From An Antique Land

Johnson Stanley

Description

Life in Washington DC is trying to 'return to normal' after the trauma of September 11, 2001. George W. Bush is President and Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and now Senator for New York, already has her eye on higher things. One morning Su Soeung, who first came to the US as a child refugee from Cambodia receives an intriguing job offer. So begins an extraordinary train of events. Su's efforts to discover the fate of her father who 'disappeared' during Cambodia's Pol Pot nightmare, seem to be inextricably intertwined with world politics at the highest level. Just how much did the US know about Pol Pot and his band of 'brothers'? What deals were done between Washington and Beijing? And, in the end, is Su Soeung just a puppet of forces beyond her control? This is Stanley Johnson's 11th - and finest - literary thriller yet - tense, provocative, and deeply resonant of our current times, as conspiracy theory and trauma once again put question marks over the aims of the superpowers.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781839784002
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in 2021
by Black Spring Press
Grantully, Maida Vale,
London w9, England, UK
United Kingdom
Cover design and typeset by Edwin Smet
Author photograph Jennifer Johnson
Printed in England by TJ Books Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Edited by M. Pinchbeck
Proofread by I. Lewis-Dodson and T. Swift
All rights reserved
Copyright 2021 by Stanley Johnson
The right of Stanley Johnson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
ISBN 9781839784002
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

