, Alex?’

  ‘I know Huan, but I don’t know him. I don’t think anyone does, except Johnny perhaps.’

  ‘Because Johnny was his platoon commander?’

  Alex nodded. ‘He was one of the quiet ones. Worked well. Johnny said he was a good clearer. Reliable. Nothing else.’

  Tess looked down at her hands, pressed together. ‘So what do you think, Alex?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ His voice was tight. ‘Have you told anyone else, Tess? About what you’re doing out here? About what you found last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Don’t.’

  ‘Why? In case the White Crocodile hears me?’

  He gave the suggestion of a smile. ‘No smoke without fire. Isn’t that what you Brits say?’

  She was struck by how the smile transformed him, made him boyish. But it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared.

  ‘You found that woman, didn’t you? This morning?’

  ‘Yes, I found her. Jacqueline, she was called. Jacqueline Rong.’ Her gaze dipped to the floor. ‘I found her, and then MacSween drove her little boy to the orphanage.’

  ‘She’s not the only one.’

  Tess looked up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are others. Ten, fifteen gone missing, a couple killed, all from villages surrounding that minefield.’

  ‘Surrounding Koh Kroneg?’

  He nodded. ‘MacSween didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The
locals think that the White Crocodile has possessed the place, that it’s taken these women.’ Alex gave a short, harsh laugh. ‘MacSween doesn’t want to freak out our Khmer mine clearers. MCT’s history if they get scared. So he’s playing everything down. But that’s going to get harder, with Johnny’s accident, plus the other we had six months ago—’

  Silence – a silence which quickly began to feel awkward.

  Alex broke it. ‘Go back to your apartment and pack your things. You’re leaving tomorrow.’

  ‘What?’ Where the hell had that come from? ‘Fuck off. No way.’

  He bent nearer to her, lowering his voice. ‘You need to listen to me, Tess.’

  ‘No. Who are you to tell me what to do?’

  He placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘Listen to me, Tess.’

  ‘Get off me.’ She tried to pull away.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, listen to me.’ There was only a thin veil of control in his voice.

  ‘Get your fucking hands off me.’ She shoved him with the flat of her hands.

  ‘You need to leave. Before you get in too far.’

  ‘You’ve got no right to tell me what to do. You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’ She suddenly felt desperate to be away from him. Twisting sideways, she bent her head and sank her teeth into his hand. Swearing, he let go of her shoulders. She turned and ran for the door.

  ‘Do you think Luke was murdered, Tess?’

  His words stopped her in her tracks.

  ‘I know that you were married to Luke, and I know why you’re here.’

  Slowly she turned back to face him; his gaze locked with hers.

  ‘You don’t know anything about this place, Tess. Go home before you no longer can.’

  Day 5

  20

  Tiep Thilda liked to get up early, to tend to her animals before anyone else in the village was awake. She hated the sideways glances from the other villagers and the woman she seemed to be when she saw herself through their eyes: someone to scorn, barely out of her teens, stuck with six-month-old twins – neither of them a boy – left by a husband who had vanished into thin air one night when she was seven months pregnant. At first there had been sympathy, but that had hardened into suspicion and, lately, outright mistrust. She knew they talked about her, questioned whether her ‘husband’ had left payment and disappeared once her allure had vanished with her swelling belly. How else could she afford two goats for milk and six healthy laying chickens?

  Four in the morning; she was alone. The one light she could see shone from a hut at the far end of the village, well out of her way. She crossed the damp expanse of grass to the small, muddy corral where she kept her animals, walking carefully to avoid tripping, navigating by the light of the full moon. She had built it near to the edge of the jungle, fifty metres up a shallow hill from her hut, so that the animals had shade on hot days, but were still close enough for her to keep an eye on them. She came to the corral, put the feed bucket down and bent to slide through the parallel bamboo poles of the fence.

  A noise behind her. She wasn’t a girl who scared easily, but it irritated her to think that someone had taken to spying on her. It was the same noise she had heard yesterday morning. And the morning before. She had searched the tree line behind her carefully on the previous occasions and seen nothing.

  Straightening up on the other side of the fence, the goats jostling her for food, she scanned the edge of the jungle again, the foliage drained of colour by the moon’s light. For the first time now came creeping unease. She had heard whispers of a girl disappearing from a neighbouring village, bordering the same minefield, a few nights ago. She didn’t know if they were true: nobody spoke directly to her any more and what she knew was pieced together from overheard snatches of conversation as she had collected drinking water from the well. A wind stirred the leaves, and suddenly her mouth felt completely dry.

  She looked down the hill to the village. A man had come out of one of the huts near hers. She could see the light from his lantern as he moved around. She could make it back to her own hut – it was an easy downhill run – in less than a minute. Shunting herself back out of the fence, she broke into a jog, barely managing to stay on her feet in the slick of mud. She could no longer hear the rustling of leaves in the jungle behind her; everything was masked by her own heaving breath. The lantern had disappeared, but she could see a pale glow reflected on the ground near the village. Tiep was nearing the huts now, only a few metres to safety. But as she came down the slope her momentum threw her weight forward and, losing her footing, she came crashing down and half slid, half rolled on to her face.

