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Canary Air	By : Nos4a2 Category: DC Verse Comics > Birds Of Prey Views: 7065 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Birds of Prey,nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
CHAPTER SEVEN
Nong arrives at 10pm, right on schedule. I’m already packed, dressed in a dark, long-sleeved shirt and cargo pants, my hair tied up and off my face. In my backpack there’s a laptop with satellite capabilities, field rations, water, a First Aid kit, a sleeping bag and a few pairs of socks. I’ve been in the jungle before, and I know how important clean, dry socks are in fending off the kind of fungal infection that eats your legs/
Sonchai watches as I gather up my gear, the baby held tightly in his arms. I kiss the kid’s head, so soft with downy black hair, and squeeze Sonchai’s hand. “I’ll be okay,” I tell him. “You work on finding out where those snakes came from. We’ll get the people who killed Jones.”
He smiles thinly, and I doubt he believes that we will, or that Jones’ murder will even matter to me when I find Ollie and out out of Thailand.
“Be careful,” he whispers, his eyes glistening in the bright light of the hotel room. I nod, my throat swollen and aching. I never expected to make a friend in this strange place.
Nong is, again, a different person. Gone is the sensual bar girl or the tired woman from yesterday. She’s wearing green fatigues and combat boots, her hair left long and loose. Her face is hard and she barely glances at the baby. Just before we leave the hotel, she says something to Sonchai, who simply nods. Then we get into a waiting taxi and ride in silence through the city. It takes us about three hours to cross Bangkok, and as we go I listen to Barbara run status reports on the weather near the Cambodian border and give a breakdown on Khmer activity in the area over the last twenty years. It’s a gruesome subject, but her voice is more comforting than I can say. I don’t talk to Babs much, a little wary of Nong’s presence in the cab. Her English is much better than I’ve suspected, and I don’t trust her.
We reach the outskirts of the city, the taxi heading uphill into the mountains. There is a dirt road worn into ruts by the passing of oxen-pulled carts, and the ride is bumpy. Another fifteen minutes and the driver brings the cab to a stop. Nong leaps out of the car and I pay the driver, who slowly backs down the way we came. He’s jumpy and doesn’t even bother to turn the car around.
We stand in the silence of the road cut into the jungle and I look up at the night sky, visible for the first time since I came to Southeast Asia. Bangkok glimmers in the distance, a thousand points of light obscured by the smog rising from the city. I recognize Bang Kwan with its neon hideousness, and the darkness of the Suma River which flows like a black scar through the city. I wonder if this will be the last image I’ll ever have of Bangkok, or of civilization itself.
There’s the sound of an approaching vehicle, and further on up the road there’s a pair of headlights bouncing over the uneven surface. Nong shoulders her bag, and I do the same. The truck swerves and we pile into the back. The driver barely stops, cranking the wheel, tires biting into the loose dirt of the road. We swing around and head off into the jungle.
There are six men in the back of the pickup with Nong and I, all of them mercenaries. They carry AK-47s and have bandoleers strung across their chests, each carrying at least a thousand rounds of ammo. Most wear red headbands, identifying their allegiance to the Khmer. They smoke and do not meet my eyes.
Nong says nothing save a few perfunctory phrases of greeting, her voice high and shrill over the noise of the truck’s engine. The soldiers do not reply. We ride in silence for what seems like a long time, turning off the road at various intervals. There are no signs along the dirt highway, the driver navigating from memory. I try to remain sitting upright, swaying away in the back of the bouncing truck. Eventually I shift position and sit on my backpack, tired of the ribbing of the truck’s hard metal bed digging into my butt. The soldiers, and Nong, continue to ignore me.
The truck leaves the road a few times to avoid potholes and once because an old man is leading an ox and doesn’t get out of our way in time to suit the driver. The jungle closes in around us as we continue to get further and further from the main trail, and soon we are traveling along a road so narrow that the trees brush against the side of the vehicle and I can no longer see the stars. The night seems endless, as long as the night I made love to Nong, and I get tired of straining my eyes against the darkness ahead. The cigarettes hanging from the mouths of the Khmer soldiers provide bright points of orange light, brighter, it seems, than even the truck’s headlights. The night goes on.
