The Khufu Equation (15 page)

Phnom Penh: 5:10 p.m.

He and she were sitting at the table in a small kitchen by the open windows facing the garden. Both were observing the blood oranges, which tugged their soft branches toward the ground. Notably, none of the branches touched the windows, roof or walls, so none could prevent evil spirits from infiltrating the house. The sky was a mass of dark clouds, and the sunlight, as it passed through, was streaked with shadows. The light and shadows fell upon the oranges, entered the opened windows and spilled onto the table. On it there was a plate with thinly sliced banana, papaya and orange. Nearby, in two dishes, there was some boiled rice and shrimp, steaming away. The bottle of sparkling wine with full goblets didn't finish the set. The pair of candles was not yet lit. The man and the woman gracefully interlaced their fingers. Beyond the window, the faint rumble of the coming monsoon played upon the leaves of the blood-orange trees. Recollections returned to the small, comfortable kitchen.

That New Year's night in 1981 came on the 13th of April as per the eastern calendar.

Maksim saw Tana next to the ruins of the abbey. She was performing the dance of unearthly Apsar against the background of flying sparks. Her delicate fingers were telling the story of tragic love. Her slender waist, not broken in the hurricane of wars, came to life. Her sight, a bottomless lake of tenderness and love, was gifting warmth to all that night, but to the only one she gifted the sudden gesture meaning the most marvelous feeling on earth. Their gaze met like bolts of lightning that crossed in the night sky.

The next morning, Maksim saw Uch Tana to her house. They were walking hand in hand. He was talking and she was listening attentively, sometimes looking into his eyes. She was charmed by his voice and his ability to talk various languages. He had carefully penetrated her soul. Like a piano tuner, he touched upon the battered strings of her heart and made them ring clear again.

Uch Tana had fallen in love for the first time. Maksim gifted her his love during hot nights, and then . . . everything crashed. On November 28, 1981, Maksim was arrested, being accused of helping the associates of Pol Pot. He was jailed in a southern suburb of Phnom Penh by the Mekong River. But love can do wonders, and Uch Tana freed her beloved. Amid the darkness of night, she passed through the subway to the prison, cut out the grating in Maksim's cell, all at grave personal risk. Together they went out to the river. Within an hour, Maksim was far from Phnom Penh. As they parted, he kissed Tana's hot lips and said: "I'll be back someday, no matter what it takes."

All those years afterward, Kreis didn't dare to visit Cambodia. Now, however, everything happened so quickly and spontaneously that Kreis could barely notice the existence of blood oranges and the warmth of a woman's hands, which he pressed between his own.

Semi-darkness reigned in the kitchen, and two wax candles glowed at the table. There, behind closed windows, the rain was pouring down, washing the blood-orange trees. Merry laughter and voices mixed with the sound of the rain.

"You really have come for me?" said Uch Tana, still incredulous. "You've changed so much that at first it was hard to recognize . . . ."

"Only thanks to you, I am alive, Tana." Kreis gently touched her silken cheek. "What's happened to you, though? You've become sad."

"No," she answered, turning her head softly. "I'm fine, but I've simply remembered. Right, it was not easy to liberate you, but the war was much more dreadful. You promised to tell me about what happened to you after that. I'm listening."

"I made use of my connections with the red Khmer. They helped me to reach the Vietnamese border. I couldn't go back to Russia, so I had to apply my abilities. In two days I had money, and in a week I had a false passport. In a month I had an operation and changed my appearance. For ten years I traveled the world, but eventually I settled down in the Seychelles. But then I lost that country, too.

"I think it probably isn't worth asking what you've been doing for the past twenty-five years.

"You always understood me," he said. "And now . . . what about you?"

"I was interrogated, but I denied it all. And if not for my war service . . . well, I spent ten years waiting for you. Then I got married. My husband died seven years ago. He was killed in a mine-clearing operation. That's my life. Now I teach dancing at school."

Tana closed her eyes and cursed herself for being barren, whereupon she realized that she wasn't listening to Kreis at all.

"He hasn't answered my question," she thought. "Has he really come to take me? He had to suppose that I would have a family. But he has arrived just at the time I'm alone. I have no husband, no children . . . ."

Kreis got up, and momentarily his voice sounded from somewhere in the corridor.

"I want to show you something. Are you listening to me, Flower?

"Yes, very attentively."

"I want to advise you of something." He returned to the kitchen and placed a small, black case on the table between the candles. He opened it to reveal a compact notebook computer. Kreis inserted a disc and then made some movements on the keyboard. Seconds later, a strange graphical image appeared on the screen.

"Have a look.

"This is Angkor Wat!" Tana exclaimed. "That's why you're here! It's the stone . . . . You need the stone!"

"Three people died because of this stone, and one of them was my best friend. I have to understand something . . . so, I have come here."

Suddenly, a gust of wind blasted the tree just outside the window. It sent two blood oranges through the glass, at which they knocked over the candles and rolled into the corner.

Tana took up the oranges and came up to Kreis.

"It's a bad sign. I'd probably be an idiot if I were to help you. Here, in the East, people tend to heed certain signs. We have to leave the house, as quickly as possible."

Kreis again felt a pain at the bottom of his stomach, as if someone had kicked him in the groin.

"There is great danger," she said.

He looked into Tana's eyes and thought: this woman was about to save his life a second time. He failed to see, then, that God does everything in threes.

Phnom Penh International Airport: 6:40 p.m.

The office of the chief guard was subject to a certain functional disorder. Among the various military accoutrements (a Beretta) that littered the table, there was a nicely inscribed artificial limb. The set of tiny brushes added a sooty residue. The specific smell in the air was intermixed with the distinctly pungent odor of perspiration.

