to joke. Best not to speak. If Darrha’s coming back from a meeting with the Americans, Kasper will know at once.
The SUVs stop a short distance away. He recognizes the voices.
A few seconds later, his usual guards are “invited” to leave the stilt house where they’ve been holding him prisoner. It’s a family with guns, one of many in this village of former Khmer Rouge who have moved from guerrilla warfare to the laborious routine of daily survival.
The family goes out and the CID men come in.
Darrha doesn’t speak. He gives his troops free rein. They pass around bottles of Mekhong Whiskey and Jack Daniel’s. And they laugh. They’re laughing the way they did the day he was detained at the border, itching for some violent entertainment.
Darrha sits on one of the mats in front of Kasper. The oil lamp illuminates the lieutenant’s sharp features. Stinking of alcohol and resentment, he stares at Kasper and shakes his head. “Italian, Italian . . .” he mutters. “They say you’re a pilot.”
Kasper barely nods.
“You piloted airliners? Is that true?”
“Among other planes, yes.”
“And you like flying airplanes?”
Kasper shrugs.
Darrha calls for the Mekhong and swallows a mouthful. He throws the bottle to Kasper, who takes a drink too.
“The Americans are mad at you, pilot,” Darrha says sardonically.
Kasper would like to reply, but he restrains himself. No smart remarks. No bright ideas.
“He’s making our American friends mad,” Darrha says to his men. Then, as though remembering that they don’t speak English, he repeats the remark in Khmer. They laugh like crazy.
Darrha pulls his revolver out of his belt and empties the cylinder. He picks up one of the six cartridges and reloads a chamber, as fast as a croupier at a green felt table. With a forceful gesture, he spins the cylinder, snaps it closed, raises the pistol, and hands it to Kasper. “Russian roulette,” Darrha says, stressing each syllable.
“What the fuck are you saying?” Kasper asks.
“Russian roulette. You play, we bet.” He adds something in Khmer, and money begins to circulate around him. Dollars, of course. “Russian roulette, or I shoot you,” he clarifies, pointing the Kalashnikov’s black eye at Kasper.
Kasper tries to buy time. “Are you going to play too?” he asks the lieutenant.
Darrha makes a face, as if to say, “Thanks, maybe another time.” Then he laughs and, glancing at his rifle, says, “He and I will shoot you if you try anything smart.”
Kasper picks up the pistol. It can’t be possible that they really want me to do this, he thinks. Only it’s not a joke. Darrha’s face tells him so, and the bets taking place all around Kasper confirm it. So does his body, which breaks out in a sweat.
How much time passes? Seconds. Interminable seconds. A lifetime.
One shot out of six.
“Why do you want to kill me?”
“I don’t want to kill you,” Darrha says with a smile, displaying his rack of teeth. “It’s your American friends who want you dead. I have to be able to tell them that fate was stronger than all of us. For us, for Asian people, fate is something very serious. If fate wants you to live, you’ll live. But if it wants you to die, what’s the difference whether it happens today or tomorrow?”
“I don’t want to die.”
“Then you won’t. Or maybe you will. Come on.”
“You’re nuts.”
“Shoot, son of a bitch!”
“Fuck you, Darrha.”
“Shoot! The boys are waiting, and—”
But Darrha can’t finish his sentence. Kasper’s fast with a pistol, even when he has to aim it at his own temple. He squeezes the trigger; the empty click strikes everyone dumb. But soon they’re all shouting again. Money changes hands. The majority of them have bet against Kasper, and now they want a chance to recoup their losses.
“It’s only fair,” says Darrha succinctly. He seizes the pistol and spins the cylinder again. Another go-round.
Darrha hands Kasper the gun.
There’s a mingled odor of sweat and alcohol, of animal temperatures approaching the boiling point.
To die in this place, the fucking armpit of the world, Kasper thinks. To die for a handful of desperados blitzed on drugs and alcohol, for a bunch of punks steeped in violence and formed by a subculture that gives human life no value. One bullet, six possibilities; one chance out of six that you’re fucked.
Darrha’s grinning like Charon. The ferryman on the last ferry.
Kasper thinks if he sticks that pistol in Darrha’s face, he’s got some probability of blowing him away. For a little more certainty, he’d like to have at least three live rounds in the gun. A crazy idea, sure, but one way or the other, he’s a dead man. . . .
Darrha levels his AK-47. “Come on, Italian. Be brave.”
Kasper points the pistol at his temple. Click. An empty chamber, once again.
He flings the pistol at Darrha, who receives it in the chest. He laughs like the school bully who plays you a dirty trick and then yells in your face, “You fell for it! Couldn’t you tell it was all an act?”
And, in fact, Kasper thinks maybe it was just a prank. Maybe there never were any bullets in that revolver. Maybe it was all a show they put on to make him shit his pants.
So Kasper laughs too. And has another swig of this Mekhong Whiskey hooch, which it turns out is not all that bad. Darrha raises the pistol toward the ceiling and squeezes the trigger. Another empty click, and then a shot. Surprised silence reigns for a moment before they all go back to laughing, drinking, and settling their bets. Then, finally, they leave him and his prison, climb into their somber SUVs, and drive off into the night toward Phnom Penh.
They leave him with his jailers, the Cambodian family with guns, who return to their habitual silence.
The wife of the head of the family looks at him and says nothing. But she puts a hand on his shoulder, sighs, and at dinner serves him a double portion. Rice and dried fish. A lot of it, for a change.
6
Agent Kasper
Rome, in the neighborhood of the parliament buildingMay 2008
The senatore hands two one-euro coins to the street vendor who’s pestering him. He dodges the vendor’s proffered bouquet of roses and repeats, “No thanks.” Barbara says it too: “No thanks.” But the vendor insists she must take at least
