The Khmer Kill: A Dox Short Story (Kindle Single)

getting started, and to put a stop to it before it goes anywhere.”
    He paused and waited. Gant said nothing. He was very pale.
    “So you can try to run your way out of this, or to talk your way out. I’d advise Door Number Two. You’re a pretty good talker, and no offense, but you don’t look like much of a runner. And even if you were, I’m guessing my bullets are faster than your legs.”
    There was a long pause. Gant wiped his hand across his forehead and dried it on his pants.
    “His name is Vannak Vann. The UN GIFT task force I told you about. He’s the head of it.”
    Dox was genuinely confused. “I don’t understand.”
    “He’s not Sorm. He’s put together a dossier and a team that is finally poised to prosecute Sorm.”
    “You’re saying Sorm is real?”
    “Yes, he’s real. I’m not stupid. Most of what I told you is the truth. Sorm is real but he isn’t the target. There are a lot of pieces to this thing, and Vann is on the verge of putting them together. This week. At the meeting. We had to act now.”
    “Who’s ‘we’?”
    “Sorm. And the elements of the US government that protect him.”
    This wasn’t getting any clearer. “Why would the government protect someone like Sorm?”
    “For a lot of reasons, and we don’t have time to go into them all right now. When I told you Sorm has a lot of people in his pocket? I wasn’t just talking about locals.”
    Dox wasn’t buying it. “I want to know why the US government would protect a child trafficker. To the point of assassinating a UN official at his direction.”
    “I told you,” Gant said. “The empire is dying. Dying empires become obsessed with minor threats. Like the threat of Islamic terror. Sorm understands we’ll pay dearly for intelligence we believe will help combat that threat. So he passes on what he learns in the course of his work about cells like Jemaah Islamiyah and others in Southeast Asia. In return, he gets all the get-out-of-jail-free cards he wants.”
    “That’s what this is about? Protecting a source?”
    “Fundamentally, yes.”
    “Why the hell didn’t you just tell me all this up front?”
    “I didn’t want to tell you anything, remember? But you insisted. And when you did, I realized there was only one reason you were asking. You wanted to know if this was the kind of job you’d be willing to take. Which told me you’re… unusual among snipers.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning you might have moral qualms that could have complicated things. We didn’t have time to bring in someone new. So I made a decision on the spot. I misled you.”
    “You lied to me.”
    “Whatever you want to call it. I didn’t think it would matter.”
    “The hell you didn’t. A UN representative assassinated while on official business in Phnom Penh? You knew I’d learn about who I’d actually dropped when it got reported in the news. That’s why you put those three locals on me. I drop Vann, they drop me, problem solved, and all the loose ends tied up. And what were you going to do, keep the balance you owed me for yourself? Yeah, why fight the system, isn’t that what you said? Why not profit from it while you can, right?”
    Gant was sweating harder now. His breathing was rapid. It was a beautiful thing to behold.
    “Look,” Gant said. “This is business, right? You came here on business. Let’s not make this personal.”
    Dox thought about that. There was something appealing about it. Wasn’t it the very thing he’d been clinging to since arriving in Phnom Penh?
    But all at once, he felt he’d been lying to himself.
    “I’m sorry, son. I guess I’m just not built that way. I can’t always keep business and personal separate. I don’t even know if I should. A better person than you made me aware of that recently.”
    “Hey,” Gant said. His eyes were wide and darted back and forth across the river. “I told you, the people who hired you, you don’t want to cross them. Bad enough you don’t do the job. If something happens to me on top of it, they’ll come after you.”
    “Two things,” Dox said, still relishing Gant’s loss of composure. “First, I don’t believe you. I think you’re a pissant. You’re just a cut-out hired to hire other cut-outs. You carry yourself like you’re a made man, but in the end you’re just dog shit on a boot heel. I don’t think anyone’s going to care much one way or the other if somebody scrapes you off on a curb.”
    Gant swallowed. “What’s