When morning broke Ollie’s ‘connections’ somehow did come through for them and although their vehicle was still missing, Alex and Sam did manage to catch a ride with his associates—as Ollie had put it—into the city. Alex had no idea who they were nor did she care. All she wanted was to get away from Ollie and back to the safety of her clean hotel room in Phnom Penh.
By the time they had reached their hotel, the foyer was already bustling with guests making their way to the dining area for breakfast. Though the hotel wasn’t quite the five stars it claimed to be, it was nonetheless a huge relief to be back. At the very least she’d have fresh running water and a decent shower and toilet.
At the end of the poorly lit corridor leading to their adjoining rooms Alex noticed the door to her room slightly ajar.
“What on earth…?”
“Shh!” Sam hushed her. He pulled a gun from his waistband under his shirt and pushed her against the wall behind him.
“Why do you have a gun with you?” She whispered in surprise.
“Ollie reckoned it might be a good idea; in the event of an eventuality. Stay here.”
“Not going to happen. I’m coming with you.”
Sam knew not to argue and noticed his room door slightly open too. They walked along the wall of the corridor and stopped just outside Alex’s room to listen. It was quiet so he slowly pushed the door open with the tip of the silver Smith & Wesson revolver’s barrel. Alex stayed behind him. There was no sign of anyone inside the small room or her bathroom.
Behind them, the door to his room creaked.
“Stay here, Alex!” Sam whispered in a stern voice as he hastened into his room and watched the figure of a man escaping over the balcony.
“Hey! Stop!”
But Sam was too late and he watched as the intruder jumped the two stories and escaped across the street.
“Sam!” Alex shouted in a panicked voice from her room. Sam sprinted back to her room expecting to find an accomplice in the room with her, but there was no one; just Alex standing in the corner staring at the room.
The entire room had been turned upside down. Stuffing from the pillows lay scattered everywhere. The sheets and mattress were pulled off its base, and the tiny desk’s drawers lay broken on the floor next to it.
“My room looks the same. The guy escaped through my window. Jumped both stories, would you believe it?”
“You saw him? Would you be able to describe him to the police?”
“No chance of that. He wore a mask, and besides, I only saw him from behind.”
“What do you think he was looking for?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know. Is anything missing?” replied Sam.
“No, I don’t think so. I took all my notes and equipment with me. Even the camera’s memory card. There was nothing here.”
“We need to call the police, Alex. Might as well report our stolen vehicle.”
“You’re right. I’m calling the Commissioner-General directly on this one. My gut tells me this was no random attempted burglary.”
Mr. San Yeng-Pho and his small team of police officers arrived fifteen minutes later and met Sam and Alex in the lobby before going up to their rooms.
“Miss Hunt, please accept my apologies on behalf of the king and our prime minister. This matter is unacceptable, and we will do everything in our power to catch the ones who did this. Have you found anything missing?”
“Thank you, Mr. Yeng-Pho. No, nothing’s missing from our rooms. However, our vehicle got stolen yesterday. We were out at the Nei Kar Slab Falls following up on a piece of information and when we went back to the Cruiser it was gone. We spent the night in the jungle, and when we got back here this morning, we walked into this.”
“Nei Kar Slab Falls? Miss Hunt, there’s a reason we refer to it as The Chasm of Death. It is a very dangerous place. Not only are the falls treacherous but the area still carries landmines, and there are many, many wild animals roaming that part of the jungle. Some even believe it is cursed. I am very happy and relieved to know you escaped it unscathed, but please don’t go back there again.”
Alex didn’t comment. The police commissioner’s plea was comforting, but not one she was likely to bend to as he clearly realized before he started up again. “Now, I will have my men comb the rooms for fingerprints and investigate if anyone heard or saw anything. As for your vehicle, Mr. Khen will take down all the details, and we will try to locate it, but I must be honest though, Miss Hunt, many revolutionary groups operate in that particular area on the Vietnam border, and the chance of us recovering the vehicle is extremely slim.”
Alex unfolded her arms and placed it in her pants pockets. “Thank you for your concern, Commissioner, but we’re simply following the clues. Wherever they may lead us.”
Sam who stood quietly finally decided to add to the conversation before the commissioner could respond. “Ahem, Mr. Yeng-Pho, I doubt your men will find any fingerprints. The perp was wearing gloves.”
“Gloves? How do you know, Dr. Quinn? You mean to tell me you saw him?”
“Indeed, just enough to see the guy jump my balcony and run across the street. He was wearing a black mask and black clothes from head to toe; actually just like the ninjas in the movies. I only caught sight of him from behind. He was a fast little bugger. I still don’t know how he cleared two floors with such ease.”
“Thank you Dr. Quinn. That is valuable information. I will have my team check the surveillance cameras from the street and see if we can identify anything else. In the meantime, I would suggest you stay at the hotel just to be safe until we clear the scene.” The commissioner nodded and turned heading up the stairs to their rooms.
“Sir, one last thing, if I may?” Alex stopped him. “We would like to see the original police report and transcribes taken from the security guards at the temple, please? Could you have someone send it over?”
