Cambodian Book of the Dead

by Tom Vater

  Beyond Banteay Srey, the Citadel of Women, the road turned into a red lateritic track, but Maier pushed on as fast as possible. He had planned to return to Siem Reap the same day and catch a night flight back to Bangkok. Small settlements stretched along the dusty road, huts on stilts, without electricity or water. Until recently, there’d been jungle behind the huts, but the poor who lived here had logged and burnt it all for rich landowners – the land looked like a wasted moonscape.

  Beng Melea had been built in the twelfth century, following the same basic design as Angkor Wat.

  Maier stopped in front of the overgrown temple. A CMAC crew, known to its international donors as the Cambodian Mine Action Center, was working close to the temple. Twenty young men in blue uniforms roped off a small piece of land next to the ruin and began to search the dry ground, metre by metre. It would take years, if not decades, to remove all the mines and explosives buried in Cambodia. Every month, innocent people lost their limbs. The war never ended. In almost all the countries Maier had worked in as a war correspondent, governments or opposition parties had mined parts of their own land. The result was always the same – the victims were mostly civilians, often children.

  Maier drove along a narrow path into the forest, which forked several times. He followed fresh tyre tracks deep into the jungle of northwest Cambodia. An hour into his journey, the track broadened. Maier slowed as a crumbling stone tower emerged from the foliage ahead. He had reached his destination and pushed the bike off the track into the forest. Small green parrots chased through the canopy above and Maier could see a few flying foxes sleeping in the trees. The world was fine for the moment. For a while Maier sat at the bottom of a tree, letting the silence settle. This time he wasn’t going to be overrun by murderous teenage girls.

  The temple was smaller than Beng Melea and completely subsumed by the forest. Maier didn’t see anyone, but he approached the ruin slowly and with care. He circled the building. The temple only had one tower. Two others had collapsed and pulled down part of the roof with them. An SUV stood parked behind the temple. The engine was still warm. The car was unlocked and Maier found a gun in the glove compartment. He stared at it for a moment, then left it where he’d found it. Partially-burnt suitcases crammed with cash filled the boot and the back seat.

  Suddenly he heard voices from the temple interior and hunkered down behind the sandstone wall which surrounded the building. Something stank. Terribly. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his head above the wall.

  Pete and Inspector Viengsra were barely recognisable. The two men grinned yellow teeth at Maier. The detective dropped back down behind the wall. Tep had brought the heads from Bokor, driven them onto wooden stakes and set them up at the entrance. Flies cruised in thick shape-shifting clouds around what was left of the two men. Pete’s formerly red hair had turned rust brown and the eyes of the policeman were missing. Even on Maier’s side of the wall, the smell was unbearable. He retreated to his bike, vomited into the bushes and sat in the shade until the sun dropped into the trees.

  A couple of hours later, he picked a different entrance for his second attempt to enter the temple. This time he got lucky. He could hear the general’s voice reverberate around the temple ruin. The old soldier spoke English.

  “Cambodia no longer need you. Your men and your children are dead. All dead. Your power used up. The curse of the Kangaok Meas coming to an end.”

  Maier slid into an alcove that might once have housed an apsara. Inside, he could barely make out Tep in the semi-darkness. The general wore a bandage around his neck and had his hands up. Kaley pointed a gun at Tep’s chest.

  Would she shoot, if Tep attacked her?

  Tep smiled and Maier knew that the old general didn’t feel threatened. He continued in Khmer.

  “Please come. I will take you back to the car. There’s no need for the gun. We’re both Khmer.”

  Maier couldn’t work out why the old general had spoken English to Kaley. Did he know the detective had arrived?

  Rays of sunshine poured through the partially collapsed ceiling. The dust that the two Cambodians kicked up snowed in narrow shards of light onto century-old dreams of withering stone. The might of the temples and the country’s glorious past had to be a heavy yoke to carry for the Khmer, starved and crushed by endless war. The country would never be as proud again as it had been. Perhaps the burden of longing for past glories had contributed to the madness of the Khmer Rouge. Tep’s madness.

