The Khufu Equation (29 page)

As a small payment, the captain left helicopter under a peasant's supervision and came into Campong Thom. Unlike Phnom Penh, with a hundred thousand people, the population of this town was just eight thousand. It was also clean and cozy.

Four minutes later, the captain arrived at the Mekong Hotel by taxi. With a slight limp, he approached the reservation desk. The clerk greeted the new arrival.

"Good morning! Would you like a room? We are in full possession, with no bedbugs, and we have the cleanest linens."

"No," said Ven. "You can say a great flaming hello to bedbugs. I'm looking for a fellow, Chen Jhun by name."

"Are you Ven Jhun?" the clerk asked.

"Yes, that's me." The captain was amazed.

The clerk advanced with short steps to the end of the counter. If he were in Antarctica, he would lead the penguins astray.

"In that case, this is for you." He took an envelope from the shelf. "A certain European has passed."

The captain didn't wait till the clerk reached him with those ridiculously tiny steps. Instead, he instantly closed in and seized the paper. Upon opening it, he discovered keys with a tally and a letter. It was written in Khmer, and the penmanship was beautiful.

"How do you do, Ven. The circumstances happened in such a way that it was necessary for me to return. We all come back somewhere and sometime. You have meant me ill, but I bear no malice. Don't poke your nose into other people's business, otherwise you'll be bitterly sorry. You'll find your son in my room.

Ven Jhun looked at the room number: It said "15."

"Where's room 15?"

"To the right, along the corridor."

Having left the amazed clerk, the captain went right and found number 15 at the very end. In the room, tied with strips of sheet, lay Chen. Ven sat next to him and pulled out the gag, then pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the main knot.

"Daddy!" cried Chen as he hungrily gulped air. "He won't do any harm. Tomorrow he and his woman will leave Cambodia!"

Ven Jhun, instilling his rage in his hand, violently backhanded his son's face.

"A soft-bodied puppet. You didn't understand the task. I need the disc. Now I'll have to do it myself. You'll know today what it means to be a real man. Be ready!"

Lake Tonlesap, the fishing village of Campongluan: 11:40 a.m.

The village was situated fifteen kilometers from the region's tourist center, Siamreal. From the highway, the road to the village crossed through mangrove forests. During the flood season, the forest drank deeply of the water, which rose knee-high on the trees. Together with the pinnate palm marsh date, zooneration and water grasses thrived. Nearer to the lake and farther into the mangrove forest, there was more water. The road either appeared or disappeared. One could only guess of its existence amid the parallel rows of trees.

The first peculiarity of all such fishing villages is their spontaneous nearness to the ground; to solid soil. Upon the swelling of the water, the villages retreated together with the bank line. The second peculiarity is the payotte: a very spacious raft with enough place not only to keep hens and pigs but also to make spreading kitchen gardens. The bamboo poles to which payotte were tied served as piers. The dry season was considered the richest for catching fish. Attracted to young leaves and fresh buds, the fish hurried into the flooded districts of mangrove forests. Not far from the shore, fishermen arranged artificial forests called samsars. Fresh bamboo branches, stuck into the lake bottom, sometimes occupied several hectares, being surrounded by fencing woven from cane. Adapted to the diet of leaves, the fish inhabited the samsars, and when the water dropped they would be entangled in the branches and caught in the silt. At that point, the fishermen could simply gather the catch.

A small djong cut through the water's surface, not far from shore. A paddle played in Kreis' hands, raising a wake that gleamed in the sun. Tana's smile caught and held a ray of light, too. Having dropped a palm into the water, she was absorbed in happy recollections of the prewar past. She was born on these banks, and every backwater was familiar to her. When looking at the glassy reflection of floating clouds, she saw the faces of her family. The wind brought forth the ringing of children's laughter from her faraway childhood. Binding the past and the present, life passed through her fingers like a slender, silver thread.

Tana drew a handful of water, and with a playful laugh she splashed Kreis' face.

"I was born here, and every blade is dear to me."

"You're lucky. I have lost my native land. During these years I haven't been only to Cambodia and Russia. Sometime, I'll acquaint you with my home."

"Aren't you afraid you'll be known there too?

Kreis directed the boat toward the shore.

"I've seen too much to be afraid of anything."

Tana became thoughtful and looked down. Kreis could read the sorrow in her eyes.

"What are you worrying about?" he asked.

"I've spoken about that. To get the stone is a bad idea, but I'll go with you."

"Why?

She lifted her head, gazing into his blue eyes.

"What do you think?"

Unlike Tana, he wasn't burdened by the fear of doom. Long ago he had thought everything through, and he would play his role up to the end.

The boat poked its hull into the sand, and Tana and Kreis hopped ashore. The pungent odor of fish evaporation wafted through the air. Kreis suppressed the rush of nausea, not wishing to offend Tana. He saw women mending nets and weaving fish traps under a tent. Elsewhere, women were busy with the task of decapitating fish. They carried the fish they had prepared to a shallow stream defended with bamboo, where barefoot men trampled the fish in baskets so as to remove the guts and scales. Subsequently, the meat was packed in big clay cans with salt and spices. Two days later, fish mass-prahok-acquired a particularly sharp aroma. Paste prahok is an integral part of the Khmer kitchen, so one can find it in any market. There on the shore, another part of the catch was put in boxes and loaded onto lorries.

A lorry fully filled with fish stopped a kilometer from the village, near a cherry-red sedan. In this place the level of water, like a turnpike, separated light transport from its heavy counterpart. Kreis and Tana got out, thanked the driver and climbed into their own car. The lorry waited till the sedan turned and moved after it. Driving out onto the highway, Kreis saw a sport helicopter fly by. "Everything is according to plan," he thought. It was the right choice to take Chen's car."

