‘Not far, Miss Collie. One last turn coming up, Mr Fred.’ She angled her arm to the left to indicate the direction. ‘Start your turn … now.’
Fred spun the wheel and watched the bow post drift across the trees.
‘Straight ahead now.’
‘Dead ahead it is.’ Fred brought the wheel back to midships. The Mekong Dawn straightened on course and they were rewarded by a bright strip of daylight about two hundred metres ahead.
‘I think we’ve reached the lake.’ Unable to help himself, Fred nudged the throttles forward a little and nodded appreciably as the beat of the engines increased.
The Mekong Dawn emerged from the twilight world of the swamps and into bright sunshine. A cheer erupted from those passengers who lined the rails. Out to the west the sun hung above the horizon and the waters of Tonle Sap were a deep gold.
Fred put his arm around Soo-Li and hugged her tight. ‘You’ve done it, darling! We’re out!’
Soo-Li rewarded him with her biggest and brightest smile.
Klim wore a broad smile also. ‘Well done! Move us out into open water. I’ll get headquarters on the portable radio. They can tell the patrol boat where to find us.’
Fred pushed the throttles to full power and the Mekong Dawn surged ahead. He looked back at the tree line and the swamps.
Collette guessed his thoughts. ‘I’m glad to be out of there, too.’
Soo-Li got to her feet and stood on tiptoe again as she peered across the water. ‘Look!’
Fred followed the point of her arm and saw a large vessel rounding the headland and powering towards them.
‘You can forget about the radio call, Captain. It looks as if your navy is already here.’
***
Ky trod water and looked about, but the darkness hid the shore from him. He wasn’t sure how long he had been swimming, how long it had been since Western threw him out of the RHIB. He had been steadily making his way towards the shore, but now he couldn’t see it and didn’t know which way to swim.
A few stars showed overhead and, at his limited horizon this low in the water, the navigation lights of a few vessels could be seen, but too far away to signal for help.
He was exhausted, and the few floating islands of water hyacinth he came across were too flimsy to offer any sort of support.
His ears slipped below the surface and he instantly heard a deep thrummm pulsing through the water. He lifted his head and looked about for the vessel that must be close. Pivoting, he saw a green navigation light, and a red one. A phosphorescent white glow bubbled the water between the lights. The ship was about eighty metres away and heading right at him.
Desperately, Ky kicked his legs and tried to swim out to the side. If he could get the attention of someone on the deck then he would be saved.
He swam into a large patch of water hyacinth, cursed and tried to swim around it. Vines tangled his leg and he kicked frantically, trying to get clear. Finally, he freed his leg, but when he looked up the vessel was almost on him, the bow blocking out a huge portion of sky.
The bow wave broke over his head and pushed him under. He scraped along beneath the ship, banging against the steel-plated hull, tumbling over and over in its turbulence. Then, through the noise of the engines and the rushing water, he heard the whine of twin propellers. The water changed, became less turbulent, but moved rapidly in a clean flow as it was pulled towards the large screws. Ky’s body was pulled along with it, sucked down into the maelstrom of whirling metal.
***
On the bridge of the Khmer Star the officer of the watch scanned the waters ahead. The way was clear. With luck they would reach Siem Reap, the ship’s home port, at first light. Tomorrow was pay day and his thoughts turned to the gift he had bought his wife to help warm his homecoming.
The beat of the engines gave a slight miss, cutting into his thoughts. His eyes flicked to the repeater gauges on the console. Left engine revolutions had dropped by a hundred RPM. He watched the tachometer and saw the needle quiver then climb back to normal.
‘Bloody water hyacinth!’
He went back to staring out the windshield and wondered if his wife would like the silk dress.
Epilogue
Kampong Chhnang
Captain Turan stared at the ringing mobile phone on his desk. The little screen was illuminated. The caller ID was not a name but a code word, one he’d thought he would never hear from again.
Tentatively, he picked up the phone, stared at it for a moment longer, then pressed the answer button.
‘Hello?’
‘You didn’t find the boy that night, did you?’ a voice said.
A frown creased Turan’s brow. ‘What are you talking about? Who is this?’
‘Thirty-eight years ago Malko sent you to hunt down a boy who escaped one of the purges at the Killing Fields. You never found him, did you? Let me help you out.’
The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. ‘Who are you? How do you know these things?’ There was no response to his questions, but someone knocked at his office door.
The voice came back on the line. ‘Why don’t you get the door?’
Turan stood and went to the door. As his hand turned the knob the door was thrust open from the outside. Major Sinh Ang stood on the other side, a phone in one hand and a pistol in the other. Four armed men stood behind him.
‘Good morning, Tepan.’
Turan reeled back. He hadn’t used that name for nearly forty years.
‘I did some checking,’ Ang said. ‘You are still wanted for crimes against humanity, Tepan. Your past has finally caught up with you.’ He held up the phone in his hand. ‘I found this phone on Malko’s body and am working through the numbers stored in it. I was surprised to find your number in here. But, on second thoughts, you did send us off to search the wrong side of the lake.’
Turan backed against the edge of his desk. Ang and the men followed him into the room. ‘You have it all wrong. This isn’t my phone. I found it on a suspect. I thought it might have something to do with Malko. I was going to call you.’
Ang nodded and smiled. ‘Very interesting. And if we study the address book stored in that phone, I’ll bet we’ll be surprised to see that the suspect also kept your wife’s number as well as that of other members of your household. By the way, we have just come from a little building beyond the airport here in Kampong Chhnang. Someone has set it up as a communication centre of sorts, hooked into the exchange on false numbers. There are photocopies of passports and all sorts of stuff. The forensics boys are there now. The place is full of fingerprints. I’ll bet we find some interesting ones, don’t you?’