  Someone was looming over her. Hands grasped her arm. She twisted on to her back, ready to aim a vicious kick in defence. It was just the old man, wearing a pale woollen cloak against the early morning chill.

  ‘Daa neh sok sabbai te?’ he asked. Are you OK?

  She sat up groggily, let him help her to her feet.

  ‘La’or, arkhun,’ I’m fine, she said, ‘la’or, arkhun,’ staring past him into the black, silent chasm of the jungle, hugging her grazed arms tightly across her chest.

  21

  A hand had shot up. One of Alex’s mine clearers must have found something; he had pulled his teams back to safe ground while he went to investigate. Tess watched him walk up the clearance lane, the Khmer mine clearer trotting behind, trying to keep up with Alex’s stride. He looked confident, in control.

  Her teams had found ten anti-personnel blast mines this morning, but since the last break three-quarters of an hour ago, nothing. That was how it was with mine clearing. Nothing for ages and then—

  ‘Tess!’

  She swung around. Alex was waving, calling her over. He had returned to safe ground and was instructing his mine clearers to pull back to the knot of Land Cruisers, two hundred metres from the near edge of the field. He must have found something difficult. Something big. Tess crossed slowly towards him.

  ‘I need your help,’ he said, when she reached him.

  Tess nodded, eyes cast somewhere over his left shoulder.

  ‘Tess?’

  She felt him staring hard at her.

  ‘Yes, I heard what you said. You called and here I am, at your service.’ She said it lightly. That he knew of her relationship to Luke made her feel horribly exposed.

  ‘OK, as far as I can tell it is two anti-personnel fragmentation mines, one a stake mine, the other a bounding mine. The guys, my guys, don’t have enough experience to handle it.’

  ‘It’s fine. Like I said – I’m happy to help.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He hesitated, dragged his fingers through the rough stubble on his chin. ‘The mines are hidden in thick scrub, so I might not have seen everything. There could be anti-personnel blast mines in addition, maybe anti-tank, though that isn’t likely. Call your clearers back from the field. If this goes there will be carnage.’

  Tess returned to her teams and instructed them to join Alex’s by the vehicles, well into safe ground. As she walked back to Alex, she tested her detector, shook her belt to check that her tools were secure, tightened her flak jacket, lowered her visor.

  ‘Ready?’ He flashed her a tense smile.

  She nodded.

  ‘Let’s go then.’

  They walked down the clearance lane, Alex leading, Tess jogging occasionally to keep up. The lane wound down a dirt road on the edge of a paddy field. On the left side it dipped under the cloudy surface of the half-flooded rows. To their right, undergrowth banked the road for a hundred metres or more. Alex stopped suddenly, crouched, waving at Tess to stay behind him.

  ‘See that trip wire?’

  He pointed to a spot just in front of them, on the fringe of the vegetation.

  Tess stared hard.

  ‘No.’ She was tense, struggling to concentrate. Alex was uncomfortably close. Shifting sideways, she edged away from him and cas
t her eyes up the track again, trying to pick out the trip wire against the mess of colours and textures in the background. ‘No, I can’t see it.’

  ‘There. From the trunk of that first palm. The fragmentation mine – a POMZ-2 – is hidden in the undergrowth at its base. The trip wire stretches over the dirt road and is anchored in the paddy field.’ He looked at her to make sure she understood. ‘Under the surface of the water.’

  Tess followed the line of his finger, and then she saw it glint: a length of wire, thin as gossamer.

  ‘Got it.’ The POMZ-2 it was anchored to was an unripe pineapple packed with explosive, fitted to a wooden stake. Snagging the trip wire would free the striker’s retaining pin, releasing the striker into the detonator assembly and initiating the main charge. The explosion would shatter the steel body, blasting lethal fragments for fifty metres. Tess traced her eyes along the trip wire, from where it broke through the algae on the surface of the paddy field towards the POMZ-2, then, ‘Christ, there’s—’

  ‘Another one. Running from a bounding fragmentation mine.’ Alex indicated a second palm tree, just beyond the first. A fat olive-green finger of steel was just visible amongst the grasses clogging the tree’s base. The second trip wire crossed the first in the middle of the dirt road.

  ‘What do you think it is?’ he asked.

  ‘The frag mine?’

  He nodded. She glanced at him quickly. Was he trying to test her? ‘Maybe a Type 69 – looks like it from what I can see. Could be an OZM-3 or 4, but I don’t think so. I think it’s a Type 69 because of the colour and shape of the plunger.’

  A Type 69 contained a propellant and a main charge. Tripping the wire would release the striker, initiating the fuse; the fuse’s flash would ignite the propellant, blowing the mine into the air and igniting the pyrotechnic delay element in turn. Before the mine reached 1.5 metres – groin height – the main charge would detonate, fracturing the steel body.