  Tep and Kaley had turned off into a narrow corridor. Maier followed slowly. He was still spooked by the young murder girls and desperately hoped he wouldn’t meet one in the dark. But the temple was abandoned. Tep and Kaley were the only survivors of the Kangaok Meas Project. The general and his prisoner pressed on, with Maier following at what he considered a safe distance. He cursed himself for having left the gun in Tep’s car. He could see no way of getting her away from the old soldier. He would have to jump the old man at the next corner. But the detective hung back, too far behind the kidnapper and his victim.

  When Maier finally stepped from the narrow corridor into the open, it was too late. Tep didn’t make deals. The old man had led Kaley into a logged clearing and disarmed her. Kaley stood stock still, forlorn and confused. The general was already fifty metres away, limping back towards his car.

  Suddenly he spun around, saw Maier and shouted, “We give life to Kangaok Meas, my friend Lorenz and me. And when we need to, we take it as well. Today I finish our dream.”

  Kaley stared at her tormentor without comprehension. Maier stopped on the lowest step of the temple stairway and called to her.

  “Hello, Kaley.”

  She did not turn. He called to her again. More than ever he now thought of her as a ghost. What had he been thinking, trying to save this shattered woman?

  “Kaley.”

  Tep raised his gun and fired a couple of shots at the detective. Maier dropped to the ground, looking for something to hide behind, but the old general was too far away and the bullets hit the temple walls a few metres away. Tep didn’t come back for Maier, an easy target on the bottom step of the temple stairway. Mercy was hardly in the former Khmer Rouge soldier’s repertoire of sentiments. So why didn’t the Cambodian come and finish him off? Something was very wrong. The clearing in front of the Khmer ruin had gone dead silent. The general had stopped walking, his gun empty. As if waiting for something. For the end.

  Maier waved at the woman and slowly started walking towards her, watching the general as well as the ground ahead. He didn’t have to go far to understand how Tep had trapped Kaley and was using her as bait. But it was too late to turn back. A few metres to his right, a handful of warning signs for landmines had been thrown to the forest floor. Tep must have had them removed. The old general obviously knew how to cross the clearing without losing a limb. But Maier didn’t. The detective suddenly had the feeling that the last unresolved questions of his case were about to be answered. Everything was falling into place. What had the Russian told him, before he’d left the roof of the casino?

  “Don’t forget, follow the sticks.”

  It had sounded like nonsense. But the Russian was not stupid and had never said anything unnecessary. Mikhail’s remark suddenly burnt like a flame through Maier’s mind and he took another look at the clearing.

  Mikhail was a step ahead. He had known even then, on the roof of the casino, that Maier would end up in a minefield. And not just in any minefield. In this minefield.

  At a distance of about two metres, small sticks rose from the dry forest floor. Some had been broken and kicked away. Perhaps Tep had tried to obscure the safe way out of the clearing, but after studying the ground for some time, Maier could see a clear route all the way to the petrified woman. One just had to know. Without worrying too much, Maier stepped onto the dusty ground and slowly walked towards Kaley, who looked at him in shock.

  After a few metres, something like dizziness overcame him. He stopped, only to notice that
his sweat-soaked shirt was sticking to his back. Fear. It was all in the mind, he told himself. The Russian hadn’t killed him in Bokor. There had to be a reason. Mikhail did nothing without reason. Mikhail had foreseen this situation.

  Tep still stood on the edge of the clearing and watched Maier. He was too far away to shoot them. But he did not want to walk back out into the minefield. Which didn’t stop him cursing Maier.

  “Maier, so good to see you so close to death. You will go a traditional way, I promise you. I tell you our first meeting, we not like snoops in Cambodia. But you difficult to kill. Have nice day with lady. Today is last one for you.”

  The old soldier turned in disgust and got into his car.

  “Follow the sticks, what does it mean?”

