Intent to Kill Page 16

  Claire gasped and reached for the drive. “How did you get that?”

  “I found it, my dear. At the hotel in Siem Reap. It was on the ground at the entrance. What was it doing there?”

  “It was stolen.”

  “Oh my, I wish I had known it was yours sooner, but, well, I know nothing about computers. It took me until I arrived here to get to one of those lovely gentlemen in the cybercafés.” She frowned. “Cybercafés—sounds so futuristic. Anyway, he opened it. Interesting word—opened. I do wish I were more computer-savvy. I’ve never owned one, you see. Anyway, that’s when he came across your name, and I managed to find out where you were staying and saw you just as you were leaving the hotel.”

  Ella had known that she was coming here. Claire remembered that last meeting with her and Ella mentioning her trip to Phnom Penh. At the time, they’d been words that had sent trepidation through her. But that she had found her here, in this place . . . Too shocked to know where to begin, Claire asked, “You read my thumb drive?”

  “Oh, no, my dear.” Ella’s hand came to her mouth. “Of course not. Weren’t you listening? I had the lovely young man in the cybercafé read it.”

  “You said you would see me in Phnom Penh. You followed me. Why?” Claire hugged her bag, still prepared to act.

  Ella shifted her purse, her thumb rubbing the edge of the bag. “You’re wise to be careful, my dear.” Her gaze swept over Claire. “I might as well be truthful. It’s Samnang that I’m worried about. He’s been to see you. That’s not good.” She shook her head. “He’s a dangerous man.”

  “Samnang? How do you know him?” She eyed Ella. She was not benign and she was not safe for so many reasons. But that she knew Samnang, somehow that eclipsed them all.

  “I’ve been here many times over the years, shall we leave it at that? And recently I have learned something troubling. It appears Samnang has discovered who you are.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you know all about him, don’t you?”

  “Who I am?”

  “Or more precisely, who you’re related to. Samnang wants revenge, you see, and he will use you to get it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The killing fields, my dear. Samnang spent a considerable amount of time there, as did others.” She laughed softly. “They killed and they will kill again. Your uncle stole what Samnang valued. He will not tolerate that and he has waited. Patiently, I must say.”

  “Ella, you’re not making sense.”

  “Am I not, my dear?” She smiled softly. “Samnang will strike at what your uncle loves best, family. And now that you’re here . . .”

  Family, Claire thought. For Uncle Jack it had always been about family. Madness seemed to dance in the older woman’s eyes. She couldn’t contain the shiver and was thankful when an aging moped rattled past and reminded Claire that she wasn’t completely alone.

  “Ta-ta, I must be going.” Ella smiled and something dark and brooding was in that smile. “Watch Samnang. Killing comes naturally to him.” She eyed Claire closely. “I’d hate to see you die.” And with that she turned and walked away.

  Claire’s mouth was dry as she watched Ella until she reached the end of the street, where it intersected with another busier avenue, and there she flagged a cab.

  Claire’s hands shook and the feeling of being watched hadn’t abated. She scanned the street, and on a far corner she saw a Cambodian man, his hair dark and gleaming with hair grease, swept back in an Elvis-like retro cut. His eyes seemed to meet hers even from a distance as he took a drag on a cigarette before turning and disappearing around the corner.

  She knew him. Memories flashed to Bangkok, and again in Siem Reap in the market—she swallowed—and on the ferry.

  Who was he?

  Had he been watching them?

  She stepped off the curb and as quickly stepped back. Whoever he was, she sensed that he did not wish her well. It was best to get out of here.

  It was a relief to hail a cab and leave the area despite having learned nothing. She turned the thumb drive over in her hand. The drive held no secrets. It was only her research, things that she’d uncovered while she was here, that she suspected people like Ella already knew. Had she taken it to scare her and returned it for the same reason? Was today’s encounter a warning of some type?

  It was all so confusing and frightening. And, she suspected, not for the first time, that might have been Ella and her accomplice’s intent.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  “Simon, thank God I caught you,” Arun said.

  “What’s up?”

  “Arielle was seen leaving Samnang’s hotel a couple of hours ago.”

  Simon gripped the phone. He prepared himself for the worst. “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. I went back to the guesthouse. No one’s seen her.”

  “Shit, Arun.”

  “It’s worse. The Malone woman arrived on yesterday afternoon’s flight and now I have no idea where she is. I’ve checked with Central Bureau. They’ve heard nothing.”

  There was silence for over a minute before Arun spoke again. “What the hell was Arielle doing?” He cursed softly. “It’s the damn souvenir. I suspect that they assume that Arielle knows where it is.”

  Simon sucked in a deep breath. That was the last thing he’d imagined, that somehow by protecting Claire he would have endangered Arielle. “She’s safe. She has to be.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I think Samnang still has a soft spot for her.” Simon prayed he was right.

  “A woman?”

  “I know. Not his type. But, like she said, he took her out years ago. Samnang jumps the fence whenever it benefits him. The main point is, I know he won’t hurt her.”

