Chasing the Wind (5 page)

Amalise sipped her tea and passed on the latest news from work. Her secretary, Ashley Elizabeth, had found a new boyfriend and was still playing tennis. Preston's wife was having twins, due in February. Raymond was billing seventy hours a week on a regular basis now, he bragged. He was up for partner year after next.

"Will Rebecca be working on this transaction with you?"

"No." She looked at him from under lowered lids. "That was a surprise. We've always worked together before." She stirred her tea and took a sip. "I guess our time's more expensive now after a year at the firm, so they'll split us up and use newer lawyers for the work we used to do together." She smiled. "Rebecca called it the 'drone work.'"

"Well that's too bad. I know she wanted it too."

Amalise nodded. "I could tell that. And she's right, this is an important project."

He hooked his arm over the back of the chair and let his eyes roam. He'd have to clear things up with Rebecca soon. He knew where things stood with her, though, unlike with Amalise. Rebecca was consumed with her work, her career. And she hadn't seemed fazed when he'd spent most of his off-duty time over the past few months in Marianus, helping the Judge and Maraine with Amalise, instead of staying in the city.

The waitress arrived, and Jude realized that Amalise had continued detailing her day at work and he'd lost track of the conversation. He knew she was working her way back to the sun as she talked in that excited, revved-up way, and half-listening, he made all the right sounds while looking for signs that she might have reentered the fray too soon. The doctors had been split on that decision, so she'd made it herself.

But he shifted his attention to the thick, fragrant gumbo when the waitress set it down before him. The gumbo was dark and spicy, thick with chicken, okra, and Andouille sausage. He ate and watched as Amalise scooped up the red beans and rice as though she hadn't eaten in a week.

She looked at him. "Is the gumbo good as Mama's?"

"Not a chance." He leaned over and scooped a bite of beans and rice from her plate. Savored it for a moment. Nodded. "That's good."

Amalise gave him a sideways look, fork hovering over the plate. "The schedule on this deal will be grueling, but I'm excited about being on the team."

He glanced at her and worked the worry from his expression. Their earlier conversation still lingered. Still, he couldn't help but ask the question. "You sure you're ready for this?"

"Yep." Lifting the glass of tea, she smiled. "I've got energy to spare after all that bed rest. I've stored up my nuts for the winter."

He looked at her, thinking of the squirrels darting over the branches of the oak tree just outside Amalise's bedroom window in Marianus. Year after year they scurried around preparing their nests for winter, and the next year they did it all over again. Again and again, an endless circle in the same old search.

He bent over the bowl of gumbo. Amalise was looking for something more than that, as she'd made clear. If she was right, she'd find out what that was in time. Perhaps her purpose in life would end up having something to do with those shadow children, the ones she'd fixed on in Phnom Penh back in '75.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia 1975

Samantha Barlow looked up as the
office door opened and Oliver Murna walked in. Outside the U.S. Embassy she could hear panic rising in the street, shrill voices and the incomprehensible chatter that came with terror and the unknown—shouts, curses, screams. In the distance she could hear the muffled sound of artillery fire. Refugees came on foot, in oxcarts, rickshaws, automobiles, Jeeps, trucks, all pushing into the city and jamming things up, stirring the dust, stirring the fear. President Lon Nol had fled weeks ago. Wealthy families had followed. Politicians, foreigners, even some of the aid workers had left.

"Roads are blocked." Oliver shut the door behind him and lowered his voice. "We're leaving, Sam. Evacuating."

"When?"

"Three hours. That's all the time we've got, and there are only two planes. Not much room." He looked at her and repeated, "We have only three hours."

Impossible. "At the airport?"

"No. Pochentong's already shut down, under fire." His face shone with perspiration as he gave her directions to an old airstrip outside the city. He stuck his hands in his pockets, walked to the window, and gazed at the mass of humanity streaming toward the center of Phnom Penh. When he turned back, she saw the fear in his eyes.