"It means I was right, sonny!" said Ven Jun as he cleaned the barrel of his pistol.

"Yeah, Lezhnev stayed with this woman," said Chen, again with a blade of grass in his mouth.

"Did you find out anything? What were they talking about?

"I kept quiet under the windows, but still I couldn't hear much. However, I did overhear a little. They talked about everything, but they never mentioned gold. They didn't even mention your name.

Jun peered at his son through the barrel and, satisfied that it was sufficiently clean, began the task of reassembling the gun.

"Is that all?"

"No. There was talk of the stone, and of three men killed. There was something about Angkor Wat. I even managed to steal a peak into the room. They were looking at a portable computer. Soon after that, they left house in a hurry. They grabbed a car, and off they went."

"You're mad," said the captain, remembering all he had been through. "You had to start all this!"

"Dad, leave them alone. They won't do us any harm."

It took the captain five seconds to collect arm. Next moment a geographical map was in front of him.

"No, I need this stone. If it were an ordinary thing, Maksim would never poke his nose around here." Chen, in his excitement, double-knotted the blade.

"But . . . ."

Ven Jun yanked out the blade and opened the map.

"I hate that bad habit of yours. Now, look here! They won't ride along the left side of the take. It's much farther till Angkor Wat. The bridge is being repaired. So, they'll take the right side. They're already caught by a rain shower and are likely to stop at Kampongtom."

"Father . . . ."

"Shut up! Don't you even think I'll let them get away this time. Go to Kampongtom. It has one hotel. When you find them, call me. I'll come by helicopter. I'd do it myself, but I'm on duty. Ven held the pistol out to his son.

"Take it," he said. "You can use it."

Victoria, Seychelles: 10:30 p.m.

Slaiker's house was located in the area of Mont Signal, from where the highway stretched toward the bay at Bel Ombre. Hidden from city noise and fuss, the street was attractive for its quiet, cozy atmosphere. Here under the forest canopy, there stood an assortment of modern villas. Each featured a two-story building, a wide garret and a pool in the garden. All that luxury was ensconced within the indulgent fragrance of wild vanilla and orchids, and magnificent crowns of palms overhead maintained the peacefulness.

One house, however, was singularly lacking in peacefulness. Slaiker paced across the garret from corner to corner and stared into the darkness of the garden, worried to death about his son. Jeff was missing.

Occasionally, the boy would come home later than he was supposed to, but now something was different. Slaiker sent a "fire spider" to search. Moving along invisible threads in the under-layer of reality, this essence scanned the entire island. Unfortunately, it returned with nothing. Someone had probably rubbed out any trace of Jeff's energy and covered him with a shield. Slaiker took a bottle of whisky out of the bar cabinet, poured some into a glass and tossed in a few ice cubes. He brought the rim of the glass to his mouth, but then he changed his mind and in utter frustration he sent it smashing against the wall. Bits of glass scattered underfoot, and the smell of alcohol wafted into the room. To overcome the weakness one important rule helped the detective. "Never drink when things are bad. Calm the nervousness and think about what it's happening. Think of how to help yourself and how to improve the situation. Find the first reason."

The first reason!

Putting himself in a comfortable reed armchair, Slaiker began to concentrate. He decided to separate all the details of the past two days. Only in this way could he understand the first reason, which was buried within a mass of unimportant phrases, barely audible sounds, faint smells and vague images.

The telephone conversation with Hank, his friend in Paris, and the meeting with nice Creole woman Jeanette presented the possibility that some sort of mosaic could be constructed. Slaiker didn't believe Hank's gossip at first, but the facts were so "roasted" that the conclusion emerged on its own. Comparing the information thus received, the detective assembled a chronology of events.

The Beast, which flew yesterday from Paris in the guise of professor Michel Arno, changes his body. He embodies Brian Limont, the bank manager. The photo-robot, composed by the witness from the settlement at Mont Fleuri, fully coincides with Brian's appearance. And the unusual change in his behavior, as Jeanette related it, again confirms the fact that Brian Limont had lent his body to some demonic essence, namely the Beast. Further, it becomes clear that Jeanette is under the unremitting observation of the essence, and moreover. . . The Beast kills two men, involved in the theft of the disc, which belongs to Jeanette. The real disc goes away into the hands of Kreis, who suddenly vanishes, but a copy and record of his conversations reveal concrete motives for theft. Kreis hunts the stone, but he's not the only one . . . .

Slaiker could now affirm that the Beast was interested in the holy stone. But something strange was happening. This evil essence was trying to involve Jeanette Krishelje in his game.

Slaiker also remembered the new "mummy," which had been found in the vicinity of the market. Brett then became busy trying to identify the body. The detective stood up and went out to the balcony. In the chain of events, one link was absent. Anxiously gazing into the darkness, Slaiker noticed a butterfly with large, reddish-black wings. It flew into the room and sat on the frame holding Jeff's picture. It then flew to the desk and sat on Jeanette's dossier. Sensing a bad omen, the detective opened the folder and began to reread the dossier. He stopped once he reached her home phone number, as if someone had kicked him. At noon, just half a minute before he rang Jeanette's doorbell, someone had called him. There was no one on the line, though, so Slaiker hung up.

Slaiker took the mobile phone out of his pocket. He wondered about the function "automatic number identifier." He looked through the list and found the number he had searched. Jeanette had called him at about the same time. Slaiker felt as if his heart had been plunged into boiling oil. Pursuing the idea, he pressed the "Connect" button with his thumb. Jeanette answered at once.