I think it’s about four in the morning when we finally come to a stop and pile out of the back of the truck, tossing our bags to the road and jumping out after them. Nong sidles up to the driver’s window and talks with him briefly as I try to work out the stiffness in my limbs. I don’t understand what she says to him, but I get the gist of it. End of the line. The driver takes off, and we’re left standing on the side of the road, watching as the truck’s red tail lights recede into darkness.
“Now we walk,” Nong instructs, somehow finding a path in the pitch-black jungle that I wasn’t even aware existed. I follow her without arguing.
I lose track of the time, forgetting to glance at the night-illuminated Timex I’m wearing on my wrist. Nong doesn’t bother with a flashlight and so we march along the jungle trail in the dark, my clumsy feet bumping against tree roots and brushing against foliage. For a while, the walk is nice after the long, bumpy ride in the truck, and I become aware of the night sounds of the jungle, all those animals crying and hunting and fucking in the darkness around us. Dawn begins to paint the patches of sky I can see through the close-set trees, and I doubt it will ever grow bright in the jungle even during the day. We continue to walk.
Nong authorizes a break at about noon, and I sip some water from my canteen, deciding to save my food. Nong takes nothing. She watches me with the water, her eyes black and impenetrable. I offer her a drink, but she smiles and shakes her head, her teeth flashing white in the dim light.
“No thank you, farang. You will need it later.”
She rises, and we start walking again.
Night comes, and with it my old fear of the dark. Perhaps it’s my growing anxiety about Ollie, or just the strangeness of the jungle, but I start jumping at every little noise and long for the light of a fire, a flashlight, anything. Nong seems to sense my growing nervousness, and for the first time since our noon break she speaks.
“You do not like the forest,” she points out over her shoulder, her voice floating somewhere ahead of me. I can’t see her face, just the dim outline of her body.
“I’ve been in deep jungle before,” I say. “But no, I don’t like it.”
“It gets worse,” she tells me.
***********************
Two days of walking in the jungle. I suspect we crossed into Cambodia some time ago, but Nong hasn’t said anything. Barbara’s voice reappears in my head periodically, checking in. I think she’s worried for me, and it’s good to know that if something happens I won’t be in it alone.
It’s night again when Nong gestures to me, her hand raised to stop my progress along the now-nonexistent path. I strain my eyes, wondering at the delay. And then I see it. Fire. Some sign of human habitation. It’s amazing how relieved I am to see it. After the crowded mess of Bangkok and all that humming civilization, I wonder at my joy over seeing evidence of another human being. You’d think I would have appreciated the solitude.
We approach the camp slowly, the firelight flickering against the trees. Nong calls out a greeting, and she receives an answer spoken in some kind of Laotian dialect. We walk into the camp, which is little more than a circle of mercenaries gathered around a small fire. They’re pros: I know this because even at night, safe in a camp setting, they seem to be at attention.
Nong drops her gear and takes the rations one of the soldiers has been eating, who shrugs philosophically and lets her have it. He goes and gets another, making room for her and I to sink down beside the fire.
I’m tired, obviously, from the long walk, and exhaustion makes my eyes fall shut, my body jerking as it remembers it is still sitting and is in no way safe. Nong seems to have boundless energy, chattering away with the soldiers, making them grin and sometimes laugh, their voices echoing against the canopy of trees. Finally, I rise, and they all fall silent. “I need to sleep,” I inform Nong. She watches me for a moment, then says something. The others laugh. I simply shrug and look for a place to unroll my bedding. Nong stands and leads me to a place a little apart from the others, watching as I set up my sleeping bag.
“We do not laugh at you,” she explains quietly, making me look up at her, wondering which character she’s performing tonight. “You did well. Not many farangs could walk so long and complain so little.”
