Blood Is a Stranger

by Roland Perry

  Cardinal rushed to the jeep. Webb ordered the three bodies stripped and hurled into the jeep’s hole next to the fourth man, who had been blown apart by the impact. Ten Kampucheans struggled to right the vehicle. It would not budge. Webb told Adum to incinerate it.

  ‘Now don’t say a bloody thing to me!’ Webb said to Cardinal, his voice choked and furious. ‘If those idiots had not had a little fun in Bangkok last night they would not be dead! They were late!’

  Cardinal could not speak.

  ‘Just keep one thing in your skull,’ Webb said, calming his voice a notch as they trotted towards the truck, ‘if we don’t impersonate those guys there is no way you’ll ever know about your son. It had to be done, mate, and that’s that!’

  The computer terminal screen was filled with Webb’s profile. Hewson ran his hand over the keyboard with the deftness of a concert pianist.

  ‘Afraid I can’t let you see this,’ he said sliding the face of the small screen away from Rhonda. ‘In fact, I’m not allowed access to classified material outside the office. Just about all of us use home computers these days, so the rules are bent.’

  ‘Well,’ Rhonda said, pen poised over a notebook, ‘what can you tell me/’

  ‘It’s difficult,’ Hewson said. His eyebrows rose above the rim of his glasses.

  ‘No machine is going to say, “Here is what you don’t know.” You’ve got to give it clues, angles, points of association.’

  ‘All right,’ Rhonda said, ‘I want your smartarse computer to tell me if he has worked for the French or American Intelligence.’

  ‘Fine,’ Hewson said staring at the green type on the screen. ‘We have to ask it for American Affiliations.’ He typed in USA-Aff and waited. Seconds later the screen asked: ‘Business, political, sporting, cultural, other . . . ALL?’ Hewson asked for ALL. The machine purred, then typed up the response:

  WEBB, P.O.

  MILITARY: With special CIA forces, Cambodia, Vietnam, 1966-1969. Action: field patrols. For specifics see CIA file Gluclu 34621. H/T.

  BUSINESS: Special operative, silent director, Nugan Hand Bank. Business Consultant Hong Kong, Jakarta.

  Hewson repeated what was on the screen.

  ‘Can we get that CIA reference file?’ she asked.

  ‘Not without the ASIO director’s authority,’ Hewson said. They waited in silence until a laser printer provided the detail. Rhonda watched him pocket the page. She asked what he intended to do with it.

  ‘You’ve got me interested in this guy now,’ he said. ‘Would be nice to know more about him.’

  ‘Could you check on the French link?’

  Hewson made the identical request, and the computer made its search. It replied:

  POLITICAL: 1979: Visit Paris on assignment to report on remnants/splintering/power Khmer Rouge. Report avail-able ASIO Canberra. Speaks passable French. Reads French.

  Rhonda was ecstatic. Hewson tempered her reaction.

  ‘I can get that assignment,’ he said, ‘and I’ll bet it’s a nothing report. Sounds like he got a little junket for a couple of months in Paris gathering a few facts on the regrouping of Khmer Rouge after they were thrown out of power by the Vietnamese.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rhonda said, ‘it may not thrill you, but look at the link. He has been in Kampuchea and must have known of the Khmer Rouge as far back as the mid-sixties when they were an extreme left-wing group in the forests and mountains. Then there is this so-called field patrol stuff he was hooked into with the CIA. What is that all about?’

  ‘I would have to check the CIA file,’ Hewson said. He ran his teeth over his bottom lip. ‘But I can tell you one thing. Field patrol has always been a euphemistic code with us to mean “search and destroy”.’

  ‘Which means?’

  Hewson flicked off the computer as if someone at the other end might be listening.

  ‘That meant political assassination.’

  The truck passed through the town of Aranyaprathet, where the road from Bangkok to Phnom Penh ran into a wall of olive green concrete-filled bags. Cardinal and Webb were riding up front with Adum who was driving. They could hear persistent gunfire a kilometre away around the bridge between Thailand and Kampuchea.

  ‘Man, it’s thick with Khmer Rouge out there,’ Adum explained. ‘The Vietnamese attack them all the time.’

