Cigarette smoke drifted through the open doors, blue-grey and curling, as if someone had thrown a bomb in there.
Crawling, holding the Sony as far in front of me as I could, until direct light touched it from the open doors and I pulled it back an inch and froze. This was as far as I could go, and all I could do now was lie here to wait this thing out as the tape ran silently in the little recorder, the dark crescent narrowing on one side under the plastic window, widening on the other.
The beat of the heart against the wooden boards of the balcony, the deep slow rhythm of the breath bringing oxygen for the muscles, the adrenals producing fuel to fire the blood in the instant if something went wrong — if the toe of a boot moved into the light six feet, less, in front of me, as one of them came out to take the air.
Watch the little plastic window.
I would have liked to lie here with both palms flat on the boards, ready to push up if I had to, but that wasn't possible: I must keep hold of the Sony with my right hand, and that made things awkward. But what do we expect, we the doughty ferrets in the field, when we go out on the limb — a six-month guarantee that the bloody thing won't break?
I don't like this
Nor do I, so shut up, I'm trying to concentrate.
If someone comes out, you won't have time.
God's sake piss off, I'm busy.
The tape narrowing on one side, widening on the other through the little window, reek of the tobacco smoke, the rough grain of the boards under my left hand, under my right wrist, the sound of a truck in the distance, its lights sending a silver spark of reflection moving across the chrome case of the Sony, watch the tape, watch it, we've been here fifteen minutes now, don't let that thing shut off, it'll sound like a bloody bomb, we seem, we seem to have bombs, don't we, bombs on the brain, quite so, images of violence in the mind as we lie here like a corpse, a cadaver, shall we do that if we see a boot suddenly in the doorway, if one of them comes onto the balcony, just go on lying here like a corpse, play dead with our paws in the air?
Conceivably ill-advised.
Watch the tape. Just watch the tape and clear the mind of boots and bombs and pandemonium and things that go bang in the night as they grab the rifle and bring it into the aim, bang and you're dead before you're even on your feet, my good friend, my good late friend with your blood all over the — watch the tape, that's all we have to do, we clear the mind of the bogeymen and watch the tape.
Widening on one side, narrowing on the other through the little window, the voices pitching up and falling again, the smoke drifting across the light.
Watch the tape. Twenty minutes now.
But it's no go — look.
Boot of the bogeyman.
8: PLAYBACK
I saw his eyes in the instant before I was on my feet and he was going for his gun when I hit the balcony rail and it broke as I tilted across it and began falling with the air-rush against my face, pushing the Sony into my field jacket and kicking out to keep my body vertical, kicking again and tilting forward so that I could let the legs jack-knife to absorb the initial impact, and when I hit ground at that angle I went straight into a forward aikido roll with my head tucked down out of the way and the right shoulder taking the worst of it, sending me spinning as the vertical momentum became rotational and I rolled twice, three times before it was exhausted and I could straighten my legs and start pitching forward into a fast run, and by this time a lot of shouting had broken out above me and in the blur of images I saw a gun come up from the hip and heard the shot thud into the rain-sodden earth a foot distant as I reached the corner of the building and rapid fire began puckering the ground.
Running flat out, the Sony in my hand now to make sure it stayed with me, running flat out for the Mazda, a lot of noise side the villa, boots on the stairs like distant thunder as I closed on the car, twenty yards, fifteen, ten, with the air smelling sweet after the rain as I sucked it into my lungs, a night bird calling and then a burst of fire going into the roof of the car as I dragged the door open and pitched inside and got the engine going and gunned up and took the thing away with the lights still off and the rear wheels sending a mud-wave across the Peugeot standing alongside and then finding traction as I brought the power down and waited and then took it up again with the treads biting now as we headed for the crushed-stone track through an avenue of palms.
Light began flooding from behind as I reached the track and gave the Mazda the full gun and switched my own lights on because there were buildings here, call them huts, white-washed and peeling and huddled among the palm trees, some of the windows lit by kerosene lamps inside. There wasn't a dog's chance of outrunning the pack behind me because it was less than half a mile away and closing, and the next group of shots smashed into the bodywork and I ducked and started looking for options as the rear window snowed and glass whirled inside the car from the backdraught. If I switched off my lights at this speed I'd crash, and if I left them on I'd present the Mazda as a perfect target and it was a matter of time, seconds, before a shot blew my head open so I hit the brakes when I saw a side track coming up and put the Mazda into a controlled slide with more huts looming in the swinging wash of the lights and then I cut them and drove blind and used the brakes again and slid to a stop and hit the door open and pitched out and slammed it shut behind me and broke into a run as the pack swerved into the side track and its lights flooded across the buildings and the leading gunner saw the Mazda and started work on it with a burst of shots, and by the time I reached the shelter of the huts they were putting enough fire power into it to blow a tank away, and the last I saw of it was a small metal carcass standing there frozen in the glare of their lights until a shot sparked the fuel and there was a fireball turning the buildings red in a man-made sunset as I went on running for the darkness beyond, just a steady jog because it was going to take time for them to move in close enough to see there was no charred relic sitting there at the wheel of the burned-out wreck.
She was standing near the ferry station on the river, leaning against the rotting timber wall, part of it in the half-dark, had done some training somewhere, I wouldn't have seen her if this hadn't been the rendezvous.
I stopped within fifty yards and waited. I'd picked up a battle-weary Mercedes 300D from another black market dealer near the airport, two of the wings bent and the air-conditioning on the fritz, got him out of bed and crossed his palm with 200,000 riel, enough to buy the bloody thing, but you get what you pay for and what I'd paid for was a fresh set of wheels under me and a shut mouth, he'd never know who I was unless he saw my face again and I wasn't going to let him. He could be a Khmer Rouge agent on the side, anyone could, you had to shake your shoes out whenever you put them on.
She was walking slowly towards me, Gabrielle, across the broken boards of the quay, but I didn't get out of the car: I wanted to see if she'd picked up any ticks. She hadn't. She had a camera slung from her left shoulder as usual, and I saw fatigue in her walk, fatigue from looking for crippled children to photograph, from finding them.
I pushed the door open for her and she got in.
'Ca va?' she asked me.
'Ca va.'
I started up and took the Mercedes past the first wharf and found cover between two trucks, one of them spilling ropes and barrels, the other listing on three wheels. Moonlight sparked off the river as the ripples reached the quay.