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?”