"The Khmer Rouge are moving in. We're cutting it close, Sam. Now look," he crossed his arms and locked his eyes on hers, "if you're not there . . ." He jutted his chin out. "You have to be there on time. I'd go with you now, but there's too much to be done here, so you'll have to make it on your own. Don't pack much—just the essentials."

She nodded.

"I'll be waiting for you at the airfield. But you will be left if you're not there in three hours when the planes take off. It's not me—there are others." He paused. "Do you understand?"

She nodded again and stood. Her heart was racing; she couldn't think. She'd read of the atrocities. The Khmer Rouge were mindlessly cruel. She waved her hand over the room. "The records a-a-and the families."

"We're taking care of things here. We'll burn what we can't bring. Just make sure you get to the airstrip on time." He glanced at his watch. "It's two o'clock now."

His words were like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle she couldn't put together. She'd thought they'd have weeks to prepare if evacuation became necessary. "And what about them?" She turned her head to the window behind her, to the thousands crowding the streets outside the embassy gate. "What about the families? The children? We can't leave them behind."

He lowered his eyes. She watched in silence as he seemed to gather himself, and when he looked back up at her, his face was hard, unreadable, his lips pressed into a straight, tight line. "Orders, Sam. No one else comes along. We have limited space. U.S. citizens only." His eyes gleamed moist, and he turned away toward the door. "You have to keep this to yourself. And remember, no more than one bag—a small one."

"What about CARE? USAID?"

He stopped and nodded. "They're evacuating, too. Some are coming with us." He turned back and fixed his eyes on her again. "The planes lift off at five. No one else, Sam, I mean it. If you bring others, they won't get on. It'll only make things harder if you do. More difficult for everyone."

She stood behind the desk, dazed, as he closed the door. Three hours to pack, to leave Cambodia forever, to leave behind the hundreds of people who depended on her for food, clothing, and medicine. Once she left, there'd be no contact with the outside world for these people she'd come to love. She had prayed this time would never arrive. Honestly, she'd never been able to contemplate the possibility and couldn't bear to think of it now.

Samantha pulled her purse from a drawer in the desk. She closed the folder she'd been working on, lists of thousands desperate for help, the elderly, the sick, the hungry, the lost, and all the new ones flooding into the city every day just ahead of the approaching army. She imagined the Khmer Rouge, now just hours away, imagined their relentless march toward Phnom Penh, swarming like an army of red ants over everything and everyone in their path.

She didn't know if she could do this. She would be abandoning everyone here who needed her.

Her hand rested on the folder for a moment, and the words of the report came back to her. The pillaging of villages, rape, torture, murder. Slowly she lifted her hand. She was afraid to stay. She was a coward, she realized.

Digging into her purse, Sam pulled out her wallet. Whatever money she had would go to someone that needed it. She opened the wallet and counted out riel notes. She had only the equivalent of about ten U.S. dollars of her own, not even enough to buy passage out of the city to get to the airfield.

Her eyes lit on an envelope on her desk that had arrived two days ago. Inside was a stack of worn ten-dollar bills, U.S. currency. One hundred dollars cash. Who would send cash through the mail like that, addressed to no one particular, just U.S. Embassy, Phnom Penh, Cambodia? It was a fluke that it had arrived intact.
To be used to help the children
, the note had said, with no signature.

She snatched up the envelope, glanced at the name and address on the back, and stuffed it into her purse. With a last glance at the folder on the desk, Sam turned and walked toward the door, struggling to hold on, not to let the horror reach into her soul because if it did, she would surely fall apart.

Not yet. Not yet.

Samantha exited the gates of the U.S. Embassy and ran into the swarm of humanity at the corner of Norodom and Sothearos Boulevards. She looked around before pushing into the crowd. Bodies shoved her one way and then the other. Hot sun. Dust. A fury of sharp elbows, knees, hands shoving, pushing. Children wailed, and women wept. Men with empty faces, knowing eyes, pushed forward. The Khmer Rouge were coming.

