Douglas Preston - Impact

"Too dangerous. I speak Khmer, so you understand. That okay, Mr. Mandrake, if I speak Khmer now?" Another brilliant smile.

"Of course."

He began speaking in Khmer and Ford listened closely. "Are you crazy?" the official said. "That area is infested with Khmer Rouge. They're just bandits now, gem smuggling and kidnapping for ransom. If they got their hands on your client, it would be a huge problem for me. You understand?"

"I understand," said Khon, responding in Khmer. "But my client is very anxious to see this ruin. He came all the way to Cambodia just for this. We'll be in and out--no lingering. Believe me, I know what I'm doing. I've guided people like him before. Just last month, I took some Americans to Banteay Chhmar."

"I cannot allow it."

"He will pay you well."

The official spread his hands. "What good is his money if I have to deal with a kidnapping? Of an American, no less? What would happen to my position here? The district is peaceful now, no problems, everyone's happy. It wasn't always like this, you know."

"Perhaps a large amount of money will compensate for the inconvenience."

There was a pause. "How much?"

"A hundred dollars."

The official threw up his hands. "Are you joking? Make it a thousand."

"A thousand? I will consult with my client."

Khon turned to Ford and said in English, "The permit is a thousand dollars."

Ford frowned. "That's a lot of money."

"Yes, but . . ." Khon shrugged.

Ford frowned, screwed up his brow, then nodded sharply. "All right. I'll pay."

The official piped up in Khmer, "And then one hundred dollars for access to the land mine clearance maps!"

Khon turned. "One hundred dollars more? Now you're the one who's joking!"

"Fifty then."

Khon spoke to Ford. "And another fifty dollars for the maps."

"What about the motorbikes? We need motorbikes," Ford said, feigning anger. "How much more is this going to cost?"

The haggling went on for another fifteen minutes, and finally it was done. One thousand, one hundred and forty dollars for the permit, maps, the rental of two motorbikes, gas, a few provisions, and safekeeping of the Land Cruiser while they were gone. Ford removed the money and gave it to the councilman, who took it with both hands, reverently, smiling whitely, and locked it in his desk.

Ford and Khon went outside and sat down in the shade of a jackfruit tree, awaiting the arrival of the rental motorbikes from a nearby village.

"You told me to bring five thousand dollars," said Ford. "That poor fellow had no idea what we were willing to pay."

"That man just earned two years' salary. He's happy, we're happy--why question the generosity of the gods?"

With a blatting sound, two motorbikes ridden by skinny teenagers arrived and wheezed and coughed to a stop.

Ford stared at the ancient bikes, held together with gaffing tape and baling wire. One had a bamboo cage rack strapped to the back, fouled with clots and streaks of dried pig's blood. "You've got to be kidding me."

Khon laughed. "What were you expecting, Harleys?"

18

The blue hills in the distance were the first thing Ford noticed as the trail opened into a small clearing. For the past five hours, they had been threading a web of jungle trails and he was exhausted, his bones rattled loose. He halted his bike and shut off the engine as Khon pulled up alongside. He watched the Cambodian gingerly remove the map from his backpack and unfold it, but despite all his care it was beginning to fall apart at the seams from humidity and use. Khon squinted at the map through his thick glasses, then looked up. "Those are the Phnom Ngue hills, and behind them the mountains along the Thai frontier."

"Man, it's hot. How do you do it, Khon?"

"Do what?"

"Stay so cool, so well-pressed."

"One must keep up appearances," he said, folding up the map with his plump, manicured fingers. "The village of Trey Nhor lies at the base of those hills. That's the final outpost of Cambodian sovereignty. After that--no-man's-land."

Ford nodded. He dabbed the sweat off his face and wiped his hands, threw his leg over the bike, fired up the tinny engine, goosed the throttle, and they set off once again, slowly bumping and weaving along the rutted trail. Over the next few kilometers they passed through several hamlets--a cluster of thatched houses on stilts, a water buffalo pulling a cart, children reciting loudly in unison in a thatched school hut--and then the trail rose to higher ground. A ridge loomed in the distance, smoke filtering up through the treetops.

"Trey Nhor," said Khon.

They drove through the forest, the whining sound of the motorbike engines like a swarm of mosquitoes. Ford felt grateful for the breeze, even if it was hardly cooling. In a few kilometers the huts of the village appeared, scattered among giant fromager trees with ribbed trunks and roots that crawled over the ground like snakes. A moment later they came into a dirt plaza, surrounded by bamboo shelters with thatched roofs. A cluster of ancestor poles stood in the center of the plaza, like a group of skinny demons. Ford gazed around; the village appeared to be empty.

They parked their bikes, kicked down the stands, and dismounted. All around the tiny clearing stood the immense, sighing forest, the human presence almost lost among the trees.

"Where is everybody?" Ford asked.

"Looks like they ran away. All but one." Khon nodded toward a shelter, and Ford could make out a wizened woman inside, sitting on a woven mat. Khon pulled a bag of candy out of his pack and they walked over. "This area was hit pretty hard during the Killing Fields," Khon said, "and they're still afraid of strangers."

"Ask her about trails into the Phnom Ngue hills."

She seemed more ancient than a person could be and still be alive, a rack of bones covered with loose, wrinkled skin. And yet she was remarkably vivacious. Sitting cross-legged on a mat, she smoked the bitter end of a cheroot and grinned at Ford, exposing a single tooth. Khon offered her the open bag of candy and she dipped her hand in, removing at least half of it in a massive, clawlike grip.

Khon spoke to the woman in dialect. She answered animatedly, her head nodding vigorously, boney fingers gesturing and pointing.

"She says we better not go in there."

"Tell her we're going and we need her help."

Khon spoke to the woman at length. "She says there's a Buddhist monastery about two kilometers north of here, reachable on foot only. The monks, she says, are the eyes and ears of the forest. We should go there first, and they'll show us the way. She'll take care of our motorbikes for the rest of that candy."

The trail ascended through a grove of crooked jackfruit trees and climbed a heavily forested ridge. The heat was so intense Ford could feel it entering his lungs with every breath. After half an hour they came to a ruined wall of giant laterite blocks, tangled with lianas, with an ancient staircase leading up the side of a hill. The climbed it and at the top arrived at a grassy area littered with half-buried blocks; beyond, a quincunx of broken towers pushed up from the clinging jungle, each tower displaying the four faces of Vishnu gazing in the cardinal directions. An ancient Khmer temple.

In the middle of the ruins, in a grassy clearing, stood the bombed-out shell of a much more recent Buddhist monastery. Roofless, its ragged stone walls were silhouetted against the sky. Beyond, Ford could see the gilded towers of stupas, or tombs, rising above the foliage. Bees droned in the heavy air and there was the scent of burning sandalwood.

At the front of the monastery, standing in the doorless entryway, was a monk wrapped in saffron robes with a shaved head. Small and wizened, he peered at them with a lively face and a pair of sparkling black eyes tucked among a thousand wrinkles. Two tiny hands clutched the edges of his robe.