The Brittle Limit, a Novel (26 page)

Socheat’s translation of Hakk’s treatise had
listed three training camps. Like Ben, Andrew had stumbled on the
first camp in Mondulkiri and visited the second in Kampot, hoping
to talk to Hakk. Now, deep in the Cardamom mountains, site of the
last stand of the Khmer Rouge, Andrew knew he had found the main
camp, Hakk’s stronghold. While the other two were transient
facilities, here, he’d seen water cisterns on the mountain-side,
large storage containers, probably with food and weaponry, and a
helicopter pad. This is where Hakk was holed up and where he
planned to remain.

While the weather had helped his approach,
masking the sound of the helo he’d commandeered from the
Sihanoukville airport, now the rain pelted down on him. His
clothes, borrowed from a drunk Australian who’d been walking on the
Sihanoukville beach at 5:00 AM, were soaked and plastered to his
body.

He had landed on the only open spot he could
find, a deserted road about a mile away, and had snaked his way up
the mountain, following a trail worn by animals wild and domestic
moving over the hill. Several times, thinking he heard voices, he
had faded off the trail into the trees. But it had been only the
wind.

The camp was far from all towns, the closest
village a rugged twenty-mile motorcycle ride away and that was
nothing more than a watering hole, offering only warm beer and weak
pot. The only people who would pass this way were locals, farmers
who wanted no trouble. Certainly, there were no tourists.

*******

Hakk’s men had arrived an hour earlier, one
from each province, driving the long distance from their homelands,
where they themselves had their own men, believers waiting for the
word. This group had met only once before, a year previous, to set
things in motion. Tonight, they had greeted each other with deep
bows and quiet words, waiting for their leader to summon them. It
was a solemn and sacred time.

Andrew watched as Hakk appeared in the
doorway and called from the hut, yelling over the sound of the
noisily swaying trees, for his men. He was ready. Cigarettes were
extinguished, feet shuffled and the men fell into a line, moving
toward the light. In the dark, Andrew waited.

*******

Inside the hut, Hakk stood at the head of the
wooden table in the center of the room, staring at a large map on
the wall to his right. The room was lit by oil lanterns, one
positioned in each corner and another hanging from a pole that ran
from one end of the ceiling to the other.

On the table, squat white candles smoked,
their flames casting shadows on the men’s faces as they assembled
and sat, four seats on each side. The seat at the head of the table
was vacant.

The men, all in their fifties, dark hair
graying at the temples, were dressed identically in black. While it
was not evident from their stony faces, they were the type of men
for whom hate came easy, like breathing. It was all they had known.
As with Hakk, it was the only sustenance they needed, its power
sustaining as they steeped in bitter anger, watching as the world
pressed forward, into an open, welcome, connected future.

Hakk had devoted years searching for this
small band of men, visiting villages and towns in distant
provinces, asking quiet questions in subdued corners, leaving a
trail for his brothers-in-arms to find him. He had known there must
be others like him, who had stood guard decades ago, like him, on
rice paddies now forgotten. Who longed too to see the work
continue.

The men, hatred stirred awake, came to him
from the remotest corners of the countryside, with hopes that their
collective dreams would restore order to the world gone mad.

Hakk held his arms behind his back and
breathed in, his shoulders rising with the inhale. He waited. On
the table, his satellite phone rang and he grabbed it to
answer.

“Jah. Jah.” Yes. Yes. OK.

He hung up and nodded at the men. Their faces
showed visible relief. The loss of the Siem Reap bomb had disrupted
the initial plan, but now things were back on schedule.

Hakk placed the pin in Siem Reap.

“Now we begin.”

As Hakk spoke, his voice quiet, his advisors
leaned forward to hear, their faces open and reverent, their eyes
unblinking. They watched his lips as his words unveiled a new world
for them. For their country. For the world.

What he said made their heartbeats
quicken.

*******

Andrew had watched the men enter the hut. He
noted that only one man stood guard in the doorway, the guard Heang
from the beach. From his location, Andrew could see into the hut
through a window and he watched Hakk talking. He wanted to get
closer.

