Cambodian Hellhole

by Stephen Mertz

  It was a human head, the hair singed off, one ear reduced to nothing but a bloody flap of skin—but it was obviously Caucasian. Lidless eyes were staring at him with a dazed expression, almost questioning, as if to ask him what had happened.

  Stone was snarling as he found his feet and spun in the direction of the CP hut. His target was no longer standing in the doorway, but through one small window he could pick out moving shadows, human silhouettes.

  It was enough.

  He rushed the hut, one finger clamped around the trigger of his CAR-15 and holding it down in full-auto mode.

  He emptied out the magazine in two seconds and ditched the rifle, clawing an incendiary grenade from his pistol belt on the run. Stone yanked the pin and let the lethal can go without aiming, trusting rage and instinct this time, watching it sail through the tiny window, out of sight.

  The hut erupted into roiling flames, the thatched roof rising on a fiery mushroom, then settling back again to trap the occupants inside and hold them there.

  Except for one.

  A nimble figure, wreathed in flame and screaming like a lost soul, stumbled free of the inferno, dancing on the threshold, vainly beating at the flames with burning hands.

  Stone recognized the figure of the camp commander, and drew his Uzi reluctantly from its belt holster as the burning scarecrow staggered toward him.

  He deliberately held his fire until the human torch was almost close enough to rush him, then thumbed the hammer back and sighted down the barrel, squeezing off a rapid double-punch that kicked his target over backward in a lifeless sprawl. The manic screaming ceased, and silence settled down across the prison compound like a shroud. Stone heard footsteps closing on his flank and pivoted, the Uzi pistol held out in front of him at full arm’s length to meet the challengers. Wiley and Loughlin were standing there, regarding him with hollow eyes set deep in smoky faces.

  And behind them, near the ruin of the cages, the surviving Hmong commandos were attempting to pick through the wreckage, looking for survivors, all in vain. There would be nothing left to salvage there, Stone knew, except scorched earth.

  “We bitched it,” he told no one in particular.

  The others nodded silently and did not attempt to argue with him. Scanning back across the smoking wreckage of the compound, Stone experienced a feeling of despair that was entirely alien to his disposition. Guilt and anger mingled with the strange sensation, bringing tears of rage into his eyes as he surveyed the carnage.

  Ten lost souls. Perhaps a dozen.

  Blown to shit because his recon had been faulty. Dead as hell because he had not followed through and carried each hypothesis out to a logical conclusion.

  His fault, yes, as if his own hand had depressed the button on that detonator, sent the silent message streaking over empty space to kindle hellfire in the cages.

  The big man, Wiley, put a big hand on his shoulder. “Time to go, Cap.”

  “Right.”

  And there was nothing here to hold them, nothing that required their presence in the smoking graveyard. Everyone was dead, friend and foe alike. The best they could hope for now was to effect an exit, pass through roving border guards, and make it home.

  They would be going out the way they came in this time, empty-handed.

  The worst of it was that instead of going on a wild-goose chase, they had located prisoners of war exactly as predicted … and then got them slaughtered to the last man.

  It was Mark Stone’s burden now, and he would have to live with it awhile. Until he had a chance to compensate for failure with another victory. Until he had the opportunity to vent his rage on those who held his countrymen in grim captivity.

  “Let’s go.”

  There was a lifetime left for making payments on the debt he had incurred this day. Before be finished, Stone would see it paid in full.

  The jungle closed around them, swallowed them, and they were gone. By slow degrees, the natural predators revealed themselves, no longer frightened, and began to feed.

  Chapter Two

  “You must not blame yourself.”

  Stone pushed the dinner plate away and frowned.

  “There’s no one else. I was in charge. I blew it.”

  Across the hand-carved table, old An Khom regarded him with almost fatherly concern. The eyes set in his wrinkled face were bright, alive, entirely aware of Stone’s internal turmoil.

  “There are limits to a man’s responsibility. Some things are meant to be. You cannot change fate.”

  Stone shook his head. He knew the old man’s argument by heart, and none of it rang true. It would have made things easier if he could simply shrug it off and put the blame on fate or karma, but the gap between their points of view was generations wide, ingrained in each of them beyond eradication.

  And while Stone knew that he had blown it, he could still appreciate the old man’s efforts to put his mind at ease, to lift the burden of responsibility from his shoulders.

  He had known An Khom long enough to realize that there was no point in arguing philosophy across the dinner table. Politics was one thing, business something else again … but when it came to matters mystical and preordained, the old man lapsed into the archaic ancestral mold. It was part of his charm, the inscrutability of the East coupled with a Western instinct to aim for the jugular when it came down to money.

  The old man was a weapons dealer, operating out of Bangkok, and he had grown wealthy in the martial trade. Stone had used his services on more than one occasion, when he had had a mission to conduct and needed some reliable equipment off the record, but their personal relationship was more than strictly business.

