The Brittle Limit, a Novel (28 page)

Seeing this, Prina screamed and ran back to
the others who were waiting on the path, craning their necks to see
what the commotion was about. This was certainly more exciting than
a childish game of hide and seek, they thought.

Guy, recovered from the surprise, looked at
the body in a pile on the ground. Guy did not need to check if this
man was dead, he could tell from the smell. And the attendant flies
that buzzed around the man’s exposed flesh.

He glanced along the length of the white
truck, which had no markings or signage but looked pretty beaten
up. A burnished glint of metal on the ground near the rear of the
truck caught his eye. Guy stepped closer. Still a safe distance of
a couple feet, Guy could see exactly what it was. Every Cambodian
child knew; they were told by their parents over and over again to
be careful. It was a land mine. Guy knew they were everywhere in
the country, but they were supposed to have been cleared the land
this close to the temples, near to where tourists walked. But the
jungle was vast and sometimes things were overlooked.

What was more troubling than the glint from
the land mine, was that the canister that had been inside the truck
had rolled onto the dirt and landed on the edge of the metal. Guy
wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it was bad. He returned to
Prina and yelled to his younger brother, “Run and get our
father!”

*******

The Cambodian man approached the white truck,
taking small, hesitant steps through the jungle underbrush. He was
a brave man, but he did not wish to be blown up. He glanced back to
the trail, where a small but growing audience of locals stood
watching him. They murmured as he walked but grew silent when he
stooped down to look at the canister, disappearing from their view
behind the brush. A young boy craned his neck. The man’s youngest
son tugged on his mother’s sleeve and asked, “Where’s daddy?” The
mother shushed him, staring, transfixed at the greenery where her
husband had just stood.

The man knelt near the silver canister and
looked at it from every angle he could manage, without disturbing
the ground below it. He stood, glanced forward and saw the dead
driver.

Satisfied, the man took one last look and
jogged back to the path, his lithe brown frame moving with ease
through the greenery.

Back at the safety of the path, he spoke to a
few local men who had gathered to watch him approach the truck.
Their pushcarts filled with goods for sale - trinkets, temple
replicas, carved wooden elephants, t-shirts bearing the phrase “I
Heart Angkor Wat” and of course food and drinks, all for the
tourists - stood unmanned by the temple road.

Instead, the men stood on the spare path and
listened, murmuring to each other in agreement, as the man
explained that they must guard the truck until the authorities
arrived. There was a dead man, he said.

In case that was not enough of a deterrent to
leave well enough alone, as he knew sometimes his friends’
curiosity sometimes outweighed their share of wisdom, he explained
that the truck was haunted with angry ghosts from Pchum Ben whose
relatives had neglected to bring them offerings and they were now
feeding on the dead man. The listening men looked horrified.

That should keep them from approaching the
truck while he puzzled on how to reach the Prime Minister. It
wasn’t every day a tuk-tuk driver had such important news. He
wondered if anyone would listen.

Chapter 36

The spotlights of the helicopter pierced the
night, blinding the two guards standing in the clearing, as the
helicopter swooped high over the trees then low toward the clearing
and the two guards. The men bolted for cover but were cut down, as
Andrew blasted the helo’s machine gun. The men dropped in their
tracks, cut down by the spray of bullets. The helo swept up
sideways and away into the night.

Once away from the stable, Andrew had raced
out of the clearing, down the brief scrubby hill by the stream to
the rustic helo landing pad he’d seen on his hike up. There, he’d
broken in to the helicopter, Hakk’s transport to and from his camps
and town. The heavy machinery had been acquired at an exorbitant
cost on the black market a year ago from a disgruntled Chinese
military pilot who’d needed fast cash.

Andrew had tried several times to start the
machine, unfamiliar with this particular make, glancing repeatedly
over his shoulder, worried that the guards would notice his absence
and that of their colleague. He breathed a sigh of relief when the
rotor began to move. The Chinese-made helo was a stretch even for
Andrew’s pilot skills but it had at last lifted up, seeming to
prefer the sky to the earth.

