The Khmer Kill: A Dox Short Story

Dox sat on one of the stone benches at the edge of the open-air courtyard in the center of Phnom Penh’s National Museum, insects buzzing in the tropical vegetation, the December air agreeably hot. The broker had told him to be there at noon, but Dox had arrived just after eight, when the museum opened. Back in his oo-rah days, he’d sometimes waited through a half-dozen sunsets in a sniper hide — cold, wet, whatever it took. A few hours on a cool and shady veranda was nothing by comparison, just a cheap and easy insurance policy that might prevent an unpleasant surprise.

Not that he was expecting trouble. After all, how many other operators could deliver a headshot at all distances, and under all conditions, as reliably as he could? Some active-duty military, sure, but there were all sorts of jobs Uncle Sam wanted done but didn’t want to be associated with, and for those, nothing beat the private sector, and ideally a discreet sole proprietor instead of one of the big contractors with all their bad publicity. To the powers-that-be, an operator like him was more useful alive than dead.

On the other hand, he’d learned the hard way that people who had no particular beef with him might take an interest just because of his known associate John Rain, who despite his doubtless good intentions had a habit of riling the people he did business with. “Act as if” was a pretty good maxim in his line of work, here meaning “act as if a passel of nameless badasses is looking to punch your ticket even if you yourself can’t imagine a single thing you’ve done to deserve it.”

Which is why he’d arrived in the city ten days ahead of schedule. Doing so had given him plenty of time to get the lay of the land and to build up some credible cover-for-action. He’d already been to the National Museum twice, and to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. He’d snapped pictures of these and the other tourist attractions, such as they were, and of the streets he’d been methodically exploring. He was staying at Raffles, the best hotel in town, and he’d brought a different bargirl back with him every night. By now, the hotel staff must have concluded he was some kind of off-the-charts western pussyhound, taking advantage of Phnom Penh like it was a cut-rate version of Bangkok. Well, maybe there was a kernel of truth in all that, but hell, the best cover was always the one that kept closest to the facts. He’d been generous with the girls, during and after, and he imagined if the shit ever really hit the fan and they were questioned by the police, they’d corroborate his story. Not ideal, of course, but “All right, it’s true, I came for the local ladies” was preferable to “Shit, you got me, I’m here to assassinate some hombre I never even heard of until after I’d arrived.”

Despite the cover-for-action usefulness of tail-chasing in Phnom Penh, though, and despite its other, more obvious attractions, he was ambivalent. He didn’t want to wind up with anyone other than a freelancer, and he certainly didn’t want to give his money to anyone involved in child prostitution or anything else coercive. Cambodia was notorious for that kind of thing. In fact, twice late at night in some of the seedier parts of town, he’d seen several very young girls sitting in front of a dim storefront. Their cheeks were rouged and they looked doped up and vacuous, and he had a feeling they were for sale. But what could you do? Once, when he was still green in Asia, he’d punched out a punk in a Bangkok bar for slapping a woman. It turned out the punk was her pimp and was affiliated with the bar’s management, and Dox had wound up running for his life from a bunch of security goons with truncheons who were doubtless themselves hooked up with the local police. Probably after he’d been forced to hightail it, the pimp had beaten the woman even worse, no way to know. And he’d given cash to seemingly half the street people in Jakarta when he’d first arrived in Indonesia, without any noticeable effect. At some point it just started to feel like you were beating back the tide. The truth was, there was nothing you could do, and it was best not to think too much about it. The world could be an awful, ugly place.

He glanced unobtrusively at his watch — a Traser H3, accurate, tough, and functional, but not as obvious a tell as the giant G-Shocks some of your soldier-of-fortune types seemed to fancy like black ops bling. A half-hour to go, assuming the broker was punctual. He stretched out his legs and relaxed, letting himself feel like a tourist. He was dressed for the part, naturally — sneakers, jeans, and a short-sleeved madras shirt — extra-large to accommodate his size 48, and untucked to conceal the clip of the folder he’d picked up at legendary Cambodian knife-maker Citadel Knives. He preferred not to turn a bag into a hostage for the airlines when he traveled, which meant gearing up locally. Well, with an institution like Citadel on hand, that was fine. It was a beautiful specimen, too, handmade with a kukri blade and horn handle. Maybe he’d ship it home when his work here was done.

He noticed it felt a little odd being alone. He’d been spending more and more time with a nice Khmer girl named Chantrea, which she’d told him meant “light of the moon.” He thought the name was pretty, though not nearly as pretty as she was. He’d taken her back to the hotel five nights earlier after making her acquaintance in a place called Café Mist. He was planning to take the night off, and had stopped in after an evening’s urban reconnaissance just to relax over a beer. But he’d noticed her on the other side of the bar, black shoulder-length hair loose around her shoulders, eyes slightly over-large and skin honey-brown, and he was intrigued at the way she averted her gaze when he caught her looking at him, rather than coming over the way your typical bargirl would. She was slim, even for a Khmer, but he thought he saw enough curves where you’d hope to. One by one, he’d shooed away a half-dozen other girls, but she stayed put, glancing at him with an appealing combination of curiosity and shyness. Finally, he got up and walked over.

“Darlin’,” he said, smiling, “if you don’t speak any English, it’s going to break my heart.”

She’d smiled back and cast her eyes down, then looked back at him again. He thought he’d flustered her, somehow, and his interest grew.

“I think your heart should be okay,” she said.

They’d talked for a long time in the bar. She told him she was a student at the Royal University, a psychology major. He told her he worked for an American real estate company and was in town for a few days to assess the desirability of some joint ventures the company was considering. The story was thin, but not every tale had to be fully backstopped and he didn’t think this one would ever be put to any kind of a stress test. He didn’t know whether she believed him, though he supposed she had no reason not to, but either way she asked him no questions and he told her no further lies.

He wasn’t sure what to make of her. On the one hand, her English was good and he was inclined to believe her about being a student — anyway, there was no reason for her to lie about that. On the other hand, Mist wasn’t the kind of place a girl would hang out alone if she weren’t a professional. On the other, other hand, if she was a pro, she seemed to be in no hurry to get him to take her out for a night on the town, or back to his hotel where she could make some money. He decided to classify her as what he called semi-pro — open to the possibility of some kind of remuneration, but only from the right client.

When he told her he was getting ready to call it a night and asked her if she’d like to come back to the hotel with him, she’d looked down as though embarrassed, and he wondered if maybe his diagnosis had been off, and he’d been too forward. But then she’d nodded yes. He was still so unsure what to make of her that he didn’t even know whether to pay a bar fine. He decided to finesse that issue by leaving an extra big tip with the bill for their drinks.

They got a tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel. In the room, she’d been shy and uncertain. He didn’t mind. He liked her, and besides, he could get laid anytime, one night without wasn’t going to kill him. He told her he didn’t want to do anything that made her uncomfortable, and she was welcome to spend the night if she liked. There was only the one bed, but they could keep their clothes on, it was fine.

So that’s what they did. She did most of the talking, telling him about her family, her city, her hopes for the future. Her father drove a tuk-tuk and her mother ran the house, taking care of two brothers and a sister, sewing garments for some of the clothes shops in town to earn a little extra income. They all slept in the same room of a low-rise apartment building and shared a bathroom with the neighbors. Both her parents had grown up orphaned by the Khmer Rouge, and sending their first child to college had required considerable sacrifice — so much so that it was unlikely any of her siblings would be as fortunate. She told him these things matter-of-factly, in response to his questions. Still, he wondered how much of it was true. Every bargirl in Southeast Asia had a story about a dying grandmother or a sick baby or an aging water buffalo, all intended to play on the rich foreign customer’s guilt.

At one point he started to doze off and she’d laughed at him, and when he apologized, she gave him a kiss, just a light one, on the mouth. That woke him up, and after looking at her lovely face for a moment, just a few inches from his, he kissed her back. Her lips were soft and he liked the way she smelled — flowers, and the hint of some exotic spice, too. He was aware that if the kiss turned into much more, he could easily get to the point where he’d want to persuade her and where he’d be disappointed if he couldn’t. Or where maybe he’d feel like he’d been rude in trying. So with some regret, he broke the kiss and said, “Sweet dreams, Chantrea.”

She got up early the next day to go to class. He would have walked her down to the lobby and gotten her a tuk-tuk, but he sensed she would have been embarrassed if the hotel staff had seen them together in the morning. So he just checked through the peephole and unbolted the door. He paused before opening it and looked at her.