A blade of grass began to dart back and forth in Chen's mouth.

"Father, you were right," Chen cried, pointing at the cherry sedan that rushed beneath them.

"That's my car. They were in Campongluan."

"I can see. I'm not blind," snapped Ven as he maneuvered the chopper. Certainly women are sentimental, he thought. "We all come back somewhere and sometime," he said, quoting from Kreis' letter. The captain didn't doubt the ability to kill his friend. He had already done it more than once for the sake of building his career. He had done so perfidiously, in back, without witnesses. The "Terrible" revolver, hidden behind his shirt and beneath his belt, exerted a pleasant tug. Chen looked at his father and could see the man's temples working as if he were chewing someone's bones.

"Now what do we do?" asked Chen.

"We leave the helicopter not far from Siamreal, take a taxi and wait. The next action will be according to the situation.

"You aren't going to kill them, are you? After all, you only need the stone."

Ven Jhun turned toward his son with an expression more frightening than the boy had yet seen.

Mekong Hotel, Campong Thom: noon.

The clerk used to have a cup of tea with pieces of cut pineapple at midday sharp. It was that time. Savoring the sweet chunks in the strong tea, he pondered the question of why the number of lodgers had not increased for the past two days. Tourists as a rule didn't linger in this forgotten place. Instead, they rushed to Siamreal and Angkor Wat.

The air conditioner, in typically over-consumptive fashion, put a shine on the clerk's face. The sweat stung in his eyes at is dripped down from his scalp and forehead. The sweltering tropical heat was unbearable, and it always made him feel drowsy. Taking the next mouthful of tea, the clerk lazily unstuck his eyelids. In the light of the prism of perspiration he saw two diffuse female figures.

He was ready to pronounce the standard phrase. "We are in full possession with no bedbugs, and we have the cleanest linens."

The woman he saw first was a beautiful, young Creole dressed in a cotton sundress. One could read the weariness on her face. It even seemed to the clerk that, when she looked at him, he saw the first two funerals of the next day.

The standard greeting stuck in his throat, and he felt frightened. A strange feeling led him to

look at the second woman. She had brown hair and an impressive bosom, and there was an airline emblem on her blouse. The sight of her was like the touch of a hot coal. So, a milky piggy is strung onto a spit. Then came the sparkling, devilish green of her eyes, like a freezing wave.

"You wanted this, didn't you? A piece of biological meat with harm habits but no energy." She beckoned the clerk with a finger. His thoughts froze as if they were dipped into ice crystals, then his body stood up and, in a penguin walk, went out to meet his death.

The taxi driver stared straight ahead, as if in a haze. He was observing the road, but at the same time, in his rear-view mirror, he watched the monks as they dozed in the backseat. His idea tore through all the invisible barriers and flew into the future, to a peaceful heavenly backwater in the luxury health resort of Kaep. There he would erect his own hotel, and fat-bellied tourists from Europe would leave their money in it. The nearer he got to his dream, the more notches there were on his dashboard.

"Hunter" was the nickname given to him by the authorities, and it made him grin. "Foolish people, they still hope to catch me." A hen pecks seeds one by one.

The entrance to provincial road going southwest could be seen ahead. It led to a little settlement called Pailin, which was set among impassable jungles. Pailin was on the border with Thailand and was rich in ruby deposits. Up to two thousand of Pol Pot's henchmen controlled it. They were defeated and thrown into Thailand as an outcome of the bitterest battles.

The Hunter noticed the "Pailin" road sign and, with another look at the sleepy monks, turned to a country track. Once he was away from Highway Number Five, he set to work. The next movements he had practiced till they were almost automatic. He put on heavy goggles, pulled on the respiratory mask, activated a secret button and allowed the sleeping gas to fill the cabin. When everything was finished, Hunter stopped the car and turned on a ventilating mechanism. The gas was drawn out. After he took off the goggles and mask, he pulled the monks into some bushes and stabbed each in the stomach with a knife. Having fumbled through their garb, on the larger of the two men he found three thousand dollars along with a cross and a book. A pack of cards, dropped to the ground, didn't interest him.

Sitting down in the car, the Hunter made two new notches and drove toward the settlement of Pailin.

Hotel Angkor, Siamreal: 1:30 p.m.

A thirty-meter length of mountaineering cord, a powerful lantern and a little crowbar, bought at a discount store, were packed in a travel bag.

The little tray on the coffee table was filled with cigarette ash, and Kreis' consciousness was being carried aloft on clouds of heavy, noxious smoke. Everything was according to plan. The Buick sedan taken from Chen brought forth his pursuer like a dog to a piece of sausage. One couldn't help but notice the helicopter circling the highway. Of course, he also noticed that he was being shadowed at the entrance to the city. The trip to a discount store and the choice of the best hotel were just part of his plan. The boy would do all that was necessary. Everything after that would be impromptu. Today would be the end.

The hotel, where Kreis and Tana stayed, was among the finest in Siamreal Province. Its exterior style, like so much of the country, was an organic synthesis of architecture and sculpture from the Angkor Empire. The main hotel entrance consisted of a monumental portico embellished with depictions of flora and mythological creatures. The building's appearance created a wonderful visual effect, underlined by the diversity of architectural elements. There were stone panels with images of the Khmer domesticity of that epoch, and in the background there were large images of Buddha.

Siamreal had the second airport, after Phnom Penh. For arriving tourists, the acquaintance with the epoch of past centuries began at the altitude of a bird's flight. Below was a fantastical panorama with neatly arranged fields separated by dams, a network of primary and secondary canals, tidy villages amid the jungle canopy, and of course Angkor Wat.