The Afterglow of Cameron Highlands (US Edition)

Chapter 4: The Silent Valley

The Trap

The jungle was no longer quiet. It was talking to him. And it was telling him he was walking into a trap.

The guerrilla soldier he’d spotted earlier had left no other trace. A professional. But a professional wouldn’t have left the first footprint in the first place.

(That track… it was bait.)

The words of his OSS instructor echoed in his mind from twenty years ago.

‘The thing the enemy most wants you to see is the one thing you should never trust. It’s the bait to draw you in.’

This was a trap. The first marker, the second boot print, the glimpse of the soldier. They were all pieces on a chessboard, expertly placed to lure him here, upstream, deeper into enemy territory.

He stopped. He looked back. The path he had taken was now a wall of green, utterly silent. But he could feel it. The pressure of dozens of eyes watching him from the shadows.

Should he turn back?

No. It was too late. He was already inside the net. To turn back now was to be shot in the back. The only way out was through. Forward. Even if it led to the enemy’s stronghold. At least then, he would see his opponent’s face.

It was no longer a rational decision. It was the desperate courage of a cornered animal. A final, reckless act of defiance from a man who had never run from a fight.

Soon, the stream narrowed, and he arrived at a thin gorge, flanked by sheer rock cliffs on both sides. Mist pooled at the bottom of the valley like a nest of sleeping snakes. There was only one path forward: through the valley.

(This is it.)

He knew. This was the end of the hunt.

He clutched the rusted metal in his pocket. It was his only weapon now. He took a slow breath and stepped into the silent valley.

In that instant, they rose.

From the clifftops, from between the trees, from the shadows of the rocks. Men in black peasant clothing materialized from what had been nothing but landscape. Ten of them… no, more. All of them holding rifles.

All of them pointed directly at him.

A perfect encirclement.

Checkmate.

The Last Stand

Jim slowly raised his hands. A signal of surrender.

But his eyes were not dead. They were sharp, like an eagle’s, instantly analyzing the enemy’s positions, their numbers, the man in charge.

(Three in front, the main assault. Snipers on the cliffs. The leader… there.)

His gaze locked onto a man standing on a rock, slightly apart from the others. He carried himself with an unshakable air of authority the others lacked. That was the commander.

The guerrillas began to close the circle slowly.

In a fraction of a second, Jim’s mind calculated his remaining options. The probability of survival was near zero. But not zero. If he could take the leader hostage…

He moved the instant the three soldiers in front of him lowered their rifles to restrain him.

“!”

Using the momentum of his descending arms, Jim twisted his body and slammed a brutal palm-heel strike into the jaw of the nearest soldier. It was a basic but devastating CQC move from his OSS training. The soldier crumpled to the ground without a sound.

In the same motion, Jim snatched the man’s rifle, intending to use it as a shield and charge the commander on the rock.

It was a lightning-fast counter-attack that might have worked, in his prime.

But he was 61 years old.

His body could not quite keep up with his will. A fatal delay of a fraction of a second.

“Don’t shoot!” the commander’s sharp voice barked.

At the same time, another soldier who had circled behind Jim swung his rifle like a club, smashing the wooden stock into his back.

“Gah—!”

The air was driven from his lungs. His vision exploded with sparks of light. His knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground. The rifle he had captured slipped from his grasp.

Multiple soldiers swarmed him at once, twisting his arms, pinning his legs. He could no longer resist. The King of Silk was pressed gracelessly into the dirt and decaying leaves.

A final impact to the back of his head.

His consciousness faded rapidly into darkness.

The Confrontation

When he woke, he was in a dim hut woven from bamboo. His hands and feet were bound tightly with coarse rope. His head and back throbbed with pain.

He understood he had been taken to the guerrillas’ main camp, their stronghold. Armed soldiers surrounded him, watching in silence.

A man entered through the doorway of the hut.

It was the commander from the rock in the valley. He looked to be in his mid-fifties. His sun-weathered face was etched with deep lines that spoke of a long, hard life in the jungle. But his eyes were like black obsidian, cold and emotionless.

The man stood before Jim, looking him up and down, sizing him up.

Finally, he spoke. His voice was quiet, but it held an authority that permitted no argument.

“Who are you?”

Jim licked his dry lips. He could taste blood in his mouth.

“…A tourist. I got lost.”

The man—the Major—showed no reaction. He simply gestured to one of his men. The soldier handed the Major the items he had taken from Jim’s pockets.

The Major held out the rusted piece of metal from the ammo box.

“Does a tourist pick this up? Does a tourist check every one of our trail markers on his way here?” The Major’s words, though phrased as a question, cut through Jim’s lie like a sharp blade.

“…And this.”

The Major opened Jim’s notebook with his other hand. A single, carefully folded piece of paper slipped out.

It was the copy of the old OSS cipher sheet he had brought from his mansion in Bangkok.

The Major picked it up and glanced at it. He couldn’t read the cipher, of course. But he instantly understood what the sterile grid of numbers and letters meant. This was not something an ordinary businessman carried.

“CIA?” the Major asked curtly.

“No,” Jim answered, defiant. “I am James Thompson. Of the Thai Silk Company.”

“Liar,” the Major said, a flicker of irritation in his voice for the first time. “Do not insult our intelligence. I have seen many men like you. You all have the same eyes. The eyes of a thief. A spy. The eyes of a man who comes to destroy us.”

The Major flicked the cipher sheet away with his fingertips, as if brushing off something unclean.

Jim saw the man’s obsidian eyes fill with absolute certainty. And with a cold, detached killing intent.

In that moment, looking into those eyes, Jim understood his fate.

There would be no more excuses. No negotiations. No deals. This man had decided to kill him. His very existence was a threat they could not afford.

The Major turned his back to Jim and spoke to the guards outside the hut. His voice was quiet, but final.

“Treat our guest with the utmost respect.”

It was a code only his men would understand.

The order to begin the preparations for an execution.

The light from the doorway flooded Jim’s vision, turning it white.

It was not the brilliant light of his silk kingdom. It was an absolute, merciless light that would erase everything.