“You want me to buzz you just beforehand?”
“Yes. I’ll excuse myself to take the call.”
“It’s just going to be the two of you? I don’t want to send my very best to the wrong address.”
“Just the two of us. There’ll be a couple of bodyguards, but they won’t be at our table. And they’ll be fore and aft when we exit. The principal and I will be side-by-side.”
“Good enough. I’ll call when I’m ready.”
He clicked off and headed out. The hotel staff had thoughtfully parked the Honda right out front, and it took him less than twenty minutes to make sure he wasn’t being followed and then to cross the Friendship Bridge to the east side of the Tonlé Sap River. He buzzed briskly along the pavement, past gated two-story riverfront residences, the lights inside warm and glowing. Evening insects flew spot-lit through the beam of the bike’s headlight and occasionally smacked invisibly into his facemask. Farther along, the houses grew more modest and the road tapered off to dirt. He slowed and rode along until he reached the water’s edge. A hotel construction site, which he’d seen earlier in the week, was to his right, its skeletal framework of I-beams looming against the night sky. The good news was, the developers had obviously chased off any squatters who might have been living in shacks here. The bad news was, the site was guarded at night.
He cut clockwise around the site and put-putted along an even narrower and more rutted dirt road, swerving periodically to avoid a crater or a broken cinder block, the river now to his left. To his right were giant mounds of dirt, most of them covered in weeds, and he assumed the dirt was dumped here after being excavated for the hotel’s foundation. Unlike the site itself, this area wasn’t guarded because even in Cambodia, nobody was going to steal dirt. And none of it was inhabited, because by day the developers would shoo squatters away. From the top of any of the mounds, he’d be at a slight elevation to the riverbank, with perfect line-of-sight to the opposite side.
He cut the engine and pulled off the helmet. It was quite dark, with just a little light reflecting off the surface of the river from the restaurants and bars on the other side. The air was perfectly still. He wiped his face with a shirtsleeve, then waited while his eyes adjusted. He listened. He could hear, faintly, the sounds of traffic and conversation from the other side of the river. Other than that, nothing but the chirping of insects.
He parked the bike alongside a tree fifty yards back from the river. Then he walked off and got prone in the weeds atop one of the dirt mounds. He took out the rifle, popped in the magazine, racked a round, and sighted across the river. It took him less than a minute to find Khmer Borane, and he saw immediately he was in luck. Gant was sitting outside, with—
What the fuck?
He looked away, then back. No, there was no question. It was the Khmer guy from breakfast, the one who looked like the Dalai Lama, the one the staff treated like a big shot, who was greeting all the foreign guests. That guy was Sorm?
Gant and the Khmer were both seated on the same side of the table, facing the river, presumably so they could both enjoy the view. He scanned left and right and saw the two bodyguards from the restaurant, positioned at the front corners of the patio.
He watched Gant and the Khmer for a moment. From their expressions and gestures, they seemed to be chatting easily though earnestly, each in his own way exuding an aura of relaxed confidence. But while there was something faintly smarmy about Gant’s manner, the Khmer had that air of… shit, what was it? Good humor? Good will? Beneficence?
This guy was former Khmer Rouge, now running dope and trafficking kids into sex slavery?
No. No way.
He put in an earpiece and punched Gant’s number into his mobile from memory, then went back to the scope. A moment later, Gant reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out his phone. He glanced at the readout, offered what must have been an “excuse me” to the Khmer, walked out to the sidewalk, and stood to the side of the restaurant.
“Fire when ready,” he said, his tone droll.
“Who’s that you’re with?” Dox said.
There was a slight pause. “Sorm. Take the shot.”
“No, sir. Whoever Sorm is, that ain’t him. Something’s rotten here in Denmark, and I want to know what it is.”
Gant looked out across the river, his eyes darting left and right.
“No, you’re not going to see me,” Dox said. “But I see you. That’s a nice shirt, by the way. Red becomes you. Did you wear it in case you were standing close by at the moment of truth?”
“I did, in fact. Just a precaution. We’re wasting time.”
“That’s right, we are. Anytime you make me ask you something twice you’re wasting my time. So again. Who the fuck is that you’re with?”
Gant furrowed his brow and glanced in Dox’s direction again. He looked more irritated than afraid. “What difference does it make who he is?”
Christ, what did the guy think, he was bulletproof? “You lied to me, Mr. Gant. We’re not well acquainted, so maybe you don’t know that kind of thing makes me stubborn. Regardless, unless you can figure out something mighty convincing to tell me in the next few seconds, I’m just going to keep your deposit, wish you a lovely evening, and ride on out of here.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Gant said. “The people who hired you for this aren’t the kind you want to play around with.”
“Oh, are you threatening me now? That doesn’t just make me stubborn. It makes me angry. Did you know, through this fancy Leupold scope you got me, I can see the individual beads of perspiration on your forehead? Like that one that just rolled down your left temple. Go ahead, wipe it away, I’ll wait.”
“Damn it, what is your problem? This is business. The assignment is real. The money is real. You accepted your part. Now hold up your end. Take the shot.”
“Not until you tell me what’s really going on here and who that hombre really is.”
“No.”
“Fine by me. Hasta la vista, shit-for-brains.”
“Now you wait one goddamned minute—”
Dox clicked off. He put the earpiece and the phone back in his pocket but, out of an abundance of caution, dialed the rifle back to one hundred yards and kept it locked and loaded. He decided not to approach the bike from the river head on, but rather from behind, a direction that wouldn’t be expected. Maybe he was being paranoid, but the fact that Gant had tried to bullshit him had him spooked. He stood and circled back toward the bike, slowly, toe-heel, sighting through the night scope as he moved, scanning left and right.
He came around one of the dirt mounds twenty yards from the bike. There were three young Khmer guys skulking in the shadows under the tree, all in dark pants and dark tee shirts.
Each of them held a blade.
His heart rate kicked up a notch and he felt a welcome surge of adrenalin spread out from his trunk to his limbs. He breathed in and out, slowly and silently, watching them through the scope. No sign they’d detected him. He checked his flanks and his back. No other problems. He looked back at the Khmers. Had he been followed here? He’d been damned careful on the way. He glanced at the rifle. Gant. He must have put some kind of tracking device in it. The adjustable butt stock. Of course. And here he’d thought the man was just doing his job, providing him top equipment. He felt his face flush with anger.
All right. One problem at a time. He moved in until he was only thirty feet away. “Hey,” he called out softly, watching them through the scope. “Did Gant not tell you I had night vision?”