L
ara’s driving as fast as the bruised chassis of the car allows. She’s dropped the speed down to sixty, and the steam has subsided.
“I need you to pull over,” Kyle says, losing the last vestiges of control over his nerves.
“Right.”
“Pull over.”
“No,” she says, weaving between hotel shuttle vans and honking indiscriminately.
“I am not kidding.” he says.
“Pull over.”
“We need to make tracks from here.”
Kyle pounds his fist against the dash. “I’ve almost been killed
twice
today. I need to try and process this…”
“No stopping.”
“I don’t care. I do not care. I need you to pull over to the side of the road now.” He raises his voice. “I am freaking the fuck out. No joke.”
“If I stop the car, it’s not starting again. Just scream. Let it all out.”
Kyle turns to her, incredulous. “You’re serious?”
“Scream or don’t. But you’ve got to collect yourself. I want answers, and you’re useless to me like this.”
Lara clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth, a trick she uses to focus her thoughts. Then Kyle emits a primal scream straight from the center of his stomach; his innards vibrate from the effort.
Lara’s so shocked by the primal sound that she jumps, cracks her head against the roof of the car. “Fuck you,” she says, more annoyed than angry. “You were supposed to scream…what was
that
sound?”
“Sorry,” Kyle says. “Sorry.”
Lara shakes her head.
“I think I feel better,” Kyle says, shocked her suggested course of action worked.
“Your lip is still bleeding.”
Kyle flips the visor to the mirrored side and gets a look at his face. “Holy shit,” he says. “Holy shit.” He holds his finger to his pulsing lip and winces. “This is not good.”
“It looks worse because it’s fresh. It’ll be better once the blood dries.”
He turns his battered face to her. “You think so?”
“We’re gonna get you cleaned up. You can’t be seen in public like this.”
“Okay.” Kyle turns back and stares into the mirror, touching his lip even though it stings.
“Stop playing with your face,” she says. “You’ll make it worse.”
Kyle puts his hands in his lap. “Where are we going?”
Lara ignores him. “I ask questions now. First one: How did you get Robinson’s passport? Second: Who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Kyle West. I met…I met Robinson two days ago. I was at a bar in Phnom Penh. He came in…introduced himself…we talked. He knew who I was.”
“So what.”
“I’m not traveling under my real name.”
“Why not?”
Kyle exhales. “It’s a long story.”
“Shorten it.”
“I can’t go back to the United States. Well, to be exact, I can’t go to the United States or to any country that has an extradition treaty with it. And Robinson knew that.”
“So he just sat down with you and talked. That’s it.”
“That’s it.”
“Well, you achieved something few people do.”
Kyle cranes his neck, a bodily question mark.
“You met Robinson and survived,” she says.
Kyle nods. “Yeah. You could look at it that way.”
“What way do you look at it?”
“That he fucked me over. That he promised to help me…”
Lara laughs. Kyle’s taken aback.
“God,” she says. “You must have really wanted to believe him.”
“He said he could help me if we traded passports. He said he had information for me in England. I use his passport to go to England and get the information…and he uses mine.”
“Why did he want your passport?”
“He said he needed to go to Africa…he had a deal going down there.”
“What sort of deal?”
“Something telecom related. I don’t know.…I barely met him. I couldn’t have spent more than six hours with the guy, total.”
“More than most.”
“Right.” Kyle looks in the mirror again, raises his hand to touch his lip, then reconsiders but keeps staring at it. “Thank you for saving me.”
“You’re welcome,” she says with an undisguised sneer. “Lot of good it did me.” She swerves around a cluster of tuk-tuks. “Look. The people who kidnapped you are the same people who came to kill me. They’re not going to stop. As long as they think you’re Robinson, they will not
stop.
Follow me?”
Kyle nods. “I think.”
“So we need to find Robinson right
now.
You met him in a bar. Did you two go anywhere else?”
“Yeah. His hotel.”
“You remember it?”
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
“Then that’s where we’re going.”
“What if he checked out already?”
“Maybe he didn’t. And if he’s gone, then you convince them you’re him. We need to get into his room.”
“Wait. Wait,” Kyle says. “Now
I’ve
got a question. What are you to Robinson?”
No answer; she just presses the gas.
“I mean…you know who I am. Who are
you?
