Impact by Douglas Preston Page A

hand. “Do you want to come back to my place?” she whispered, her lips brushing his ear.
    “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do.”

13

    Sisophon was as ugly as Ford remembered it, whitewashed cement buildings scattered among tattered palms and sickly banyan trees. The streets were dirt and many of the building facades were still pecked with shrapnel from the war. As Ford’s driver entered town, a UN Land Cruiser, stuffed with blue-helmeted men, careened past, its sides emblazoned with UNDP MINE ACTION SERVICE logos.
    The Tourist A-1 Hotel was right where it had always been, more rundown than ever, the street outside thronging with child vendors. The cinder block building mostly hosted NGOs and had probably never seen a real tourist in all its shabby days. Ford booked a room and left his suitcase with the manager, giving him a ten-thousand riel note with a promise of fifty thousand more if the case was intact on his return.
    Leaving the hotel on foot, Ford directed his steps toward an open-area antiquity workshop on the outskirts of town. As he walked, cement buildings gave way to wood-and-thatch huts on stilts, small rice paddies, and water buffalo hauling wooden carts. The antiquity workshop, sprawling over a vast field, was a scene of bustle and activity. Open-sided tents were set up in long rows, inside of which stonemasons labored to the merry clink of steel chisels on stone. It was one of the more famous antiquity workshops in Cambodia, where a battalion of talented artisans turned piles of broken sandstone rocks into fake Angkorian antiquities to be sold in Bangkok and around the world.
    Strolling through the cheerful outdoor workshop, Ford watched stoneworkers chiseling away at chunks of stone propped on sandbags, from which emerged eleventh-century dancing apsaras, devatas, buddhas, lingams, and nagas. In a nearby metal shed, powered by its own generator, the hum of high-tech printing could be heard, as forgers created the documents necessary to authenticate an antiquity and give it a convincing provenance. To one side the fresh sculptures were being subjected to acid sprays, mud baths, tea stainings, egg-white coatings, and even burial to make them look old.
    Ford scanned the crowds of workmen, buyers, and sellers, looking for the figure of his old friend Khon. And there he was, impossible to miss, the rotund figure and polished head moving among the artisans, chatting with everyone, rapping on various pieces with his walking stick, laughing loudly, and enjoying himself immensely.
    “Khon!” Ford strode over and clasped the man’s hand warmly.
    “Wyman, my good friend! How fucking delightful to see you!”
    “The name’s Kirk,” Ford said, with a wink.
    Without a beat, Khon declaimed, “Kirk, my good friend!” He laughed, a bell-like laugh, his head thrown back, then composed himself, his face becoming serious. “I never thought I’d see you again, after . . .” His voice trailed off.
    “Here I am.”
    “Kirk, you’re damned thin! And so much gray hair! There’s an ancient Cambodian saying: ‘Just because there’s snow on the roof doesn’t mean there isn’t a fire in the fireplace!’ ” He laughed again.
    “Somehow I doubt that’s an ancient Cambodian saying.”
    Khon waved his hand. “I brought you a present.” He dipped into his pocket, removing a small stone head of Garuda, the mythical birdlike creature. “It’s a fake of course. Welcome back.”
    Ford was glad he had remembered the Cambodian way of exchanging gifts. “Here’s something for you.”
    Khon stared at the carved green stone through his round spectacles. “Don’t tell me you’ve been buying gems in Bangkok!”
    “It’s an emerald, and it’s real. Lousy quality, mind you, but I liked the carving. And trust me, I didn’t get taken.”
    Khon squinted at the small stone, took off his glasses, wiped them on his shirttail, and put them back on. “Why, it’s Garuda again!”
    “Great minds think alike.” Ford