Having heard the sound of his only transport
overhead, coupled with the sound of gunfire, Hakk burst from the
hut, an RPG launcher at his shoulder. He looked at the dead guards
by the tree, then at the empty sky. He watched the tree line for
the helicopter to reappear. In the quiet night, he could hear the
helicopter grow louder as Andrew circled back. Hakk stood in the
middle of the clearing, the launcher set against his firm shoulder,
and waited for the helo to reappear above the trees.

Its nose down, floodlights on, the machine
breached the night and flew at Hakk like an arrow. Hakk aimed the
launcher, waited a heartbeat, and then fired for the window, the
widest and weakest spot in the reinforced cockpit.

Andrew saw the blast gases light up behind
Hakk’s left shoulder and he lifted the helo sharply up and sideways
to the left to evade the launched grenade.

Its accuracy dependent on a shooter’s skill,
not a smart armament, the grenade projectile missed its mark,
taking out only the right engine, not blasting the helicopter’s
cockpit and pilot as Hakk had intended. The helo rocked from the
blast, side to side, as Andrew struggled with the controls. The
left engine immediately picked up the slack and Andrew lifted up
into the sky and pushed beyond the clearing. He would circle around
one more time and this time he would take Hakk out. There was no
more reasoning. There was no more time.

Circling back around the clearing, Andrew
looked down and did not see Hakk anywhere in the open area. He
shone the spotlight on the edges of the clearing, the helo doing a
low circle. Lifting up, Andrew blasted the huts with machine
gunfire. No movement, no sound. Nothing. Either Hakk had ducked
into the jungle or he had been sliced in two by a spray of
bullets.

Andrew set the helo down in the center of the
clearing to investigate.

*******

Andrew grabbed a long black flashlight by the
seat and jumped out of the helo. Staying close and low, he shone
the light along the clearing’s perimeter, looking for movement.
There was none.

Taking short, careful steps, Andrew
approached the main hut, the flashlight casting a wide ‘V’ of light
in front of him. To his left and right, it was dark and still, the
torches burned out.

The hut was empty. The flashlight revealed
bullet holes marking the table and chairs, the thatch walls no
protection against gunfire. A line of bullets had cut a swath of
holes across the map of Cambodia on the wall.

Andrew stepped back into the clearing and
listened. He could hear only the stream bubbling nearby and the
frightened baby elephant making snuffling sounds outside. Andrew
approached the stream, which was dark now in the late night.

Andrew peered down the streambed, shadowed by
overhanging trees. The gurgling water offered the only sound that
could conceal movement.

Sure enough, twenty feet ahead, Hakk, hunched
low, walked in the stream bed, following the water’s noisy path
down the mountain, the happy babbling hiding the sound of his
splashing footsteps.

Andrew walked then jogged toward Hakk, not
caring if Hakk heard. Hakk turned at Andrew’s approach and seeing
him, bolted ahead, kicking up spray as he splashed forward. A ways
ahead, Hakk knew, the stream fed a wider fast-moving river. If Hakk
could get to that, he would be free of this gadfly.

Close enough, Andrew leapt at Hakk, tackling
him from behind, both of the men falling into the clear stream.
They struggled in the water, grappling and rolling, their feet
slipping out from under them on the slimy rocks as each tried to
gain purchase on the ground beneath them.

Andrew, gripping the back of Hakk’s wet
shirt, pulled Hakk away and pushed him onto his back on the flat
stones in the stream’s center, cool water running over Hakk’s face
into his mouth and nose. Hakk sputtered as Andrew, sitting squarely
on Hakk’s chest, pulled an arm back and blasted his face with a
tight fist, bloodying his nose. Hakk took the hit with a grunt, the
stream’s flowing water washing the blood away downstream.

For only a second, Andrew’s grip loosened,
and Hakk turned on his side, pulled his knee forward and kicked
Andrew in the chest, knocking him off sideways. Hakk slipped
downstream and scrambled toward the mossy bank, intent on climbing
upward and away. His hands grabbed at loose stones and pebbles, his
feet slipped on rocks. He neared the top of the bank, when Andrew
jumped at him and caught his foot, trying to pull Hakk back into
the water.

Hakk stared back at him, blood running from
his nose over his lips and down his chin. He gave one last kick at
Andrew with his left foot, catching Andrew’s shoulder, and once at
the top of bank, raced for his helicopter.