  Kaley shook her head. For the first time, Maier saw her, the Kangaok Meas, as a human being, fragile and vulnerable, without the aura, just like anyone else.

  “And how do we get out of here?”

  “Just the same way we came in. As a man in Bokor told me, follow the sticks.”

  Maier looked at the ground in front of him. On the way out of the clearing, Tep had torn away many of the sticks. The way they’d come, back to the temple looked more promising.

  “Look at the small sticks in the ground. We have to follow their path. Here and there some have collapsed but we should be able to see my footsteps.”

  They began to walk back slowly.

  Maier went first. Now and then he turned and looked back at Tep, who sat in his car, waiting for him or the woman to die. Thirty metres more.

  Suddenly they reached open ground. Maier could not see any of the sticks. They were so close to the temple now. So close, fifteen steps, no more. Fifteen steps of death. Maier stood looking desperately for his footprints when Kaley passed him. She made directly for the temple. She almost had a spring in her step. Maier followed carefully and turned once more.

  The general had been waiting for Maier’s turn and waved from the car’s driving seat before he bent forward to put the key in the ignition. The explosion threw the heavy SUV into the air. The heat of the flames was incredible. One of the axles came off and flew, tyres burning, across the temple wall. A second explosion ripped the car apart, perhaps the petrol tank had caught fire.

  “Let’s go, back into the temple.”

  Maier squeezed past Kaley and took up the trail through the minefield. The last few steps towards safety were clearly visible. A few minutes later he stood with Kaley on the broad stairs of the temple. Maier wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat down in the shadow of the narrow corridor that led into the temple interior. Kaley had a dreamy expression on her face. An expression that Maier had not seen before.

  She stepped towards the detective and embraced him.

  “Thank you, Maier, you are good man. Les is right.”

  The scene he had watched through the hole in the floor of the casino flashed through Maier’s head. He never did have a chance to fulfil his promise. He had been deluding himself and the woman too. As she stepped away from him, he held out his hand, but he knew instinctively that she would not take it. Kaley was done with taking and had long given everything she had ever had. Just like Cambodia. All she expected him to do now was to witness her last pathetic, heroic act. She turned away from him and, no longer choosing her steps carefully, left the safety of the temple and walked into the morning. Maier did not try to stop her or follow her. But neither did he leave. He owed her that much, perhaps more, much more.

  There were times when Maier liked to remember the gentle attempts by his friend Hort to make him laugh, especially when there was absolutely nothing to laugh about. Those were the moments when he thought he could understand his dead friend Hort. Then the exploding landmine ripped away all his thoughts. The ground shook briefly. A cloud of dust rose from the tired earth. It was all over.

  Maier, stunned, sat down on the temple steps. Absentmindedly, he put his hands into the pockets of his vest and pulled out a strange object. After staring at his find mindlessly for a short eternity, he recognised it as one of Carissa’s half-smoked, crumpled joints. The detective lit up and watched parrots at play in the canopy on the edge of the clearing. Rolf Müller-Overbeck was going to be distraught. As Maier followed the exuberant dive-bombing of the small green birds that squawked above his head, his mind drifted away from the carnage and he experienced a sudden moment of almost absolute certainty. It was time to go and see his woman.

  A MIRROR FOR THE BLIND

  Sundermann had sunk deep into his wicker chair and watched Maier and Carissa fight over the best parts of the dinner they were sharing. Eclectic world music dripped from invisible speakers through the Foreign Correspondents Club. A faint breeze from the river cut through the heat.

  Maier was pleased. His mission was ending back where it had begun. Down in the street, the hustlers, the limbless and the hopeless congregated just as they had for days, weeks, months and years. Tourists stumbled along, avoiding the drug dealers and taxi girls as best as they could, who with the minimum exertion required, tried to separate the visitors from their cash. A little circus of cross cultural absurdities.

