Temple of Gold

by A. J. Stewart

  As the fire bursting from the munitions shed eased, General Tan heard the whine of the motorcycle. He yelled at his men to fire. A few dropped to their knees and began shooting in the general direction of the sound, as the motorcycle zoomed into the dark.

  Tan yelled his orders, and those of his men who could stand picked themselves up from the ground and ran after the bike.

  From the cover of the trees, Lucas watched the plan work perfectly. Lenny took off for the swimming pool that they now knew was a reservoir, a dead end that Tan would follow. That left the camp empty for Jarani to usher the villagers into the truck so they could make their escape. Lucas would jump on the other motorcycle, loop around the side, and get to the end of the reservoir, where he would lift Lenny out with a rope. Then they would ride back to the reservoir’s entrance, where they would have the general and his men cornered.

  Lucas was still lying in the grass when he saw the plan go to hell. Plans always did, he knew, as soon as boots hit the ground. But that never stopped him from being eternally optimistic.

  But this wasn’t General Tan’s first rodeo. He may not have been university educated, and he may have been a dimwit pawn in Professor Rangsay’s schemes, but Tan was a survivor. He had been grafting his way along since before the Khmer Rouge had rolled into town, and he was still going strong even now.

  So when he heard the gunshots that had taken out the guards at the temple cave, he had come back from down the hill to investigate, bringing his men with him. But not all of his men. He had left four down by the secret road. Lucas knew this because he now watched these four appear from around the pit, lit by the burning shed. They moved into camp and Lucas raised his rifle. He figured he could take out two before they knew anything had happened, and another before they reacted to the shots and the sight of their comrades hitting the dirt.

  The fourth shot was the problem. The fourth shot might miss. And a miss was a bad thing, because between where Lucas lay in the grass and the four soldiers, sat Jarani and her posse, ready to enter the camp.

  Lucas held his fire. The soldiers disappeared behind a tent, and then he heard a motorcycle starting up. It took off in the direction of the reservoir, and then the three other soldiers appeared in the distance, jogging out of the camp with the same heading.

  Lucas picked up the metal detector from where he had left it in the grass earlier and ran. He fired several shots toward the pit mine, hoping to attract attention.

  He got it. The three soldiers turned to him, and as he ran before the burning shed, they opened fire. Their rifles were old things, but a bullet is a bullet when it hits flesh, so Lucas ran hard for the trees. Once under the cover of the jungle, he didn’t slow. He pushed another fifty, sixty, seventy yards. Then he stopped. He heard firing and the rushing of boots in pursuit. He flicked on the metal detector and ran in a crouch, the detector buzzing softly, giving a single step’s warning of any mines.

  Lucas ran another hundred yards and then stopped, crouching low behind some trees. The soldiers had stopped too. They were talking. Deciding what to do. The pitch of their voices was high. The language barrier was up but the message was clear:

  I’m not going in there.

  They knew the area was heavily mined. They knew they could go about a hundred yards before danger. Lucas guessed they had gone fifty and no more. And they weren’t wandering into a dark jungle filled with landmines for all the uranium in the world. That much was clear. They debated it for a while, and then reached some kind of consensus.

  They opened fire—a volley into the jungle. Lucas stayed down behind his tree, and the soldiers emptied their magazines in hope and in vain. When they were all out of ammunition, they slowly retreated.

  Lucas stayed in his spot, breathing harder than he cared to admit. He thought of Jarani and the villagers walking into the camp. They were about to be welcomed by three soldiers. He hoped the villagers were moving fast, but he couldn’t see those poor people moving fast for anything.

  And then he thought of Lenny. On his motorcycle, headed into a trap of their own design. A trap that was about to turn on him because Lucas wasn’t there to take care of his end. He hadn’t seen all the permutations. It wasn’t possible to, not under fire, and not even sitting in an office in Canberra. Not ever. But that didn’t make him feel better.

