by Kae Bell
“Excuse me, gentlemen. I’ve got to take this. The airline. My wife and kids are flying out tomorrow and their tickets are all a jumble. Sometimes it pays to be a Platinum member.” He stepped away, leaving Andrew with Hakk. The two men stood in silence for a minute. All around them party-goers swirled, dancing, drinking. Janey waved at Andrew from the bar.
Andrew’s senses were on alert. He was aware of Hakk’s posture, the shortness of his black hair, the whiteness of his teeth, the gleam of his watch in the overhead lights. Nothing was wasted.
The two men stood on the edge of the lawn near the tall iron fence that encircled the compound. Andrew glanced out into the night, at Wat Phnom across the street. He thought he saw Socheat but when he looked again, he saw only the trees and the night.
Hakk spoke first.
“Did you know Ben Goodnight?”
“No.” Andrew swigged his beer but the bottle was empty. “You?”
Hakk nodded, his hands folded together at his waist, the right palm over the left, a sad smile on his deeply lined face. “I had heard of his humanitarian work. It is unfortunate what happened to him. This country can be a dangerous place. Even now. It is wise to watch one’s footing when in unknown territory.”
Andrew cocked his head, listening. “That’s good advice. I’m heading out to Mondulkiri to take a look. I hear it is pretty wild out there. Have you been?”
Hakk took a step back, as a moth dive-bombed him. He stood in the shadow of the embassy. “No. Unfortunately, work allows little time for travel to the provinces.”
“I understand you’re in manufacturing?” Andrew asked.
Hakk’s blank black eyes blinked once, twice. “Yes. Among other areas.”
“What is it that you make?”
“Christmas lights. Costume jewelry. Trinkets.”
Hakk glanced at his watch, a hard steel band.
“Please excuse me. I had not realized the time and I have another engagement this evening. I hope you enjoy Pchum Ben, it is a special holiday for us. Please give Mr. Ambassador my regrets.”
Hakk turned to leave. Andrew grabbed Hakk’s forearm, his hand gripping the black fabric.
“I’d like to speak some more, if that’s alright?” Andrew said, staring into Hakk’s eyes.
The body guards who had accompanied Hakk were immediately on alert, their hands moving to their weapons that the metal detector had not picked up, because an embassy guard, well compensated for his cooperation, had unplugged the machine moments before Hakk and his entourage arrived.
Andrew stood close to Hakk, holding his black sleeve. He watched as Hakk gave his men an imperceptible nod to stand down.
“You have caught the attention of my men Rith and Heang. That’s never a good idea.”
Hakk placed his leathery hand on Andrew’s wrist, his fingers encircling the bone, tightened his grip and lifted Andrew’s hand from his arm.
“It was a pleasure to meet you Mr. Shaw. I hope you enjoy yourself during your stay in the Kingdom.” With that, Hakk walked away, the party-goers dancing out of his way in time to the heavy beat blasting from the massive speakers on the lawn.
Andrew watched as Hakk exited the gates and climbed into a waiting limousine. Beyond the gates, Socheat stood, chain-smoking and watching.
Chapter 14
An early quarter moon shone on the sidewalk and scrubby weeds that pushed through the broken concrete.
Andrew hopped off the moto two blocks from the Ministry, walking down the quiet street. At 4:00 AM, this part of town was dead, except for the orange cat, which yowled at Andrew in the still night.
Devi had described the back entrance, which she said would be the easiest way into the building. Andrew slipped around back.
He jimmied the flimsy lock and slipped into the dim stairwell and down the empty hall.
Devi had not known about Ben Goodnight or his death, had only been told by her boss that she was not to speak of Mr. Cheng again. She had not even been told that he was dead but she had overheard her boss talking on the phone with an outside caller that Cheng had been found in the open sewer with stab wounds all over his body. She did not know who the caller was.
Andrew took the steps two at a time. The carpeted stairway dulled the sound of his heavy footsteps, his flashlight spotlighting the steps in front of him.
