The Afterglow of Cameron Highlands (US Edition)

Chapter 2: Whispers in the Mist

Highland Solitude

The flight from Bangkok’s Don Mueang airport was a journey from one world to another. Below, the jungle stretched out like a dense, green carpet—a world Jim Thompson had once fought and survived in. A world he was supposed to have left behind.

The Cameron Highlands was the antithesis of Bangkok.

At 1,500 meters, the air was cool and moist against his skin. Standing in the garden of the ‘Moonlight’ bungalow, the city’s heat and the sharp-edged deals of his business felt a million miles away.

“You look truly happy, Jim. Like a schoolboy on holiday,” Helen Ling, his hostess, said with a laugh. She found him sketching a rare alpine flower in her garden.

“If only I could go back to being a boy,” Jim said, and he meant it. He loved plants, fascinated by the perfection of their structure. The architect in him was still very much alive.

They drank tea and ate fresh strawberries from the local market, making small talk. Jim, the charismatic Silk King, was in his element, telling stories of his successes in Bangkok and his misadventures on buying trips in Europe.

But a part of him was never at rest.

While his friends were admiring a butterfly, his eyes were unconsciously scanning the terrain.

(This hill has a good vantage point. Perfect for a listening post.)

(The stream would cover footsteps. But it also masks an approach.)

(That rock formation… big enough to hide two men.)

It was a habit burned into him by the OSS. He didn’t see a landscape; he saw a tactical map of cover, sightlines, escape routes, and ambush points. A ghost he had tried to bury for over twenty years.

One morning, he took a walk alone through a nearby tea plantation. The fog was thick, visibility down to a few meters. As he walked between the neat rows of tea bushes, he heard a sound through the mist. Voices? The cry of an animal?

He froze.

Instantly silent. Breath held. Every nerve strained to listen, to identify. It was basic tradecraft.

Seconds later, a group of local women, the tea-pickers, emerged from the fog. They were chatting and laughing as they walked towards him.

Jim let out the breath he was holding. He could feel his heart beating just a little too fast.

(What am I doing?) he mocked himself. This wasn’t a warzone. This was a vacation.

But was it?

His gaze drifted to the edge of the jungle. The fog swirled there, hiding the entrance like a curtain. What was in there? How was it different from the jungles he knew in Thailand?

He felt the void inside him whisper again, a quiet but irresistible pull.

The First Trace

The day before it happened. Saturday, March 25th.

The weather on the highland was mild. In the afternoon, Jim went for a walk alone down the path leading from the bungalow.

He walked without purpose, enjoying the cool air. The smell of damp earth and decaying leaves was a scent he didn’t mind.

He was rounding a gentle curve in the path when he stopped.

Ahead, among a large cluster of ferns, one leaf was bent at an unnatural angle.

Anyone else would have missed it. A trick of the wind, maybe an animal passing through. But Jim’s eyes didn’t miss the incongruity.

The leaf was creased sharply, like a line drawn with a ruler. The fold pointed directly off the path, deeper into the jungle.

(A marker?)

In the OSS, they used signs like this all the time. A certain stack of stones, a broken branch. A silent language to signal direction or danger to a follow-on team.

(No…) He shook his head. He was overthinking it. This was a Malaysian resort, not occupied France during World War II.

He started walking again, but the alertness, once awakened, would not go back to sleep. His senses were now operating on a higher frequency.

A few minutes later, he stopped again. His focus was on the ground.

On a patch of damp, red earth, he saw a faint scuff mark. Next to it, nearly invisible, was a partial boot print.

The tread wasn't a hiker's. It was deeper. Military-style. And the pattern was one he didn't recognize from around here.

A cold spike shot down his spine.

One was an accident. Two was a pattern.

Jim looked up. The jungle around him seemed to have changed. It was silent. Too silent. No birds. The unsettling quiet of a place where a large predator is hiding.

He backed away slowly, turning back toward the bungalow. His heartbeat was a loud drum in his ears.

Someone was out there.

Someone other than tourists. Someone who knew how to move without being seen, and who was leaving signs for their own.

That night at dinner, Jim was quiet.

“Is something wrong, Jim? You look tired,” Helen asked, her voice full of concern.

“Not at all,” he said with a smile. “Just the mountain air. A bit chilly.”

But his eyes were looking past her, out the window, scanning the impenetrable darkness.

The Watchers

Deep in that same darkness, a young man was hidden in the branches of a massive tree, watching the path below.

His name was Kamar. He wasn’t yet twenty. He was thin, but his body was whip-cord tough, forged by a life in the jungle. His village was poor. For a young man of Chinese descent like him, there was no future under the thumb of British colonialism and its aftermath. The Malayan Communist Party was the only thing that had ever offered him hope. Equality. Revolution.

His job was to watch this sector. To make sure no government patrols, no lost outsiders, got near their camp. It was a boring but vital duty.

It was just after noon when the European man appeared in the lens of his old, Soviet-made binoculars. A mat salleh—a white man—walking these paths wasn't unusual. Kamar watched him without much interest.

But the man’s movements were strange.

He kept stopping near the markers Kamar’s comrades had left. He’d study the ground, the trees. There was a purpose in his gaze that was different from a tourist’s idle curiosity.

(Does he know something?)

Kamar took the radio from his pack and reported to his commander at the main camp.

“Major, this is Point Charlie. I have a visual on a mat salleh. He has just passed the second marker. His movements are suspicious. He may not be a civilian.”

The voice that came back was calm, cold.

“…Continue. Do not engage. Just watch. See how far he comes.”

The voice belonged to the Major, the commander of this guerrilla unit. A veteran who had fought the Japanese, then the British for more than a decade. The Major did not act on emotion. He analyzed, and he made decisions based on what was most rational for the survival of his unit.

Kamar put the radio away and raised his binoculars again. The man was heading back to the bungalow. His back looked like that of any old man, but to Kamar, he now looked like a dangerous animal, one you could not afford to underestimate.

The next day, March 26th. Easter Sunday.

Kamar was at the same observation post.

Just after lunch, as the highlands settled into their afternoon stupor, the same man appeared on the path again.

He was alone. He was dressed more casually than the day before, his stride lighter. He looked, for all the world, like he was simply enjoying a walk.

But Kamar saw it. The man’s eyes were scanning everything, more intensely than before.

When the man reached the spot where he had turned back yesterday, he didn’t hesitate. He kept going, deeper into the jungle.

An alarm bell went off in Kamar’s head.

(He’s coming.)

He grabbed the radio.

“Major, this is Kamar! Target has pushed past yesterday’s position! He’s passed the third marker and is heading toward the valley!”

There was a pause on the other end. Then the Major’s voice came back, harder than before, like ice chipping from a glacier.

“…All units, on alert. Prepare to greet our guest. Under no circumstances is he to make it past the valley.”

In that instant, the air in the jungle changed.

The rustle of the leaves, the calls of the birds, the sound of the wind—it all began to function with a single purpose.

An invisible net was closing, silently, around one man.

And Jim Thompson, unaware—or perhaps, aware and pushing forward anyway—walked right into it. His heart was filled with fear, yes, but also with a strange, exhilarating high.

The feeling of blood rushing, long forgotten.

The cold, sweet temptation of the world of shadows.

He was walking the path to his own destruction, choosing it with his own two feet. Like a king, abandoning his throne for one last adventure.