“With pleasure, Miss Hunt, anything to help you find our golden urn. I will also request that the hotel immediately move you to new rooms on the top floor. Once my men are finished processing your rooms, they’ll have the porter take your luggage upstairs. Again, please accept our apologies and if you need anything else, don’t hesitate.”
And with that, Mr. Yeng-Pho delivered the instruction to the nearby hotel manager and followed him to their rooms up the stairs.
“Well then,” Alex spun around. “Nothing for us to do now but wait. I am famished though. I guess we could go grab breakfast and recap on what we know thus far.”
The hotel lobby was a flurry of excited British and French tourists waiting for their shuttles to take them on excursions through the city. The full foyer meant that, thankfully, the breakfast room was quieting down as the last of them finished off. Alex and Sam found a quiet corner by the window overlooking the Tonle Sap River; a total contrast to the entrance of the hotel on the opposite side that was bustling with mopeds and street vendors. The ornate gold and red decor over the expansive windows afforded a certain regal atmosphere. Exactly what they needed. Calm. Neither said a word until they had finished their coffee and when their breakfasts arrived soon after. Alex pulled out her laptop and journal.
“Right. Let’s see what we have this far, shall we? We know that there was a war over Buddha’s relics. The Buddha died in Kushinagar, India who tried keeping all its relics for themselves. Then all havoc broke loose as seven other clans waged war against Kushinagar to claim possession of the relics.”
“So how did it end up in Cambodia?” Sam asked.
“To keep the peace, it was divided across just about every Buddhist-majority country. Then, in 1957, The golden urn in question was gifted to the then ruler, king Sihanouk of Cambodia by the French, in commemoration of the 2,500th anniversary of Buddha’s birth. It was enshrined in the mountain shrine here in Phnom Penh. That’s where it had been ever since.”
“Until now that is,” Sam remarked through a mouthful of greasy bacon. “So essentially, any of the countries could have stolen it back. It could be anywhere. Didn’t you say they divided nine hundred thousand strands of Buddha’s hair?”
“If you can believe that, yes. What we do know for a fact is that, in total, eighty-four thousand shrines each received an urn containing different body parts of Buddha. So, if each of those shrines already have an urn, then my logic tells me they wouldn’t need another, right?”
“I would agree,” Sam said through another mouthful of food. “The urns are for religious ceremonial purposes alone. They wouldn’t need to offer their respects to more than one.”
Alex nodded as she took another sip of her coffee and stared pensively out the window.
Sam put another forkful of scrambled eggs in his mouth, “So wait, who verified what was inside each urn?” he asked.
“I would imagine the king, why?” Alex watched as Sam devoured his plate of food much like the bear stew he ate the night before.
“Well, it’s just a thought, but why did we not see any reports from the supreme patriarch of the leading monastery? Why hasn’t anyone spoken to the monks? From what I understand, they’re the ones driving the Buddhism religion and are behind the people’s protests to get the government off their behinds and investigate the theft of the golden urn in the first place. So the ritual sacrifices are for their purposes, mainly. They’re also very involved in the politics of the country. Some monasteries even rebel against the government. It wasn't until they had these protests that the government decided to start their manhunt. What if they know something or worse, were somehow involved in the theft?”
Alex smiled with pride behind her coffee cup. The theory had never even entered her mind.
“You raise a valid point there, Dr. Quinn. I’m impressed. Everyone is a suspect until ruled out, right?”
Sam smiled. “Well let’s see if I can impress you even more, Miss Hunt. The police file made no mention of any interviews with any of the monks at the stupa. We should see if we can get some information from the senior monks as to whether the urn was authentic, firstly, and secondly, find out if it indeed carried Buddha’s remains. I can’t imagine that only the king opened the urn and knew its contents. I think we should head up to the shrine and investigate it ourselves; see if perhaps the police missed anything. There should be a monk or two at the stupa too so we can start our questioning with them.”
“Impressive indeed,” Alex remarked before adding. “It might also be a good idea to trace the origin of the scroll the commissioner gave us. It led us nowhere thus far so I’m thinking it might be incomplete.”
Alex nodded quietly in response as she ate her last piece of french toast.
“We need to figure out who turned our rooms upside down and what the guy thought he'd find. Any ideas?” Sam added.
Alex stared blankly out the window onto the river that stretched out on the other side of the busy street. She was calm, but Sam knew her well enough already to know something was up.
“Okay, out with it. What’s bugging you?”
She wasn’t surprised at all that he had caught onto her thoughts so didn’t hesitate to answer.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about Ollie.”
“Ollie! Why, have you discovered you in fact like the bloke?”
“Don’t be silly! No! What I mean is that I’ve been wondering why he was out in the jungle when the bear cornered us. What was he doing there? Don’t you find it strange that he’d be so far from his house at night?”
Sam thought about it for a second.
“Nope, not really. Perhaps he was just hunting for dinner and found us caught in the middle. Maybe a stroke of luck for him, I think.”
“See, I don’t agree. Ollie was too far off from his house. I don’t think he was hunting. For one, he wouldn’t have been able to carry any kill that far on his own, and then there was the gun strapped under his table. I don’t think him meeting us there was a coincidence.“
Sam sat back and giggled.