The fight went out of Turan and he slumped back against his desk. One of the armed men stepped forward, turned him around and put him into handcuffs.
The smile stayed on Ang’s face. ‘You’re under arrest for terrorism and crimes against the Kingdom of Cambodia. Take him out through the main office, boys. Let everyone see what happens to traitors and crooked cops.’
***
Phnom Penh
Nancy had not felt so nervous in weeks. The waiting gnawed at her insides and she bit absently at a fingernail, not taking her eyes off the varnished wooden door, beyond which a government bureaucrat pondered her future. Scott sat at her side, his hand resting in her lap. Despite the airconditioning, she could feel perspiration running down the small of her back.
‘I’m sure it’ll be fine, Nance,’ Scott tried to comfort his wife. ‘Ang has thrown in the best possible word on our behalf.’
‘They’re taking far too long.’ She wrung Scott’s hand. ‘Surely they have come to a decision by now?’
‘It takes as long as it takes, sweetie.’ Collette tried to sound reassuring, but she was as nervous as Nancy. She threw the magazine she had been skimming back onto the pile on a low table.
Fred thumbed his cigarette lighter, an unlit cigar in his hand. He looked at the NO SMOKING sign and then at the ceiling
without saying a word.
There was no comfort there so Nancy went back to staring at the door.
‘So, you are back to flying?’ Collette tried to break the terrible silence.
Scott nodded. ‘I’m back to my old job. Things are pretty much back to normal. We’re just hoping for a good outcome here.’
The door opened and Nancy jumped in her seat. A smartly-dressed Cambodian woman beckoned them into the office. The woman went to a side desk, sat down and picked up a sheaf of papers. A man, dressed in a business suit, sat behind a more ornate desk under the window. He had his head down, reading a document on the blotter.
There were no spare seats so Nancy stopped in the middle of the room and stared at the man behind the desk. He finished reading and looked up at her, his expression neutral.
‘Ah! Mr and Mrs Morris. I have looked at your application and taken into consideration the excellent reference offered by Major Sinh. While the process of approval normally takes some considerable time, I am prepared to allow some leeway, given the special circumstances and events of a few weeks ago. You have both shown yourselves to be admirable people. I am told the diamonds recovered from the criminal Malko are being put to good use. Already there are plans for several new orphanages and a children’s hospital.’
‘I’m glad some good has come out of that whole mess,’ Nancy said, but couldn’t take her eyes off the documents on the desk, the documents that held so much of her future and the future of others.
The government official nodded. He picked up a stamp and thumped it onto the papers.
‘Your application for the adoption of Nguyen Soo-Li is approved. Congratulations.’
Nancy stood dumbfounded as the Cambodian woman got up from her seat and went to a door across the office. She opened it to reveal Soo-Li sitting on a high-backed chair in a small room, her legs swinging back and forth in nervous anticipation. The girl saw Nancy standing in the office and the swinging stopped. She leapt to her feet and rushed towards her. Nancy squatted on her heels and took Soo-Li in her arms.
‘Miss Nancy! Miss Nancy! Thankyou.’
‘You have nothing to thank me for, sweetheart.’ Nancy felt her heart pounding fit to burst and struggled to hold back tears. ‘You are a wonderful and bright young girl. It will be an honour to have you as part of our family.’
‘And Miss Collie and Mr Fred?’
‘They live on the other side of the country.’ Scott squatted beside his wife and new daughter. ‘But we will visit them often. I promise.’
‘You’d better.’ Fred’s voice was gruff. ‘I have plans to take my little navigator out cruising on Port Phillip Bay.’
‘I will go to school in Australia?’ The girl’s eyes were big and bright. Her head turned constantly as she tried to look at everyone in the room at once.
Nancy turned Soo-Li so she could look into her eyes. ‘You will go to school and to college, even university. If that’s what you want.’
Soo-Li looked pensive for a moment. ‘And when I am smart and grown up I can be a teacher? I can come back to Cambodia and help the children here to be as smart as I will be?’
Nancy pulled the girl to her chest and stroked her long dark hair – just like she had that night aboard the Mekong Dawn.
‘Your future is yours to choose, sweetheart.’
The end.
About the Author
Bill Swiggs grew up in Esperance, Western Australia. He joined the Royal Australian Airforce at age 19 and served 14 years as an aviation firefighter before discharging and becoming a police officer. He now works as a firefighter for a defence contractor and lives near Donnybrook, Western Australia, with his wife Rhonda, where he divides his time between working, writing, flying and his grandchildren. Mekong Dawn is his first novel.
Other books by this author
Coming soon - Blood on the Wattle
It is 1853 in the Colony of Victoria, Australia. Toby O’Rourke’s world is changed forever when a gang of ruthless bushrangers, led by the murderous Warrigal Anderson, raid his homestead and he is left to wander the countryside with his brother, Patrick. On the goldfields of Ballarat the brothers befriend the Hocking family and, in Annie Hocking, Toby finds a little peace for his tormented soul. Her love carries him through the hardships of life on the diggings and the killing ground of the Eureka Stockade.
When Anderson steals a shipment of gold bound for Melbourne, Toby is given a chance to join the police party sent to hunt the outlaw down. He chases Anderson into the wilds of the mountains in the hope of avenging the past and regaining a future for his family.
Connect with Bill Swiggs
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