The office where Cheng had worked was on the third floor. As Andrew emerged from the stairwell, pushing through a heavy metal door, he saw a long open plan office space that stretched all the way to the front of the building, desks stacked with paper, and rows of metal filing cabinets along the wall. The room was dark, with no emergency lighting, only dim moonlight siphoning in through the windows.
Andrew checked the floor plan that he’d drawn from Devi’s description. He looked around the room, counting rows of desks then moving forward down the hall to the second to last row, where he turned. Walking toward the windows, he panned the flashlight over the last desk. No computer, though there was a dust-free area of the desk where a desktop computer had once been. Someone had been here before him.
Andrew glanced around the desk. No nameplate either, though the other desks had them. This must be it. He thumbed through loose papers on the desk. Mostly forms, arranged by date. Everything seemed to be orderly. A metal file cabinet on the side of the desk revealed the same degree of order.
In the file cabinet, Andrew flipped his fingers through the alphabetized files in the top drawer.
There was no file under ‘G’.
Andrew fingered though the files once more. A flash of color caught his eye. There, between H and I, something was crumpled and shoved in between folders.
Andrew pulled it out, and unfolded it on the desktop. It was a square yellow paper napkin, bearing the letters FCC. Andrew knew this, the Foreign Correspondent’s Club, a restaurant in town. On it was a rough map, sketched in ink.
Andrew stepped to the window to get a better look in the light.
Some coordinates were scribbled on the map. Severine had explained she had no sense of the route they had taken into the jungle, had just followed Ben’s lead. Andrew pulled out his secure phone, took a picture of the napkin then put it in his pocket.
Andrew turned when he heard footsteps from the hallway. He crouched by the desk and moved along the side of the wall, in the shadows behind the row of desks and ducked into an open supply closet, pulling the door partially closed.
A black-clad figure moved into the room, shining a flashlight along the walls. The light panned across the room, over Cheng’s desk, along the back wall and into the crack of the doorway where Andrew hid. Andrew closed his eyes, to not reflect the light.
As the figure moved into the room, Andrew could see from the silhouette, it was a woman. She moved to the desk where Andrew had been standing moments before. Andrew did not think she had seen him.
Andrew watched her as she approached Cheng’s desk. She was slender, about 5’6”. She wore a mask, so Andrew could not see her face.
She reached the desk, where she placed her gun, and turned to the file cabinet. Andrew swore under his breath. He had left his phone on the windowsill near the desk. The woman did not notice it, as she rifled through the files, shining a small flashlight on certain pages but finding nothing of interest. She shoved the drawer closed and looked around the room, tilting her head upward. Andrew had the sense that she was smelling the air.
The woman tensed and was still. She moved her flashlight across the room, a slow sweeping arc, the bright light shining from one end of the room to the other and then back. She peered into the far corner of the room, where there was a windowless office in deep shadow. Andrew watched, as she picked up her pistol and moved across the floor.
She stopped halfway down the aisle and glanced back, then moved forward to the back room.
When she was out of sight, Andrew slid out of the closet, crouching low, moving along the wall, to the windowsill near Cheng’s desk. He stuck his phone in his pocket. As he
turned, he heard a gun click at the back of his head.
“Hands on your head,” a deep male voice said. Andrew did as he was told. The man frisked him for weapons and found the embassy-issued Glock in the small of Andrew’s back, which he pocketed. He reached high for Andrew’s left wrist. As Andrew felt the man’s stubby fingers clamp around his wrist, he lurched forward, pulling the man off balance. Andrew swung around, twisting the man’s arm, pulling him close and kneeing him in the groin. With a grunt, the man hunched instinctively in pain and Andrew knocked the gun from his hand. Andrew grabbed it as it hit the floor. One more jab to the man’s temple and the man went down. Andrew bolted for the stairwell. Muddy early morning light filtered in through the dingy windows.