“Ms. Chantrea, I’d like the pleasure of your company again, if your studies permit.”

A moment went by. “Why?” she said, looking at the tile floor.

He laughed. If she really wasn’t this innocent and awkward, she was a mighty fine actress. “Well, I like you is why.”

“I like you, too. But… we didn’t…”

He pulled five twenties from his pocket — a tip that would have been ridiculously large even if he’d seen some action last night, which he hadn’t. He hoped he wasn’t being a chump. Maybe she was just an exceptionally fine judge of character, a consummate con artist, and had spotted a way to milk him of some money without even offering any boom-boom in return. But he didn’t care. What kind of person would he be, if he avoided helping a nice girl on the off chance she didn’t really need it? Sometimes you had to act as if something was true, even if it might not be.

She looked at the money. “Why?” she said again, making no move to take it.

“Were you telling me the truth last night, about your family?”

She nodded.

He reached out and took one of her small hands and folded the bills into it. “Then take the money. I told you, I’m only in town for a few days and then I have to go. In the meantime, I’d like to see you again. And I’d like to help you and your family out a little. I’m not asking for any quid pro quo.”

“Quid pro quo?”

“An exchange. Reciprocity. You know, payback.”

She shook her head. “I shouldn’t take your money. I didn’t even… We didn’t…”

“That’s fine. I enjoyed your conversation. We can do it again, if you give me a phone number.”

She did. And since then, he’d seen her every day after class, and she’d stayed with him at the hotel every night. The second evening was a little awkward. He could tell she was willing, but he wasn’t sure if she really wanted to. And he was concerned that by giving her the money, he’d made her feel obligated, which hadn’t been his intention. So they’d talked for a while, and then he read a book while she studied, and in the end they’d cuddled but that was all. They fell asleep spooned together, with her in front, and he knew she could feel his hard-on against her ass right through his jeans. He was glad she knew he wanted her but that he was holding back. He’d given her another hundred when she left in the morning, and the second time seemed to establish a comfortable pattern. Maybe he’d make love to her before he left the country, maybe he wouldn’t. He wasn’t overly concerned either way.

He’d told her he had a meeting today. She didn’t inquire what about; she just asked if he wanted to see her in the afternoon, the way they’d been doing. He told her yes. He wondered what she made of him. A rich foreigner could be her ticket out — hell, her whole family’s ticket. But she never pressed. Maybe she wasn’t sure whether to trust him. Maybe she was afraid he would make her a bunch of promises, buy her off with some cash, leave without saying goodbye. Maybe she had decided sometimes you have to act as if something was true even if you couldn’t be sure, the way he had. It bothered him some, that she might have those kinds of doubts about him. It bothered him more that she had some reason. But he didn’t see what he could do about it.

He stretched and cracked his knuckles over his head. Still no sign of the broker, but that was all right, it was only ten minutes to noon. He didn’t even know what the man looked like, only that he went by the name Gant and that a former Marine buddy had vouched for him. “Some kind of spook,” his buddy had assured him. “Agency is my guess. But could be Homeland Security, or maybe even NSA outsourcing the dirty work. Whoever he’s with, he’s got juice — ask for whatever hardware and logistics you want, he’ll get it for you pronto. And his money’s green.”

He thumbed through his Lonely Planet guide, periodically lifting his eyes for a casual sweep of the approach to where he sat. Some Japanese tourists, clicking cameras at the Angkor-era statues in contravention of signs prohibiting photos of the exhibits. A Khmer mother and two small kids, making a picnic in the coolness of the veranda shadows. He couldn’t have seen more than a few dozen people since he’d arrived, and it occurred to him that the museum seemed to boast more artifacts than it did visitors. The place had a slightly strange feel — sleepy; half-forgotten; somehow provisional, as though the curators expected that any day they might suddenly have to crate up everything and move it underground. Habits of war, he decided. It’s not just the warriors who keep them after the conflict has ended. Civilians do, too, and maybe even more so.

He liked Cambodia. He’d never been anywhere in Southeast Asia that didn’t agree with him, and it was no coincidence he made his home in Bali. Phnom Penh was seedy and hot and shit-poor, with colonial buildings stoically crumbling in the tropical humidity, and sidewalks so dilapidated they looked like they’d been bombed. There were pockets of construction — hotels and office complexes and such — but these only seemed to emphasize the parlous state of everything else. Families economized by riding three and sometimes four at a time on legions of motor scooters, there were beggars everywhere, and food was apparently dear enough that an overweight Khmer was nowhere to be seen. But despite all this, the place thrummed with optimism and hope. The Cambodians had been sodomized for centuries — the Vietnamese, the French, and most of all, the homegrown Khmer Rouge — but no matter how life beat them down, they kept getting back up. They hustled at work, strolled with their children along the river quay, and never stopped smiling. He’d read somewhere how a wild thing never felt sorry for itself, no matter how bad its circumstances, and that seemed to describe Cambodia, too. Certainly it described Chantrea.

Gant showed at twelve o’clock sharp, a novice move. Either he wasn’t particularly tactical, or he wasn’t particularly concerned. Hard to know on short acquaintance. The man was unremarkable in every way: Caucasian; thinning brown hair, neatly cut; average size and build; a crisply pressed shirt, khaki pants, canvas shoes; expensive-looking sunglasses; a camera hanging around his neck. Dox looked more closely, and saw the camera was an older model digital Olympus, which he’d been told to watch for.

Dox stood as the man approached — for courtesy, of course, but also because he preferred to be on his feet and mobile when greeting a stranger like this one. Gant’s hands were empty and his shirt was tucked, but Dox knew plenty of places a man could conceal a weapon besides around his waist.

“This wouldn’t be Wat Phnom, would it?” the man said, the bona fides Dox had been told to expect.

“No, you’ll probably want to get a tuk-tuk for that,” Dox replied, the other half of the prearranged exchange.

The man held out his hand. “Dox?”

They shook. Dox noted a reasonably firm grip that told him little about the man on the other end of it. “And you would be…?”

The man smiled, apparently in amusement at the additional precaution. “Gant,” he said. “Why don’t we sit?”

They did. Dox kept his tactical seat and Gant made no protest about having his back put toward the approach to the table. Again, Dox was struck by the man’s confidence. Whoever this guy was, he must have been exceptionally connected to carry himself like no one would ever dare make a run at him.

“Enjoying Phnom Penh?” Gant asked, pleasantly enough.

Dox couldn’t place his accent. American, and not from anywhere in Texas, where Dox had grown up, and nowhere else in the south, either. But beyond that, it could have been from anywhere, much like Gant himself.

“Sure, I like it fine. How about you?”

Gant waved an insect away. “I get tired of these third-world pissholes. I keep waiting for a problem to crop up in London, or the Côte d’Azur. Someplace where the tap water won’t kill you and they know how to make a proper martini.”

Not that a proper martini wasn’t important, but Dox thought the guy sounded like a dipshit. “Well, you’ve got your priorities,” he said, wanting to stay noncommittal.

Gant raised his eyebrows. “What about you?”

“How do you mean?”

“Your priorities.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Paid and laid, and I’m usually pretty happy.”

Gant smiled. “A simple man.”

Dox smiled back. “That’s what people say.” He could have added, That’s what I like them to think.

“In Phnom Penh, I doubt you’ll need my help getting laid. As for getting paid, you’ve received the deposit?”

Dox nodded. “Twenty percent, plus travel expenses.”

“Good. Now let’s talk about getting you the balance. What do you need from me?”

“Well, unless you’re carrying a thumb drive or something, I assume you’ve uploaded the file to the secure site?”

“I don’t think you’ll need a file.”

“How am I going to find the subject?”

“I can tell you exactly where he’ll be, and when he’ll be there.”

“How am I going to recognize him?”

“It shouldn’t be hard. He’ll be sitting next to me.”

Dox looked at Gant, wondering if he was serious. “You want to be sitting right next to this guy when it goes down?”

“It seems the surest and most uncomplicated way of doing things, don’t you think?”

Dox considered suggesting, I think you don’t know a damn thing about what it’s like to be talking to a guy one moment and having his brains all over you the next.

Instead, he said, “Well, who is the guy?”

Gant frowned. “Is that… something you ordinarily need to know?”

