‘No,’ she said. It wasn’t right. He didn’t own her, she didn’t love him. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘No, David.’ And she tried to push him away. He resisted, pressing down on her hard.
‘It’s alright, Lisa. It’ll be alright.’
But she knew it wouldn’t. ‘No!’ And with a great effort she pulled herself away from under him, sitting up fastening her bra and pulling down her top. He looked at her, mouth tight, eyes filled with anger.
‘What the fuck’s wrong with you!’ he shouted.
‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she said, with all the control she could muster. But her voice was trembling. ‘I think you’d better go.’
‘I think I had.’ He got to his feet and looked at her with patent hostility, running his hands back through his hair as if trying to smooth his ruffled pride. ‘Don’t expect me to call.’
‘I won’t,’ she said to his back as he turned towards the door. ‘And even if you did I wouldn’t be here.’
He stopped, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve already applied for my passport,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving early next week.’
‘For where?’ He glared at her in consternation.
‘Bangkok,’ she said. ‘To find my father.’
Chapter Thirteen
The long dusty drive south-west to Aranyaprathet was tedious. The unbroken flatness of the paddy fields stretching away on either side of a long straight road that sat up on an embankment rising a metre above the surrounding countryside. The air conditioning in Tuk’s car made it difficult to believe it was hot out there — crucifyingly hot under the December sun.
‘In the rainy season,’ Tuk said brightly, ‘this road is impassable, under almost a metre of water.’
Elliot, Slattery and McCue sat in the back, silenced by the monotony of the drive, while Tuk sat in the front beside his driver, chatting animatedly.
Mak Moun camp, he told them, was effectively controlled by a man called Van Saren, a captain in the army of Lon Nol before the Khmer Rouge victory. Tuk turned in his seat and smiled. ‘Well, so he says. He might have been a lieutenant, but even that’s doubtful. He calls himself Marshal and claims to be the most honourable of the Khmer Serei. It is he who will arrange your border crossing.’ He laughed. ‘Actually, he smuggles teak and artefacts out of Cambodia for me. He’s a nice man. You’ll like him.’ He laughed again, and Elliot felt there was something unpleasant in the laugh.
The previous night Tuk had taken the three of them to Bangkok’s dockland, to a lock-up among a jumble of deserted warehouses. There, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, they had selected weapons and equipment from what was virtually an arsenal. The Colt Commando variation of the M16 automatic rifle, M26 anti-personnel hand grenades, Colt.45 automatic pistols. McCue had picked out a long, lethal hunting knife that hung from a belted sheath that strapped high up round the shoulder. He handled it with a kind of reverence and had to be persuaded to take an automatic rifle. ‘Never carried one in the tunnels,’ he said. ‘Too goddam clumsy!’
They were to travel light, but Elliot insisted that Slattery pack a shortwave radio-receiver. Tuk had promised to have everything delivered to a pick-up point near the border once it had been decided exactly where they were to make their crossing. And now that he had been paid, he was full of false bonhomie. Not one of the men in the back of the car trusted him.
Aranyaprathet had been transformed from a sleepy, forgotten little border town into a thriving and expanding mini-metropolis by the influx of refugees, and by the medical and relief agencies that had moved in to meet their needs. The town was thick with foreigners and commerce and traffic of all kinds. Bars and shops and clubs had sprung up everywhere, as they had in the North American goldrush boom towns. Only here the gold was flesh, and the currency human misery. There was a large Thai army presence and a growing administration complex, the fruits of a burgeoning bureaucracy, to control the comings and goings of all manner of people — refugees, journalists, troops, traders, prostitutes, and large numbers of workers from the international relief agencies. Trucks lumbered in from Bangkok throughout the day, bringing the decadent goods of an alien Western culture to feed the black-market economy.
‘The trucks only travel by day,’ Tuk said. ‘The road is controlled by bandits after dusk. Cars and trucks are attacked and robbed, and the drivers often killed. The army surrenders control after the sun goes down.’
They spent a hot sticky hour below a broken ceiling fan in a room filled with the human flotsam of war, while Tuk spoke long and heatedly with recalcitrant Thai officials. Finally Tuk and the officials disappeared into another room. When they came out again, ten minutes later, Tuk was smiling broadly. ‘All fixed,’ he said. ‘We can go now.’ Vacant eyes watched them leave.
Outside the heat of the sun seared the skin and the senses, and it was a merciful relief to slip back into the air-conditioned comfort of Tuk’s car.
Mak Moun came as a shock, even after the poverty and corruption of Bangkok and Aranyaprathet. This largest of the Cambodian encampments on the border was little better than a rural slum. The place was black with flies, a huge depressing sprawl of small huts crammed together, refuse piled in stinking heaps, broken bottles and empty cans, decaying scraps of food scraped from meagre plates, a flyblown chicken carcass. Men and women and children squatting to defecate in a nearly dried-up stream running through the camp were almost obscured by the flies. The stench of human excrement was choking. Young Thai soldiers carrying rifles or automatic weapons wandered arrogantly between the rows of huts, occasionally shouting at the children. Any who dared to argue with them were rewarded with a blow from a rifle butt.
As they drove through the camp they watched a soldier strike an old woman several times about the head with a long cane, until blood appeared oozing from her hair. Elliot felt his scalp tighten with anger. Tuk grinned back at them and shrugged philosophically. ‘Life in the camps,’ he said. ‘But what can one do?’
‘We could kick the shit out of that bastard for a start!’ Slattery growled.
‘That would not be very wise, Mr Slattery. Van Saren’s people would only shoot you. The Thai army presence here is for show only. They are happy to let Van Saren police the camp. People are often shot trying to leave. Van Saren could not have his position undermined by allowing a foreigner to attack a soldier. Oh yes, and remember,’ he added, ‘to call him Marshal. Marshal Van. He is a little eccentric, but his control is very effective.’
‘Effective in what way?’ Elliot asked.
‘He controls distribution of the food that the ICRC and UNICEF truck in every day. And on the border, Mr Elliot, food is power.’
The car drew up outside a hut near the camp’s administration centre and they all got out. Tuk waved at the hut. ‘Van’s kingdom,’ he said. Not ten metres away a squalid, half-starved group of women were trying to wash themselves in the same dried-up slick that doubled as an open sewer.
‘And I thought I’d seen everything,’ Slattery said, brushing the flies from his face. ‘Jeez, if the world needed an enema this is where they’d stick the fucking tube.’
Elliot glanced at McCue, who had remained silent throughout their journey. He was impassive, his face betraying no trace of emotion. But his eyes missed nothing, and Elliot sensed a tension in him. He was beginning to regret having come here at all.