The Brittle Limit, a Novel

A NOVEL

Kae Bell

Copyright
©
2015 Kae
Bell

All Rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events and incidents either are the product of
the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, business
establishments or locales is purely coincidental.

"Chaos, like the
grave, is a haven of equality."

Eric Hoffer,
The True
Believer
, 1953

Map of Cambodia

Prologue

The ladyboy stood alone outside the circle of
light cast by the tall street lamp. Behind him, deep in the shadows
of Wat Phnom, the park elephant leaned against a thick tree,
snoring. Leaves rustled in the warm breeze. The Wat was nearly
empty this time of night.

The ladyboy, or katoey as he was known in
some cultures, was tall, willowy, with long black hair that fell to
his waist, bleached white at the ends. His tight-fitting green silk
dress did not betray him - many of his clients didn’t know he was a
man until they were beyond caring. His walk didn’t give him away,
as he paced easy and slow like a jungle cat, slim hips shifting
under the filmy green satin, five-inch heels clicking on the
pavement. His false silver lashes fluttered as he leaned into the
light to peer down the street. His client was late.

He lit a cigarette, pursing his lips to avoid
smudging heavy red lipstick. He inhaled, the cigarette tip
brightening with his sharp intake of breath.

A block away, a long black car turned the
corner and slowed as it neared the street lamp, stopping not far
from the ladyboy. A back door opened and a deep male voice called
from inside the car. “Get in.”

The ladyboy turned his head slightly, to
acknowledge he’d heard, then took a last long drag on his
cigarette. He flicked the cigarette into the darkness in a
practiced move and started toward the car, exaggerating his runway
swagger. No one ordered him around he thought, a small furrow in
his brow. Smiling as he slid into the back seat, he said “Hello
darling” and gave the man’s knee a squeeze. The man batted the
manicured hand away. “Stop fooling.”

With a harrumph, the ladyboy crossed his legs
and settled back into the soft leather seat.

The car pulled away down the long empty
lane.

On the sidewalk, on the edge of the light,
the ladyboy’s half-smoked cigarette burned, its trail of gray smoke
wandering skyward, a bright red lipstick kiss on the end.

Part 1

Chapter 1

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Rows of children sat rapt in the sunlit
courtyard, all eyes on the nimble fingers of the dark-haired man,
who plucked the golden strings of a guitar, his deep voice singing
a playful song, his eyes smiling. 

The children hummed as the man’s voice
carried the tune across the open space and out into the
streets. He sang of laughter and restless winds.

When the song ended, a small girl from the
back row approached him. She had picked a large red flower from the
garden and she handed it to him. “Thank you, Mr. Ben.”

“Thank you, little one. I’ve got something
for you, too.” He pulled from his pocket a slim chain from which
hung a dull oblong green stone. He placed this around the girl’s
neck and ruffled her black hair.

“Happy Birthday Samnang. Be good while we’re
gone.” Samnang grabbed the necklace in her little hands and ran off
to show her friends.

Ben watched the happy birthday mayhem in the
concrete courtyard. The concert over, the children, all of them
orphans, played games of chase and tag and hide and seek. One of
the boys had co-opted Ben's guitar and plucked discordant
strings.

A striking woman with unruly long brown hair
and high cheekbones emerged from a dim hallway, wiping her hands on
a dishtowel. Her pink sundress was a bright contrast with the white
walls. Severine smiled at Ben as she clapped her hands to get the
children’s attention. "Lunchtime! And cake!" She walked over to
Ben, as the kids streamed past her, squealing, toward the
kitchen.

"All set?" Ben asked.

"Yes. Kolab will look after things while
we're away." She smiled, a fleeting grin.

Ben furrowed his brow and rubbed the woman’s
bare shoulders. “Are you nervous?”

“A little.” Severine was quite anxious about
their trip to the jungle. She didn’t know why. She was not a
fearful person.

“Don’t worry, you'll love it. Mondulkiri is
unlike anywhere else you've been. Let’s go home and pack. It’s an
early start tomorrow.”

*******

Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia

Immersed in a deep natural pool, Severine
lifted her face skyward, eyes closed, a ray of sunlight dancing
across her face. Her cheeks were flushed with heat and exertion
from the day’s hike. Along the clearing’s edge, tall trees swayed
in the breeze.

The explosion rocked the quiet jungle, the
massive blast ripping up thick roots and toppling trees, destroying
everything within a ten-foot radius.

Severine clambered out of the water, slipping
on slick rocks and scrambling to grab her clothes and her backpack.
“Ben? What was that? Ben! Are you hurt?” she yelled.

There was no reply.

“Ben!!” she screamed, desperate for a reply,
an acknowledgement. Only minutes before Ben had walked down the
slight path from which dense heavy smoke now billowed.

Piles of dry leaves from seasons past ignited
on the forest floor, eager tinder. Flames leapt at the thick vines
encircling the trees. The fire traveled the vines, wicking its way
skyward, leaping from tree to tree. Soon, a wall of flames thirty
feet high raged in the woods.

Severine dug through her backpack for a red
bandana, dipped it in the water and held it over her mouth and nose
as she ran down the path cut by Ben’s machete. The heat rolled at
her in waves. She faced the flames, frantic to find a break in the
towering wall consuming everything in its path. The fire stretched
and jawed, threatening to engulf her. Severine stood on its
encroaching angry edge and called for Ben again and again.