Hearing the commotion, the woman ran out of the back office with her gun drawn. Andrew turned the corner as she fired a shot, which ricocheted in the silent building. Andrew could hear a sharp command to “Get up!” from the woman berating her accomplice, then two sets of footsteps running after him.
Andrew raced down the flights of stairs. He was three flights ups, and took full stairwells in a leap. The last stairwell, he pushed out the emergency door, which started an alarm. That would get the neighbors’ attention. He had to get out of there. The morning traffic was just beginning with the earliest light of day.
Andrew ran across the street, behind a row of tuk-tuks. Behind him, the stairwell door opened and the woman peered out, gun in hand. She looked left and right but all she saw was the early traffic. Andrew watched her swear in frustration. She turned around, the door closing, to go find her useless colleague before the police arrived to investigate the alarm.
From behind the tuk-tuks, Andrew checked each one until he found one inhabited by a sleeping driver. The driver woke reluctantly but obligingly.
Andrew hopped into the back, leaning far into the shadows of the plastic flaps in case there were prying eyes. The tuk-tuk entered the flow of morning traffic.
As Andrew stared at the rough map, he wondered what Ben had found in Mondulkiri that had so many people interested. He would soon find out.
Chapter 15
Andrew’s phone rang early. Too early.
“Hello?” Andrew’s voice was rough with lack of sleep. He heard a thick accent on the other end of the line.
“Mate, I think I found something for you.” It was Tom of Kampuchea Mining and Minerals, sounding too awake for Andrew. Tom gave Andrew an address and said to meet him in ten minutes.
*******
The local hostess bar was already bustling at 9:00 AM. When Andrew had balked at the suggested location, Tom claimed he didn’t want anyone to see Andrew coming and going from the KMM office. Andrew figured that was just an excuse to start drinking.
Andrew found the building in a popular part of town and walked up the stairs to the second floor establishment, past a storefront where a row of seated local women gave pedicures to well-dressed Western ladies flipping through worn copies of Hello! Magazine.
On the stairwell, glossy pictures of beautiful young Cambodian women advertised what Andrew would find upstairs.
Andrew had read about these places in the Phnom Penh magazine, bars catering to ex-pat men, filled with beautiful young Cambodian women who would talk to you for a free drink and sleep with you for $5. Cheap and easy wasn’t Andrew’s thing, he focused more on the unattainable.
At this early hour, he saw a handful of gray haired men dressed in tight t-shirts and khaki shorts, lining the bar, looking to get an early start on their day’s activities.
Andrew’s arrival caused a flurry of activity with the two slight women manning the front hostess station. He was a new one, they thought, glancing at each other with excited smiles, and he looked like he had money to spend.
The ladies blinked their brown eyes at him and flipped their long black hair. They asked him if he would like to sit at the bar or a table and would he like company. They smiled, their teeth too white.
Andrew spotted Tom in a back booth, to the right. He waved off the ladies’ attention and walked to the back, sliding into the dingy booth, which was upholstered in cherry red plastic and punctured in a couple places.
“Classy joint.”
“It works for me.”
“So what did you learn?”
“What’s the rush? Have a drink. I’m buying.”
“You drag me out of bed and expect me to join you in a beer and shoot the shit? Come on man. Whaddya got?”
Tom leaned closer to the table, glancing over his right shoulder. Andrew could smell his foul breath from across the table.
“I need you to do something for me, mate.” Andrew sighed. Of course.
“And what would that be?” he asked.
“I need to get back to Oz.”
“So buy a ticket.”
Tom leaned in, his thick stomach pressed hard against the table’s plastic edge.
“Look mate the truth is, I’m broke. The office, the car, it’s all a show, so people don’t talk. I lost everything last year on a platinum mine that never panned out. I’ve been living on borrowed time and borrowed cash. Now I’ve got some local thug after me, wanting his payout. And I don’t got it. I gotta get out of town.”
Andrew paused. He wondered if he was being played, but he had so few sources here, he couldn’t really negotiate.
“That’s a tough situation, Tom. Sorry to hear it. Don’t you have family or friends who could help you out?”
