“I just hope to God you’re important,” I told him in English, “or we’re both going to wind up dead.”
He was saying something that I couldn’t understand, which I guess made us even. A semicircle of armed men stood around us, their guns pointed at me. I worked my way backward so that my back was against a wall. I kept my grip on the important little man, and the tip of my dagger stayed within an inch of his throat.
“If you do not cooperate, you will die,” I told him, in Khmer this time. “Tell your men to throw their weapons down upon the floor. Do this at once!”
He said something unintelligible. The soldiers were still holding their weapons.
“Tell them,” I said reasonably. I pricked the skin over his Adam’s apple with the dagger. He was trembling in my grasp. His voice shaky, he conveyed my order to his men. Rifles and pistols bounced crazily on the bare concrete floor. One discharged, and a bullet ricocheted wildly from wall to ceiling to wall.
“The Thai who was taken prisoner last night,” I said. “Where is he?”
“The ravisher of my daughter?”
So this was the commandant, I thought. “That’s the one,” I said. “Where is he being held?”
“He is to die for his crimes.”
“He is to go free. Where is he?”
“What do you want with him?”
I prodded him again with the dagger. “I shall cut out your heart,” I said gently, “and your liver, and I shall roast your intestines in the fire. Tell your men to lead us to the prisoner’s cell. Do not waste time.”
“You will die.”
“Yes, but not right now. Give them the order.”
He barked it out, his voice cracking before he reached the end of the sentence. The men – there were about a dozen of them – led the way to a small room at the end of a long corridor to the right. They were a disorganized bunch, those soldiers. Their training had made no provision for such an emergency, and they did not know what they were supposed to do. They had been taught, like all good soldiers everywhere, to obey unquestioningly all orders of a superior officer and to avoid taking matters into their own hands. The little commander followed a still older code, the ancient law of self-preservation. And thus the men led the way to Dhang’s cell, and the commander, pale and trembling, stared cross-eyed at the dagger that touched his throat.
More orders. A heavy iron door was unbolted and drawn open. At the far end of a dank, windowless room a half-naked Dhang, the upper portion of his body scarred badly with the marks of the lash, stood upon the tips of his toes. His hands were tied to a pipe overhead, and his toes just barely reached the ground. He did not seem to recognize me at first but stared ahead dully.
The sight of him infuriated me, and I came very close to ruining everything by killing the commandant then and there out of sheer pique. But I snapped out a brace of orders, which he conveyed to his men. They cut Dhang free, and he sprawled face-down on the floor. I shouted at him. He shook himself, looked up at me, then struggled to his feet.
“Heaven! You have come…”
I tossed him a chunk of betel. He popped it gratefully into his mouth. “There’s very little time,” I told Dhang. “We have to get out of here.” I singled out one of the soldiers who was about Dhang’s height and build and had the commandant tell him to get out of his uniform. He did this, and Dhang dressed himself in the soldier’s clothing. He didn’t exactly look as though he had been born to wear a uniform, but it wasn’t a bad fit.
“I could have had her, Evan. So beautiful she was! And she wanted me, too. They said I tried to have her against her will, but in truth she wanted me. She-”
The commandant cursed and tried to make a lunge for Dhang. I tightened my grip on him.
“Such a sweet cunat,” Dhang went on. “And in another moment she would have been mine, but then this pig had to intrude.” And he cleared his throat and spat in the commander’s face.
I couldn’t really blame him.
“No time now,” I said. “We have to hurry. Tuppence is somewhere in the building. Have you seen her? The girl?”
“No.”
“We’ll have to find her. Go back toward the front door and make sure it’s locked. And pick up a couple of pistols from the floor, one for yourself and one for me.” I backed off toward the door, dragging the head man with me.
“Tell your men to sit down,” I ordered him. “Tell them to seat themselves upon the floor and remain there until they are called.”
He did, and they did. We left the room with the dozen men inside it, and I toed the door shut, then bolted it. The fever hit suddenly, slamming me with a wave of dizziness and nausea. I swayed on my feet and very nearly dropped the dagger. I drew a deep breath and tried to catch hold of myself. The building, I thought, I had to get into the building. No, that was wrong, I was already inside the building, and now I had to find Tuppence and get out of it.
I spun the little man around and backed him against the wall. “The girl,” I said. “Where is she?”
“There is no girl.”
“The black girl.”
“There is no black girl.”
“Damn you, where is she?”
“There is no black girl.”
I transferred my dagger to my left hand, made a fist of the right hand, and hit him in the mouth with it. He caromed off the wall and stumbled toward me. I hit him again. He sagged against the wall, wiping at the blood that trickled from his mouth.
“You may kill me if you wish,” he said stiffly. “There is no black girl here. I will not tell you anything.”
I started to swing at him, then caught myself in time. Dhang was trotting down the hallway, moving gingerly over the floor: I found out later that they had beaten the soles of his feet. Dhang handed me a pistol and kept one for himself.
“There were soldiers there,” he told me.
“What happened?”
“They saw the uniform and thought I was one of them. I picked up the guns and shot them.” I hadn’t even heard the shots. “I closed the door, Heaven. But much is happening outside. Flames and screaming. We must get out of here.”
“This pig won’t tell me where the girl is.”
“Shall I kill him?”
“No. We’ll need him later.” I wished I could think straight. She had to be somewhere inside the building, I decided.
I cupped my hands and shouted. “Tuppence! Tuppence, where are you? Tuppence!”
A muffled cry came in answer from off to the left. Dhang led the way, and I grabbed up the little commander, and we ran. I shouted, and she called out in answer, and we kept running to the sound of her voice until we found the room.
The door was locked. The commander denied possession of a key, and there was no time to find out whether he was lying or not. I called out for Tuppence to stand aside, and put three bullets in the lock before it fell apart. The door flew open, and there was Tuppence.
“Evan, baby! Like where did you come from?”
“Later,” I said. “This is Dhang, he’s a friend, he doesn’t speak English. This is the Lord High Everything-Else, he-”
“I know him,” she said contemptuously. She went on to describe him as a fulfiller of oedipal desires. “How’d you get here, baby?”
“Later.”
“Kendall and Willie and Chick and Niles -”
“I know. Dead.”
“Goddamn.”
Dhang was chattering excitedly at my elbow. I didn’t pay any attention to him. “You can tell me about it later,” I told Tuppence. “First we’ve got to get out of here. There’s a boat waiting. We’ll go out the back door and-”
“What’s the matter, baby? You all right?”
I had stopped abruptly in midsentence. It was the fever, coming on worse than before. All of a sudden everything I looked at was tinted a furious red. I blinked the redness away and shook myself free of the fever’s grip.