  He had to get to the reservoir, and fast. To hell with landmines. He fired up the metal detector again and ran. It beeped and whirred as it canvassed the numerous metals in the earth. If it did pick up a mine, it would scream in Lucas’s ear, and give him just enough time to process the knowledge that he was about to lose his legs, if not his life.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Lenny slowed for two reasons. The first was that he didn’t want his pursuers to lose him. There weren’t that many places to go, but he wanted them focused on following him into the half-dug reservoir, not onto the high ground around it. The second reason he slowed was that the rough terrain sent the motorcycle bouncing all over the place, and with bent handlebars, he nearly flipped off his bike several times.

  He got to the decline that marked the beginning of the shallow end of the reservoir when he heard the sound of the other motorcycle firing up back at camp. Lucas was on his way. The plan, then, was in full swing. Lenny steered the bike down the decline, luring the general’s men in with him.

  Five of Tan’s men made it to the start of the incline down into the soon-to-be reservoir. There they paused. There was really no hurry, because there was no way out. They waited, faces to the dark space before them, rifles ready.

  Tan strode up behind. He smiled. He was a proud man. He had come from nothing and become something, high enough in the Khmer leadership to be included in the retreat when the Vietnamese took over the capital, but smart enough to have avoided becoming a public target. He already had enough gold to escape, to live in exile, but the news that the Chinese wanted to secretly buy the uranium ore he had stumbled upon would double or triple his haul. He had long dreamed of lazy days on a small property in the south of France. He knew the Khmer leadership had largely been educated there, and although he wasn’t sure how well he would be received now after all they had done, he was confident he could make it work. He had tried to teach himself French—he’d even gotten a few lessons from that minion Rangsay—but it hadn’t come to much. He didn’t think his former friends in Britain would be quite so hospitable. They were a duplicitous bunch, the English. He didn’t dwell on it. He’d work it out. He always did. And worst case, he’d settle in the east region of Thailand, where ex-Khmer Rouge members were tolerated, if not welcomed, as they formed a convenient barrier between Bangkok and the Vietnamese.

  The motorcycle zoomed up from behind and he saw the rider was one of the men he had left guarding the new road.

  The rider stopped by his general.

  “General Tan,” said the man.

  “Go around to the rear of the reservoir. If you see the American in there, put a rifle on him but do not shoot. I want to finish him slowly.”

  “Yes, General.”

  “But,” said the general. “If he tries to take aim at us, kill him. I don’t want to end him slowly that badly.”

  “Of course, General.”

  The man hit the throttle, and in a hail of dirt, he spun the rear tire and sped off around the top of the reservoir.

  The steering eventually gave out on Lenny’s motorcycle. The handlebars went left and the front tire went right, and Lenny hit the brake and was immediately thrown over the top. He wasn’t going super fast, so he was able to tuck and roll, and came out with a bruised shoulder but neck fully intact. He picked himself up and started jogging. It was dark in the hole and he was now running silent, and he heard the whine of the second motorcycle passing above him. Lucas would be in position well before he got there, and a small grin formed on Lenny’s lips.

  He reached the end of the reservoir. It was, he thought, like hitting the deep end of a swimming pool, except that he wasn’t a
bout to tumble turn and go back the other way. He stopped and touched the dirt wall, as if ending the race, and then he looked up. The lip of the excavation was way above, and it made Lenny think of his childhood, of days spent swimming in San Diego, of dropping like a missile from the pool deck into the water, shooting down to the bottom of the deep end, and then standing on the concrete for a moment, completely consumed by the water that could drown him, but that was so serene that it seemed as pleasant a way to die as there was.

  Tonight was not so peaceful, and he wasn’t able to kick off and float to the surface. He looked up, waiting for Lucas to drop the coil toward him. But nothing happened. No rope appeared.

  Then Lenny heard the boots. A unit of men moving cautiously but steadily. Out of the darkness they appeared, a row of soldiers, rifles up and sights on Lenny. His own rifle was still strapped to his back, and he chose to keep it there. He didn’t want to give them a reason to shoot. He hoped Lucas would be the one to do the firing, from above.