  Stone had risked his life to rescue An Khom’s daughter, An Ling, from the clutches of a rival arms dealer, and he had avenged the murder of the old man’s wife in the process. Friendship had been sworn between them, forging ties that went beyond the mere material concerns and mutual interests of their two professions. An Khom felt a debt to Stone which he could never fully pay, and while Stone never pushed that sense of obligation, he accepted An Khom’s friendship gladly.

  “You must rest,” the old man told him, rising from the dinner table, motioning for him to follow. “Let the war go on without you for a time, and seek yourself within.”

  Stone trailed him through an exit leading to a garden behind the house. From where they were, he could look out across the lights of Bangkok, which seemed small and far away with the illusion of distance. Five million people lived down there, jammed together in varying degrees of poverty and affluence, an easy quarter of them more or less continuously involved with the intrigue that had been spawned by Vietnam. Among them, An Khom was a minor legend, with his contacts reaching into both the public and the private sectors, assuring him a margin of protection which the less successful operators could only hope to emulate in time.

  Stone knew Bangkok the way he knew Saigon—now renamed Ho Chi Minh City—and the other capitals of Asia. He had moved among the city’s people, never one of them but not entirely alien, either. He had shared the burden of their wars, and knew the faces of the refugees who had been flocking into Cambodia for a decade, seeking sanctuary. If he was not one of them, at least he knew their suffering and loss. He had been there, all too recently.

  “Nothing changes,” An Khom told him, staring off across the lights. “There is nothing new under the sun.”

  Stone glowered at the darkness, wishing he could find an argument against that one, but coming up empty. In his heart, he knew that there should be a way to make a difference, strike a blow for what was right … but he had butted heads with bureaucrats and their red tape for much too long to cherish any optimism as he went about his private war.

  You struck a blow wherever and whenever you were able. If you scored, so much the better. If you missed … well, there was nothing you could do but try again.

  Providing you survived.

  There was a movement in the shadows to his left, and Stone turned tow
ard it, feeling the old combat prickle along the nape of his neck, adrenaline rushing through his veins to prime the fight-or-flight reflex. Another heartbeat, and he let himself relax.

  It was An Ling, the old man’s daughter. She approached him almost silently and slid her arm through his. Stone dredged up a smile for her, and nodded a greeting.

  “It is late,” the old man said to no one in particular. “I need my rest.”

  And he left them standing there together in the darkness, with the lights of Bangkok spread below them like a magic carpet.

  It occurred to Stone that this had been the old man’s purpose from the moment they sat down to dinner in the dining room.

  An Ling had not joined them at the table. She had served the varied rice and seafood dishes, then retired to take her own meal in the kitchen.

  In the Oriental scheme of things, the woman was subordinate. Though Mark Stone had learned to accept the system, he did not particularly subscribe to it.

  An Ling would never take second place to anyone in his own personal estimation.

  And there were complications—such as Carol, a blonde, blue-eyed beauty who kept Stone’s bed warm and helped with the stateside aspects of his work.

  When they had passed some time in silence, An Ling released his arm and moved to stand in front of Stone, demanding his attention.

  “I feel your pain and sorrow,” she said softly. “I understand.”

  The soldier did not contradict her. She had known her share of pain, no doubt about it. If their cases were not identical, they were close enough for her to empathize. In other circumstances, at other times, it might have been enough to help him.

  “Let me share your burden,” An Ling offered, moving closer, until they were touching in the darkness. “I can bring you to forgetfulness.”

  He smiled at her.

  “It’s tempting … but I’ll have to pass. Reluctantly.” Her frown was thoughtful, rather than insulted.

  “You do not find me … adequate?”

  “I find you more than adequate,” he told her frankly. “In fact, I find you beautiful. But this is not the time or place.”

  “My father—”

  “Never mind your father,” Stone interrupted her. “I have to find my own way out of this. Alone.”

  She studied him for another silent moment, finally nodding, and the frown had disappeared when she looped her arm back through his, turning to face the lights of the city again.

  “I understand,” she told him softly.

  And she did, of course.

  He needed fire and blood to wash the taste of his defeat away. A different flame from the one that men and women kindled when they came together—this one fierce, destructive.

  Stone was hungry for revenge, for the opportunity to start getting even on his loss. It was not ego—at least not primarily—that drove him in his quest for violent confrontation with the enemy. That was part of it, of course, but there was much more.

  A need to pay some dues, to keep the silent promise he had made to absent comrades.

  A need, if nothing else could be accomplished, just to spread the suffering around and make damned sure the enemy absorbed his share of punishment along the way.

  Tonight was not a night for love. When Stone lay down tonight and slept, his dreams would be of fire and blood and killing.

  There was no remaining room for softness in him, not tonight. And Stone had no desire to take An Ling along with him into the nightmare world that his nocturnal hours had become since the bungled mission into Vietnam.

  The girl deserved a warmer, softer place.

  Perhaps, in time, Mark Stone could join her there, and they could share some tenderness.

  But first there was the fire.

  Chapter Three

  Mark Stone’s hotel was located in central Bangkok. Of the lower-middle budget class, it had seen better days, but it was still a cut above most of the other lodgings readily available inside the crowded Eastern city. It would offer little in the way of actual security, but at the moment, between assignments, Stone had nothing special to conceal in any case.