”
“Your only chance of staying alive,” she says. “That’s all you need to know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No. But it’s what you’re getting.”
“Look,” he says, “I’m holding Robinson’s passport. If anything goes down at the hotel, it’s over for me. I think it’s better for me to keep moving.”
“Fine. Then get out. Go back to being Robinson on your own.” She motions toward Kyle’s face. “Seems to be working out well for you. I’m going to the hotel.”
She’s got a salient argument, he thinks; any hope he has of staying alive involves her. “All right.”
“Plus,” she says, “if he’s there, maybe we can get your passport back.”
M
r. Suong, errant airport-manager extraordinaire, is spending the afternoon attending to matters of personal pulchritude.
When Fowler finds him, Suong’s sitting in a high-backed salon chair letting Kaffir lime juice soak into his luxurious black locks. An organic oatmeal face mask has been spread across his visage to cleanse his pores of toxins, and an impossibly green cucumber slice resides over each eye.
New Age music heavy on the sitar and chirping birds plays over the speakers. Suong sips on mineral water garnished with a lime slice.
Fowler sits in the chair beside Suong, taps his shoulder, and rolls a cigarette between his fingers. “Mr. Suong,” he says. “Tom Fowler. CIA. Wanted to ask you some questions about an occurrence at your airport this morning.”
“I recommend talking to security,” Suong says. “I’ve been here all day. I have an engagement this evening at Hun Sen’s. We’re celebrating the sale of over one hundred thousand hectares of arable land to Kuwait. And the Kuwaitis…well, for a people whose official religion forbids images, they’re quite judgmental about appearance.”
Suong expects the mention of Hun Sen’s name to force Fowler to retreat; however, Fowler’s realized anyone who runs a business of value or consequence in Cambodia is on Hun Sen’s guest list. If Fowler didn’t talk to Hun Sen’s associates, he’d have no one to talk to. “Sure. Sure. Understood,” Fowler says. “Thing is, your security people seem to be a little hazy about the details of recent events in
your
airport.”
“Such as?”
“This morning, a man on a no-fly list, Julian Robinson, attempted to board a plane. He went to customer service for help and was apprehended by security. Problem is, these men weren’t your security detail. They aren’t security personnel, period. They were professionals.”
“I hire professionals…”
“What I mean is, they escorted Robinson out of the camera’s range in close to thirty seconds. And they never allowed their own faces to be captured in a frontal. That takes tactical planning and prior knowledge of the airport.”
Suong purses his lips. “And you know this because?”
Fowler can’t exactly come clean on this. “I just do.”
“And my men aren’t capable of this?”
“Your men showed up two minutes later looking for Robinson, only to find he’d already been escorted out. No one’s seen or heard from Robinson since.”
“And?”
“It would appear he was either kidnapped by hostiles or helped to escape.”
“Why would someone on a no-fly list attempt to board a commercial airliner?”
“That’s why I’m talking to you. My feeling…maybe it was a signal for his friends to come pick him up.”
“I will perform a thorough investigation tomorrow. No stone will be left unturned.”
“If I could just—”
“It is so hard to find good help, Mr. Fowler. The fruits of Pol Pot’s revolution included leaving us with a devastated intellectual class.” Suong’s mask has started to harden around his wrinkles and frown lines, cleansing deeper. “I take this quite seriously, Mr. Fowler.”
Women in floral smocks scamper around the salon, checking on customers. One of them examines Suong’s face mask, adds a little more to it, whispers something in Khmer, and Suong smiles. “I’m making progress,” he relates to Fowler. “I have extremely oily skin. Comes from an excess of hormones. A blessing and a curse, I assure you.” Suong spares no expense on his upkeep. He is his
own
greatest love affair.
Fowler gets around to lighting the cigarette. “See, here’s the thing. Southeast Asia has pockets of heavy terrorist activity. I’ve placed some of these guys on no-fly lists myself in the past few months, and fuck if I know how, but they keep getting
other
places.”
“Catastrophic. Corruption holds our country back.”
“And I know guys like you, not necessarily sympathetic to the terrorists’ goals but—let’s face it—a little
dirty
, might let them on a plane for a little do-re-mi. Well, I’ll give you some credit, Mr. Suong—a lot of do-re-mi.”
“I would never aid or abet known terrorists.”
“I’m not saying anything. But do you remember Abu Bakar Bashir?”
“Who?”
