With a long sigh, he went to the hotel safe, unlocked it, and withdrew his laptop and an unusual USB card reader. When the computer had booted up, he took the original business card, the one he had retrieved from Boonmee, and inserted it into the reader. A window opened on his computer screen, and he downloaded the contents of the microchip embedded in the thick paper of the card. He packaged it as an audio file and e-mailed it to Washington.
Fifteen minutes later his account chimed and he downloaded the return e-mail.
Call to cell phone number: 855-0369-67985
Location of receiving phone: Sisophon, Cambodia
Registered owner of receiving phone: Prum Forgang
Transcription of conversation (translated from Thai):
A: Hello?
B: This is Boonmee Adirake. Much health and prosperity to you, Prum Forgang.
A: I am honored to receive your call, Boonmee Adirake.
B: I have an American looking to buy ten thousand carats of honey stones.
A: You know very well I can't get that much.
B: Let me explain. This man was carrying a colored topaz, not even in a lead box. He knows nothing. He has rich backers and it's a one-time deal. He's an idiot. We could sell him anything.
A: What do you suggest?
B: An assortment of raw, low-grade honey stones, mixed in with enhanced topaz or heat-treated citrine.
A: That I can do.
B: I need them within twenty-four hours. The man is in a hurry.
A: Good for you that he is in a hurry. And?
B: I will get the highest possible price and you will get forty percent of it.
A: Forty percent? My dear friend! Why this lack of fairness? I'm the one supplying the goods at my own expense. Make it fifty.
B: Forty-five. I found the customer.
A: Forty-five is a most awkward number. I'm hurt you would nickel and dime me like some cheap hustler and not an old and trusted associate.
B: You're the one arguing over five percent.
A: I have four children to think about, Adirake, and a wife who is like a bird with her beak open all the time. No, I will not do it for forty-five. I insist on fifty.
B: By the testicles of Yaksha! All right, I will make it fifty--this time. Forty for the next deal.
A: Accepted. You will of course look carefully into the background of this American before you deal with him. And you will get a suitable down payment.
B: You can be sure I will.
A: Excellent. I'll assemble the shipment and send it off by my courier this evening. You'll have it tomorrow morning.
Ford closed the computer and leaned back in the chair, thinking. Sisophon was a chaotic, medium-sized city on the main road from Thailand to Siem Reap, Cambodia, a haven for smuggling, forgery, and counterfeiting. He flicked open his cell, dredged up a number from memory, and punched it in. He wasn't sure if the number would still be working--or if the man at the other end would even be alive.
A cheerful voice answered immediately, speaking English in a lilting accent that was a cross between upper-crust British and Chinese. "Hello, Khon speaking!"
Ford felt a flood of relief to hear the man's voice again. He was alive and, by the sound of it, very well indeed. "Khon? It's Wyman Ford."
"Ford? You old dog! Where the hell have you been and what the damn brings you back to the Royaume du Cambodge?" Khon loved to swear in English but never quite managed to pull it off.
"I've got an assignment for you."
A groan came over the crackling lines. "Oh no."
"Oh yes," said Ford, "and it's a good one."
10
The Marea glided into the passage between Marsh Island and Louds Island, the water green and calm, reflecting the dark trees of both shores. Abbey Straw steered into an isolated cove, pulled the throttle back into neutral, and reversed it briefly, bringing the boat to a halt.
"First mate, drop anchor!"
Jackie bounded forward, pulled the pin on the anchor, and played the chain out of the locker. "We're all alone," she called back. "No boats around."
"Perfect." Abbey glanced at her watch. "Six hours of daylight to look for the meteorite."
"I'm famished."
"We'll pack lunch."
They climbed in the dingy and rowed the hundred yards to the pebbly beach. Pulling the rowboat above the high-tide mark, they stood on the deserted beach, looking around. They were at the wild end of the island, the beach strewn with the detritus of winter, broken lobster traps, buoys, driftwood, and rope. The tide was ebbing, exposing seaweed-covered rocks in the cove, which humped out of the water like the hairy heads of sea monsters. A smell of salt mingled with evergreens hung in the damp, cold air. Where the beach ended a dense forest of black spruce rose up. Louds was all but deserted this time of year, the island's few seasonal summer camps shuttered. Nobody would bother them.
"Man, it's thick," said Jackie, contemplating the wall of forest. "How're we gonna find a meteorite in there?"
"By the crater and smashed trees. Believe me, a hundred-pound rock going a hundred thousand miles an hour is going to leave a mess." Abbey got out her chart and spread it on the sand, weighing down the corners with stones. The line she had drawn sliced across the island at an angle, intersecting the beach they'd landed at. She laid her compass on the map and adjusted the bearing, stood up, and took a heading.
"We go this way," she said, pointing.
"You bet."
Abbey led the way into the deep spruce forest. She remembered a poem she'd had to memorize in school and recite one evening in front of the school and her parents. She'd choked up and forgotten it completely--stood there on stage for one long, agonizing minute before rushing off in tears--but now it sprang into her head unbidden.
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic.
That was sort of the story of her life: bad timing.
She ventured deeper into the woods, following the compass bearing. A dim, greenish light penetrated through the tall trees, and the wind sighed through the distant treetops. It was like walking up the aisle of a vast green cathedral, the trees like massive columns, the ground springy and carpeted in moss. Abbey inhaled the rich piney scent, recalling the many times she had camped on the island as a little girl with her mother and father, in the meadow on the north end. They lay in their sleeping bags under the night sky, counting the shooting stars. Back then the island was completely abandoned, the old farmhouses sagging and falling into ruin. Now retired people had started buying them up for cottages and the island was changing. Soon, she thought, all the wildness, the atmosphere of desertion and desuetude would be gone, replaced by cute summer cottages, lace curtains, and gangster grandmas shooing kids off their property.
The forest grew thicker, and they had to crawl on hands and knees underneath a series of fallen tree trunks.
"I don't see any craters," said Jackie.
"We've hardly begun."
They soon broke into a clearing, a stone wall enclosing a huddle of tombstones. The old island cemetery.
"Lunchtime!" cried Jackie, climbing over the wall, shucking her pack and flopping herself down. With her back against a tombstone, she began rolling a joint.