  The line of men came to a stop. For a moment it was quiet, the only sounds those of the jungle around them. The men neither flinched, nor moved closer. Then, General Tan strolled up from behind the line, hands clasped easily behind his back.

  Tan looked over Lenny. A soft breeze came in from the shallow end of the reservoir, and Lenny caught a whiff of Tan and his men. They were splattered with rancid goat meat, and the stench was almighty. The breeze pushed it into the wall and then back, so Lenny was certain the soldiers were getting a good dose of their own aroma.

  “I hate to say it,” said Lenny, “but you guys stink. I mean, you seriously reek. I don’t think a shower is going to cut it, boys. Those uniforms are going to have to be burned.”

  “Be quiet,” said Tan.

  “I can get you new uniforms, straight from the laundry. You’ll smell like daisies.”

  “I said be quiet!” Tan took a step forward and Lenny stopped talking. The general didn’t seem in a good mood.

  “You have caused me much trouble,” said Tan. “You have destroyed my chemical stores, which will have to be brought in again. And bringing things here is not easy.”

  “I know a guy with a chopper,” said Lenny.

  “Be quiet! You Americans are supposed to be our friends, our allies, but you come here and destroy my camp. I will have to remain here for many, many more months because of you. This is not how friends act.”

  “Well, to be fair, you are killing innocent people here.”

  “I will not tell you again! Shut up!”

  Lenny could see the general had lost it. Yes, his mining operation had suffered a bit of a setback, and yes, Lenny was in part responsible for that, but it was becoming clear that the general had been in the jungle too long. Lenny glanced up, hoping to see that rope. He did not. He looked back at the line of rifles pointed at him.

  They looked like a firing squad.

  “I was hesitant before,” said Tan, “because I thought your superiors might ask questions, but now? I don’t care. You were never here. You must have gotten lost in the jungle. They will never find you. I will disperse your bones over a thousand miles.”

  Then the general yelled a command in Khmer, and the soldiers retook their aim, digging their feet into the dirt, ready to fire.

  “Any last words?” asked Tan, with a nasty grin.

  Lenny made to open his mouth. He had last words. He hadn’t prepared them—it wasn’t a best man’s speech—and they probably wouldn’t be noted in the history books, or, given current circumstances, even understood by most of those present. But he had something, and if he was going to die in a hole in Cambodia as so many had before, then he was going to have his say.

  But the words never came out. What ripped across the night was that guttural, spine-chilling roar. Everyone but Lenny spun to look toward the shallow end of the reservoir, toward the fearsome sound. Lenny was already facing that way, so he just pushed himself back into the wall as far as he could.

  Then the sound dropped to a low growl, which rumbled inside their bones. The tiger was out there, nearby but invisible, and moving on silent feet. The sound seemed to surround them.

  The first man fired. He wasn’t shooting at anything in particular, not a shape or a movement. He simply fired out of fear. Then his compatriots followed his lead, firing into the darkness the volley of bullets meant for Lenny.

  When they were done, the hole smelled of gunpowder and rotten meat. The growling had stopped; the tiger had fallen silent. For a moment, the only sound was that of Tan’s revolver, clicking over and over as he pulled the trigger on a spent weapon. The soldiers’ heavy breathing slowed as they glanced at each other, glad to be alive.

  The tiger came at head height, a massive leap. It flew from the darkness as quietly as a ninja, and ripped the first soldier apart before he even knew what was happening. It didn’t stop there. The gunfire might have wounded it, but more than that it pissed the thing off. Before, Lenny hadn’t known the difference between an angry tiger and a tiger in a regular mood, but he was rapidly learning.

  The tiger pounced from man to man. The soldiers were utterly defenseless, their bare hands useless against the tiger’s huge, slashing claws. In the sort of frenzy Lenny would only have ever associated with a shark, the tiger swiped and charged and bit. The tiger wasn’t hunting, it was protecting itself, and it wasn’t about to stop until the job was done.

