The Brittle Limit, a Novel (30 page)

Andrew watched Flint standing by the cart,
leaning her slim hip on the cart’s metal edge as she poked at the
sandwiches and selected her next victim. She looked at Andrew as
she chewed.

“It’d be nice to have lunch wheeled in
everyday, huh? Right to your desk. Easy access,” she said.

Andrew nodded absently. Then struck by a
thought, Andrew’s eyes grew wide. He grabbed Flint’s arm, squeezing
harder than intended, and she flinched in both surprise and
pain.

“Ouch!” Flint exclaimed.

“I got it!” Andrew said, more loudly than he
needed to in the small room.

“Got what?” Flint asked, rubbing her arm.

“His plan. His back-up plan.”

Flint had heard Andrew crack cases wide open
but she had never seen it in person. She watched him.

“Explain.”

“Tourists. Temples.” He slammed his hand
against the map, to land on the red ‘X’ of Siem Reap. “Angkor
Wat.”

Shock spread across Flint’s face, as she
registered the magnitude of a terror attack on the country’s
greatest temple, its source of pride, the sign of its greatness.
The central attraction for tourists.

Andrew continued, "Every morning it’s packed
solid with tourists, watching the dawn break over the temple’s
spires. That’s his plan, to target those tourists, from all over
the world. It will incite the fear and hysteria he’s been
preaching."

Flint agreed. “If that’s true, if that’s his
target, there will be nothing comparable left to see in this
country. Tourism will die a sudden, ugly death.”

Andrew bolted from the room. “Not if I can
help it.”

Chapter 39

Pchum Ben Day

In the darkness, the woman worked. Her hands,
small and brown, spotted from years in the fields, scooped handful
after handful of cooked white rice, sweet with coconut milk, from a
large clay bowl, molding the rice into firm mounds. She lined them
in tight rows on rectangular white platters and sprinkled these
with sesame seeds. Finished, she surveyed her work. Satisfied, she
wiped her hands on a red apron and prepared for the trip to feed
her long dead ancestors.

*******

Alarm clocks sounded early on the Sunday
morning. Tourists roused themselves and dressed, drank coffees and
teas and wandered, half-awake, down from their hotel rooms into
lobbies in guest houses across Siem Reap.

The buses began to arrive to the guest houses
at 5:10 AM. They lined the streets and waited in the dark to take
the sleepy sightseers on the short ride to Angkor Wat for sunrise.
Sunrise was at 6:09 this morning.

Andrew had flown in from Phnom Penh
overnight, stopping briefly by Severine’s apartment.

Now, he stood in front of the dark temple of
Angkor Wat, waiting. A few ambitious tourists had already arrived,
seeking the best view.

Andrew had memorized Hakk’s treatise Socheat
had translated for him. Most of it made sense now, with what they
knew, but one line of it niggled at him.

“Through the dead we give thanks and offer
them our tomorrows.”

He was missing something. It was there in the
shadows of consciousness. He nudged at it mentally like a loose
tooth.

Buses arrived. Passengers debarked, jockeying
for position by the wide moat below the temple. Those who arrived
late would grumble in the back, straining their necks.

In the darkness, Andrew watched the tourists
assemble into a shuffling crowd, waiting to be awed by this
combination of man and nature, sun rising over ancient stone.

A small team of local military, courtesy of
the Prime Minister, wandered through the growing crowd. They had
been instructed to be unobtrusive, to avoid alarm or panic, and to
follow Andrew’s lead. They glanced at Andrew now and again.

Behind the crowd, local vendors set up their
pushcarts for the day’s trade, with guidebooks and temple replicas,
wooden necklaces and carved stone elephants. Their carts were chock
full of cheap merchandise ready for the tourist season.

These were Andrew’s main concern. Packed with
heavy explosives, a pushcart could be a perfect weapon to decimate
this assembled crowd. The military men walked by the vendors
slowly, suspicious of everyone, their bomb sniffing dogs snuffling
along the ground, finding nothing.

Andrew walked along the line of carts that
now encircled the tourists. In yesterday’s planning, they had
considered banning the vendors today but decided that would tip
their hand, signal whoever was orchestrating the coming
destruction.