Dox didn’t answer right away. The truth was, ordinarily he didn’t need to know much: a name; known locations, acquaintances, and habits; a photograph. The people who hired him didn’t want him to know more than necessary, and that suited him, too. Learning too much could make the target become too human. The more human the target became, the harder the job got. “If it inhabits your mind, it will inhibit your trigger finger,” an instructor had once told him, and he’d found the admonition to be true.

Still, he’d never been brought onto a job and been told flat-out nothing. It was disconcerting, and he realized that until now he’d always been relying on some minimum amount of information about the target to feel comfortable taking the job. Maybe it was a rationalization, but the people he killed, one way or another, they were all in the game. If you wanted to be in the game, you had to accept the risks. An ordinary bare-bones target file was always enough to confirm, however incidentally, that the target fit the “in the game, knew the risks” profile. But killing some guy he didn’t know the first thing about… that just didn’t feel right.

“Mister Gant—”

“Call me Mike if you like.”

“Whatever. The point is, I don’t even know you. I’ve got a buddy who vouched for you, and okay, that’s worth a lot, but I don’t know what outfit you’re with and I don’t know shit about what you’re mixed up in. For all I know, the guy you’re having a problem with is the damn prime minister of Cambodia.”

“What if he were?”

Dox smiled. “Well, then I priced the job too low and we’d need to fix that.”

There was a long silence. If Gant thought the silence was working on Dox, making him want to talk more, he was wrong. Silence and patience were some of Dox’s best friends.

Finally, Gant said, “How much do you know about this country?”

“I know the tap water can kill you and they can’t make a proper martini.”

Gant laughed. “All right, let me fill you in. Our man is named Rithisak Sorm. He’s former Khmer Rouge—”

“Those folks are still running around?”

“Oh, yes. Many of them make their home in Pailin province. Our man included, in fact. Though he’d be harder to get to there because outsiders are more conspicuous than in the capital.”

“You’re looking to take him down for war crimes?”

“Nobody cares what atrocities he committed in his youthful exuberance, though I can tell you he committed plenty. No, this is about something more contemporary. You might know that Cambodia is one of the world’s major hubs for human trafficking. Labor and sex slaves; men, women, and children; to and from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Macao, and Taiwan… they all pass through Cambodia. Or come to rest here.”

Dox did know all that, and plenty more, but he’d gotten far in life having people think he was a hick. Partly it was the accent. Fooled ‘em every time. “Okay,” he said.

“Sorm is a key facilitator of the trade. He has a talent for connections. Gang bosses. Politicians. Cops. He knows every customs and border official along the length of the Mekong. He makes sure everyone gets a cut of whatever they have a taste for — cash for the greedy, opium for the dope fiends, children for the degenerates.”

Whatever reluctance Dox had been feeling a few moments earlier instantly evaporated. Bribery and dope-running put this Sorm character squarely in the game. And children? Sorm sounded like more than just a legitimate target. He sounded like someone who flat-out needed killing.

But still, there were aspects of Gant’s story that didn’t figure. “So your problem is that by ‘connections,’ you also mean ‘protection.’”

“That is exactly right. You know why Sorm will be in Phnom Penh this week?”

Of course he didn’t know, so he just waited for Gant to continue.

“There’s a meeting of a UN GIFT task force — that’s the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking. Sorm always comes to town for these — they’re opportunities for him to fete existing customers and to meet potential new ones. Client relations and business development, all without even having to get on a plane. And you know what? I don’t even blame the people he corrupts. They know nothing ever changes, so why fight the system? Why not profit from it, while you can?”

“This is why you don’t just arrest him?”

Gant nodded. “The White House has been trying for years to get the Cambodian government to crack down on Sorm. It’s like running into a brick wall.”

“So you’ve decided to turn to alternative means of law enforcement.”

“That’s a nice way to put it, and it does seem to be the trend. I’m sure you’ve noticed the military is gradually being repurposed, right? Soldiers being deployed as cops, Military Commissions instead of civilian courts… And it’s no more than bipartisan consensus that the president has the inherent power to order the indefinite imprisonment, even the execution, of terrorist suspects, including American citizens. This isn’t so terribly different, if you think about it. The same principle, just a bit… broader.”

“A bit.”

Gant shrugged. “The public has proven itself comfortable with drone attacks on terrorists. We don’t think the market is quite ready for the acknowledged assassination of human traffickers, too. But Sorm is no less a problem because of that.”

“Pardon me for saying so, but I don’t think this all sounds like a long-term strategy for success.”

“I’m sure it’s not. But if I may utter the unutterable? Long-term success… that’s over. The empire is in its twilight. The goal here isn’t long-term health, it’s just to give the patient a few more comfortable years.” He smiled. “Of course, don’t quote me on that.”

Dox smiled back. “Hey, as far as I’m concerned? This meeting never happened.”

“Indeed. Anyway, this is just what happens toward the end. Things get… ad-hoc. Seat-of-the-pants. You use whatever viable tools you still have, and for purposes they weren’t designed or intended for. Basically, you do what you have to so your own country doesn’t wind up like this one.”

Dox didn’t much care for Gant’s pessimism, though he suspected that was because he couldn’t much refute it. But none of that mattered. What was important was that Gant’s briefing had told him what he needed to know. So he should have just let it go. But the act of asking some questions made it hard to refrain from asking others.

“All right,” he said. “But why me? When I arrived at the airport, a guy in a customs uniform told me he could move me to the head of the immigration line for a five-dollar gratuity. I figure hell, if a customs official can be bribed for five dollars, you could probably have a real problem solved for maybe fifty. Which is a little less than I charge.”

“Your calculations are good,” Gant said. “But Sorm isn’t the kind of target who can be gotten to by a fifty-dollar street hood. He travels with a retinue of bodyguards, for one thing.”

“Then why not send in one of those fancy drones, like you said? Reaching out and touching someone with match-grade ammo, I don’t know, it seems so old-fashioned. Not that I mind, because I come from a long line of proud knuckle-draggers. But still.”

Gant leaned forward. “You know, there are quite a few otherwise bright people who think what we do is stupid or counterproductive because of the criticism it engenders. But really, you can’t legitimately criticize someone’s tactics if you don’t understand his objectives, don’t you think? Sometimes, our objective is to send a message, and criticism of our actions simply serves to amplify the desired message. Torture Bradley Manning? Quite a message to other would-be whistleblowers, don’t you think? And swallowing up people in the black hole of Guantanamo? A loud and clear message to everyone else we might detain and interrogate. And what about a child trafficker, halfway around the world, with nothing but a fine pink mist where a human cranium used to be? Think there’s a message there?”

“I reckon there is. And one Western Union wouldn’t be adequate to deliver.”

A long moment went by. Dox had been casually and reflexively checking his surroundings for as long as they’d been talking, and he was struck again that Gant hadn’t once done so. There was something about the way the guy carried himself, as though he was above having to take such pedestrian precautions. Dox had been in LA once when a gang turf war erupted. Dox had seen the warning signs and had taken cover behind a truck just before it all went down. The civilians in the area, a beat behind him, had cleared out the moment they realized what was going on, too. But one guy, in a suit and carrying a damn briefcase, had just strolled through the whole thing like it had nothing to do with him. And the hell of it was, he made it all the way without a scratch. Barrio dudes laying into each other with pipes and chains, and Mr. Upright Citizen is just moseying along, checking his watch and messing with his cell phone. For whatever reason, some people just seemed untouchable, and maybe Gant was one of them.

“Okay,” Gant said. “Is there anything else you need to know?”

“Well, I’m still a little concerned that you want to be right there when it happens. I wouldn’t exactly call that SOP.”

“Probably it’s not. But am I correct in thinking that’s more my problem than yours?”

“You’re not worried about witnesses tying you to this in some way?”

“At the risk of sounding immodest, I think I can safely say I have a talent for not being noticed. Or, if I’m noticed, for not being remembered. Or, if I’m remembered, for not being found.”

Dox had no trouble believing any of that. He couldn’t figure out what was the basis for the man’s confidence. Dox knew veterans of the shit who wouldn’t flinch at being midconversation with a man the instant he shuffled off this mortal coil courtesy of a long-range rifle shot to the brain, but every one of them was a hardened operator, with all the signs and weight that kind of experience came with. Gant was so casual about things, he seemed like a posturing first-timer. And yet Dox’s buddy had assured him the man was anything but. He wondered what it would be like to be one of these people. Maybe there was just a kind of royalty in the world, people with a certain rank or privileges that made them carry themselves like they were above it all. He didn’t know.

