was leaving. “We have to arrange transportation, find food, get our gear.”
“I told you,” Luke said, “I can’t force a thing. You have to make up your own minds.” Then he turned and walked off. The doorway swallowed him.
Duncan was the first to speak after the boy left. “The poor kid belongs in an asylum,” he said. “Or in Cambodia.”
“You don’t think it’s real then?” said Molly.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Kleat said. He stabbed his glasses tighter against the bridge of his nose and produced a small dog-eared notebook. It was his bible, an index of all the American soldiers who had never returned from Cambodia, including his brother. He had copied it from Brite Lite, the team’s database of the missing. He leaned over the first dog tag and thumbed through the pages.
Just then the waiters arrived with dinner. Seeing the dirt and mud, they wanted to change the tablecloth and bring clean napkins and silverware. Duncan instructed them to set the various plates wherever there was room. Determined to have their ceremony, the waiters lifted the lids from the dishes with a flourish. Molly’s Australian lobster steamed. Kleat’s steak ran bloody, the way he’d ordered it. A hamburger sat in a croissant—a makeshift bun—for Duncan. No salads.
Kleat grunted at his index and picked up the second tag.
“Even if he was telling the truth,” said Duncan, “he’s withholding information. And if he isn’t telling the truth, we’d be fools to rush off into the night with him. They have gangs out there. He could be part of them. This is a desolate country.”
“You think he might be bait?” said Molly.
“I don’t know. There’s something about him. He’s too much in love with his own mystery.”
“How’s that make him different from any of us?” said Kleat. “We’re creatures of our fictions, every one of us.”
His mood had shifted. He was suddenly in high spirits. And Molly noticed that he was speaking once again in the plural, “us,” not “me.” It was no accident. He was, she realized, team building. He needed them. Not an hour before, he’d been ready to damn them for spoiling his place with the captain. Now he was trying to recruit them.
“I’ve had enough make-believe in my life,” Molly said. “I agree with Duncan. The boy is up to something. But what if he’s also telling the truth?”
“It would be a coup,” said Kleat. “The search-and-recovery agencies average twenty finds per year, at a cost of close to a hundred million dollars. Per year. Here’s our chance to take home nine sets of remains, paid for with the spare change in our pockets. Imagine that, three civilians, on their own.”
His excitement verged on lust, and Molly felt it, too. For Kleat it would mean sweet revenge for his eviction from the dig. It wasn’t in her nature to live for payback. The story was its own reward. This could translate into a book deal, maybe even Hollywood.
She started constructing it in her mind, a brief history of the mis-begotten war and then the tale of discovering nine of its lost children. She would keep herself out of the story, but at the same time make it deeply personal. Once she had names for the whole bunch of them, she would dive into the soldiers’ pasts and weave the story of their nexus in the jungle.
The sunset died. Its vast light winked out. Kleat finished by candlelight, grinning, knowing.
“What?” said Molly.
“Private First Class Edward Bellwether,” he read to them. “Master Sergeant Jefferson Samuels. Private First Class Thomas Anthony Sanchez. They’re real, or were. All three of them are listed as unaccounted for. And get this. They were part of the same platoon, an armored cavalry unit with the Blackhorse Regiment. All three were last seen embarking on a reconnaissance along the Ho Chi Minh Trail inside Cambodia on June 23, 1970.” He paused. “I’d say we have ourselves a mission.”
Molly drew in a breath, all the aromas mingling, firing her hunger. She looked out the window, but darkness had turned it into a mirror and she saw only herself. Her world felt reversed. On the verge of leaving, they were returning. Instead of being driven out, they could go back in, deeper, to greater reward, all on their own terms.
“What about the other six men?” asked Duncan. “What does it say about them?”
“There’s no way to cross-reference names and events. We could try calling the Department of Defense; it’s seven in the morning in Washington. But that might only tip off the captain, and we already know what he thinks of us. No, we have to go with what we have.”
“I still don’t like it,” Duncan said.
“We’re talking about just a few days more.”
“You don’t know that. And if the typhoon makes landfall…”
Kleat bent to his steak. “We can do this thing.”
“In the middle of the night, though,” Duncan pondered. “What’s his game?”
“The kid’s full of demons. A psycho. So what. He’s found something.”
“He wants a sense of control,” said Molly. “I say let him have it. Let him run the show his way. Soon enough we’ll have what we want.”
“And then he can go back to prowling around the moon,” said Kleat.
“I was going to say, then maybe we can take him home, where he belongs.”
Kleat’s jaw muscles bunched. He was ravenous. “That’s your business.”
“Your mind is made up then,” Duncan said to Molly. It was a question.
She looked at him. “I want this,” she said.
He looked at the window turned to mirror. “Then I’ll go, too,” he said.
9.
The idea of the journey hijacked them. This was a quest of their own making. It had the effect of making the last month with RE-1 nothing more than preparation for a much larger voyage.
Mindful of Luke’s petulant deadline, driven by it, they nevertheless forced themselves to stay at the table for fifteen precious minutes. They devoured their meal with the haste of thieves stealing someone else’s dinner, knifing the meat to pieces, tearing open the lobster, going for protein. Between bites, they made lists, compiled a budget, created a treasury of $458 American, and assigned each other tasks. Then they cast off through the town.
It was simple, really. Having just come off one expedition, they knew exactly what was needed for their next. Also, they didn’t require so very much. They agreed that the search would last no more than one week, round-trip. The remains were either real or they were not. A quick look, a quick retrieval, then they would race back to the city. At the first raindrop, whether it fell from the monsoon winds or was driven by the typhoon Mekkhala, they would all obey reason.
Kleat was sent back to their hotel to collect their clothes and other possessions, while Duncan took a taxi with Molly to try and find old Samnang.
Kampong Cham was not a large city. A few inquiries led them to Samnang, getting ready for bed in his cement-floored apartment. He graciously invited them in. His plastic leg was propped to one side. Incense was inking up from a little shrine in the corner.
Like Duncan, Samnang questioned the midnight ride. But like Duncan, when he saw Molly’s resolve, he agreed to join them. They were doing this, she understood, to protect her.
With Samnang’s involvement, the expedition metamorphosed from an idea into reality. He immediately knew where to obtain everything they required. He gravely fitted on his leg, then locked his door, leaving the incense to burn itself out.
By taxi they drove along the river to a small, walled compound, the home of the three Heng brothers. Molly knew them, or at least their faces, from the dig. One had driven her, Duncan, and Kleat from the dig that very morning, which gave a promising symmetry to tonight’s venture. It was almost as if she were being delivered to her proper destination.
The brothers owned a white Land Cruiser from the UN days, along with an antique Mercedes truck dating