  The taxi driver let him out onto the bustling sidewalk three doors down, stopping for a line of rickshaws that had pulled against the curb to wait for patrons. Stone did not object to walking back, and after paying off the driver, he merged with the flow of pedestrian traffic surging up and down the long, congested avenue.

  He was about to enter the hotel when a Caucasian in a light, tropical-wear suit sidled up beside him, almost brushing elbows in the nighttime crush. Stone felt the man, and smelled his cheap aftershave, before he saw him, registering the presence on his flank, prepared to react instantly if some reaction was required.

  He had never seen the man before, but he recognized the type instantly. A single glance was ample to provide him with the information that he needed.

  “Mr. Stone? My name’s Carruthers.” The voice was firm and strong, but somehow lifeless. “I work out of the U.S. Embassy.”

  “That right? And how are things around the Company offices these days?”

  He felt the C.I.A. man stiffen at his side, but he recovered swiftly, never missed a beat as they reached the hotel’s revolving glass doors and passed on through, Carruthers trailing.

  “It’s important that I speak with you.”

  Stone halted in his tracks and turned to face the man who called himself Carruthers.

  “So speak,” he answered simply.

  The agent looked both angry and embarrassed, managing to let both expressions surface on his countenance at once. “This isn’t what I had in mind,” he said.

  Stone shrugged.

  “Okay. Forget it.”

  He was turning toward the elevators when Carruthers seized him by the arm. Stone shook the hand off without difficulty, and this time, when he turned around, his face and voice were as cold as steel.

  “We’ve never met, so I’ll forgive you that. This once.” Carruthers looked him over, seeming to decide it was not worth it, here and now, inside the crowded hotel lobby. “I don’t believe you understand the situation.”

  Stone frowned at him. “I understand it perfectly,” he countered. “Someone at your office found out I was back in town, and they decided to check me out, find out if there’s anything unusual going on.”

  Carruthers stared at him blankly, without speaking.

  “Well, you’ve done your job,” Stone continued. “You’ve seen me—and I have absolutely nothing that I want to tell you. Got it?”

  Without waiting for an answer from the agent, Mark Stone turned his back and walked away. Carruthers did not follow him across the lobby.

  He reached the elevator, reconsidered on a whim, and took the stairs, hiking four flights up to his floor without encountering another patron on the way. The elevator might have been all right, of course, but the encounter with Carruthers had forewarned him. If he was being watched around Bangkok—by C.I.A. or other hostile eyes—then it would pay to give himself some room to run, some room to fight at need.

  And just because you might be paranoid, that did not mean no one was out to get you.

  Stone smiled wryly as he remembered the slogan from the sixties—“even paranoids have real enemies” but there was no humor in the smile. He had lived long enough with justifiable paranoia to realize that the slogan contained more than a little truth.

  They had tried to take him out before—and there was every chance that they would try again in Bangkok.

  The corridor was long, dingy, lined on either side with alternating doors. Stone glanced both ways, satisfied that he was alone in the hallway before he proceeded along to his room, midway down. The key was in his hand by the time he reached the numbered door.

  He turned the key and slipped inside, the darkness greeting him, enveloping him like a shroud. Stone reached for the light switch just inside the door … but he never got that far.

  A strong hand locked around his outstretched wrist and tw
isted, pulling him off balance. Before he could brace himself or counteract the drag, he was propelled across the darkened hotel room, colliding with the furniture in transit. He barked his shins on the low-slung coffee table, spilling ashtrays to the threadbare carpet, and rebounded, running headlong into human flesh.

  A fist slashed upward, driving hard into his solar plexus, and the air was forced out of his lungs. He doubled over, feeling like a deflated balloon, but he recovered swiftly, using every ounce of strength and will at his disposal to pivot, turning away from the second blow, which would be sure to follow. When the fist came toward his face this time, it slid through empty air.

  Stone backpedaled, seeking combat stretch, the split seconds he would need to get his wind and bearings back again.

  From somewhere close behind him he heard movement—and he realized that he was faced with no less than three adversaries.

  They had all been waiting for him in the darkness, and the knowledge that he had been set up for an ambush struck him like a fist above the heart. Worse still was the instant realization that he had allowed the enemy to take him thus, completely unawares, when he should have been prepared for an attack.

  No time to worry now if these were C.I.A. or Communists or God knew what. There was just time to save himself, and even that would take tenacity, along with fancy footwork.

  Without thinking, Stone increased his backward speed, colliding with the thug behind him, carrying his target backward with his own momentum until both of them slammed into the wall. He felt the yielding body stiffen as they hit, and took the opportunity to drive his elbows back into the sagging gut with swift precision. Someone cursed in broken English, and Stone twisted, driving one more elbow home, together with a side hand chop in the general direction of the cursing face.

  His hand connected with an invisible nose, and warm blood spurted out across his wrist. The guy went momentarily limp, and Stone forgot about him as he circled, moving out through darkness, seeking other targets now before they came to him.