“All right then, like you say, it’s your risk. But unless you’re planning on wearing a raincoat on the day in question, we might want to devise some special signal I can give you so you can lean away at the critical moment. It’d save you a story at the dry cleaner’s about how you cut yourself shaving.”

Gant chuckled. “That sounds sensible. Well, I suppose you could always just call me on my mobile. In fact, I think that would work well. I could confirm the target for you one last time on the phone, and it would give me an excuse to step out of the way at the ‘critical moment,’ as you say.”

“All right, if that’s how you want to do it.”

“Now, I imagine you weren’t able to travel here with your own equipment. What else do you need from me?”

“I wasn’t and it depends. What kind of distances are we talking about?”

Dox was expecting Gant to ask why, in which case Dox would have to explain that equipment error that would be meaningless at a quarter mile could mean a missed shot at farther out. And that therefore, if Dox was going to have to drop this Sorm character at extreme distance, it would help to have precision hardware, meaning probably not what was readily available in their current environs.

But instead, Gant just said, “I would say, no farther than five hundred yards. Probably less.”

Dox was dubious. “Five hundred yards? Shit, you could have just hired someone to throw a rock at him from that close. Why me?”

“You have a reputation for reliability and discretion. Forgive my candor, but should the worst happen, we can’t afford the kind of blowback we had in Pakistan with Ray Davis. We need someone maximally deniable.”

Davis was a CIA contractor who was imprisoned in Pakistan after shooting to death a couple of locals. It had turned into a major hairball and even the president wound up getting pulled into it. So it made sense they would want someone they could hang out to dry if things went sideways. Dox didn’t have a problem with that; in fact, he was used to assuming the risk of a shitstorm and had already factored it into his price for the job.

“Day or night?” he said.

“Night.”

“All right, a night shot at five hundred yards or closer, I can get by without anything too fancy. Still, I’m tempted to ask for an XM2010 ESR, but I reckon that would be a little too recognizably made-in-the-USA. Should the worst happen and all that.”

“Correct, the XM2010 is too new and too associated with the US military. What about its predecessor, the M24? Combat-proven and reassuringly widespread.”

Well, old Gant knew his hardware, it seemed. And the M24 was as comfortable to Dox as old pair of perfectly sprung boots. But as sensible as Gant’s reasoning might have been, he didn’t like that the man was proposing a bolt-action weapon. Other things being equal, if the shit hit the fan, Dox preferred a semi-automatic.

“If it’s all the same to you,” he said, “I’d prefer an M110.”

“Still a little too new and a little too associated with Uncle Sam. What about the SR-25? The Thai Army has it, and so do the militaries of quite a few other nations, so it’s conveniently deniable.”

Dox would have preferred to have the weapon he chose rather than the one Gant proposed, but in his experience, there was nothing to complain about with the SR-25. “All right. With the 20-round magazine, the Leupold Mark 4, an AN/PVS-14 night scope, and sound suppressor, naturally. Basically, the MK-11 configuration. Oh, and a hundred rounds of match-grade ammunition. I’ll want to play around with it beforehand.”

Gant nodded. “I’ll have the equipment by tomorrow morning. I’ll contact you on the secure site and let you know where you can pick it up. Tomorrow night is Sorm’s appointment in Samarra — will that give you time to zero the rifle and make any other preparations you need?”

Dox understood the allusion to John O’Hara’s novel. But he doubted Gant would have expected that, which meant the man intended the reference to be supercilious. Hell, he probably didn’t think Dox knew what supercilious meant, either.

He broke out in a good ol’ boy grin. “Tomorrow night ought to be fine.”

That night, lying in bed with Chantrea, clothed as usual, he was thinking of Sorm, and of how much he didn’t know about Cambodia. How much maybe he didn’t want to know.

“May I ask you something personal?” he said.

She looked at him, her expression half-veiled in shadow, and nodded.

“When you’re hanging around in a bar, like you were when we met. If you go home with someone… nobody’s… I mean, nobody’s coercing you to do that, are they? Forcing you, I mean. It’s your choice?”

She shook her head slowly. “Nobody’s forcing me.”

He wondered if her distinction had been deliberate — that just because no one was forcing her didn’t mean she had a real choice.

He looked at her. Goddamn, she was pretty. The flat Khmer nose and cheekbones. A small mouth and beautifully full lips. And those big, dark eyes. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to keep doing this without at least really kissing her. But if he kissed her, he didn’t know how he’d stop.

“You know, in general, I don’t judge or begrudge how people earn a living. The truth is, I’ve done some questionable things myself. But I don’t… I don’t know Cambodia as well as I’d like. I’ve read about some of what goes on here, and I don’t want to contribute to it.”

She paused, maybe trying to divine his meaning. “Are you talking about sex slavery?”

He was glad she was being so frank, and felt foolish for his obliqueness. “That’s right.”

She nodded. “It’s a terrible problem. There are thirty-thousand child prostitutes in Cambodia.”

“I know, I’ve read some about it. Poverty, culture, porous borders, the aftermath of war… it’s so pervasive, I don’t see what can be done.”

“This is what I’m going to do with my degree. Help integrate rescued girls back into society.”

“You? But…”

She looked away. “I don’t think it will hurt my work to have some direct experience with the lives of sex workers.”

Dox didn’t say anything. He didn’t like thinking of her as a sex worker. And he didn’t like thinking there could be any connection at all between the kind of low-key freelance work Chantrea might do part-time of her own volition and what children were forced to do by traffickers.

“Psychological counseling,” she went on, shaking her head. “I guess it’s not much. But we have to do what we can, yes? Even if it’s just a little.”

He didn’t answer. He felt confused. It was one thing to know about some of Cambodia’s hidden horrors, but now it was like he was brushing up against them, things he could sense but not quite see. And she’d made him feel small about saying nothing could be done. She was right, she was doing something.

She said, “Are you trying to ask… if I wanted to come back from the bar with you? If I want to be here with you now?”

Her question surprised him, though upon reflection it actually made perfect sense. “Well, actually, I’m not sure. Did you? Do you?”

“You mean, would I keep seeing you if you didn’t keep giving me money?”

“I guess that’s one way of clarifying things, yeah.”

“Why don’t you stop, then, and see what happens?”

He thought about that. She was sweet and smart and agreeable. And so tasty-looking. But he couldn’t afford to fall in love with some university student. Not while he was in the life, anyway. Maybe one day, but not now.

“All right,” she said into the silence. “You don’t seem to be using the money to buy the obvious thing. So maybe you’re using it to buy something else?”

He suddenly had the feeling her psychology degree was going to be entirely redundant. “I don’t know. What would that be?”

“You really don’t know?”

Was he being an asshole? Making her play guessing games because he didn’t want to be forthright himself?

“Maybe I do. If I give you money, that’s our context. I don’t have to feel I owe you anything else.”

“And if you made love to me, you would. Even if you were paying me.”

The frank way she said it both aroused and embarrassed him. He was glad he wasn’t pressed against her. And that in the dim light she couldn’t see the red he felt creeping into his face.

“I like you, Chantrea,” he said. “I guess you can tell that. And I guess that’s the problem.”

“Why is it a problem?”

“Because it’s not what I came here to do. I’m just here on business, and I want to keep things on a business level. Which, I’ll admit, I initially thought I was doing with you. But… I don’t know. Like I said, I like you. And I wasn’t sure what you wanted, or what you expected.”

“You mean you were afraid that if we made love, it wouldn’t be just business, even if you were giving me money?”

“That’s right.”

“So it wasn’t just about making me do something I didn’t really want to.”

Damn, not just smart, but relentless. “No. Now that we’re talking about it, not just that.”

She looked away for a moment, then back to him. “I can’t say I think you’re wrong about any of it.”

“I’m not sure that’s exactly a comfort, under the circumstances.”

“You’re an honest man, Dox.”

That hurt. “Actually, no, I’m not.”

“You are about the things that count. And you’re right. I like you a lot. If you make love to me, I’ll probably get attached to you.”

He couldn’t look at her. He felt like he’d been exposed as selfish and manipulative, and a hypocrite, too. And he was also ashamed at how Nessie had swelled at the way she’d put it. Not, “if you were to make love to me, I would get attached.” No, it wasn’t hypothetical. It was a straight-up if/then proposition, and entirely up to him, too.

“But you know what?” she said. “Even that’s not what you’re really afraid of. Not really.”

He looked at her, reluctant to respond, unsure of what was coming next.

“What you’re really afraid of,” she said, reaching over and laying the backs of her fingers across his cheek, “is that you’ll get attached to me.”