“So you think he broke into our rooms? Alex think about it. He’s out there in the middle of the jungle all by himself. Of course he would need a gun to defend himself. Mr. Yeng-Pho said it himself. There are lots of guerrillas out there. Any of whom could slit his throat in the middle of the night. And why on earth would he be out there for us? Seriously, let it go. There’s nothing sinister about the man. He was our Good Samaritan, and we’ll probably never see him again.”
“So you keep saying. But you told him what we’re looking for remember? Perhaps he thought we had found it already and wanted a piece of the pie so he ransacked our rooms.”
“Really? How did he do that if we left him at his cabin this morning? Unless the man can fly, I honestly doubt it, Alex. You’re being paranoid.”
“Fine, but I’m going to tell you ‘I told you so’ when the papaya hits the fan. Mark my words, Sam Quinn.”
An hour later they had moved their belongings to the new upgraded rooms in the hotel and freshened up, rented a motorbike and were halfway to the mountain shrine in Oudong. The streets were busy. Organized chaos would be an apt way to describe the traffic as dozens of mopeds and motorbikes rambled the narrow streets. Many of these scooters carried entire families. Either on their laps or in the converted side carts resembling something more likened to a large go-kart covered by an umbrella.
The sidewalks were crammed with street vendors selling anything from clothing to fresh juice and chicken kebabs. Clusters of thick black power cords hung like Christmas decorations from telephone poles as it lined the streets in an untidy mess. Yet, each cable was neatly bundled and displayed a number or name tag with its classification.
Through all the chaos the commuters all seemed to drive in perfect harmony to each other. Like a well executed swan dance.
Sam miraculously managed to conform to the chaos and soon they reached the road that led out of the city toward the mountain shrine. They had barely approached the outskirts to the city when three motorcyclists gained on them from behind. Unlike the multitude of conventional mopeds they had just left behind in the city, these bikers rode on shiny black speed machines that stood out like sore thumbs. The bikers were dressed in black leather from head to toe. Their sleek helmets matching the attire in perfect cohesion and their visors tinted opaque with obvious intent to conceal their identities.
“Sam, these guys aren’t friendlies. Go faster!”
Alex silently thanked Sam for insisting they rent a dirt bike instead of a moped to travel to the shrine. It was by no means as fast as the sport bikes these thugs were on but if they could get to the forest path they would certainly beat them on off-road mobility.
As if the bikers sensed their plan, two of them flanked their sides and one pulled in front of them, stinting their speed. Alex noticed the one to her right reaching for a gun from the back of his pants while the one to the left instantly followed his colleagues lead.
Adrenalin pushed through her veins and, much to her surprise, revealed exhilaration instead of fear. Her hand reached to where Sam’s gun was still tucked in his waistband. Alex detested guns, probably out of it being totally unfamiliar to her, but her mind was now seized by the realization that this particular occasion called for it. She sensed these troublemakers meant business.
“Keep it steady, Sam. I have a plan,” she spoke into his left ear while lifting his shirt and taking hold of the small revolver. Her instincts kicked in and she cocked back the hammer. With one smooth motion she kicked the biker’s wheel to her right causing his bike to wobble and crash while she aimed the revolver and fired off a bullet into the biker to the left’s engine. Sam moved out from behind the front biker and sped up next to him. Alex fired off another bullet into the wheel of his bike spinning it out of control as it went crashing off into the side of the road.
“Whoohoo! Alex you did it!” Sam exclaimed as he gathered speed to create a safe distance before pulling off to the side of the road. Once stationary, Alex jumped off the bike and ran for the bushes. Her stomach flipped upside down as she retched on the side of the road. The thought that she might have killed someone made her sick and she threw up until her stomach hurt. When she finally stopped to take a breath, she realized she still had the gun clasped in her shaking hand. She tossed it onto the road behind her. It landed against the motorbike’s wheel with a loud clanking noise. Sam, who had walked a bit down the road to assess if the gang was still after them, flung around as the gun hit the metal and hurried toward her.
“Well there goes your breakfast little lady. You okay?”
Sam tucked the gun back behind his shirt. “That was some serious moves back there, Alex. I don’t even want to know how you knew how to do that!” Sam rejoiced looking back onto the scene in the distance.
Alex wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and walked back to the bike.
“I have no idea who I was back there either! I killed three people, Sam, so no, I’m not okay.”
“You think you killed them? You shot their bikes, Alex. I assure you they’re just immobilized from a hard fall. At most a couple of broken bones and a concussion, but certainly not dead. Speaking of which, we should really get out of here before they catch up again.”
Sam walked over to Alex and pulled her shaking body into his arms.
“You kicked their behinds, Alex. Some real action film stunts is what that was. I can’t wait to tell your father when we get home. He won’t believe it.”
Sam was clearly impressed and his calm reassurance managed to bring a smile to Alex’s face.
“I did kick butt, didn’t I?” she smirked in triumph.
“I’d say! Hopefully they learned not to mess with you. Tough as nails you are, Alex Hunt. But I would suggest we hurry on up and head up to the stupa.”