  “Maybe. So we need to hope it wasn’t someone else,” Arun said. “We need to get a lockdown on all of them.”

  Simon’s gut knotted. “I’ll be on the early afternoon flight.”

  “It might be full.”

  “I’ll make room.”

  He had one more task before he could leave. He didn’t know how he’d convince Claire to listen and he had no time for details. When he pounded on her hotel room door he only prayed that she was there.

  The door opened and her brow furrowed at the sight of him.

  “Simon?”

  “Promise me you’ll stay away from Siem Reap.” The words spilled out. He wasn’t himself. He could think of no intelligent way to coax the words into an acceptable format, he could only demand and order because taking her in his arms and forcibly getting her out of here was impossible.

  “Hello to you too.”

  “I’m serious, Claire. Promise me you’ll stay here or go down to the coast for a week or so.” This time he offered only desperation. He couldn’t say what he felt or even what he feared. He was terrified that knowing what was happening would only galvanize Claire to action, to follow him.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve got to go back.” He briefly contemplated treachery, locking her in this room—preventing her from going anywhere. “To Siem Reap.”

  “Then I’ll come too. I was planning to leave . . .”

  “No.” He glanced at his watch. “Damn! My flight is leaving in just over an hour.” He held her gently by the shoulders, wishing he could stay her with just his will. “Promise me! I’ll explain everything later.” He glanced at his watch. There was no time. He hoped she heard the truth in his words. “Look, sweetheart. We’re running out of time. I know about your uncle, it’s what I began to tell you a few days ago, Claire. I suspect that now you do too. Khmer Rouge?”

  She looked away, and he wanted to hold her close and take the first flight out with her, out of Cambodia—together.

  It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, the only thing he knew might work: He would offer her the truth and trust that she would see the reason of it all. He loved her and there was no other way to get her to comply. He had to trust her judgment even without all the facts. She could t
ake care of herself. She’d do the right thing. He repeated that to himself like a mantra. “Because of that and so many other things, you could jeopardize the operation. There have been more deaths and now someone is missing. Please, Claire, promise me.”

  “Who, Simon?” There was fear in her voice.

  “Arielle is missing. The woman who was with me on the ferry here. We don’t know what happened. I’m suspecting the worst and hoping to God not,” he said bluntly as he took her hands. “Stay away. You’re a civilian and you’ll only distract me. Go to the beach and get some sun.”

  He took her silence to hopefully mean agreement. If not agreement, then at least she would think about it. He had to hold to that. It was all he had and things were moving too fast. He felt like everything was out of his control, including Claire. It was an unsettling feeling and something he didn’t need now when all his senses must be sharp, when the game he had planned for so long was about to be played out.

  His kiss was brief.

  “Book at the Sihoukville Hotel and I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I get things cleared up.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  And as the door closed behind him and he hurried to catch a flight with minutes to spare, dread weighed on him at the thought of everything that was out of his control.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Claire jumped as the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth announced a call. She’d been completely lost in her thoughts.

  “Claire, it’s Jack.”

  Never had he referred to himself by only his given name. It was always Uncle Jack. Briefly, she wondered at his motivation.

  “Look. Everything you accused me of, it’s true.”

  “I know.” She said the words reluctantly. She’d loved and respected this man and now only the former remained.

  “There’s something you don’t know, and no matter what you think of me now, you’ve got to listen and trust me.”

  Trust, why did that word keep coming up and why did it always feel so false? “How could I possibly trust you?” She sank heavily onto the bed. She fingered the emerald necklace. The small stone felt heavy for its size. It dropped through her fingers and lay cold and disconnected in the hollow of her throat.

  “Claire, what I have to say is important. You’re in danger. Just listen, please.”

  And as she listened, her nails bit into her palms. This was the man who had been responsible for the death of innocents. This was the man who had duped her family for years, and now the story he told her was unbelievable. It was a story that swept her into the ugly net of the Khmer Rouge, a plan where she was a pawn to be played to the end—an end that would involve her death.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Samnang told me himself.”

  “And you didn’t tell me.”

  “You were already gone, Claire.”

  “I’ve spoken to you since.”

  “I acted selfishly and I’m sorry. Suffice it to say that what I tell you now is truth.”

  “I hope so.” She wasn’t willing to give him pardon.

  “Look, I have some contacts over there still. No,” he replied before she could ask. “I’m not going to tell you. Let’s say they’ve been notified. Maybe there’s something that can be done.”

  “And these people—they were once Khmer Rouge?” Claire asked as her heart pounded thickly against her breast.

  “Leave it, Claire. Leave everything and get out.”

  “I can’t. One person in this family already ran. I won’t make it two.”

  “Well, maybe I won’t be family for long. Not once this gets out.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Claire said heavily. “I just know that I have to see this through to the end.” Quietly she disconnected. There was nothing more to be said.

  • • •

  They killed first because of a mass paranoia and then for the joy of it. Sometimes they turned on each other. Her uncle’s voice resonated in her head long after she punched end. And now it took on a new meaning as she processed the knowledge that her uncle had been one of them, a killer.

