Ty and Hang agreed with Son Sann. And in coming to Cambodia, one foreign officer had done more than pollute their culture. He destroyed something very personal to Hang.
Ty Sokha knelt over the body of the wounded American girl. She couldn’t be older than fourteen or fifteen. The Cambodian woman had seen so many girls like her, wounded or dying. And the dead. She had once helped Amnesty International locate a mass grave outside of Kampong Cham where over two hundred decomposed bodies were buried, most of them old women and very young children. Some of them had antigovernment slogans painted or sometimes carved on their bodies. Ty had also caused at least three dozen deaths by leading Hang to enemy officers or undercover operatives so that he could strangle them or slip a stiletto into their hearts while they slept. Sometimes Ty didn’t bother to lead Hang there. Sometimes she did the work herself.
Like most military operatives who worked alone or in pairs, Ty had been trained in field medicine and was experienced in wound debridement. Unfortunately, the first aid kit she’d been given was inadequate for the task. There was no exit wound, which meant the bullet was still inside. If the girl moved, she could cause further damage. Ty used the antiseptic to clean the small, round hole as best she could. Then she covered it with gauze and strips of tape. She worked carefully, efficiently, but less dispassionately than usual. Though Ty had long ago become desensitized to terrorism and murder, this girl and the circumstances of the attack were too painfully familiar.
It was about Phum, of course, Hang’s dear young sister.
As she worked, Ty thought back to the event that had brought them to such an unlikely place. A place so far from where they’d started.
Ty had grown up in a tiny farming hamlet midway between Phnom Penh and Kampot on the Gulf of Thailand. Her parents died in a flood when she was six years old, and she went to live with second cousin Hang Sary and his family. Ty and Hang adored one another, and it was always a given that they would marry. Eventually, they did, right before leaving on a mission together in 1990. They were alone save for a priest and his son, in a thunderstorm that had blown away the priest’s hut. It was the happiest time of Ty’s life.
Hang’s father had been a very vocal supporter of Prince Sihanouk, contributing articles to the local newspaper about how the prince’s free market policies had helped farmers. On a dark, muggy summer night in 1982, while Ty and Hang were in the city, soldiers of Pol Pot’s National Army of Democratic Kampuchea came and carried Hang’s father, mother, and young sister off. Hang found his parents two days later. His father was lying in a gully beside a dirt road. His arms had been tied behind his back, dislocating his shoulders. His feet and knees had been broken so he couldn’t walk or crawl. Then his mouth had been packed with dirt and his throat had been punctured so that he would slowly bleed to death. His mother had been strangled before his helpless father. Hang did not find his younger sister.
Ty and Hang’s world changed. Hang contacted Son Sann’s KPNLF, which supported the prince. Hang told them he wanted to continue writing the kinds of articles his father wrote, but not just to promote Sihanouk. He wanted to draw the NADK killers out and repay them for what they did to his family. Before allowing Hang and Ty to use themselves as bait, the KPNLF’s chief intelligence officer trained them in the use of weapons. Two months later, the small band of Khmer Rouge terrorists came to their hut. Hang and Ty had planned well and cut them down even before the KPNLF guard could summon help.
After that, the two were taught surveillance techniques. Along the way, they also learned the art of assassination. A CIA manual that had been found in Laos taught them how to use hat pins, rock-filled stockings, even stolen charge cards to stab eyes, break necks, and slice throats. They learned these skills to serve their country and also in the hope that one day they would find the monster who had ordered Phum’s death.
The monster who had eluded them because he was under the protection of the Khmer Rouge.
The monster who they had lost track of when he left Cambodia, and who they had found again only recently.
The monster who was somewhere in this room.
A monster named Ivan Georgiev.
THIRTY-ONE
Hood felt lonely and scared as he rode the elevator to the seventh-floor lounge of the State Department. That was where the other parents were waiting. There was no one else in the elevator; just his own sorry reflection, distorted and tinted by the highly polished gold-colored walls.
If he weren’t certain that security cameras were watching him and that he’d end up getting hauled away as a menace, Hood would have screamed and thrown uppercuts at the air. He was deeply worried about the rumors of a shooting, and he was miserable being on the sidelines.
The elevator door opened, and as Hood stepped toward the security desk, his cell phone beeped. He stopped walking and turned his back on the guard before answering.
“Yes?” he said.
“Paul, it’s Bob. Is Mike with you?”
Hood knew Herbert’s voice very well. The intelligence chief was talking fast, which meant that he was worried about something. “Mike went to see that local office manager you told him about. Why?”
Hood knew that Herbert would have to speak obliquely, since this was a potentially open line.
“Because there are two people in the target zone that he needs to know about,” Herbert said.
“What kind of people?” Hood pressed.
“Heavy-duty rappers,” Herbert replied.
People with rap sheets, a long history of no good. This was maddening. He had to know more.
“Their presence and the timing could be a coincidence,” Herbert said, “but I don’t want to risk it. I’ll call Mike at the other office.”
Hood walked back to the elevator and pushed the button. “I’ll be there when you do,” he said. “What’s the name?”
“Doyle Shipping.”
“Thanks,” Hood said as the elevator arrived. He folded up the phone and stepped inside.
Sharon would never forgive him for this. Never. And he wouldn’t blame her. She was not only alone among strangers, but he was certain the State Department wasn’t telling the parents anything. But if the terrorists had associates on the inside that no one else knew about, he wanted to be on hand to help Rodgers and August think things through.
On the way down, Hood pulled his Op-Center ID from his wallet. He hurried through the lobby back to First Avenue and ran across the street and up four blocks. He flashed the ID to an NYPD guard who had been posted outside the United Nations Plaza towers. Though the towers were not part of the UN complex per se, a lot of delegates maintained offices here. He went inside.
Hood was breathless as he signed the security register and went to the first bank of elevators that led to the lower floors. He still wanted to scream and punch the air. But at least he was going to get involved in what was going on. At least he would have something to focus on other than fear. Not hope, but something almost as good.
An offensive.
THIRTY-TWO
It was him.
The flat voice, the cruel eyes, the arrogant carriage — it was him, damn his soul. Ty Sokha couldn’t believe that after nearly ten years they had found Ivan Georgiev. Now that she’d heard his voice beneath the mask, been close enough to smell his sweat, she knew which of these monsters it was.