Andrew followed in swift pursuit, scrambling
up the bank, slipping and sliding in the rough. He cut his hand on
a fine sharp rock, but ignored the warm blood that oozed in his
palm. He reached the top and bolted to the helo, which Hakk had
started moments before. The rotor was turning, gaining speed.
Within moments, the helo lifted off the ground. Andrew dove into
the open door just as Hakk tried to swing it closed, the helo
lifting higher. The helo gained altitude as Hakk slammed the door
again and again, cursing at Andrew who hung on outside, his feet in
the door, his fingers wedged into a deep metal groove in the door
rim.

“You can’t stop me!!” Hakk screamed as he
slammed at Andrew’s fingers repeatedly with a dull end of a
screwdriver. The helo flew higher, now several hundred feet above
the trees.

Andrew held tight to the door rim with one
hand, while he struggled for the stable guard’s gun tucked in the
small of his back. Gripping the cold metal, he pulled it forward
and pointed the gun at Hakk’s head.

“Tell me the plan for Sunday!” Andrew
demanded. “Take us back down and tell me the plan!”

Seeing the gun, Hakk tilted the helicopter
nearly on its side, careening to the left through the wispy clouds.
With the sudden sideways jolt, Andrew’s feet slipped in the
doorframe but he held on with his fingers as the helicopter slid
through the air.

“I’m not fucking around!” Andrew yelled and
turned his face away as he shot out the front windshield. Glass
flew into Hakk’s face. Andrew regained his footing and pointed the
gun again at Hakk. “Take her down!”

Hakk’s eyes wild, he took the helicopter
higher and higher. Wind whipped through the broken window. Hakk
screamed above the noise, his eyes red with rage. “No! Time has
been reset. It is the beginning. We can’t be stopped. We are an
army of believers, a thousand strong!”

“Well, then, “ Andrew said as he steadied
himself against the door. “One less believer won’t be missed.” He
pulled the trigger and Hakk was no more.

*******

As the helo careened forward and up, Andrew
yanked himself into the cockpit, climbing in over Hakk’s inert body
to seize the controls. The helicopter yawed right. Andrew trimmed
the controls and pushed the dead man out the door into the night,
the body falling through the misty clouds to the jungle below.

If Hakk was telling the truth, he had merely
been the initiating spark for what was coming.

Andrew had to stop the coming destruction. He
set a course for Phnom Penh.

Chapter 37

In the Prime Minister’s headquarters in Phnom
Penh, Andrew pushed past the guards into the stately conference
room. Thirty faces turned toward the interruption. Andrew stood at
the head of the table and said, “You are all in grave danger.”

Behind him, hot on his heels, were the two
guards he had fooled into letting him in to the building by
pretending to be sick on the stone steps. He had approached the
building acting like a tourist, getting a little too close, which
had displeased the surrounding armed guards. Then he had proceeded
to vomit on the steps, a trick he had picked up along the way - it
came in handy in his line of work.

The guards had approached him to admonish him
for soiling the grounds and he had bolted past them through the
front door, running all the way down to the end of the hall where
the Prime Minister was in a special evening session with his
Ministers.

The guards burst in after him, looking for
the intruder. Spotting him, one guard grabbed Andrew and wrestled
him to the table, a meaty sweaty palm pressing Andrew’s face into
the wood and a thick elbow digging into Andrew’s back. The other
guard pulled out his gun and trained it at Andrew's head.

The Prime Minister stood, surprised and
displeased, a combination that did not bode well. He was not
accustomed to interruptions and did not take kindly to them. The
other men seated at the table watched him for guidance on how to
react.

“What is the meaning of this?” The Prime
Minister asked.

Pressed against the cold mahogany, Andrew’s
mouth was forced open by the weight of the guard’s hand on his
head, giving Andrew a fish-like expression, his lips puckered. In
his line of sight, Andrew saw three glasses of water, two pencils,
a medium-sized yellow sticky pad and a Cambodian Army General with
the unfortunate luck to be seated at this end of the table by the
door. The General tried everything he could to avoid eye contact
with Andrew, whose face was about a foot from his own.