  Thai soldiers, Ml6s by their sides and grenades swinging from khaki belts, were in the town’s concrete shops and standing outside the dung-coloured timbered houses. Aranyaprathet seemed inadequate to cope with the number of foreign-aid agencies concentrated around it.

  Webb kept glancing at his lap where there was a manila folder with a file taken from the belongings of the French Intelligence officers. He appeared calm.

  By contrast, Cardinal was uneasy. He thought over the plan Webb had divulged to him over the past six hours. Cardinal was to be one of the Frenchmen, and they had been speaking French all day in preparation for meeting the Khmer Rouge contacts. He anticipated being taken into the Cardomom Mountains to the Pol Pot stronghold.

  ‘How did you know I spoke French?’ Cardinal asked Webb, as they caught the first distant view of site 8.

  ‘You told me you made art transactions in Paris,’ Webb said. He didn’t look up from the notes in front of him.

  ‘Anyone dealing with hard-nosed Parisian bastards would have to know their language.’

  It was true, Cardinal thought but he had only vague recollections of discussing it with Webb. They slushed by other Khmer refugee sites. Despite the poverty they were bustling and noisy and the children’s laughter brightened the atmosphere. But as the truck approached site 8, Cardinal experienced other feelings and reactions altogether. The place was still. Cardinal could not help remarking on this and the eerie silence.

  ‘That’s because it’s a military camp, man,’ Adum said. There was a hint of a tremor in his high-pitched voice. ‘There is where the Khmer Rouge recuperate from the fighting.’

  No one smiled. Hard-faced young men, many of them leaning on crutches, stood in front of open doorways and watched as the truck slid and splashed its way along the muddy tracks. Cardinal thought their stares suspicious.

  The four year Pol Pot regime had left its mark on the faces, Cardinal noted. The Khmer Rouge children, born of the robotic counter-culture, had a sad appearance.

  Adum pulled up at the entrance to the biggest hut in the site and sat nervously at the wheel. Cardinal and Webb climbed out carrying briefcases and one suitcase. A Kampuchean in his mid-thirties came out to meet them. He was small with broad features and short-cropped, dark hair. He wore the trademark red-and-white scarf and black pyjama pants of the Khmer Rouge. The man introduced himself as Dunong in faltering French and ushered them into the hut where a dozen other similarly clad men were sitting on the floor or stools.

  Webb eased the tension by shaking hands with a few of them and saying some fumbling words in Khmer, which brought grunts of appreciation. Webb squatted in the center of the earthern floor and snapped open the suitcase. All the men crowded around to see the bundles of crisp looking American one hundred dollar bills. Webb tossed them flamboyantly to Dunong, and with his nod of approval, some of the others. They began to count the bundles. Webb accepted a cup of ubiquitous Khmer tea. Cardinal was shown a nearby hut where he and Adum took all their luggage. A few minutes later Webb joined Cardinal and seemed excited.

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ he said. ‘As an off-handed observation, there are a surprising number of amputees about, wouldn’t you say?’

  Cardinal shook his head ruefully.

  ‘There’s an industrious guy in here who’s doing a roaring trade in prostheses.’

  ‘What’s made you so happy,’ Cardinal asked, ‘in your own cute way?’

  ‘I’m not kidding!’ Webb smirked. ‘The guy lost a leg and made an artificial limb for himself. Adum says he has made more than a thousand since.’ He stopped to pick up a flat stone and skim it along the canal. ‘You see, even in the heart
of this worst of all commie camps, free enterprise flourishes. Gives you hope, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Dunong and company certainly liked the money you laid out in front of them,’ Cardinal said aridly. ‘Perhaps they’re all capitalists at heart.’

  Webb laughed. ‘There was only half a million there. Chicken feed! Trust the Frogs to try it on the cheap. They think they can buy the design for the most powerful technology on the planet for zilch!’

  Cardinal noted Webb’s hitherto unexpressed expertise.

  ‘They could have had more money from the South Africans or the Israelis, or even the Argentinians,’ Webb went on carelessly. ‘They’re all lining up to finance the development since the Khmer Rouge broke off with the CIA.’

  ‘Then why did they go for the French?’ Cardinal prompted.