  But things were looking up. Cambodia was coming out of its self-prescribed dark age, blinking, insecure, proud and with so little care for her past that her very immediate future would likely be a happy one. Beyond the next ten minutes though, everything was speculation. The culture of impunity was the only ticket in town.

  Other guests kept looking back at Maier and his partner. Some men walked past them several times. Carissa looked stunning. Her hair had turned white once more and her shiny green dress, tailored from Thai silk, perfectly complemented the large red ruby, suspended from a thin gold chain around her neck, which wanted to get lost in her cleavage.

  Maier detested paperwork and had debriefed himself over an excellent seafood salad, several enormous wood-fired pizzas and many tall glasses of vodka orange. The orange juice was freshly squeezed and the detective was happy. Sundermann and Carissa were on their third bottle of Beaujolais, when Maier finally ended with his account of his moment in the minefield. Sundermann appeared to be as sober as at the start of the evening.

  Maier had respect for his boss, who was ten years older, drank like a world champion and looked after the handful of detectives he employed like a kind uncle. And Sundermann had a discreet, if noisy style – suits by Armani, close shave, an expensive pair of rimless glasses, a tie for every occasion, a likeable open smile and a compliment or calming word for every client. Maier liked working with the best. He had learned, a long time ago, in his life as a war correspondent, that working with amateurs led to calamities. It was no different for detectives. He could trust Sundermann. Sundermann had come all the way to Phnom Penh to personally sign off on Maier’s Cambodian adventure. And Sundermann always asked the right questions.

  Just like Carissa. The journalist excused herself and Sundermann switched to German.

  “Who is this Mikhail? A colleague?”

  “First I thought he was just a cynic, a former mercenary, who wanted to take things in his own hands up there. But I guess he was a man with a plan.”

  “An investigator?”

  Maier shook his head in doubt.

  “That man is an assassin, not a detective. He didn’t hesitate for a second in that jail and he almost shot me dead. He also didn’t defuse the explosives on the hotel roof, he just moved the clock of the timer forward.”

  “So why didn’t he shoot you?”

  Maier hesitated, tried to process his thoughts from assumptions into usable information.

  “It was a calculated risk. I am sure of that. This crazy Russian decided in that split second, with his finger on the trigger, that I could be useful to him. But how, I have no idea. Not exactly. I have my theories.”

  Sundermann nodded.

  “No, Mikhail was no Russian Rambo. I think he was a sleeper who had been waiting for something near that casino. I am sure he has a military backgroun
d.” Maier looked doubtful. He knew that the chances of ever tracking down the Russian were minute. “Our research here in Cambodia didn’t turn up a thing. Disappeared into thin air. Same at the borders, no sign of him. But that doesn’t really mean anything, aside from the fact that he’s a pro.”

  “I know that. But it makes no difference. Maier, I have heard, from a source in southern Germany, that someone else was after the woman. Perhaps an associate of the White Spider. Or our friend Mikhail. Perhaps you were used to provoke the events in the casino. The question is, was there another case, some kind of mission going, in connection with Kaley, while you were in Cambodia? And does it have anything to do with Lorenz?”

  “We know some of the answers to this already. Kaley’s sister, one Daniela Stricker, who was killed by Tep or his son, had lived in southern Germany for twenty years. She had a German passport, and then turns up after all these years on Cambodia’s coast and promptly gets killed.”

  “That we know. But we don’t know why she came back or whether she was connected to someone else in this story.”

  Maier shrugged. “Perhaps she hired the Russian to find her sister. I am sure he wired the car at the temple. He planted the sticks in the minefield. In a way I finished his job for him. And mine. Quite brilliant.”

  Sundermann didn’t have to say anything. Maier knew his boss agreed.

  “I have a feeling I will meet Mikhail again,” said Maier. “But I doubt we will find out exactly what his role was in all this. He is a slippery customer.”

  Sundermann nodded thoughtfully and let it go. As he passed a sealed manila envelope to his detective, Carissa floated back onto the Foreign Correspondents Club’s terrace.