I shrug off her compliment, knowing it’s just another form of manipulation. “I’m going to sleep,” I tell her. “Wake me.’
She kneels beside me, touching my hair. I want to shrug off her caress, but I’m either too exhausted or too resigned to make myself do so. I’m surprised when she leans over and brushes a kiss against my lips, her touch soft, tender. “Sleep well,” she advises. “Long day tomorrow.”
She goes back to the fire, and in a moment I hear laughter and conversation again. I try to stop shaking.
*******************
With dawn comes a revelation: our ‘camp’ was set parallel to a ravine, and had I moved more than a few inches during the night I would have tumbled off the side to my death. I can only express disapproval at the fact that I was not warned, since worrying about my close call seems counter-productive. I pee, squatting over a log, and then allow myself to eat a small breakfast of an energy bar and some water. By this time, the others are ready to go, and we head east along the ravine, keeping up a brisk pace. Nong falls into step a little ahead of me, talking over her shoulder.
“Your friend is being held in the Eastern Highlands. We get there, maybe three days,” she tells me. “We go along mountains, take Dangkrek path. Dangerous. Many land mines.”
I nod. Cambodia’s been on the UN watch list for years now as one of the heaviest-mined countries on the planet. Most of the mines were set during the Khmer’s reign of terror in the 1980s, but a hell of a lot of them were set by American service personnel during the heyday of the Vietnam war. Tourists are warned not to stray out of the resort town of Angkor or the capital, Phnom Penh: to do so is to risk murder by the mountain Khmer or losing a limb to a mine.
We keep the mountains to our left, following the ravine which slowly melts into a river, and I realize I’m in Heart of Darkness territory. The Cambodian jungle seems closer, more forbidding, than the forests back in Thailand. I realize the difference is only in my imagination, just a matter of borders and perception, but I guess I’m afraid of this place. I wonder if Ollie was, when they brought him here. And I admit to thinking of Captain Willard on that gunboat in Apocalypse Now, traveling down the Mekong river to face his horror. My own is waiting for me at the Khmer basecamp in the Dangkrek mountains.
The men seem to like Nong, although not for the reasons I think. She’s as far removed from the Bang Kwan sex kitten here as I’ve ever seen her. Instead, she seems to be a big sister to them, distributing fresh cigarettes and water, making sure they’re all in a good mood. I wonder who she’s doing it for. Herself, maybe?
When we stop for a break, the men discuss our course through the jungle, arguing about which route will be faster. They gesture wildly, sometimes with their guns, pointing at various barley-visible paths cut into the tangle of trees. I infer the different arguments from their body language and try to figure out which one of them is the leader. They all seem so young to me, barely more than teenagers. I doubt any of them served under Pol Pot, but perhaps their parents did. It’s hard to imagine these kids, with their cigarettes and their Uzi’s, massacring whole villages and piling the bones in caves. But I’ve learned in this place that appearances can be deceiving.
Nong brushes against me, sliding her arm around my waist. Her breath is hot against my ear. “They think we are lost,” she explains. “I tell them, don’t worry. Hard to get lost in the mountains.”
I cast a dubious glance around me, looking at the twisting vines and dense foliage through which little light penetrates. I can’t even see the sky anymore, except when I come close to the river. And what few footpaths there are can only be found by an eye more well-trained than my own.
The men seem to have noticed Nong’s intimate discussion with me. One of them leers at our close physical contact and Nong glances at him, her eyes brushing over him as if he is some sort of lower creature, a toad or a snake. His expression changes instantly, and he resumes that brotherly distance the others have been so careful to maintain around her. I wonder again who Nong really is.
Night falls, and with it comes more Khmer. There are now at least twenty of us, all following the Dangkrek path along the mountains. We are led by a man named Arun, who might have been chosen as much for his superior size and military bearing than for his leadership ability. We march far into the night, and when we set up camp again, I collapse exhausted into my bedroll. Nong surprises me by cuddling next to me, and I reluctantly share my blanket. I consider pointing out that one of the men would probably accommodate her, but she’s asleep before I can say anything.