  General Tan backed away from the carnage until he hit the patch of wall next to Lenny. When the tiger had taken the last man down, it paused as if for effect, and then turned its eyes toward the wall. Toward Lenny and Tan.

  The tiger moved slowly. It seemed to feel no urgency now, as if it knew it would eat like a king tonight, and all thanks to the trap that had been designed to catch it. The trap had been a practical use of a hole that had been dug for another purpose altogether—a chance to kill two birds, as the saying went. Lenny wondered what the general thought of his tiger trap now.

  The two men splayed themselves against the dirt wall, about five feet apart. Lenny felt the rifle pressed against his back but feared to attract the tiger’s attention by moving. The tiger would have to make a choice. One, then the other. It would only be a matter of a few extra seconds either way, but even so, both men hoped the other would be the tiger’s first pick. Except, for Lenny, it wasn’t so much hope as it was expectation. He had spent the last few days hiking in the jungle, lying in the jungle. He smelled like the jungle.

  General Tan smelled like goat meat.

  The tiger chose Tan, who screamed, a high-pitched bellow of fear that would have shattered glassware, had there been any lying around. The giant cat didn’t slash or claw. It went, much to Lenny’s surprise, straight for the jugular. It turned its head and wrapped its mighty jaws around Tan’s screaming neck, and ripped him apart.

  The screaming stopped abruptly, and Tan’s body dropped where it had stood, and the tiger flayed at his head like a terrier with a mouse. Lenny wondered if the cat would be so considerate with him. He took what he expected to be his last breath, a muddy, earthy breath that reminded him for some reason of boiled beets.

  He was about to close his eyes when the rope hit him in the face. The sense of timing was not lost on him, but it took his brain a second to engage and to figure out what to do. He grabbed the rope and tugged hard, and then like a superhero, he was lifted off his feet, not faster than a speeding bullet, but faster than a tiger can turn and pounce. The big cat dropped what was left of General Tan and growled, seemingly displeased that Lenny was making an early exit. It leaped up at him, collecting his boot and knocking him sideways. Lenny swung like a pendulum, and the tiger pounced again, hitting nothing but wall, and it landed in a cascade of dirt. Lenny saw the tiger shake its head, ready for one more pounce, and then . . .

  Lenny burst out of the hole, over the lip, and onto the grass above. He didn’t let go of the rope, and so he was dragged forward, getting a dirt facial as he went. Then, suddenly, he stopped, and he lay
in the dirt, spitting chunks of soil, hands fused to the rope. He heard the rumble of the motorcycle, and a face appeared above him, offering him a hand up.

  He let go of the rope and wiped the dirt from his eyes, and then made to take Lucas’s hand, to hug him and thank him for getting there in time, however late. But as Lenny reached out, he saw that the hand wasn’t Lucas’s at all. It belonged to a man in a uniform. One of General Tan’s men. Lenny recoiled, falling back to the ground, rolling and struggling to bring his rifle around to aim at the soldier, instinct finally kicking in, as it hadn’t in front of the tiger.

  His aim fell on Jarani. She had stepped in front of the soldier and put her hands up.

  “Jarani,” spat Lenny.

  “No,” she said. “No shoot. He friend.”

  Lenny took a moment to comprehend. The man poked his head out from behind her, and Lenny realized it was the same soldier he had aimed at and Jarani had stepped in front of in the jungle earlier. Lenny took a couple of deep breaths and tried to reset. His thoughts were a jumble, as if he had short-circuited.

  He dropped the sights of his rifle and Jarani nodded.

  “You okay,” she said. “It okay now.”

  Jarani offered her hand and Lenny took it. She was small and frail and in need of a good home-cooked meal, but she was strong. Not so much in body, but everywhere else it counted. She had survived the unsurvivable, and she was still looking after those around her.

  Lenny stood and brushed the remaining dirt from his face. Jarani watched him, and her soldier friend stood reverently to one side. A body lay in the grass. Jarani saw Lenny looking at it.