Andrew walked by the vendors, watching for
shifty behavior, any sign of nerves. One vendor caught his
attention, an anxious, emaciated man with a slim goatee tapping his
foot and shifting left and right as he watched the temple in the
growing light. Andrew approached him.

“Hey, buddy, got a light?” Andrew called out,
as he stepped close to the man. The man jumped, surprised, his
shoulders up, a reflex. He rummaged in his pockets. Sweat broke out
on his brow.

Behind them, the sun cast deep orange rays,
lighting up the sky. The pineapple-shaped cones stood in stark
silhouette.

“No, no light, no smoke, sorry,” the man
said, chewing on his lower lip, his eyes rolling into the back of
his head. Andrew knew a junkie when he saw one. This guy had
something to hide.

Without warning, Andrew toppled the man’s
wooden pushcart, its contents spilling onto the dirt road. As the
man complained loudly, staring at his livelihood strewn about in a
broken mess, Andrew rummaged through the cart’s contents, looking
for guns, a bomb, anything. But it was only worthless trinkets:
Bracelets, temple replicas, and plastic Buddhas.

The assembled crowd was oblivious, only a few
people glancing behind them at the minor commotion then turning
back to watch the sun. As the sunlight brightened from orange to
deep yellow, camera shutters clicked. The crowd murmured in
awe.

Andrew stood, staring down at the mess he had
made, while the vendor chided him in Khmer. The man’s friends
approached, also vendors, cursing at Andrew for harassing a man
sick with break bone fever. The undercover cops approached to
disperse the growing group of disgruntled local vendors.

Andrew turned back to look at the temple and
the massive crowd. How could he be so wrong? He had been certain
the bomb would be concealed in one of the vendor carts lining the
road. It was the simplest way for Hakk to inflict major damage,
both immediate and long term. Andrew had warned the others to be on
the look out for vendors: Flint was watching the US Embassy;
Socheat was staged near Wat Phnom, his contacts throughout the
countryside notified as well; the Prime Minister had staged his men
throughout town. All eyes on the vendors, their carts bearing not
only souvenirs and trinkets but destruction.

Andrew could see he was wrong. It wasn’t the
vendors. But what was it? What was coming?

In the quiet dawn, a tuk-tuk drove down the
lane, its driver stopping near the assembled crowd. A lone robed
monk hopped down from the open cab, late for the show but still in
time for the sun to reach the temple’s zenith, only minutes away.
His saffron robe flowed about him as he moved. Around his waist,
Andrew saw, wrapped tight to his body by a black sash, was a large
round silver canister, a donation bucket to receive alms in
exchange for the monk’s prayers. It was carried by all Buddhist
monks to accept gifts of thanks.

Andrew watched as the monk walked into the
crowd, moving deep into the mass of tourists. Seeing the monk’s
orange robes in the early morning light, people stepped aside to
let him through. A few took pictures of the local color, so
close.

Andrew watched the flowing saffron robes move
into the sea of tourists from every nation, the robe a deep orange,
a mix of yellow and red - the color of safety, of warning, of
hazards. The color of criminals.

Andrew considered how the color orange wove
through Cambodian life. It was everywhere, a single rich thread
binding all together, orange clad monks on the roads, and
sidewalks, in the tuk-tuks and the temples.

Realization hit and Andrew knew that Hakk’s
army of men bent on destruction would not be concealed as common
street vendors. Andrew had not grasped Hakk’s full intent. No, Hakk
had put into motion a farther-reaching plan, intending to
annihilate not only the foreign influence and taint, to rid the
country of the Ch’kai, but also destroying any organization that
exerted influence on the people.

The influence of religion. The Buddhist
custom of honoring the past.

To purge the people of all thoughts, to fill
their hearts with fear. To set the stage for his Year Zero.

So, Hakk’s army would wear the color of
prayer, blending into the fabric of this holy day of Pchum Ben,
donning garb to conceal their true intent, a perfect disguise,
which offered the perfect vehicle to deliver fear and death to the
hearts of the people.

Andrew pictured the monk’s silver canister,
tied tight to his waist.

The canister was not filled with thanks.
Today, it was filled with hate.

The monk moved forward into the throngs of
people. Andrew pulled out his phone. He had to warn people.