****************
I wake to the feel of her hand on my breast, teasing a nipple which has gone erect almost without my noticing. I guess I was dreaming. Her other hand is working on my belt. It’s just a little before dawn, and our jungle camp is bathed in pale blue light. The men around us snore in their bedrolls, and I catch the faint outline of our lookout about thirty feet away.
Nong props herself up, her face floating before me in the pale light. Her hair falls over us both, and before I can tell her to get the hell off she kisses me, her tongue sliding inside my mouth. I let her kiss me until I can shift position enough to push her away. “What the hell are you doing?” I whisper, afraid to wake the men in the camp.
Nong simply grins a little, tossing her long, straight black hair back over her shoulders. “I want you,” she says simply. “Now.”
I shake my head, sitting up and drawing my knees in close, trying to wake up enough to figure this out. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing-”
“No game,” she counters immediately. “You refuse, we go back to Krung Thep.”
“You’re…you’re threatening me?” I respond in disbelief. “Nong, I’m not going to fuck you just because that’s what you want. If that’s what you want.”
“Of course it is,” she pouts, something lurking behind her little-girl frown that horrifies me a little. “I want you again. Now.”
I shake my head. “It’s not going to happen.”
“You want me.”
I know enough not to lie. Truth is, I haven’t been able to forget about that night we spent together for an instant, and I’m ashamed to admit it. I know she’s playing some kind of mind game: I doubt desire really has anything to do with what she wants from me. And, yeah, the sex was probably the best I’ve ever had, certainly better than I ever expected to have with a woman. But I can’t trust her, I can’t figure out her motives, and I think she’d betray me in a second if it suited her.
“I don’t find threats very erotic,” I tell her, knowing she’ll understand me even though she’ll pretend she can’t. “If you’ve got an itch, grab one of your Khmer lackeys and let them scratch away. But I won’t do it, Nong. Even if I wanted to, I think you know I can’t.”
She regards me for a moment, her liquid black eyes watching me from behind that curtain of hair. Then, without another word, she rises and leaves.
I settle back into my bedroll with a sigh, letting my eyes fall shut the instant my head falls back to the hard ground. Between the physical strain of marching through the jungle for four days with few breaks, little water and no food, and the added stress of knowing I might be heading into the mountains only to collect Ollie’s body, I’m completely wiped out. And if I can’t recover sufficiently, the danger I’m facing now will seem like child’s play. I need to keep my strength up.
***********************
Nong ignores me for most of the day, marching far up the line with Arun. When we stop again it’s late at night, and I’ve lost track of everything but the fact that tomorrow I’ll finally see Ollie, alive or dead. That thought keeps me awake. Instead of collapsing into my bedroll without bothering to eat, I sit up with the men around the campfire, listening to them talk in their various languages, switching between Vietnamese, Cambodian and their own Laotian dialect. I’m slowly learning to distinguish between the men and their native tongue.
Nong rises and pads around the campfire, sometimes kneeling to speak to one of the men, sometimes to borrow a drag off the ever-present cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Nong speaks with Arun for a long time.
Two of the men have been talking quietly beside me, and I’m surprised when they break into song. It takes a moment to register, but it finally occurs to me that they’re singing Hound Dog, their heavy accents mutating the song past all recognition. Still, their voices are powerful and they know all the words. The music makes Nong grin and she rises, dragging one of the others after her to dance. She moves to the music as she would back in the Pussy Go-Go club, her body writhing and gyrating to the a capella Elvis song.

Arun stands and takes the other man’s place, who relinquishes it without contest. I wonder if Arun, like Sonchai, is the product of a mixed-race relationship. His height and size are unusual here: he’s almost as tall as Ollie and at least as well-built as Kal. Watching them together, as he and Nong grind and slide against one another’s bodies, it occurs to me that maybe sex just isn’t a big deal over here, like Nong said. Maybe we Westerners attach too much significance to the act, making it about more than just good exercise and an orgasm. Maybe it really is just fucking, and not the path to spiritual enlightenment.