He approached the stables from the back. From
this location, he could smell that the stalls needed a good
cleaning and some fresh hay. He stepped to the front to see the
offending creatures.

The stable revealed a large gray beast, whose
left eye watched Andrew, transfixed. The elephant was the largest
Andrew had seen. It huffed at him, a question. She and her
companion had been fed, an extra large bucket each, and so were
content and untroubled by their visitor. Watching her, Andrew
christened her Jane and her son Dick. Andrew was about to move in
to the stable, as figured it would be a good place to watch the
action, out of the rain, when he heard voices.

He slipped back behind the stable and watched
Heang approach, carrying something in his hand. Andrew assumed it
was a gun. He didn’t know if he should bolt for the cover of the
jungle or stay put.

Heang went right into the stable, where
Andrew could no longer see him. He could hear Heang speaking in
quiet Khmer, in a gentle sing song tone. Andrew ventured closer to
the stable window to peer in.

Heang was sitting on a plastic bucket feeding
the vast elephant grapes from his hand. He caressed the large
animal’s face and sang a lullaby while Jane ate.

After a few minutes, snack time over, Heang
patted the animal’s trunk, brushed off his trousers and walked back
to the hut. He wiped his feet on the dirt outside and walked
in.

Andrew watched this scene, considering his
options. He could draw Heang to the stable and maybe take him out
by force. But the odds were still too great; there were too many
men. And who knew if there were a few men more patrolling the
woods, though Andrew had not seen anyone on his approach up the
hill. He didn’t even have a weapon at this point. With a glance at
the animals, he retreated to the edge of the woods and waited.

Chapter 34

Hours later, Andrew fretted in the woods,
hungry and cold, knowing he was wasting time but certain that he
could stop Hakk’s plan, if he could just get inside that hut.

All day, he’d watched the men at the table.
From Andrew’s vantage point, he could see Hakk lecture his men.
Andrew caught an occasional familiar-sounding word, but they spoke
mostly in Khmer and without Socheat’s help, he understood little of
it. The men had eaten a simple meal, prepared by Heang, of rice in
coconut milk. Andrew had watched as Heang sliced the rind from the
fruit and tended the fire.

Each man in turn had left the hut to venture
into the woods, presumably, Andrew figured, to relieve themselves.
During all of this, Andrew had kept his eyes trained on the
hut.

At one point, after several hours, an
argument had erupted inside the hut, between two of the men, their
yelling waking Andrew from an uneasy snooze. Hakk had silenced them
with a word and resumed.

While Andrew waited, he built a rough
sling-shot from a supple twig and a thin elastic from his waist
band. He used to build them when he was a kid, terrorizing the
neighborhood squirrels. Not an ideal weapon, but it would have to
do.

Finally, in late afternoon, the men emerged
looking tired but eager. The meeting was adjourned just as the
storm broke, blowing east to Vietnam. Thin rays of light were
caught and reflected in large round raindrops on dark green leaves.
Hakk remained inside, unseen except for glimpses through the
window.

Heang stood guard as a few men lit cigarettes
and others hopped on their motorcycles, revving their engines as
they anticipated the return trip to their homelands. This, Andrew
knew, meant things were in motion for Sunday. The bikers launched
themselves onto the rough dirt trail and disappeared, leaving a
trail of dust.

Andrew counted. Aside from the two remaining
men, who were also readying for travel, that left Heang, one other
guard, and Hakk inside the hut. Andrew was more comfortable with
this. The departure of the men told Andrew that Hakk felt secure in
these woods, far from any city, certain that he had nothing to
fear. Confident that he himself was the greatest danger.

Andrew settled down behind the stable to
wait. After some time, all was quiet again. Heang called out to his
fellow guard. He had to urinate. He walked in to the woods on the
far side of the clearing, leaving only the one guard, facing the
stream, chucking stones at the small frogs that had appeared on the
banks, filling the coming night with song.

Andrew stepped into the dark stable where the
animals rested. He loosened the twine tying the elephants to the
bamboo poles and with a rump slap, pushed them toward the clearing.
They didn’t need much encouragement, as they too thought the stall
needed a good cleaning. As they stepped away from him, Andrew
patted the big girl’s rump. “Sorry, you’re not gonna like this.” He
slipped back into the darkness and pulled out the slingshot.