She might have been missing some other things, but she was surely right about that. And the only thing that kept him from saying fuck it all and taking her in his arms then and there was the thought of the business he would be taking care of the next night. He was here for a job. It was crazy to get involved in any other way. He wouldn’t let it happen.

Chantrea left for class at eight the next morning. Dox immediately checked the secure site. There was a message waiting from Gant: Rubie’s, corner of streets 19 and 240, noon. He checked it out online and saw it was some kind of wine bar. He already knew the neighborhood — a collection of relatively swank houses and upmarket boutiques — from previous reconnaissance. He didn’t have a problem with it, preferring a public place for a meeting like this one.

On impulse, he Googled Rithisak Sorm. No Wikipedia page, but there were a number of news articles about arrest warrants and Uncle Sam pressuring the Cambodian government to extradite him for trafficking. The Cambodians claimed Sorm wasn’t even in Cambodia, he was beyond their reach. More likely, he was being tipped off and protected. Regardless, what was available supported Gant’s story. There were no photos of Sorm — apparently, Khmer Rouge record-keeping wasn’t quite as squared-away as the Nazis’ had been — but Dox was satisfied with what he’d found.

He showered, dressed in unobtrusive tourist attire, and headed over to the hotel restaurant to fuel up. The staff had long since come to recognize him, and the hostess, the guy making the omelets, and the waitress pouring his coffee all greeted him with a delightful sampeah and a cheerfully accented, “Good morning, Mr. Dox.” He liked the sampeah, which was similar to the Balinese sembah that had become second nature to him on his adopted island. There was something so friendly about greeting someone by pressing your palms together, fingers up, at chin level. The sembah and sampeah and the Thai wai and the Indian namaste; the Chinese and Japanese bow; the western handshake…. it was funny how, all over the world, the original function of a salutation was to show the other person you weren’t holding something dangerous. Politeness determined by the eschewal of a weapon. Peace as the absence of war.

He killed nearly an hour with four trips to the lavish buffet: steamed crabs from Kep; star fruit from Indonesia; a profusion of baguettes and croissants and cheeses, the happier legacies of the French occupation. While he ate, he saw the hostess and a hotel manager seating several foreigners at a large circular table in the center of the restaurant. They were dressed in local business casual: creased pants and pressed shirts, no jackets, no ties. He watched handshakes and business cards exchange; heard English greetings in various accents. German, French, something Scandinavian he couldn’t place more precisely. NGOs, he guessed — nongovernmental organizations, in town to save the country from who knows what. Maybe they were even part of the UN meeting Gant had mentioned.

A few minutes later, two fit-looking Khmer guys in identical gray slacks, white button-down shirts, and practical-looking black shoes entered the room. They spoke briefly with the manager, who nodded deferentially and then stepped away. Dox noted both guys were wearing earpieces. Obviously security of some sort. They’d scan the room next, and Dox tucked into the last of his star fruit, feeling nothing — no worry, no hostility, no exceptional alertness, just a relaxed, comfortable, quiet oneness with his surroundings. He felt himself just as much part of the room as the tables and chairs, and would be equally unremarkable to the bodyguards, whoever they were.

After a few moments, he stretched and glanced around again. The bodyguards had taken up positions alongside the entrance. A Khmer man in a navy suit had just come in — full head of luxurious gray hair, erect posture, a relaxed and confident stride. A younger Khmer guy, also in a suit but not as well fitted, followed close and deferentially behind him. The manager greeted the older guy with a notably humble sampeah, his pressed palms high and his head low, then ushered the two to the table with the foreigners, all of whom stood at their approach. There were handshakes all around and more greetings in English. The older guy took a moment to introduce his younger companion, who seemed ill at ease, perhaps at the presence of so many foreign VIPs.

Dox glanced at the bodyguards. Their postures were alert, but not unduly so: clearly, they’d satisfied themselves that the room was secure. If they were basing that conclusion on no more than a visual scan, their principal must have been of some importance, but not, say, a president or foreign minister, who would have prompted an advance team of explosives experts and bomb-sniffing dogs and a retinue larger than just two. Still, whoever he was, he was somebody with some clout — his carriage, the deference with which the manager had greeted him, the presence of the flunky, the way the foreigners had stood at his approach. He was talking to them now, and though Dox couldn’t make out the words, the Khmer had the poise of a gracious host. For some reason, he reminded Dox of the Dalai Lama — the hair and the suit were wrong, of course, and this guy wasn’t quite that old, but he had the same air of compassion, confidence, and, what… gratitude? Yes, a kind of pleased gratitude, nothing servile about it. And an appealing twinkle of humor in his eyes, too, which did nothing to diminish his aura of gravitas.

Dox finished his breakfast and made his way to the door, offering a sampeah and a smile to each member of the staff he passed. Though he couldn’t hear their conversation, the Khmer seemed to be holding a kind of genial court among the foreigners. Dox paid them all only the barest moment of casual attention, which was no more than the bodyguards paid him as he passed their position and headed out into the bright Phnom Penh morning.

The sun was midway to its apogee but it wasn’t excessively hot yet, so he decided to walk to Rubie’s. Easier to check for followers walking than it was from the back of a tuk-tuk, anyway. He crossed the street and strolled past the imposing iron and concrete walls surrounding the American Embassy. It was odd to behold such a fortress of officialdom on his way to such an unofficial meeting. The bars and walls and guard posts all seemed to declare his status as unacknowledged, unaffiliated, unwanted. And yet here he was, on his way to do their dirty work. Well, no one ever said the world had to make sense.

He skirted the green oasis of Wat Phnom, its massive concrete spire bleached white against a clear blue sky. A dozen kids were roughhousing on the grass as he passed, young mothers chatting on park benches nearby. The lucky ones, he thought, with mothers who watched out for them. A few geezers moved with arthritic care through a series of tai chi exercises, younger men in short-sleeved white shirts and dark ties striding obliviously past them, likely on their way to meetings or some other business in the area. Just ordinary people trying to make their ordinary way in life, and yet hidden in their collective midst was something so misshapen it could turn thirty-thousand children into sex slaves. He felt a warm satisfaction at the thought of killing Sorm and immediately pushed it away. A job was a job. Beyond knowing the target was legitimate, he didn’t want to feel one way or the other about it.

He turned south, parallel to the waterfront, naturally noting the high spots in the surrounding buildings that would make the best sniper hides along the way. The bars were all closed at this hour, and partially obscured by stalls selling tee shirts and assorted bric-a-brac. In contrast to the lively, tawdry night scene, in the harsh light of day it all just looked tired, and poor, and sad. He passed a store selling ornately carved wooden coffins, and wondered whether it was a good omen or a bad one, under the circumstances. Well, he’d know soon enough.

He zigzagged southwest, checking his back along the way. He didn’t think he’d been followed from the hotel, but it was hard to be sure here, it was too chaotic. The streets were choked with shifting knots of shoppers crowding under the shadow of stall umbrellas so jam-packed they formed a kind of tent city encroaching to nearly the center of the street. A low cacophony enveloped him as he walked: tuk-tuk drivers honking their horns; scooters buzzing through cracks in the mass of pedestrians; shouts and cries and laughter. Overhead, power lines stretched haphazardly from building to building like baling wire strung by a blind man. On all sides, people haggled over everything imaginable: shirts and shoes and underwear; quartered chickens and beef and fresh fish on ice; all manner of refurbished electronics. The air was redolent of diesel and the unforgettable rotting-sewage smell of durian fruit. He loved all of it.

Presently the riotous street scene began to ebb, and he arrived at the more genteel environs of Rubie’s. The bar, he saw, occupied the ground floor of a white two-storied corner building. On both sides were patios and French doors, all surrounded by tall potted plants such that passers-by could catch only a glimpse of the interior. Dox circled it several times from different angles and directions, checking for surveillance along the way. Nothing struck him as out of place and he headed inside.

A young Khmer guy stood from behind the long bar as Dox entered, offering a smile and a sampeah. Dox returned the greeting and looked around. The place was empty, but had the feel of soon-to-be-bustling rather than currently dead. Just one long room and an alcove with couches in back, the walls, ceiling and floor all comprised of comfortably worn wood. A slight breeze descended from the slowly turning ceiling fans, and sun seeping through the open French doors offered the only light. Behind the bar was a modest stereo system, softly playing what sounded like Khmer pop, and an equally modest though serviceable selection of booze. It was a little early for the kind of libation Gant claimed Khmers couldn’t make, though; plus he didn’t want to dull the edge while he was operational. So he took the last stool at the bar, with a view of all the doors, theatrically mopped his sweaty brow, and ordered a tonic water with a slice of lemon. The bartender gave him his drink and they made pidgin small talk for a few minutes. Then the bartender returned to his seat and picked up a Khmer magazine, apparently what he’d been reading when Dox had entered. Dox sipped his drink and settled in to wait.