The singing men launch into anther Elvis tribute, this time “Viva Las Vegas”. I hide my grin at their mispronunciations of nearly ever other word, then allow myself to giggle a little when some of the other men get up and start dancing, employing moves not seen in the West since the heyday of John Travolta and white leisure suits. Some of the men start passing around a bottle of something, and offer me a sip. I take a deep drag, hoping it will help me sleep.
Nong and Arun are still in their own little world, their bodies slowing even as the tempo of the songs increase. After a while, I get tired of watching all this. I’m starting to feel the effects of whatever was in that bottle, and decide that maybe I will be able to sleep after all.
I head back to where I’ve set up my bed, and I’m just drifting off when I hear something moving around me. It’s dark, the light of the fire flickering through the trees at what seems like a great distance. My perception is a little fuzzy, courtesy of that moonshine I sampled. And I’m hardly surprised when I feel Nong slip beneath the blanket, her hand already halfway under my shirt. Someone else is there, too. Arun, I realize.
Nong kisses me, and I allow her to do so, maybe because the alcohol has hit me harder than I’d thought possible, maybe because I really do want her. I start worrying when I kiss her back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to me, her hand caressing my hot, heavy breast, her thumb skating over the nipple. “I was cruel.”
“Yes,” I agree, thinking that maybe I won’t really be able to fight her off now. That maybe I don’t want to.
She runs skillful hands over my body, every inch the professional she is. I’d almost forgotten Arun’s presence until I feel a second pair of hands undoing my belt. He murmurs something in Cambodian, maybe Laotian. I’m kissing Nong, too focused on that to care. And his touch too is wonderful, so soft and gentle, the kind of contact I haven’t shared with a man in a very long time. I’m suddenly undressed, my skin cool and bare in the moonlight, my body white and wet from Nong’s mouth and my own need.
Nong and I kiss, running playful hands over each other’s bodies. I relearn her textures and shapes, tugging off her fatigues and heavy boots, gentle and then ravenous. Arun settles in behind me, supporting as I lean against him, his hands cupping my breasts, bending his head to lick and suckle on my nipples. Nong seems to approve of this new position; she coaxes my legs apart, stroking the soft flesh of my inner thigh. I tremble a little in anticipation, pushing away the few warnings my conscience has seen fit to supply me with. It’s too hot and too fast and too much to really be thinking, and I sigh at the touch of Nong’s finger as she slides inside me, making me arch against Arun. He meets my mouth, his kiss gentle, reassuring.
Nong tongues my nipple, her fingers sliding in and out of my slick, wet heat, and slowly she lowers her head, her tongue darting inside me. My breath is coming in short, sharp gasps, and Arun squeezes my breasts, letting me rock against him a little, moaning. I feel his erection at my back, at the place where my hips meet his lap. He slips from behind me, lowering me slowly to the ground. Nong shifts position, too, twisting until she’s on top of me, her public hair brushing against my mouth. I raise my head a little, taking an experimental lick. She tastes sweet, her pussy wet and warm. She settles a little, lowering her pelvis until I can rest my head on the ground. And with that, I match her rhythm, lapping at her, increasing the tempo, feeling her tongue move inside me in the same way, each of us coaxing each other to a slow, burning climax. Just before we peak, Nong slides off me. I blink as if I were an animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. The disruption is only temporary, as Arun takes my hand and helps me to stand.
Nong takes my place on the blanket and watches as Arun kisses me, his tongue traveling across my lips to absorb her juices. Still standing, he inserts a finger into my vagina, stroking against my clitoris, bending a little to match his height to mine. I close my eyes and stand with my legs a little apart, the world shrinking to the feel of his fingers inside me. His touch is sure, confident, more aggressive than Nong’s had been. After a few moments, he releases me, lowering me on my knees to Nong, who receives me with open arms. She and I kiss, our breasts brushing, our nipples touching. I take their cues, reclaiming my place between Nong’s legs, my mouth on her. Arun is behind me and I arch my back, my hips pointing up at him in invitation. He smacks my backside, teasing a little, and uses his fingers to explore me again. I hear him rip open a condom package. Nong’s hands are in my hair, clenching, guiding me. I gasp as Arun enters me, his cock so full and hard it catches me by surprise at the sense of invasion I feel in the wake of Nong’s soft touch.