He could not hear her anymore. The fire had
consumed him, all his dreams and tomorrows.

*******

On the other side of the fire, a half-mile
away, two men had stopped to listen. They had felt the explosion,
could hear the fire and the woman’s panicked screams. They looked
at each other. One signaled with a gloved hand, a double flick of
the wrist, fingers pointing ahead. The men pressed forward in the
dense jungle.

Chapter 2

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Breathing hard, his chest heaving after a
sprint up steep steps, Andrew Shaw stared up at the stone faces of
the old Gods. The carvings, nearly 800 years old, were taller than
Andrew by several feet and towered over him as he studied their
blank eyes. The gods smiled at him, serene in their eternity.

Andrew glanced at his watch, it was almost
lunchtime. He’d been temple-hopping by foot since sunrise. At 5:00
AM, in the pre-dawn dark, he’d run the three and a half miles from
Siem Reap to the massive Angkor complex, home of the famous Angkor
Wat, City of Temples.

At dawn he’d stood in front of that temple’s
massive conical stone spires, along with scores of American,
French, Japanese and German tourists, bussed in from Siem Reap
guest houses, to watch the sun rise behind the majestic dome of
this most famous Siem Reap temple.

For nearly one thousand years, the sun had
risen on the temple of Angkor Wat, built for King Suryavarman II to
honor the god Vishnu. As Andrew had watched the earliest morning
light silhouette the temple’s spires, he could not help but feel
humbled and insignificant, if only for a moment.

Now, late morning, he was exploring a less
exalted but no less stunning temple, the Bayon, deeper in the
jungle. He preferred this to its more famous cousin.

Here, on the back dirt roads away from the
desperate throngs of selfie-snapping tourists, dark stone hallways
led to quiet corners and stunning archways with views looking out
to the green jungle.

As he climbed the stone steps and ducked his
6’ 2” frame beneath the low archways, Andrew felt like a
ten-year-old, not the forty-four year old man he was. The heat,
however, reminded him of the truth.

After twenty minutes clambering up and over,
Andrew sat on a carved stone sill, wiping the sweat from his face
with his t-shirt. He drank from his water bottle, the cold water
refreshing, and chewed a tablet his hotel concierge had insisted he
take, ‘for the salts’.

On his perch, by a sign that read ‘Please do
not sit on this windowsill’ in five languages, Andrew stared out at
the jungle. Everywhere he looked, the jungle encroached, wrapping
its greedy green tendrils inch by inch around stones wrought by men
long dead. One day, Andrew thought, the jungle would win.

Across the courtyard, a gaggle of laughing
Cambodian children clambered up the stone steps. Andrew watched
them play a noisy game of tag among the huge banyan trees, playing
hide and seek as they chased each other.

Andrew’s phone vibrated in his pocket and he
ignored it, hoping it would stop. It started to ring loudly, the
jangling sound impossible to avoid.

Andrew sighed as he pulled out his secure
phone. Only one person knew the number and had in fact insisted
that Andrew take the phone on vacation. His boss, Case Officer
Denise Flint.

“Just in case,” she’d said. Andrew had
wondered in case of what. Sliding the green arrow to the right, he
knew he was about to find out. “Hello Flint.”

“How’s the sightseeing?” Flint asked.

Andrew tensed when he spoke to Flint these
days. “Impressive,” he replied. He knew this was not a social
call.

Flint went on. “You’re in…Siem Reap?” Andrew
heard papers rustling on the other end of the line. “Says here on
your itinerary you’re in Siem Reap.”

“Yes,” Andrew said. “I’m outside of town, at
the temples.” There were countless temples a person could spend
days exploring. But Andrew guessed from the unexpected call that
this was no longer the plan.

“Glad you’ve gotten to see the sights.” She
didn’t sound particularly glad, Andrew thought. She sounded
focused. In problem-solving mode.

Flint said, “There’s a situation down the
road from you. I need you to take a look.”

Andrew’s face registered his surprise. It was
Flint who had insisted that Andrew take this time away. Take a
break, she’d said.

“I thought I was ‘taking a break’?” Andrew
said, throwing Flint’s words back at her. He knew he’d agree to
whatever she was about to ask, but it didn’t hurt to make her work
for it.

“You were. Now you’re not. Is that a
problem?” Flint’s strength and weakness was her unyielding
directness.

Andrew poked at a fine crack in the stone
wall then leaned back against the frame of the carved windowsill
and lifted his feet, wedging himself into the space.

“I doubt it would matter if I said it was.
But no, not a problem. So, where am I going?” he asked, as an
elderly couple walked by him on their way to the sunny courtyard.
The woman, seeing Andrew in the forbidden windowsill, commented to
her husband in German that perhaps the poor man could not read. Her
husband tut-tutted in agreement. Andrew gave them a slight wave, as
he listened to Flint.

“To Phnom Penh. It’s a six hour ride
south.”

“Six hours? Can’t I just fly?”

“You can. But I wouldn’t. There’s a bus in
the morning. They show films en route.”

“Lucky me, first class all the way.” Andrew
cleared his throat. “So, what’s the situation?”

“An American man was killed in the jungle
yesterday. A kid really, mid-twenties. Killed by a landmine or some
unexploded ordnance. There’s a lot of that left over from the
‘70s.”