Read The Khmer Kill: A Dox Short Story (Kindle Single) for Free Online

mopped his sweaty brow, and ordered a tonic water with a slice of lemon. The bartender gave him his drink and they made pidgin small talk for a few minutes. Then the bartender returned to his seat and picked up a Khmer magazine, apparently what he’d been reading when Dox had entered. Dox sipped his drink and settled in to wait.
    True to form, Gant strolled in at noon sharp, carrying a green canvas duffle bag. A few western tourists had since taken up residence on the couches in the alcove, but otherwise they had the place to themselves. Gant set down the bag against the bar alongside Dox and took a stool two over. The bartender stood—too late, Dox noted, to have noticed the bag. Gant ordered a Bombay Sapphire martini, then produced a handkerchief from his pants pocket and dabbed his brow.
    “Heard they didn’t make proper martinis in these parts,” Dox said, with the air of someone making casual conversation with a fellow out-of-towner.
    Gant considered the hankie for a moment and smiled sardonically. “We live in hope.”
    Dox nodded. “That we do.” He waited until the bartender was distracted by his labors, then stood, placed a few one-dollar bills on the table, and exited with the bag.
    He ran a route to make sure he was still clean, then caught a tuk-tuk to a place called Little Bikes just north of the National Museum, where he rented a Honda CB400 and a full-face helmet. They tried to get him to take the bike for a week, but he told them no need, twenty-four hours ought to be just fine. He set the duffle bag across his lap and headed north, swinging around in the opposite direction when he was out of sight of the bike shop.
    In no time he was cruising along a deserted stretch of Tompum Lake on the outskirts of the city, an area he’d previously reconnoitered for this very purpose. The roads went from paved to gravel to dirt, the houses from concrete to corrugated to tar paper. Christ, these people were poor. He wondered why it was bothering him—it wasn’t like he didn’t see plenty of the same in Bali. Chantrea, he supposed. Her story about her family’s hardships was making it more personal for him. He was annoyed with himself for the reaction—he didn’t want to be distracted. And anyway, maybe she was just shining him on about all that, he couldn’t really know. But shit, what was he going to do, pretend the hardship around him wasn’t so bad because maybe Chantrea was exaggerating about her own? Sometimes you had to act as if something was real, even if it might not be.
    He shook it off and kept going. When he was satisfied he was sufficiently far from even the squatter’s shacks, he pulled over, killed the engine, and wandered down into the weeds at the edge of the shallow lake. The bike had kicked up a long line of dust in the airless heat, and he waited patiently until it had dissipated and there was no remaining sign of his passage.
    He unzipped the duffle. The SR-25 and its components were wrapped in rags, and he laid out each piece carefully along a cloth until he had it all in front of him. He noted the weapon was equipped with a Magpul PRS adjustable butt stock, a nice touch. He assembled everything, mounting the optics, screwing in the suppressor, working the stock knobs, all the while admiring the weapon’s clean lines but still feeling a little disappointed he wasn’t going to get to play with the XM 2010. Well, another time, for sure. He zeroed it at one hundred yards, the suppressor keeping the sound of his shots to a muted crack. When his groups were under a half-inch, he dialed in corrections for a 500-yard shot, and then started shooting at the longer distance. In no time, his groups were all sub-three inches. Okay. He wrapped the weapon carefully and placed it in the bag without disassembling it. Then he headed back to the hotel to wait for darkness and Gant’s call.
    At just after seven, his mobile buzzed. He picked up. “Hello.”
    “We’re on our way to dinner. A place