“Bashir blew up a nightclub in Indonesia a while back.”
“Means nothing…”
“I ordered him no-flyed, and he gained entrance through your airport. We nailed him in Bali anyway, but…”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“And I didn’t say you did. Your day off, obviously.”
“Mr. Fowler, I feel this is a line of questioning best engaged in at your office, not in a place of business and
indigenous culture.
” Suong says this last part with an upturned lip and sneer.
“All I want to know is…is it possible anyone on your staff could be involved in aiding Robinson’s escape or in handing him over to forces outside this country? I’ve checked the criminal records and pay stubs of your security. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”
Suong tries to remove the cucumbers from his eyes for dramatic effect, but one of the beauticians stops him and wags a disapproving finger. “Are you talking about rendition?” Suong says to Fowler in feigned horror. “Are you asking if my staff aids in renditions?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“I have no idea of this man’s…”
“Robinson.”
“Of this Robinson’s whereabouts. His name means nothing to me.”
“I can look at this in one of two ways. One, you’re a garden-variety greedy bastard…which is to say, you’re like every single one of us walking the earth. And you’re paid a retainer by certain people not to ask questions about what goes on in your airport. Or, two, you were in on it. You know who Robinson’s friends are, know who helped him escape, and I’m going to have you charged with conspiracy for running a ratline for people on no-flys. They get tagged by the computer, and you help them leave before someone comes to pick them up.” Fowler leans in close to the rail of Suong’s chair and puts his thick hand over Suong’s slender, nearly hairless forearm. “I’m CIA, Mr. Suong. I don’t even have to charge you with anything. I can have you disappeared, send you someplace for questioning where no one’ll ever find you. So tell me: Are you just dirty, or are you a friend of Robinson’s? If you tell me the truth, nothing will happen to you.”
“Nothing will happen to
me
regardless.” And without missing a beat, Suong turns his cucumber eyes toward Fowler and says, “I’m an entrepreneur. I don’t know Robinson. He is not my friend. But my airport is always open for business for friendly countries. And people know that. I think you have your answer now.” Suong touches his hair, then inhales the lingering scent of lime juice.
Fowler knows now it wasn’t an inside job. These people took it upon themselves to grab Robinson, with Suong’s implicit blessing. Which leaves Fowler with an even larger question, one Mr. Suong can’t answer.
Who the hell is Robinson?
And why is he worth either helping or grabbing?
T
he Caltex gas station is about fifteen minutes outside of Phnom Penh. Its bathroom is a wooden outhouse with a rubber hose in the corner. There’s no floor, just a layer of hard dirt that cracks under Kyle’s new canvas shoes purchased inside the gift shop. The hose coughs gray water that smells both mineral and toxic. Kyle keeps his eyes and mouth shut while he runs the sporadic stream over his head.
In addition to the shoes, Kyle picked up a small pocket mirror with a yellow kitten embossed in the corner. He holds it up to take stock. His face is puffy around the eyes and lips. He looks even
more
like Robinson now that his face has a little heaviness to it and his lower lip is a swollen heart. He runs a wet finger over his gums and teeth to wipe away the dried blood. He looks one more time in the mirror.
At least I have the pain to remind me that it’s still my body and not just Robinson’s rental.
He steps outside into a sea of motos and rusted 1970s gas-guzzlers.
The fuel station is a row of blue drums with a siphon attached to the side of each one. He slides on a pair of sunglasses and looks up to the sky. He’s never seen one like it. Lizard-skin surface. Butter sun. Clouds shiny and plump and with such curly tails, they remind him of fattened pigs ready for slaughter. And it all combines to make him obsess over one fact.
I’m going to die here.
I’m never leaving this place.
All the subterfuge, all the residence changes, all the deliberate artifice—all of it was a prelude, a rehearsal for his meeting with Robinson.
Kyle’s been knocking on death’s door for a year. Eventually, someone was going to answer. And it turned out to be Robinson, wearing his exceptional suit, offering drinks and casual conversation.
Time to knock on Robinson’s door one last time.
Kyle walks over to Lara, who is filling up the gas tank while smoking a cigarette. “This look any better?”
“Good enough,” she says. “Just keep the sunglasses on. I’m checking the oil before we go. Get in the car and wait.”
Kyle nods. Lara’s conversation is distinctly lacking in ornament.