‘There is no radar coverage out this far,’ Arnie announced to Ethan. ‘And none at all out over the ocean. Nobody could have tracked us here. We’ll land at a remote spot on the lake and let you both out.’
Ethan nodded and reached across to pat his friend on the shoulder. ‘I appreciate you doing this for us, Arnie.’
Arnie responded with a vague scowl but said nothing as he returned his attention to the instruments. Ethan and Lucy watched in silence as the Catalina flew out over the lake, just five hundred feet above the surface of the water as Yin expertly orientated the aircraft to face into the wind while at the same time picking a landing spot far to the lake’s western shore.
Ethan watched as Arnie wound the flaps down and drew the throttles back, the Catalina descending ever closer to the water and slowing until Yin finally flared the nose and the Catalina shuddered as its hull touched down on the water. The entire aircraft vibrated as it thundered along the surface of the lake and then gradually began to slow.
Yin guided the Catalina close to the shore as Arnie leaned one arm back across his seat and looked over his shoulder at them.
‘No boat aboard, I’m afraid,’ he reported with a smile that suggested anything but disappointment. ‘And no jetties long enough for us to moor. You’ll be taking a dip.’
Ethan pretended not to notice Lucy’s angry glare as he made his way to the Catalina’s side hatch and opened the latches before sliding the door back. Green water stared up at him and he ensured that the waterproof bag inside his rucksack was sealed before he threw it onto his shoulders and without further hesitation jumped into the deep green water.
Ethan kicked out for the shoreline as he heard Lucy jump from the aircraft and splash into the water behind him. It took less than a minute for him to find his feet on the floor of the lake and wade his way out to the shoreline, Lucy just a few yards behind and still wearing a scowl on her face.
She crawled from the water and stood up, drenched and with her hair hanging limp from its ponytail as she dragged clumps of reeds from her clothes. Behind her, Ethan heard the Catalina’s engines clattering once again and the aircraft turned to face out across the lake and a faint spray of seawater hit Ethan in the face. Moments later, the engines rattled and spat before the propellers stopped turning and a deep silence descended upon the lake.
Arnie poked his head through the cockpit’s top-hatch and called to them. ‘Twenty four hours. You don’t show, we don’t stay, go it?’
Before Ethan could reply, Arnie ducked back inside the cockpit and slammed the hatch shut.
‘Well, that’s that then,’ Ethan said. ‘Where to now?’
Lucy, her face now permanently set in an angry grimace, stormed past Ethan as she climbed towards a road that encircled the lake.
‘North,’ she snapped without elaborating. ‘We get to the town at Siem Reap by the river, and we’ll figure out the rest from there.’
Ethan suppressed a smile as he climbed after her toward the road.
XIX
Ethan had ridden some fairly untrustworthy vehicles in his time, but the rickety and unstable motorcycle on which he now squatted pretty much ranked as the worst.
It had taken them two hours to trek around the outside of the lake’s western edge before they had encountered a small village and a local farmer who was willing to take them in his truck to Angkor Wat. A further bumpy hour later, and with Lucy in no better mood, they had arrived close to the massive temples. Ethan had seen images of the complex a thousand times before but even so he was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the ancient city complex. The presence of so much architecture seemed to soften Lucy’s mood a little, although they had no time to stay and investigate the ruins.
The journey further north, upon the ancient motorcycles that Ethan had managed to hire from a local vendor in Angkor Wat, had taken a further three hours after a rest for lunch and now the sun was descending to the west and the battered old engines clattered beneath them as they reached the slopes of Mount Kulen. The road was little more than a rutted clearing of dust and stones and the motorcycle’s suspension had frozen rigid many long decades before. Ethan led the way with Lucy grimly hanging on behind on a second motorcycle and apparently following the blue cloud of haze puffing from the exhaust of Ethan’s machine.
It took another hour of riding over the rough road, cracked and pot-holed from monsoon rains, to reach what the locals called the River of A Thousand Lingas. A popular tourist destination that was silent at this time of the afternoon, its waterfalls crashed nearby and Ethan could see nearby a massive 16th-century reclining gold Buddha carved out of solid rock at Preah Ang Thom.
They rode on along the ever-narrowing tracks, volcanic rocks and muddy courses, carefully crossing decrepit wooden bridges and carving a path through jungle streams that whispered and sparkled in the sunlight beaming down through the canopy above.
At a clearing along the edge of what appeared to be a series of damp, clogged bogs, Ethan and Lucy were forced to abandon the motorcycles. The tracks petered out into a narrow pass alternately rocky or filled with deep, slick mud from where the seasonal rains had thundered down the mountainsides. High reeds concealed large tracts of shallow water that led up to the edge of the mountain, itself enshrouded in jungle and broken cloud. The heat was intense, dense like a blanket against their skin and the humidity high enough that sweat did not evaporate. Despite stocking up with water Ethan recognised the dangers of dehydration in this harsh environment as he made his way between ever thickening banks of foliage with Lucy labouring a short distance behind.
Above them, the once blue sky had become overcast with sullen clouds and across the hillsides Ethan could hear the dull rumble of thunder as though giants were marching in pursuit of them as they entered the jungles.
‘We’re running out of daylight,’ Ethan observed as he looked at his watch and hesitated on the hillside. ‘Another couple of hours and we’ll have to make camp.’
‘We’ll make camp at Mahendraparvata,’ Lucy replied. ‘The previous expedition cleared the area, remember? I don’t fancy camping out in the middle of the jungle, especially if it’s going to rain. I’ve spent enough time getting wet on this little expedition so far.’
Lucy stomped past Ethan and plunged into the foliage. For a moment Ethan was reminded of his time with Nicola Lopez in Idaho, where they had plunged through forests that were cold rather than hot, in pursuit of something not quite human. He shook the thought from his mind as he turned and followed Lucy, keeping a sharp lookout for snakes, spiders and other unsavoury creepy-crawlies that made the jungle their home.
During his time with the Marines, Ethan had spent some months training in the jungles of the Philippines and had developed a healthy respect for the sheer volume of wildlife that called the tropical forests home. Virtually everything that lived here could harm humans in one way or another, from snakes large enough to eat a grown man to scorpions with venom nasty enough to result in the loss of limbs, and spiders the size of dinner plates with fangs an inch long. Once he had actually seen a millipede as long as his arm scuttling through the undergrowth of the jungle, and the sight had sent a shiver down his spine as he had imagined one of those awful creatures plunging into his sleeping bag.
Lucy forged on, either unaware or unafraid of the jungle’s insectoid offerings as she marched in search of the legendary city. Ethan maintained pace with her as they hacked, slashed and clambered their way through the dense undergrowth, Lucy holding a GPS locator in one hand to keep them on track amid the dense jungle. It was her concentration on the locator that made her almost walk into the huge stone statue that suddenly confronted them.