True to form, Gant strolled in at noon sharp, carrying a green canvas duffle bag. A few western tourists had since taken up residence on the couches in the alcove, but otherwise they had the place to themselves. Gant set down the bag against the bar alongside Dox and took a stool two over. The bartender stood — too late, Dox noted, to have noticed the bag. Gant ordered a Bombay Sapphire martini, then produced a handkerchief from his pants pocket and dabbed his brow.

“Heard they didn’t make proper martinis in these parts,” Dox said, with the air of someone making casual conversation with a fellow out-of-towner.

Gant considered the hankie for a moment and smiled sardonically. “We live in hope.”

Dox nodded. “That we do.” He waited until the bartender was distracted by his labors, then stood, placed a few one-dollar bills on the table, and exited with the bag.

He ran a route to make sure he was still clean, then caught a tuk-tuk to a place called Little Bikes just north of the National Museum, where he rented a Honda CB400 and a full-face helmet. They tried to get him to take the bike for a week, but he told them no need, twenty-four hours ought to be just fine. He set the duffle bag across his lap and headed north, swinging around in the opposite direction when he was out of sight of the bike shop.

In no time he was cruising along a deserted stretch of Tompum Lake on the outskirts of the city, an area he’d previously reconnoitered for this very purpose. The roads went from paved to gravel to dirt, the houses from concrete to corrugated to tar paper. Christ, these people were poor. He wondered why it was bothering him — it wasn’t like he didn’t see plenty of the same in Bali. Chantrea, he supposed. Her story about her family’s hardships was making it more personal for him. He was annoyed with himself for the reaction — he didn’t want to be distracted. And anyway, maybe she was just shining him on about all that, he couldn’t really know. But shit, what was he going to do, pretend the hardship around him wasn’t so bad because maybe Chantrea was exaggerating about her own? Sometimes you had to act as if something was real, even if it might not be.

He shook it off and kept going. When he was satisfied he was sufficiently far from even the squatter’s shacks, he pulled over, killed the engine, and wandered down into the weeds at the edge of the shallow lake. The bike had kicked up a long line of dust in the airless heat, and he waited patiently until it had dissipated and there was no remaining sign of his passage.

He unzipped the duffle. The SR-25 and its components were wrapped in rags, and he laid out each piece carefully along a cloth until he had it all in front of him. He noted the weapon was equipped with a Magpul PRS adjustable butt stock, a nice touch. He assembled everything, mounting the optics, screwing in the suppressor, working the stock knobs, all the while admiring the weapon’s clean lines but still feeling a little disappointed he wasn’t going to get to play with the XM 2010. Well, another time, for sure. He zeroed it at one hundred yards, the suppressor keeping the sound of his shots to a muted crack. When his groups were under a half-inch, he dialed in corrections for a 500-yard shot, and then started shooting at the longer distance. In no time, his groups were all sub-three inches. Okay. He wrapped the weapon carefully and placed it in the bag without disassembling it. Then he headed back to the hotel to wait for darkness and Gant’s call.

At just after seven, his mobile buzzed. He picked up. “Hello.”

“We’re on our way to dinner. A place called Khmer Borane, 389 Sisowath Quay. In front of the Royal Palace, with an open-air patio right on the riverfront. So I think you’ll want to set up on the other side of—”

“Don’t you worry about where I set up. That’s my end.”

“Right. I can’t guarantee we’ll be seated outside, but the weather’s good and I’ll suggest it. If we’re not, the restaurant is small and you should still have a clear view of most of the inside. Worst case, you can take care of it when we leave.”

“You want me to buzz you just beforehand?”

“Yes. I’ll excuse myself to take the call.”

“It’s just going to be the two of you? I don’t want to send my very best to the wrong address.”

“Just the two of us. There’ll be a couple of bodyguards, but they won’t be at our table. And they’ll be fore and aft when we exit. The principal and I will be side-by-side.”

“Good enough. I’ll call when I’m ready.”

He clicked off and headed out. The hotel staff had thoughtfully parked the Honda right out front, and it took him less than twenty minutes to make sure he wasn’t being followed and then to cross the Friendship Bridge to the east side of the Tonlé Sap River. He buzzed briskly along the pavement, past gated two-story riverfront residences, the lights inside warm and glowing. Evening insects flew spot-lit through the beam of the bike’s headlight and occasionally smacked invisibly into his facemask. Farther along, the houses grew more modest and the road tapered off to dirt. He slowed and rode along until he reached the water’s edge. A hotel construction site, which he’d seen earlier in the week, was to his right, its skeletal framework of I-beams looming against the night sky. The good news was, the developers had obviously chased off any squatters who might have been living in shacks here. The bad news was, the site was guarded at night.

He cut clockwise around the site and put-putted along an even narrower and more rutted dirt road, swerving periodically to avoid a crater or a broken cinder block, the river now to his left. To his right were giant mounds of dirt, most of them covered in weeds, and he assumed the dirt was dumped here after being excavated for the hotel’s foundation. Unlike the site itself, this area wasn’t guarded because even in Cambodia, nobody was going to steal dirt. And none of it was inhabited, because by day the developers would shoo squatters away. From the top of any of the mounds, he’d be at a slight elevation to the riverbank, with perfect line-of-sight to the opposite side.

He cut the engine and pulled off the helmet. It was quite dark, with just a little light reflecting off the surface of the river from the restaurants and bars on the other side. The air was perfectly still. He wiped his face with a shirtsleeve, then waited while his eyes adjusted. He listened. He could hear, faintly, the sounds of traffic and conversation from the other side of the river. Other than that, nothing but the chirping of insects.

He parked the bike alongside a tree fifty yards back from the river. Then he walked off and got prone in the weeds atop one of the dirt mounds. He took out the rifle, popped in the magazine, racked a round, and sighted across the river. It took him less than a minute to find Khmer Borane, and he saw immediately he was in luck. Gant was sitting outside, with—

What the fuck?

He looked away, then back. No, there was no question. It was the Khmer guy from breakfast, the one who looked like the Dalai Lama, the one the staff treated like a big shot, who was greeting all the foreign guests. That guy was Sorm?

Gant and the Khmer were both seated on the same side of the table, facing the river, presumably so they could both enjoy the view. He scanned left and right and saw the two bodyguards from the restaurant, positioned at the front corners of the patio.

He watched Gant and the Khmer for a moment. From their expressions and gestures, they seemed to be chatting easily though earnestly, each in his own way exuding an aura of relaxed confidence. But while there was something faintly smarmy about Gant’s manner, the Khmer had that air of… shit, what was it? Good humor? Good will? Beneficence?

This guy was former Khmer Rouge, now running dope and trafficking kids into sex slavery?

No. No way.

He put in an earpiece and punched Gant’s number into his mobile from memory, then went back to the scope. A moment later, Gant reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his phone. He glanced at the readout, offered what must have been an “excuse me” to the Khmer, walked out to the sidewalk, and stood to the side of the restaurant.

“Fire when ready,” he said, his tone droll.

“Who’s that you’re with?” Dox said.

There was a slight pause. “Sorm. Take the shot.”

“No, sir. Whoever Sorm is, that ain’t him. Something’s rotten here in Denmark, and I want to know what it is.”

Gant looked out across the river, his eyes darting left and right.

“No, you’re not going to see me,” Dox said. “But I see you. That’s a nice shirt, by the way. Red becomes you. Did you wear it in case you were standing close by at the moment of truth?”

“I did, in fact. Just a precaution. We’re wasting time.”

“That’s right, we are. Anytime you make me ask you something twice you’re wasting my time. So again. Who the fuck is that you’re with?”

Gant furrowed his brow and glanced in Dox’s direction again. He looked more irritated than afraid. “What difference does it make who he is?”

Christ, what did the guy think, he was bulletproof? “You lied to me, Mr. Gant. We’re not well acquainted, so maybe you don’t know that kind of thing makes me stubborn. Regardless, unless you can figure out something mighty convincing to tell me in the next few seconds, I’m just going to keep your deposit, wish you a lovely evening, and ride on out of here.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Gant said. “The people who hired you for this aren’t the kind you want to play around with.”