*******

Socheat answered on the first ring. He’d been
waiting for Andrew’s call. Andrew explained, speaking quickly.
There was so little time.

“Hakk wasn’t only after the foreigners. It’s
everyone. His men are targeting the Wats. They’ll be packed today
with families honoring their ancestors. And with tourists.
Everyone. It’s Hakk’s message to Pol Pot, his offering to his
ghost, that he has fulfilled the promise to realize Pol Pot’s
vision. Destruction.”

On the other end of the line, Socheat
listened. “On this day, the ghosts of the damned flock to the Wats
seeking succor from the living. How will it happen?” Socheat
asked.

Watching the orange monk move through the
crowd, Andrew described the threat from the silver chalice, an urn
of death, packed full of plastic explosives.

“The whole country is gonna blow,” Andrew
said, glancing at the sky. There were thousands of Wats across the
country. Dawn was nearly over. He looked at his watch. Sunrise was
at 6:09 AM. It was now 6:01 AM. “In eight minutes.”

He hung up. He had one more call to make. He
dialed on his local phone.

The man on the other end of the line picked
up immediately. Andrew said, “It’s me.” He explained and then
added, “Got it? Good. Hit send.”

Chapter 40

The orange-clad monks stepped out into the
pre-dawn darkness en route to the Pagodas, the Wats. In the dark,
they made left and right turns, their flip-flops clopping against
callused heels. They anticipated the fine meal that awaited them at
the Pagodas, food prepared by their countrymen, to honor and
nourish ancestors long dead.

Several monks held back, walking a safe
distance from their brothers.

They too carried with them an offering for
this most special day.

These men were not monks. They were neither
devout nor holy and had never offered up a prayer for another.

But they were indeed devoted to a cause. They
were devoted to destruction, to resurrecting an evil long dead.
Devoted to Year Zero.

They walked, without qualm, to the Pagodas,
certain of the rightness in their actions, step after step,
thinking only that they would at last free the country from the
grip of the foreign dogs, from the greed and desires that tainted
their countrymen.

As they entered the Wats all across the
nation, the smell of warm rice enticed them and they thought fondly
of their last meal.

*******

Above him, Andrew heard a sound in the trees,
leaves shifting, branches bearing weight. Andrew looked up but
could see nothing. He moved closer to the tree for a better
view.

There, high in the leafy branches, tucked in
the thick crook of the tree, was a man dressed in black, his eyes
trained on the rising sun, on the spires of Angkor Wat. Cradled in
his arms, wedged against his shoulder, was a long black barrel. A
grenade launcher, Andrew could see, its target straight ahead,
silhouetted by the sun.

Shit. Andrew started to reach for his gun but
he didn’t have a clear shot. And shooting the man in the tree would
only alert the monk standing deep in the crowd, waiting for the sun
to hit the top of the stone spire.

Andrew knew he had to choose. He glanced once
more at the man in the tree, cursed under his breath and began to
push his way into the crowd. To yell in warning, he knew, would
only spur the monk to detonate himself before the sun had reached
its mark.

As Andrew moved forward, following the monk,
everything around him slowed. The air thickened and he could hear a
thrumming in his ears, as his blood pulsed at his hot temples. His
vision narrowed and all Andrew could see was his orange target,
standing ahead in the crowd.

The lone monk had stopped and looked now to
the sun and the sky, thinking of a new day, his warm hands resting
on the silver chalice strapped to his ready body. He did a slow
full rotation to take it all in, the rising light, the ancient
temple, the tourists with their smiles and cameras and bucket list
dreams.

As Andrew leapt at the monk, pulling him down
and covering his orange torso with his own body, the rocket
launched from the high tree, aimed with precision. It blasted out
through the green leaves toward the central dome of Angkor Wat, now
tipped in golden sunlight. In a breath, the rocket’s metal cone
pierced the central spire, the impact initiating the explosion, the
metal momentum blasting the stone to pieces. Sheared stone flew out
hundreds of feet, raining down from the sky. The sun shone in the
empty space where moments before the spire had stood.

The surprised tourists, standing a safe
distance away behind the wide water moat, thought this was part of
the morning show. They gasped and snapped pictures on their
cameras, catching the moment for all eternity, wondering who would
pick up all the pieces.