Phnom Penh Express Read Online Free PDF Page B

script.
    These boxes come from Tel Aviv not Antwerp, Phirun ponders. No wonder Nina complained, this is the wrong shipment altogether. Except, it couldn’t be — she did order them. It must be the supplier’s curious mistake. He studies a box for further clues. Perhaps some Belgian
chocolatier
has a distribution agent there? Perhaps it was cheaper to ship them from Israel, rather than directly from Antwerp?
    Should he open them? He hesitates for a moment, then picks up a box to inspect its sealed lid. If he opened it, he’d have to find a sneaky way to close it again properly. What the hell, he thinks, and carefully removes the plastic seal. Lifting the cover, the usual rich smell of dark chocolate greets him, wafting up his nostrils and filling his head with desire for cocoa. He looks inside the box and admires the beautifully crafted black, brown and white pralines.
    “Why not,” he mumbles and takes out one of the chocolates. But when he’s about to put it into his mouth, he freezes, wondering what on earth he’s doing. He’s supposed to deliver them, not scoff them. He decides he can’t afford to mess up a second time with Nina while she’s so volatile. Besides, he can have all the chocolate that he wants at work.
    Phirun puts the praline back inside the box and carefully seals the lid with transparent tape. He gives the stock of gifts a final once-over. Let’s hope they look expensive enough to loosen up those rigid officials, he thinks. Then he relegates the matter to the back of his mind as he hurries downstairs.

Chapter     SIX
    RETIRED LIEUTENANT-COLONEL PEETERS of the former National Gendarmerie of Belgium hesitates to answer his phone. The 21-year-old Thai girl he had brought back to Antwerp from his last trip to Thailand — a birthday present for himself — has her lips tightly wrapped around his fifty-year-old penis. He’s about to come when the call to the private line, which hasn’t rung for seven months, comes first. On the last occasion he’d received a call on this line, it was to alert ‘The Colonel’, as he is usually known, that one of his heroin shipments was being busted by Dutch customs. That had been a genuine mistake — the relevant authorities had been paid off, as usual, but a communication breakdown had occurred somewhere along the line. It had been most inconvenient, costing him numerous telephone calls and an extra five grand to get the container released. A real headache. But his little red phone only rings when there is a crisis — that’s why he had chosen red in the first place. The other handset, a bland, outdated model, is for everyday use. The red phone is still ringing. He allows himself one more second of pleasure, then pushes the girl aside and angrily picks up the receiver.
    “What?!” he shouts.
    Now it is the person on the other end of the line that hesitates.
    “Colonel Peeters?”
    “Who the fuck else would it be? Alice in motherfucking Wonderland?”
    The voice on the other end still hesitates.
    “Er... we have company in Cambodia, sir.”
    A momentary silence as Colonel Peeters absorbs the words while gazing down at his fast-shrinking member.
    “Serious company?”
    “Yes sir, it very much looks that way, sir.”
    “Where from?” the Colonel barks.
    “Tel Aviv, sir,” the voice answers.
    “Exactly how serious are they?”
    “They didn’t even try to conceal the fact that they are breaking into our market.”
    “What makes you think that?” the retired police commander asks, sounding more worried.
    “Just three days ago they openly handed out free boxes with items to a number of high-ranking Cambodian government officials, as if they wanted to spread the word. They concealed the diamonds in Belgian chocolates; it’s like they’re mocking us.”
    “Bastards!”
    “Yes sir.”
    “You no like me?” the Thai girl calls from the leather sofa upon which she and the Colonel had just been having sex.
    “Shut up,” the Colonel bellows,