A bicycle rammed past, and she moved aside just in time, clutching the purse as she pushed into the bicycle's draft before the crowd could close around her again. The body heat and stench were smothering. Her toe struck a cement curbstone and she tripped, caught her balance, and fought her way onto the sidewalk, moving against the surge of humanity. Suddenly she was pressed against a building by the panicked crowd moving in the other direction, and she flattened herself against it, catching her breath.

After a moment the crush lessened. Samantha straightened, took a deep breath, and looked back through the crowd at the embassy gates across the street, to the building beyond. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she thought of all that she was leaving behind.

And then a small hand slipped into hers, curling to fit her palm.

Sam started and looked down. A child stood beside her, staring straight ahead into the crowd. No more than three feet tall, he stood there pressing against her leg. She gripped her purse—children could be vandals, too, in this city. But the child only clung to her hand not moving or looking at her or speaking. After a moment, she stooped, sitting on her heels, twisting so that she faced him.

He looked at her, expressionless.

"Hello," she said in Khmer. She was proficient after five years here.

He was silent. She tried again. "Are you lost? Where's your family?"

As if afraid she'd leave, he inched closer, still grasping her hand. He was thin, like a bag of fragile sticks, but as with all children alone in this city, his belly was round and distended.

"Where is your mother? Your family?"

But she saw no flicker of recognition. His eyes were flat, emotionless. In them she saw no reflection of happier days—not even questions or hope. She looked around for someone to claim him, but no one seemed to notice them standing there. Every face, every mind was focused on one thing only: survival.

Sam shifted her purse, feeling hysteria rise.
Oh God, oh God. Tell me what to do now. What do I do with this child? I can't leave him alone in this mob, fodder for the Khmer Rouge. And I can't take him with me. What do I do?

Glancing at her watch, she saw twenty minutes had passed since she'd left the office. She closed her eyes. Two hours and forty minutes, that's all that was left to get home to retrieve things she couldn't leave without—some photographs, some jewelry that Mother had left when she passed on—precious things.

Artillery fire in the distance startled her, and she opened her eyes, suddenly realizing the enormity of her problem. She might not even make it through this frenzied mob to reach the airstrip by five o'clock. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge army continued to push forward into the city.

She stood, preparing to flee, preparing to work her hand free of the child's. She refused to let her mind dwell on this. She would
do it,
leave the child right here, sheltering against the wall. As if reading her mind, the boy tightened his grip. She fell back against the cement wall again and stared at the embassy building across the street, feeling the fragile, bird-like bones in her hand. She knew she couldn't leave him behind, and there were only two hours and forty minutes left before the last plane took off from Phnom Penh.

The minute hand was ticking, and still the child clung to her.

New Orleans—1977

Bingham looked around the room and
smiled to himself. The first meeting for Project Black Diamond. Two lawyers from Mangen & Morris were there representing the group of banks that would finance the venture, and another lawyer, Adam Grayson, had just arrived from New York to represent Robert Black and the other investors. And, of course, there was Robert. They were in the Mangen & Morris offices, in a conference room on the eighteenth floor. The large corner room was bright with sunshine streaming in through the row of windows.

"Gentlemen," he said in a cheerful tone. He stuck his hand out on the table, arm stretched, loose fisted. "We're going to scatter some stardust over the city of New Orleans. From what I understand, this is a town that likes a little glitter. When we're finished, this tower, this hotel that we're building, will be the first thing everyone sees when they drive into town. You'll be able to see it from every point in the city." He gestured toward a long roll of paper on the table next to Robert. "Take a look at the architect's drawings when you have a minute, and you'll see what I mean."

The bankers and lawyers looked back at him, expressionless—one of their specialties, he thought. Most of them were men with no imagination, no sense of adventure, and except for Robert, no appreciation for the thrill of embarking on a new venture. He'd be glad when Tom Hannigan got down here. Now
there
was a young man who saw things in the right light.

His eyes stopped on the lead lawyer for Mangen & Morris and the bank group. Doug Bastion, a good Louisiana name. And next to him was his double—same suit, same tie, same smile. Bingham probed his memory for the name and came up with Preston Something-or-other.