“No, no, NO! None of them can help me. I need to be gone today.”
Andrew tilted his head and squinted at Tom across from him. “You know, the Embassy doesn’t pay much. I don’t have that kind of cash lying around.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed.
“I been in this business a long time, mate. A long time. You’re no embassy desk jockey. No sir. You got connections - you want a name, you make this happen for me.”
Andrew sighed and leaned back in the booth, his palms flat on the slick table.
“So what are we talking here? A couple thousand?”
“Yes.” Tom scrunched his face together, his beady eyes calculating what he could get away with. “Five. Five thousand should do.” He bobbed his head up and down a few times, his eyes bright.
Andrew’s lips pressed together in a thin white line. “I’ll tell you what. You give me the information and I’ll sort you out, one way or another. It’s the best I can offer.”
Andrew had plenty of available cash; he always did. Greasing the wheels of the intelligence turbine was part of his job. But it bothered him that this guy, a hack, had sniffed him out. He needed to button up. Maybe he was losing his edge.
Tom looked at Andrew from the corner of his eye. “Today? I got your word?”
“Yes. Today.”
“Alright.” Tom stuck his puffy red hand in Andrew’s face. Andrew shook it, then wiped his hand on his trousers under the table. “Now, your news.”
“Your friend was hired by a mom and pop company. They’re working on the cheap, they hired Ben ‘cause he had all his own gear, didn’t want a contract, was low maintenance, no red tape.”
“The name please?”
“River Metals. I asked – discretely – no one knows too much about them. Guess they keep to themselves. Except I found this.”
He pulled out a printout of a screenshot from the Ministry of Mining website.
“They applied for a massive land concession in Mondulkiri a few months back, tried to get an exploration license, but no luck. That happens sometimes in this business, you can’t count your chickens. I should know.” He sniffed with self-pity.
“Who got the concession?”
“What?”
“In Mondulkiri, who got the concession to explore that land?”
“Some Chinese joint venture, going gangbusters, gonna try to extract within the year if they get lucky.”
“Is there anyway to find out who else applied for that land concession?” Andrew asked.
As Tom sipped
his whiskey, one of the pretty bar hostesses plopped herself onto his ample lap, draping her waifish arm across his substantial shoulder.
“Hi Mr. Tom, who your friend?” She batted her long black eyelashes at Andrew and smiled. “Maybe he want to buy me a drink? And one for Bong Srey?” She nodded behind her, where another hostess, dressed in equally short shorts and a purple halter top, stood off to the side watching her friend’s antics and taking mental notes. She was newer at the business. She gave a small wave and a timid smile.
Tom reddened, and coughed, choking on the whiskey and embarrassed by his sudden seatmate. He cleared his throat. “Hey Honey. I’ll talk to you a little later, alright? We’re busy here. Man talk. You scoot now.”
He lifted her up by her slim hips - she weighed maybe 100 pounds - and plopped her feet on the floor by the table. Giving her flat bottom a little pat, he said, “Run along now.” The girl pouted, flipping her hair at Tom and ignoring Andrew, who had simply watched this exchange. She flitted to the bar to find more agreeable company. Her friend Bong Srey stared for one more moment at Andrew then followed suit.
Tom turned back to Andrew, his face still red. “Sorry about that. They’re playful little things. They know me pretty well here. I probably come by more than I should, but hell, I’m just a man.” Tom eyed the three young women bending over the balcony looking down into the street for their next customers.
Andrew cleared his throat. “Tom. The concession.”
Tom turned back to Andrew. “The Ministry holds those application lists close, since it’s not a straight numbers game, it’s more who you know. But then what isn’t? There’s a limited number of players in town and we all get to know each other pretty good. I found out about River Metals by calling in some favors. Had to knock a few heads together.”
“Do you have an address?”
Tom pulled out a small sheet of paper, held it out to Andrew, who reached for it. Before Andrew could take the paper, Tom pulled it away.