I recover and then all three of us fall into rhythm. Nong moans and bucks beneath me, my tongue sliding in and out at a feverish pace while Arun fucks me from behind, silent in his intensity. It seems to last a long time, the three of us there, under the stars and lost in the dark jungle of Cambodia, far from the light of the fire.
I feel Nong shudder once, twice, hard against me. I raise my head a little, my hands bent at the wrist to support me in my kneeling position, Arun still pounding away. “Harder,” I whisper, my breath against Nong’s swollen clitoris making her shiver. “Fuck me harder,” I beg, my voice a guttural pant. Nong slides down so that her chest is level with my face, her pussy wet against my knee, her soft legs bent against mine. She sucks and licks my nipples, and my head arches backwards. Arun’s hand is on my spine, and at each thrust I feel his fingers slide against the sweat-dampened skin of my back. The three of us move together, and Nong rubs my clitoris, helping to bring me to climax even as Arun lets out a great gasp and sags against me, his chest heaving. I let out a shriek, which Nong catches in her mouth.
We tumble together onto the bedroll, Arun in the center, Nong and I on either side. We’re all breathing heavy and I can’t seem to focus, although I suspect that the alcohol has already worn off. My legs tremble and my entire being feels over-sensitized, as if my skin has been rubbed raw. Arun wraps his arm around me, whispering something in Cambodian that I can’t begin to translate. Nong cuddles against his broad chest, one hand extended to caress my shoulder, and I reach across him to touch her.
We fall asleep.
**********************
I wake for the first time since coming to Southeast Asia feeling refreshed and well-rested. Nong is asleep beside me, her beautiful mouth curved in a soft smile, her skin warm. I shake myself awake, dressing slowly and carefully, trying not to think too much.
I make my way back to the fire. Most of the Khmer are asleep, and the ones who are not ignore me much as they always have. Arun, his strong face fixed again into a permanent frown, nods at me and offers a cup of coffee. I take it, his large hand brushing against mine. I meet his eyes.
“How far?” I ask. He looks to the East, narrows his eyes, and returns his gaze to mine.
“Be there by sunset,” he says, watching as I sip from the steaming coffee mug and lick my lips. The caffeine is exactly what I needed. That, and whatever it was I received from them the night before.
He opens his mouth as if to speak but sees Nong over my shoulder. She stands close to me without allowing her body to touch and talks quietly with him in their shared dialect. He nods, and barks an order to the rest of the men, who shoulder their weapons and quickly pack up the camp. I fold up the bedroll, now rumpled and smelling of the musky, earthy odor of sex, and stuff it in my backpack. My last act is to dump out the rest of my coffee and reinsert my Oracle earpiece.
Barbara fails to greet me, and I shrug it off, figuring she’s probably got some sort of crisis to deal with back in Gotham. Or perhaps she and Dick are still curled up together in bed - it’s just a little past 6pm, Gotham time. The thought gives me a little pang as the first of the morning’s guilt and regret starts to percolate in my stomach. How did I go from having something like that, having someone warm and solid and loving, to fucking strangers in the Cambodian jungle? When did my life get so lonely?
I’m in a lousy mood for the rest of the day. Self-loathing seems to be my prevailing state of mind, and I only stop feeling bad about what happened with Nong and Arun long enough to feel sick with worry about Ollie. After the noon break, Nong falls into step beside me.
“You’re unhappy,” she points out. “Why?”
I guess she’s in her ‘nice’ phase.