  “The killing fields,” she whispered and knew without a doubt that it was time.

  • • •

  “They came here to die,” she whispered as the cab pulled into the sandy dirt-packed lot just outside Phnom Penh. Ahead was a field strung with barbed wire and a small shanty with an open window, big enough to hold one man—a man who looked like he’d been transported from airport security. Claire handed over the fee. Her fingers felt stiff at the thought of exchanging money to view a monument to pain, humiliation and death.

  The memories were as real to her as they might have been had she lived through them. The seventies were Cambodia’s nightmare years, over a million people had died, many in unimaginable ways, and her Uncle Jack had been a part of that—one of those who had tortured and killed or simply starved his victims.

  She passed through the gate and stepped into a patch of land that was as ordinary as any pasture. Except here was where many of Cambodia’s citizens had been brought to die. The killing fields were now nothing more than mass graves.

  Claire shuddered. Blood seemed steeped into the earth. Yet despite her troubled thoughts and this tortured piece of land, on the other side of the barbed wire children giggled on a riverbank and scrubbed the rough hide of a sinewy cow. Their laugher floated over the signs that marked each mass grave and skimmed across the multistoried glass-encased monument that held bones too numerous to count, of unnamed, faceless people segregated on each level by sex and age. Nothing but bones and rotted cloth, and yet they were humanity whose final breath had been drawn here amid desperation and horror.

  It was all too much.

  As the cab flew down the dusty road and she left the killing fields behind, Claire pressed her face into the palm of her hands. While there had been no answers, it was what she needed to push forward. With a mystery mired in this bloody history weaving tightly around her, the story’s urgency pressed at her again and for a moment her own worries and fears vanished in the face of a horror that the world had forgotten for too many years. This was why she had become a journalist. The truth—it was everything.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  “Claire, what’s wrong?” Vanna stepped into her hotel room, taking in the unmade bed, the bag that remained unpacked. “I thought we were leaving today.”

  “We are. I booked a flight for four o’clock this afternoon.” She turned away, fighting for control.

  “What’s going on?”

  Vanna was behind her, her hands on her shoulders. “Tell me, Claire.”

  “I spoke to Jack.” She couldn’t bear to give him the respect she once had—his title, uncle.

  “Jack? Your uncle.”

  Claire wiped a tear that clung to the edge of her eyelashes and took a deep breath. “He admitted everything to me. How he worked with Samnang in the camps. How they were both Khmer Rouge.”

  “You knew that, Claire.”

  “I did,” she agreed. “But what I didn’t know was that Jack stole from the victims. He and Samnang were stealing jewelry from the prisoners. They had a plan to leave Cambodia rich men. Only one of them left.”

  “Jack,” Vanna breathed.

  “And left the other one to take the blame. Samnang was demoted within the party and only some fancy footwork on his part saved his life. And Jack fled to America.”

  “Are you going to turn him in?”

  “I couldn’t do that. I . . . I don’t know what I feel but he’s family, or at least he was.” She took another shaky breath. “I have a feeling Jack won’t be there when I get home. The time for Uncle Jack is done.” And she thought of her aunt and for once her death last year was a blessing. Hearing the truth about her husband would have killed her before the cancer ever could. “But something more important, Jack thinks Samnang would do anything to get back at him. He even went so far as to suggest that Samnang sought me
out.”

  “You, how would he . . .” Vanna bit her lip. “Oh, my God, Claire, Samnang has the inside scoop on immigration. He was passing himself off as a dead immigration officer.”

  “It’s more than that. Jack says that Samnang sent that article to me. Samnang phoned him after I’d left and let him know what he’d done and what he planned to do. So Samnang following me in Bangkok, no accident. The bust I purchased . . .” She hesitated. “I asked some questions at the local museum and discovered that the shop owner, Niran, had a bit of a reputation in the past for dealing with antiquities coming out of Cambodia and smuggling them through his shop to the West. He was a friend of Samnang’s, part of his gang, part of the smuggling that Samnang heads up.” She sat down, leaning on her hand, and looked up at Vanna. “Niran is dead.”

  “I don’t get it? What are you saying, Claire?”

  “That the Buddha I bought from Niran was real, not only real but, I suspect, worth more than most antiquities, and Samnang knew it. Not only am I revenge against Jack, Samnang used me first to flush out a traitor in his midst, Niran. Worse”—she swallowed—“Samnang set me up to be one of Niran’s antiquity transporters.”

  “You think Samnang killed Niran?”

  “I have no idea, Vanna. I’m only assuming. All I know is that Niran is dead and Samnang wants revenge on my uncle.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Ella already implied the same but Jack was very specific. He said an eye for an eye was basically Samnang’s mantra. He also said that seeing me hurt would rip his heart out and that is what Samnang is counting on.” She took a deep breath that bordered on a sigh. “Despite it all, my uncle is big on family. He never had any of his own, at least when he was young.” She raised pain-filled eyes to Vanna. “Maybe that’s why he became Khmer Rouge. They were his family.” She shook her head. “That’s sick, isn’t it?”