BLACKSPRINGPRESSGROUP.COM

ALSO BY STANLEY JOHNSON
FICTION
Gold Drain
Panther Jones for President
The Urbane Guerrilla
The Marburg Virus (republished as The Virus)
Tunnel
The Commissioner
The Doomsday Deposit
Dragon River
Icecap (republished as The Warming)
Kompromat
NON-FICTION
Life Without Birth: A Journey Through the Third World
in Search of the Population Explosion
The Green Revolution
The Population Problem
The Politics of the Environment
Pollution Control Policy of the EEC
Antarctica: The Last Great Wilderness
World Population and the United Nations
The Earth Summit:the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED)
World Population: Turning The Tide
The Environmental Policy of the European Communities
The Politics of Population
Survival: Saving Endangered Migratory Species (co-author Robert Vagg)
Where the Wild Things Were
UNEP: The First 40 Years
MEMOIR
Stanley I Presume
Stanley I Resume
CONTENTS
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
PRELUDE
The new Millennium has begun. George W. Bush is President and Hillary Clinton, former First Lady and now Senator for New York, already has her eye on higher things.
Life in Washington DC, the nation s capital, is getting back to normal after the trauma of September 11, 2001 (9/11).
One morning Su Soeung, who first came to the US as a child refugee from Cambodia and the horrors of Pol Pot, receives a letter with an interesting job offer: would she like to work at a senior level for SAVE, a Washington-based international charity specializing in relief work in Cambodia?
Su s return to Cambodia, on assignment for SAVE, sees the beginning of an extraordinary trail of events. Her efforts to discover the fate of her father seem to be inextricably intertwined with politics at the highest level.
CHAPTER 1
The three-storey brownstone was at the junction of P and 14th, not far from Logan Circle. Less than a decade previously, Logan had been a no-go area, a crack-dealers haven. The storefronts were chained day and night and if for one reason or another you found yourself driving through the district, you made sure your car s doors and windows were locked and you kept your foot on the gas. But during President Clinton s second term, things had begun to change. The economic boom had gone on and on and the wave of prosperity had spread east, flooding previously run-down neighbourhoods with a new respectability. Even though the economy had wobbled following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the Logan Circle area kept coming up in the world. It wasn t Georgetown or Kalorama but if you were a young and aspiring middle class professional, and you didn t want to spend a million dollars or more on your first home, you could do far worse.
That at least is what Su Soeung told herself when she first put down the deposit on the apartment. And on the whole in the two years she had been there, she had had little reason to regret her decision. On one occasion her bicycle had been stolen, but that was because she had locked it to the railings in front of the house instead of carrying it inside. Apart from that, she had no complaints. No-one had mugged her or even accosted her in an unfriendly manner. The fact that she was Cambodian probably helped. This part of Washington still had a substantial ethnic population, and she supposed she blended in fairly well.
She unlocked the front door and paused in the hall to collect her mail. Sometimes the postman came before she left for work in the morning. Most often, one of the other occupants of the building would pick up the letters and papers from the mat and stack them on the table at the foot of the stairs.
One of the features of her apartment which Su most enjoyed was the balcony with its view over the towering plane trees of Logan Circle and the distant glint of the great dome of the Capitol building. She made herself a cup of tea and took her letters outside. November was often a magical month in Washington. The trees had turned but not yet lost their leaves. The sun often shone from dawn to dusk but the heat and humidity of the summer months had gone for good. As she sat there, a sense of wellbeing came over her. So many others, she thought, had not been half as lucky as she had been. She had been seven years old when she first came to the United States, escaping with her mother from the cataclysm which Pol Pot had launched upon Cambodia. Twenty-five years later, like so many immigrants before her, she felt at home in America. This surely was where she belonged. She had never been back to her native land. She wondered now if she ever would return.
As always, much of the day s mail was routine - the new Sears catalogue, the fall programme of lectures at the Smithsonian, a credit card statement. But one envelope in particular caught her eye. It was an expensive oblong cream-coloured missive bearing her name in heavy black type. On the reverse of the envelope the word SAVE with a Massachusetts Avenue address had been embossed in capital letters.
Dear Ms Soeung, Su read as she opened the letter. As you may know, SAVE is an international charity specialising in relief work in Cambodia, notably the rehabilitation of victims of landmines. We currently have an opening for a person of your experience and qualifications to join our staff at a senior level and would welcome the chance to discuss with you the possibility of you accepting an assignment with this organisation. The letter gave a contact telephone number and was signed, Andrew Mossman, Chief Executive Officer.
Su Soeung read the letter twice, then she put it back in the envelope, gathered up her papers and went inside. She already knew a bit about SAVE. In recent years the charity had made quite a name for itself with some high-profile fundraising and publicity events in Washington. And anyone who read the Style section of the Washington Post , for example, had to be aware that Andrew Mossman and Caroline, his attractive, high-powered lawyer wife, were well on the way to becoming a celebrity couple on Washington s social circuit.
Su switched on her computer and quickly logged on to SAVE s website. Ten minutes in front of the screen told her all she needed to know - at least for the moment.
***
Mossman? Andrew Mossman? SAVE s CEO? Prescott Glover was intrigued. We were at Princeton together. He came to Washington just about the time I went off to New York for my first job with The Times . I ve seen him once or twice in the last few months at various do s. He and his wife are a bit glitzy for my taste. But SAVE s doing a good job. Or seems to be. I ll give you that.
Su Soeung felt strangely defensive. It wasn t that she had said yes to Mossman. She hadn t talked to the man yet. She didn t even know what the job was or whether she would wish to do it. But she detected a snide tone in Prescott s remarks.
You think Caroline Mossman s just a bag-carrier for Hillary Clinton, don t you? she challenged him.
Whatever Caroline Mossman is, she s not a bag-carrier. But yes, Prescott replied, Caroline seems to be a leading light in Hillary Rodham Clinton s so far undeclared campaign to be the next or at least a future President of the United States and I m not sure that s good for SAVE. When charities become politicised, they lose credibility pretty fast.
Su still felt defensive. Andrew Mossman runs SAVE, not Caroline.
Are you sure? Prescott Glover smiled. Women seem to run most things nowadays.
He poured them both some more wine and raised his glass. I think you should go for it anyway whatever it is. You re thirty-three. You need a career change.
You think ten years in academia is enough?
Two years would be enough for me!
It was their regular Tuesday-night dinner in a French restaurant in Georgetown. Su Soeung had been going steady with Prescott Glover for over two years, having met him first at a State Department reception. Su was an associate professor in Georgetown University s Asian Studies programme. Prescott, before The New York Times sent him to Washington to join its bureau there, had served two years in Beijing with a further spell in Hong Kong covering Britain s handover of the colony to China. He discovered he had much in common with Su Soeung besides their interest in the Far East.
As a matter of convenience, even though they lived together, they maintained their separate apartments in Washington. Sometimes Prescott spent the night at Su s place; sometimes she went to his place. They were both professional people. This was the modern way. It was also, paradoxically, the old-fashioned way. Both of them knew, without explicitly saying so, that if one of them ever moved in with the other on a permanent basis, it would