Elephants have thick hides but Andrew hoped
they could still feel beneath all that skin.

He found a bullet-shaped object in his
pocket. He’d gnawed off a part of the rubber sole of his shoes
while he waited. The hard black rubber would sting the old girl and
hopefully, piss her off pretty good. Andrew hoped she’d have
something to say about that.

Andrew took aim. In the clearing, Jane
nibbled on the grass, which tasted sweeter than her normal feed.
Her baby boy stayed close by.

Phhtt! The shot hit home and was followed by
a trumpeting that could wake the dead. The elephant bellowed,
wailed and kicked, turning this way and that in effort to stop the
pain and find the aggressor. Andrew shot a second round. More
furious complaining ensued.

Her companion, uncertain what had happened,
tried to be helpful but kept getting in Jane’s way. The wailing
continued, and Andrew assumed the rubber bullet had left a good
welt on Jane’s ample backside. No matter. It did the trick.

The guard rushed from the hut to see what the
fuss was about. Heang ran back to the clearing from his piss in the
woods.

On seeing the men running at her, Jane went
into a mad rampage, storming directly at them. The closest one
turned to run away, climbing the nearest tree he could find. But
Heang pulled out his gun and shut a round into the air. At the
sound, Jane bellowed once more and turned sharply, heading now for
the forest, for the safety of the deepest jungle she could find.
Her companion followed on Jane’s heels, their bellowing echoing in
the jungle.

Hakk appeared in the doorway at the top of
the short ladder.

“Fools. Go and get them.”

Amidst the hubbub, darkness had fallen,
without warning, night ushered in unceremoniously, without
introduction. The guards lit long bamboo torches and headed
reluctantly into the dense jungle. They had dim hope of finding the
escaped elephants, who now galloped through the forest, thrilled
with their freedom, trumpeting for all that they were back. The
guards did not argue with Hakk. They proceeded as commanded.

Hakk watched his men disappear in to the
jungle, their torchlight bobbing and weaving with their movements,
trying to find the semblance of a path, but having little luck.

“Fools.” Hakk muttered. He was alone now,
which he preferred. He needed his men only to execute his plan. He
retreated inside to wait. With the rising of the sun, his vision
would unfold across the country. All would be enlightened.

Andrew watched from his hiding place by the
stable. “This works,” he whispered to himself. He imagined Hakk
would be surprised to see him. And not pleasantly so. Andrew looked
forward to the reunion.

*******

Leaving his hiding place, Andrew stayed low
to the ground and circled the perimeter of the camp to approach the
main hut. A broad shallow brook bubbled nearby. He was certain
there was no one else but Hakk present.

He crouched in the semi-darkness of dusk and
moved to the hut, the sky above him the deepest blue before the
stars appeared. He wedged himself underneath the hut, into a
two-foot gap between the forest floor and the hut baseboards.
There, through gaps in the uneven floor, Andrew could see Hakk
pacing. Andrew smelled cigarette smoke, Hakk’s pipe and charred
paper, as if evidence had been burned. The lantern in the north
corner of the hut had gone out, its oil depleted.

Andrew’s only weapon, his knife, was safely
in the hands of Heang, who was now in the jungle, hunting his pet
elephant.

By the entrance to the hut, the cooking fire
still burned, popping and cracking as the flames devoured the dry
wood seasoned several years in the remote jungle. The fire threw
the occasional spark onto the clearing, where it extinguished in
grass still wet from the rain.

Concealed now so close to his target, Andrew
saw something glowing red amidst the flames. Andrew shimmied
forward in the dirt on his elbows to get a closer look at the
fire.

The object in the fire was a metal shovel,
stuck into the coals to move the logs and forgotten once the rice
was cooked and the meal was served.

Andrew listened. There was no sound of the
guards; they were too far into the jungle. He heard no noises from
above him in the hut. He could not see Hakk now but assumed he was
reading and standing still. Andrew pushed forward from underneath
the floor, toward the fire.