“I know. That was my thought also.”
But the problem was they didn’t know if the shooting was over, or if they still needed the protection more than the possible incrimination. After all, they had each shot someone and the ballistics would prove that. For now, though, Jake shoved his gun into the back of his pants and covered it with his shirt. Alexandra did the same. Then they casually went out into their hallway and wandered to their room, looking like scared hotel patrons. Just like their neighbors.
Once inside their room, Jake let out a deep breath. “Wow. That was intense.”
“It’s not over yet, cowboy,” Alexandra said. “Now what?”
Jake thought about that for a moment. He knew they had to get the hell out of this hotel. But how? The chaos of uncertainty.
“Let’s go,” Jake said. “I have a plan.”
“Of course you do,” she said. “That’s what I love about you.”
Getting back out into the hallway, Jake looked around and saw that the curious hotel guests didn’t seem to be too inquisitive anymore. He found the fire alarm and pulled it down, sending a piercing siren throughout the building. As people started to come out of their rooms, Jake and Alexandra gathered more than a dozen guests and escorted them out of the stairwell exit. This only worked, of course, if the bad guys cared who they shot.
Everything worked as planned until it didn’t.
When they got to the ground floor, the scene outside was chaotic, with a cluster of people going in all directions. The police had obviously lost all control of the scene. They were trying their best to check everyone who came out, but it looked like a man trying to drink from a fire hose. Finally, back in an outer perimeter, Jake caught a glimpse of the Asian woman. She was talking with a police officer, who seemed more interested in undressing her with his eyes than checking her for weapons. The problem was, she also saw Jake and Alexandra, cutting her chat with the policeman short and heading in their direction.
“This way,” Jake said, pulling on Alexandra’s arm.
He saw a way out of there. The ubiquitous tuk tuk machines, the modified motorcycles with the cart behind for two or three passengers, were already lined up on the street beyond the police cars. If the tuk tuk driver thought a fare was in the area, they would be there ready and waiting.
Jake found one that looked like the motorcycle was newer and might be fast. The two of them hopped aboard and told the driver to go.
“Where do we go?” the driver asked.
“Khmer Now Bar,” Jake said.
The driver smiled and said, “Same same but different. Nice place. Best lady boys in Siem Reap.” With that he drove off, the engine whining and sending smoke behind them.
Jake looked back and saw that the Asian woman had also gotten a tuk tuk. Great.
“Why are we going back there?” Alexandra asked in German.
“We aren’t. But it’s on the way to the airport. I didn’t want this guy saying he picked us up at the shooting hotel and drove us to the airport. But we have a problem. That Asian woman is on our tail.”
Alexandra looked behind them. “Outstanding.” She drew her gun and held it between the two of them aimed behind them.
The tuk tuk crossed the Siem Reap River and left the relatively remote area of the five-star hotel toward the downtown of Siem Reap. They were more than a mile from the hotel when the first gunfire broke the relative silence of the night.
Jake started to draw his gun, but he stopped when he saw where the bullet had struck — right in the back of their tuk tuk driver, which slumped the man over the gas tank of the motorcycle and brought them to a quick stop.
Without thinking, Jake jumped from the back and pulled the driver to the ground. As he jumped onto the motorcycle, Alexandra turned and shot behind them at the Asian woman.
Looking in the rearview mirror, Jake could see the other tuk tuk had also stopped. Why? Because the Asian woman had shoved her gun in her driver’s back and pistol-whipped the man, before getting behind the motorcycle on her own tuk tuk.
Jake gunned the throttle and the tuk tuk lurched forward as fast as it could go, the engine whining at the red line, knocking Alexandra into her seat. “Sorry,” Jake yelled.
He weaved his tuk tuk through traffic like a local as they entered Sivutha Boulevard, the main drive in the downtown area. But Jake and Alexandra had the advantage, since the Asian woman had to control the motorcycle with her right hand while she shot with her left. Alexandra could simply shoot while Jake drove. However, with the pot holes and weaving through traffic and avoiding pedestrians and bicyclists, Alexandra had not gotten many good shots in either. For a city in the hundreds of thousands, Siem Reap resembled an old town from America in the early twenties, with telephone lines and power cables running right over the top of the streets. And the law of this land on the highway was bigger went first, regardless of right-of-way.
Despite the traffic and the disorganized nature of the downtown region, nobody seemed to understand that a shoot-out was happening right now.
Jake felt something rubbing against his butt, so he looked back for a second and saw the structure that held the back cart to the motorcycle. He weaved around another tuk tuk and nearly hit an SUV. Then he looked back again and saw what he had to do.
“Get up here with me,” Jake yelled to Alexandra.
“What? Are you crazy?”
“Just do it,” he said.
She shot a couple more times and then climbed over the front end, straddled the bars that led to the motorcycle, and then nearly fell through to the street, catching her fall. Then with one swing of her legs, she thrust herself forward and landed on the back seat of the motorcycle.
Jake stood up on the pegs and said, “Get up here for a second and pull the pin, releasing the cart.”
She smiled and did as he said, getting herself scrunched behind Jake, her face right in his butt. Then she reached behind her and worked on the release pin.
“It won’t come,” Alexandra screamed.
There had to be too much tension on it. “Hang on. When I hit the brakes, you pull the pin.”
She nodded acknowledgement.
Jake let up on the gas and tapped the brakes. As the motorcycle and the trailing cart pulled closer together, Alexandra pulled the pin just at the right moment. The cart stopped behind them, and Jake immediately hit the gas. Without the cart, the motorcycle rushed forward much faster.
Alexandra pushed herself back over the bracket to the back seat and Jake sat down again.
By now they had gotten through the main downtown area, past Pub Street, and picked up more speed as they turned the corner to the road that led to the airport.
“Is she still following?” Jake asked over his shoulder.
She squeezed both arms around his waist. “No. We’re losing her. She almost ran into our cart. But there’s no way she can keep up with us now.”
They passed the Khmer Now Bar and Jake looked ahead on the highway. Damn it! There was a police road block ahead. They wouldn’t be leaving Siem Reap by air, he knew. Now what?
“You see that?” Jake said, as he slowed the motorcycle to find another way.
“That’s not good,” she said. “Now what?”
Jake turned the motorcycle down a side road, which was little more than a dirt trail. The road eventually ran along a narrow river, which seemed to seep out into massive rice patties. But with almost no lights out here, Jake had no real idea what lay ahead.
He pulled over and turned off the head light, but kept the engine at a sputtering idle.
Jake turned to Alexandra and said, “Have you ever taken a bus from Cambodia to Vietnam?”
“No way.”
“It’s the only thing that might not be checked by the police. But it would be better if we caught the bus in another town. We’ll have to take the motorcycle.”