  ‘From the research I did on this at ASIO,’ he said, ‘those three seemed very keen to advance their nuclear laser acquisitions. The Israelis and the South Africans were well advanced. But the Khmers trusted the French more, because the links with Chan and Pol Pot went right back to the fifties. They were both francophiles and the Frogs, like the British, are expedient bastards when it comes to keeping connections with their former colonies.’

  Webb paused as children surrounded them. ‘Can’t be too careful, even with the bloody six-year-olds here,’ he said when they were out of earshot again. ‘Pol Pot was a radio electronics student in Paris. Some of his best friends slipped into key political positions when the communists sneaked into French government with the Mitterand regime.’

  ‘And Chan/’

  ‘Thought you would never ask,’ Webb remarked sardonically. ‘Chan studied physics in Paris in 1965 and was obsessed with the potential in lasers. He wouldn’t have liked being under the CIA’s thumb. And he would have been uneasy about the Indonesians controlling the laser development. Hence the move to the Cardomon Mountains.’

  ‘What did you learn from Dunong?’ Cardinal asked, as they re-traced their steps along the canal.

  ‘They’re going to take us to the mountains,’ Webb said. ‘Probably tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What about Harry?’

  ‘Harry?’ Webb said bemused. ‘Harry who?’

  Cardinal stared at Webb with contempt.

  ‘Don’t be a prick!’ Webb said. ‘I couldn’t very well say, By the way, pal, do you have this guy Harry Cardinal working for you? That’s his father over there, and he would like to know!’

  Cardinal stopped walking and faced Webb.

  ‘Look,’ Webb said in a sudden change of manner, ‘if you’re pumped up to believing he’s alive when we get up there, how are you going to feel if it really was him on that cold slab in Sydney’s morgue!?’

  Cardinal’s jaw twitched. His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing.

  ‘Dunong and I did discuss the size of the operation in the mountains very briefly,’ Webb added, ‘and you can bet your bottom dollar there are more foreign scientists up there than just Miss Hartina Van der Holland.’

  Cardinal changed the subject.

  ‘Can we trust Dunong?’

  ‘I’m not worried about him,’ Webb said. He ran his thumb under four fingers of the other hand. ‘No matter what happens up there or on the way, that little cunt will do his best to get us back alive.’

  Cardinal cracked his knuckles.

  ‘I’ve told him,’ Webb said dropping his voice to a whisper, ‘he gets a big chunk for himself for his services.’

  ‘I’m in your hands,’ Cardinal said. ‘I want to get up there as fast as possible.’

  ‘You’ll just have to be patient. Once we’re on the way, it’ll take a day to get to the place in the mountains.’

  ‘Have you thought about my problem with Chan?’ Cardinal asked. ‘He wanted to kill me at Buru, and . . . ‘

  Webb waved a hand dismissively. ‘I was about to tell you something when we were discussing him before,’ he said, ‘but I was holding back.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Cardinal demanded.

  ‘There is no problem,’ he said. ‘Chan suffered a brain haemorrhage at the mountain base.’

  ‘Is he dead?’ Cardinal said in whisper.

  ‘Seems he had been exerting too much pressure on himself after being struck in the head by a bullet,’ Webb said, ‘A bullet from an unknown assailant in Jakarta.’

  They were distracted by the honk from their truck as Adum drove out of the camp. They only glanced at the departing vehicle.

  Webb said, ‘They buried the bugger yesterday!’

  The letter was brief, upbeat and poignant.

  Dear Rhonda,

  Compelled to go away for a few days. Not at liberty to say where. Will be in touch the moment I return. Keep the good work on the documentary going.

  I love you.

  Ken

  Enclosed was a crumpled envelope containing another letter to Rhonda that Cardinal had written during his enforced stay on Buru. It rambled full of emotion and feeling. There was not a word which sought sympathy. The overall tone, and the sentiment in the ‘Love At First Sight’ verse, touched her. Moments after receiving the letter at her apartment, she had a call from her producer. ‘Might be best to forget the project,’ Dunstan said bluntly. ‘Rumor has it that the prime minister has leant on Hartford.’

  ‘What about our much-publicised “independence”?’ Rhonda said.