“Oh, are you threatening me now? That doesn’t just make me stubborn. It makes me angry. Did you know, through this fancy Leupold scope you got me, I can see the individual beads of perspiration on your forehead? Like that one that just rolled down your left temple. Go ahead, wipe it away, I’ll wait.”

“Damn it, what is your problem? This is business. The assignment is real. The money is real. You accepted your part. Now hold up your end. Take the shot.”

“Not until you tell me what’s really going on here and who that hombre really is.”

“No.”

“Fine by me. Hasta la vista, shit-for-brains.”

“Now you wait one goddamned minute—”

Dox clicked off. He put the earpiece and the phone back in his pocket but, out of an abundance of caution, dialed the rifle back to one hundred yards and kept it locked and loaded. He decided not to approach the bike from the river head on, but rather from behind, a direction that wouldn’t be expected. Maybe he was being paranoid, but the fact that Gant had tried to bullshit him had him spooked. He stood and circled back toward the bike, slowly, toe-heel, sighting through the night scope as he moved, scanning left and right.

He came around one of the dirt mounds twenty yards from the bike. There were three young Khmer guys skulking in the shadows under the tree, all in dark pants and dark tee shirts.

Each of them held a blade.

His heart rate kicked up a notch and he felt a welcome surge of adrenalin spread out from his trunk to his limbs. He breathed in and out, slowly and silently, watching them through the scope. No sign they’d detected him. He checked his flanks and his back. No other problems. He looked back at the Khmers. Had he been followed here? He’d been damned careful on the way. He glanced at the rifle. Gant. He must have put some kind of tracking device in it. The adjustable butt stock. Of course. And here he’d thought the man was just doing his job, providing him top equipment. He felt his face flush with anger.

All right. One problem at a time. He moved in until he was only thirty feet away. “Hey,” he called out softly, watching them through the scope. “Did Gant not tell you I had night vision?”

They all jumped at the sound of his voice and started glancing left and right, squinting into the darkness.

“No,” Dox said. “It seems he was remiss.” He shot each of them in the forehead, the SR-25 kicking just slightly with each round, the crack of each shot no louder than the clack of a sewing machine. In the dark, they seemed unaware of what was happening, and it was all over in just a few seconds regardless.

For two minutes, he listened and scanned. Nothing. All right, then.

He returned to his position atop the dirt mound, adjusted to five hundred yards, and sighted in on the restaurant. Gant and the Khmer were still there. Dox was pleasantly surprised. If he’d been Gant, he would have gotten the hell out of Dodge the moment their conversation turned sour. The man just didn’t have any sense. Well, on the other hand and to be fair, he did expect Dox to be dead about now.

Somebody should have told him that in these matters, it paid not to assume too much.

He put the earpiece back in and called Gant. This time, when Gant took out the phone and glanced at the number, he paled. Instinctively, and uselessly, he scanned the far bank of the river again. Dox smiled.

Gant got up and excused himself. He walked quickly to the front of the restaurant. He peered at the street, then back at his ringing phone, then back to the street.

Finally, he raised the phone to his ear. “Yes,” he said.

“Well, hello there, Mr. Gant. It’s been too long.”

Gant swallowed. “Did you change your mind? There’s still time.”

It was a hell of a bluff and Dox had to admire the man’s coolness. “As it happens, I have changed my mind, in a manner of speaking. You see, before I was prepared to just walk away. But I’m afraid we now find ourselves in a different set of circumstances.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your three Khmer friends, who I’m sorry to report are no longer among what are commonly referred to as ‘the living.’ Also, you forget how well I can see you through this scope. When you saw my number on your caller ID, you looked like a man in sudden need of an adult diaper. Why would that be?”

Gant glanced at the street again. Damn, but it was satisfying to see him finally losing his cool. A man just wouldn’t be human if he didn’t find at least some small pleasure in taking a fucked-up attitude and un-fucking it.

“Hey,” Dox said, “like Clint Eastwood said in his fine film Dirty Harry, I can read your mind, punk. You’re wondering whether you should run for it. Well, there’s something I think you should know before you try.”

Gant said nothing. That was all right. In the end, it was all about communication. Like his daddy liked to say, sometimes you just have to explain things to people in terms they understand.

“Which is,” Dox continued, “you can’t move directly into a run from the way you’re standing. You have to tense first, plant one foot, load your body, and launch yourself. Some people’s movements are subtler than others, but the physics are always the same. And we former jarhead snipers are trained to see that sort of thing as it’s getting started, and to put a stop to it before it goes anywhere.”

He paused and waited. Gant said nothing. He was very pale.

“So you can try to run your way out of this, or to talk your way out. I’d advise Door Number Two. You’re a pretty good talker, and no offense, but you don’t look like much of a runner. And even if you were, I’m guessing my bullets are faster than your legs.”

There was a long pause. Gant wiped his hand across his forehead and dried it on his pants.

“His name is Vannak Vann. The UN GIFT task force I told you about. He’s the head of it.”

Dox was genuinely confused. “I don’t understand.”

“He’s not Sorm. He’s put together a dossier and a team that is finally poised to prosecute Sorm.”

“You’re saying Sorm is real?”

“Yes, he’s real. I’m not stupid. Most of what I told you is the truth. Sorm is real but he isn’t the target. There are a lot of pieces to this thing, and Vann is on the verge of putting them together. This week. At the meeting. We had to act now.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Sorm. And the elements of the US government that protect him.”

This wasn’t getting any clearer. “Why would the government protect someone like Sorm?”

“For a lot of reasons, and we don’t have time to go into them all right now. When I told you Sorm has a lot of people in his pocket? I wasn’t just talking about locals.”

Dox wasn’t buying it. “I want to know why the US government would protect a child trafficker. To the point of assassinating a UN official at his direction.”

“I told you,” Gant said. “The empire is dying. Dying empires become obsessed with minor threats. Like the threat of Islamic terror. Sorm understands we’ll pay dearly for intelligence we believe will help combat that threat. So he passes on what he learns in the course of his work about cells like Jemaah Islamiyah and others in Southeast Asia. In return, he gets all the get-out-of-jail-free cards he wants.”

“That’s what this is about? Protecting a source?”

“Fundamentally, yes.”

“Why the hell didn’t you just tell me all this up front?”

“I didn’t want to tell you anything, remember? But you insisted. And when you did, I realized there was only one reason you were asking. You wanted to know if this was the kind of job you’d be willing to take. Which told me you’re… unusual among snipers.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you might have moral qualms that could have complicated things. We didn’t have time to bring in someone new. So I made a decision on the spot. I misled you.”

“You lied to me.”

“Whatever you want to call it. I didn’t think it would matter.”

“The hell you didn’t. A UN representative assassinated while on official business in Phnom Penh? You knew I’d learn about who I’d actually dropped when it got reported in the news. That’s why you put those three locals on me. I drop Vann, they drop me, problem solved, and all the loose ends tied up. And what were you going to do, keep the balance you owed me for yourself? Yeah, why fight the system, isn’t that what you said? Why not profit from it while you can, right?”

Gant was sweating harder now. His breathing was rapid. It was a beautiful thing to behold.

“Look,” Gant said. “This is business, right? You came here on business. Let’s not make this personal.”

Dox thought about that. There was something appealing about it. Wasn’t it the very thing he’d been clinging to since arriving in Phnom Penh?

But all at once, he felt he’d been lying to himself.

“I’m sorry, son. I guess I’m just not built that way. I can’t always keep business and personal separate. I don’t even know if I should. A better person than you made me aware of that recently.”

“Hey,” Gant said. His eyes were wide and darted back and forth across the river. “I told you, the people who hired you, you don’t want to cross them. Bad enough you don’t do the job. If something happens to me on top of it, they’ll come after you.”

“Two things,” Dox said, still relishing Gant’s loss of composure. “First, I don’t believe you. I think you’re a pissant. You’re just a cut-out hired to hire other cut-outs. You carry yourself like you’re a made man, but in the end you’re just dog shit on a boot heel. I don’t think anyone’s going to care much one way or the other if somebody scrapes you off on a curb.”

Gant swallowed. “What’s the second thing?”

“The second thing is, even if you were someone special? I still wouldn’t care.”

