State of Siege - Tom Clancy [72]
Ty and Hang agreed with Son Sann. And in coming to Cambodia, one foreign officer had done more than pollute their culture. He destroyed something very personal to Hang. Ty Sokha knelt over the body of the wounded American girl. She couldn't be older than fourteen or fifteen. The Cambodian woman had seen so many girls like her, wounded or dying. And the dead. She had once helped Amnesty International locate a mass grave outside of Kampong Cham where over two hundred decomposed bodies were buried, most of them old women and very young children. Some of them had antigovernment slogans painted or sometimes carved on their bodies. Ty had also caused at least three dozen deaths by leading Hang to enemy officers or undercover operatives so that he could strangle them or slip a stiletto into their hearts while they slept. Sometimes Ty didn't bother to lead Hang there. Sometimes she did the work herself.
Like most military operatives who worked alone or in pairs, Ty had been trained in field medicine and was experienced in wound debridement. Unfortunately, the first aid kit she'd been given was inadequate for the task. There was no exit wound, which meant the bullet was still inside. If the girl moved, she could cause further damage. Ty used the antiseptic to clean the small, round hole as best she could. Then she covered it with gauze and strips of tape. She worked carefully, efficiently, but less dispassionately than usual. Though Ty had long ago become desensitized to terrorism and murder, this girl and the circumstances of the attack were too painfully familiar.
It was about Phum, of course, Hang's dear young sister.
As she worked, Ty thought back to the event that had brought them to such an unlikely place. A place so far from where they'd started.
Ty had grown up in a tiny farming hamlet midway between Phnom Penh and Kampot on the Gulf of Thailand. Her parents died in a flood when she was six years old, and she went to live with second cousin Hang Sary and his family. Ty and Hang adored one another, and it was always a given that they would marry. Eventually, they did, right before leaving on a mission together in 1990. They were alone save for a priest and his son, in a thunderstorm that had blown away the priest's hut. It was the happiest time of Ty's life. Hang's father had been a very vocal supporter of Prince Sihanouk, contributing articles to the local newspaper about how the prince's free market policies had helped farmers. On a dark, muggy summer night in 1982, while Ty and Hang were in the city, soldiers of Pol Pot's National Army of Democratic Kampuchea came and carried Hang's father, mother, and young sister off. Hang found his parents two days later. His father was lying in a gully beside a dirt road. His arms had been tied behind his back, dislocating his shoulders. His feet and knees had been broken so he couldn't walk or crawl. Then his mouth had been packed with dirt and his throat had been punctured so that he would slowly bleed to death. His mother had been strangled before his helpless father. Hang did not find his younger sister.
Ty and Hang's world changed. Hang contacted Son Sann's KPNLF, which supported the prince. Hang told them he wanted to continue writing the kinds of articles his father wrote, but not just to promote Sihanouk. He wanted to draw the NADK killers out and repay them for what they did to his family. Before allowing Hang and Ty to use themselves as bait, the KPNLF'S chief intelligence officer trained them in the use of weapons. Two months later, the small band of Khmer Rouge terrorists came to their hut. Hang and Ty had planned well and cut them down even before the KPNLF guard could summon help.
After that, the two were taught surveillance techniques. Along the way, they also learned the art of assassination. A CIA manual that had been found in Laos taught them how to use hat pins, rock-filled stockings, even stolen charge cards to