  ‘License renewals come up in a few months . . . ‘

  The familiar flashing green light on Rhonda’s answering machine gave her hope. But it was not Cardinal. The cold tone of Bill Hewson’s voice disappointed her. He wanted to have dinner with her. She agreed, and was curious. It was a strange departure for him. Earlier meetings had always been secretive. Now he wanted to meet at a stylish Hawthorn restaurant called Stephanie’s.

  ‘I can’t say, don’t worry,’ Hewson said, as he drove her to the restaurant, ‘but from what you’ve said Cardinal seems to be a survivor.’

  ‘There’s no stopping him.’

  ‘He bought a return ticket to Bangkok,’ Hewson said.

  Rhonda stared at him. ‘How did you learn that?’

  ‘You’ve heightened my interest in Cardinal. We know the hotel he booked into.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The Bangkok Palace. We had it checked. He didn’t stay there.’

  ‘I want to go . . . ‘

  ‘That would be risky.’

  ‘Is there any way you could help?’

  Hewson didn’t look at her but observed cars passing him as they reached Taronga Road. ‘It’s possible. We have operatives there. They could look after you.’

  ‘I just want to find him!’ Rhonda said, as he escorted her into Stephanie’s.

  ‘I’ll see what we can do . . .’

  At four Cardinal and Webb were woken by someone kicking at their hut door. Cardinal flicked on his lighter. Webb swung a revolver from under the pack he had used for a pillow. He held it two-handed, aimed it at the door, and sat up.

  ‘Who is it?’ Cardinal asked in French.

  ‘Dunong,’ the voice said. ‘Get ready. We go now.’

  They heard his footsteps retreating.

  ‘Let’s go,’Webb said.

  ‘A little unexpected,’ Cardinal remarked. They dressed in the limited, flickering light.

  ‘I should have worked it out,’ Webb said. ‘They never do the expected.’

  Cardinal left his lighter on as they packed their gear. He noticed Webb was wearing a black glove on his left hand.

  ‘I cut myself,’ he said. He adjusted his trouser belt.

  ‘I didn’t know you were packing hardware,’ Cardinal said, his eyes flicking to the case where the gun had been hidden.

  ‘Yeah, well I’ve got a few surprises myself,’ Webb said.

  ‘Course, it won’t do much good. They are sure to frisk us before we reach the mountain hide-out.’

  ‘How did you cut yourself?’ Cardinal asked, as he stood by the door.

  ‘On a bottle.�
�

  Cardinal didn’t believe him and the glove bothered him.

  Two trucks pulled up at the big hut. Dunong asked them to jump aboard. Webb demanded an explanation.

  ‘Why the change in plans?’ he asked.

  ‘Get in please,’ Dunong said.

  Cardinal took a few paces forward. A dozen men stopped loading the two trucks and watched.

  ‘This money stays right here,’ Webb said.

  Dunong hurried to him and touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, ‘the old plan was scrapped. We have many spies in the camps, especially here at number 8. Everything must be done at the last moment. You will understand, I’m sure.’

  Dunong leaned forward and whispered something in Webb’s ear. He winked at Cardinal.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘These monkeys aren’t dumb.’

  Cardinal could hear the steady beat of a helicopter thumping through the blackness to a spot lit by a man with a torch. The noise of rotors killed any communication except sign language until they were aboard and lifting high above the rice field nine kilometres from camp site 8. Even with its markings painted out, Cardinal knew it was an American Huey, which probably had been commandeered during the US evacuation of Kampuchea in 1975. Cardinal felt a sense of exhilaration as they lifted into the sky and the first bright red rays of the equatorial sun licked the dying night.

  As dawn broke, they covered thick forests, fertile plains crossed by rivers and chocolate brown waterways. Cardinal spotted buffalo and even a couple of elephants that steamed in the early morning damp heat.

  The pilot sometimes changed the chopper’s course and this coincided with troop movements below. The Khmer Rouge would become excited if they spotted comrades. The enemy, by contrast, only elicited a deathly quiet as the shadow of the chopper caused them to scatter and draw weapons. Four hours later, as they hummed over thick-forested mountains, Webb leaned close to Cardinal.