He eased the trigger gently back. The SR-25 recoiled smooth and hard into his shoulder. He heard the soft crack. Almost simultaneously, a small hole blossomed in Gant’s forehead. He jerked, dropped his phone, and slid to the ground. On his face was an expression of utter surprise.

Dox headed back toward the bike, sighting down the barrel through the night vision as he moved. This time he approached from the opposite direction. The changeup was just a precaution — he didn’t expect any more opposition after the three he’d dropped. So he was surprised to see another Khmer, this one barely a teenager from the look of him, squatting in the dark at the side of the dirt road. In one hand he held a cell phone, in the other, a knife.

Dox’s finger started to ease back on the trigger. But good lord, he was just a kid. A kid.

He circled silently behind the boy, walking toe-heel, the soles of his sneakers soundless in the dirt. When he was directly behind him, he raised a leg and kicked him hard in the back of the head. The boy sprawled facedown, the knife and the phone hitting the deck alongside him. Dox kicked them out of the way. The boy cried out and tried to rise. Dox planted a foot between his shoulder blades and drove him back into the dirt.

He scanned through the night vision and detected no problems. He looked down at the boy. “What the fuck are you doing out here, son?”

The boy moaned and coughed, then spat out something in Khmer. It didn’t sound like Pleased to meet you.

“I don’t speak Khmer. You know any English?”

“You fuck your mommy!”

Dox snorted. “Well, I don’t know if that’s a maximally useful phrase to travel the world with. You might do better with, ‘I’ll have a beer, please,’ or ‘Pardon me, I’m looking for the restroom.’ Now I asked you what you’re doing here.”

“I watch for big American. He come, I call.”

So a lookout on the more obvious approach to the bike. Either they couldn’t find anyone older, or they recruited this kid as cut-rate labor. “What’d they pay you?”

“Five dollar.”

“How much if you kill me?”

“Twenty dollar.”

“Well, it looks like you’re shit out of luck either way. But tell you what. If I pay you twenty, will you just vamoose? Leave, I mean.”

The boy turned his head as though trying to see Dox’s face, to gauge whether the offer was serious. “You give me twenty dollar?”

Dox reached into his pocket and took out a pair of twenties. “I’ll give you forty. Here.” He leaned closer and dropped the bills on the kid’s hand. The kid gripped them and squinted. Dox wasn’t sure if he could see them in the dark.

“It’s forty. And you’re lucky I didn’t kill you. Get yourself a better job. Those guys who hired you were underpaying you and they would have sold you out in a heartbeat regardless. Christ, where are your parents anyway?”

The kid glanced back at him again. “No parents.”

Dox wondered whether he was being played. Still, he took out three more twenties and handed them over.

“Now I’m going to step back, and you’re going to get up and run along the river. Forget about the toys you dropped. Just run away. Don’t make me regret letting you go.”

He stepped back. The kid hesitated, then stood up and took off like a rocket. It was only then Dox realized how scared he must have been.

Dox made double time back to the bike. Other than the three cooling Khmers, there was no one around. He drove a half mile, then stopped and broke down the rifle, wiping each piece with a rag and slinging it into the river. He purged the phone, pulled the battery, and sent all that in, too. Last was the duffle bag. Then he drove back to the city center. Along the way, he purged, broke down, and tossed his personal mobile phone, too. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure they’d followed him via a tracking device in the rifle, so no sense taking chances.

There were no more flights that night, but he’d catch something to somewhere in the morning. Best not to linger after a job. Especially one that had turned out like this. He’d meant it when he told Gant he didn’t think anyone would bother to retaliate on Gant’s behalf, but he didn’t see any upside to testing the theory, either. Besides, there was always the law to be careful about, too.

He thought about immediately checking into a more obscure local hotel, but then decided against it. Best not to do anything too out of the ordinary, like suddenly disappearing from Raffles. The staff knew him too well at this point. No, better to check out tomorrow morning like a normal person, earlier than anticipated by his reservation but nothing remarkable, either.

By the time he reached the hotel, he realized he was starving. He wolfed down a meal of beef lok lak and amok trei in the hotel restaurant, then went up to his room and took a long shower. That kid. It really bugged him. Like hell they would have paid him, even if he’d done what they’d hired him for. They were just using him. And Dox had almost killed him.

He thought about calling Chantrea. But he didn’t know what to say. He had to leave town tomorrow and he doubted he’d be back for a while, if ever.

He was still wired from everything that had happened, but by the time he was done with the shower, the parasympathetic backlash was kicking in and exhaustion washed over him. He got in bed and was asleep almost instantly.

The room phone woke him. He glanced over at the bedside clock and saw it was just past midnight. He wondered who the hell would be calling him. Who even knew he was here?

Then he realized — Chantrea. She must have been trying him on his mobile, but he’d dumped it. He almost didn’t pick up, but then he did.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” she said. “I’ve been trying you on your mobile. It goes straight through to voicemail.”

“I’m sorry. I lost the damn thing. I had kind of a bad night tonight. Ate in the hotel restaurant and crashed early. I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

There was a pause. Then: “Are you… are you alone?”

Shit, he hadn’t even thought about her thinking something like that. “Yes, I’m alone. I was just tired. Really.”

“Do you want me to come over?”

He paused, feeling sad and torn. “The truth, darlin’? I do. But I have to leave tomorrow morning, and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Or even… if I’ll be back.”

There was another pause. “I see,” she said.

“And if you come over tonight, I just… I just don’t know.”

Another pause, longer this time. Then she said, “I want to. If you want me.”

He felt himself weakening. He knew he was being stupid. “Are you sure?” he said.

She was sure.

She got there a half hour later, and he was kissing her the second he had the door bolted behind her. And she was kissing him back with equal abandon. They pulled off each other’s clothes and threw them aside as though the garments were on fire, and he tried to take his time with her but she made it clear she didn’t want that, and she was wet when he touched her, so wet, and God he was glad she called. He still had condoms in the room from before he’d met her, and by the time the sun came up they’d used three, talking and dozing and laughing in between, the second round slower than the first and the third slower still, each of them wanting to make it linger because it was likely to be the last.

The alarm clock on her mobile phone woke them at eight. She showered and dressed and he pulled on a robe to see her to the door. He felt groggy and guilty and happy and sad. He wanted to say something but didn’t know what.

Chantrea paused by the door and touched his cheek. “I’m glad.”

He smiled. “I am, too.”

“You don’t look glad.”

“Well, I’m sad, too, I guess. I… I like you, Chantrea.”

“I like you, too.”

The way she said it was so direct and open. He wanted to believe it was true, that there was nothing more to it.

He said, “But I have to go today.”

She looked at him, and something in her eyes seemed to close off. “Come back sometime. If you like.”

“I’m not sure if I’ll be able. But… I’d like to. I would.”

Her lips moved, and then something in her expression made him think she’d changed her mind about what she was going to say. She smiled, but the smile was too bright. “Well, you know my number.”

He wanted to ask her what she’d been on the verge of saying. But he didn’t. She hesitated a moment longer, then unbolted the door and walked quickly away.

He closed the door and leaned back against it, and realized suddenly that he hadn’t given her any money. He thought she’d left abruptly because the goodbye was awkward. But maybe it was because she was afraid he might try to pay her, and didn’t want to give him the chance to spoil things more than maybe he already had.

Shit, what was wrong with him? She was sweet and smart and strong. And delicious on top of it. He liked her. He admired her. What was his problem? Was he just afraid that maybe in some ways she might have been trying to manipulate him? Why was he so reluctant to get involved?

Fuck it. There was nothing he could do.

He thought of the boy he’d almost killed the night before. And the rouged, doped-up girls he’d seen in front of that dim storefront earlier.

He smacked the back of a fist into the wall next to him. Christ, what was with this country?

He stayed like that, leaning against the door, thinking. Then he stood and paced for a while. Eventually, he found himself looking out his window onto the sunny courtyard below. He felt better, somehow. Calmer.

He wondered whether they really couldn’t make a decent martini. It did seem a shame he hadn’t properly tested that proposition.

And Gant had said Sorm would be harder to get to in Pailin province, where he lived, because foreigners are more conspicuous there. Be interesting to test that theory, too.

He thought of Chantrea, the way she’d said, We have to do what we can, yes? Even if it’s just a little.

Maybe there wasn’t much he could do. A problem this widespread and malignant, it seemed like taking out one man would be no more than a fart in a gale. But all at once, he decided he wanted to believe otherwise.

Because sometimes you had to act as if something was true, even if it might not be.