I shrug, doubting she understands much about Judeo-Christian guilt trips. I want to tell her that a) nice girls don’t let strange men (or manipulative women) screw them, and b) my personal resolve when it comes to Nong is worth shit. Both of these things bother me more than I’m willing to admit. I’m not a control freak - I couldn’t work so well with Babs if I was - but I’d like to think I have more self-discipline than a horny frat boy.
“I’m disappointed in myself,” I tell her. “And I’m worried about my friend.”
Nong glances at me. “Why disappointed?” She pronounces the word syllable-by-syllable.
“Because…” I sigh, waving my hands. “Just because.”
She bites her lip, and grabs my wrist. I come to a halt.
“These men would rape you, kill you, leave you for dead,” she tells me, and I don’t try to argue. I’ve spent enough time with mercenaries to know all about their real intentions.
“I could take care of myself,” I say, but she just shakes her head.
“Yes, you might fight them off, or kill them, but then you would be lost in the jungle and your friend would die. It is better that they are not given reason or opportunity to attack you.”
I have to admit, she’s got a point. I know a Canary Cry or a good roundhouse kick would finish off any one of the Khmer, but I don’t know my way to the Dangkrek camp. And Ollie’s life may depend on my getting there, and soon.
Nong continues, happy that I’m being so very sensible. “What happened last night might have saved your life,” she says. “Arun is a big man with the Khmer. He controls most of the cells in Laos and along the border between here and Thailand. If others know you are his woman, they will leave you alone, even in Dangkrek.”
“But I’m not his woman,” I say quietly. “I’m yours.”
She smiles, and I believe for a moment she means it. “You are well protected,” she assures me, starting to walk again, and quickly. We have to catch up with the others.
***********************
Another half-day of walking, this time uphill into the mountains. Just as the sun sets we reach the top of the ridge, and our band of twenty pauses for a moment, looking across the rolling green hills of jungle and mined farmland. The Dangkrek camp is about an hour away; we can see the smoke and the cluster of tents in the distance. I strain my eyes, trying to discern how many Khmer fill the camp. I wonder what will happen if I can’t negotiate for Ollie’s release, or if he’s too sick to walk out under his own power. My own sense of powerlessness comes back, and my hate for Southeast Asia renews itself.
“Soon,” Nong promises, squeezing my shoulders in reassurance. We continue the march to the camp.
My final night of walking is brilliantly lit. We’re out of the jungle now, in the hill country, and the sky seems impossibly free and open, the stars and full, bright moon hanging close to us. I keep looking up at the stars and I stumble often on loose rocks and tree roots because I’m not watching where I put my feet. The lights of the Khmer camp beckon.
The camp is filled with the Khmer soldiers and their women and children. The kids are suspicious of me; they run away or regard me with fear from behind their mothers’ legs The women eye me with undisguised hate, but lower their gaze when Nong catches them glaring.
I rattle off whispered statistics to Barbara: numbers, weapons, camp layout, as much information as I can without letting on that I’m taking mental notes about the camp. Arun seems to take up my part with the camp’s chief administrator. He argues with him violently, waving his arms and shouting. Our band of twenty gathers at his back, perhaps sensing trouble. Some of the Dangkrek men cluster behind their camp leader. The situation seems to worsen until Nong steps forward, her tone snappish. She says something that the camp director doesn’t like, but finally he nods and steps aside. I wonder at her power with these people, and then she gestures me forward.
“Your friend is in there,” she says, pointing to a shabby wooden lean-to cut into the side of the hill. The thin, knotted planks comprising the walls of the small shelter are splattered with mud and filth, and I realize that in the event of a downpour the floor of the shelter must turn into liquid sludge.
I steel myself for any eventuality and climb the incline up to the door of the shelter. A Khmer is guarding the door, and Nong says something, probably a request for entry. The guard nods and unlocks the door. A wave of putrid stench wafts out towards me, and I cover my mouth and nose as a reflex. The interior of the shed is pitch-black, and within something shuffles and moans. It doesn’t even sound human.
“Ollie?” I whisper into the darkness.
****************************
- 6
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