S2 Ep31: A Cambodian Coup! The "Red Prince" Falls

With the sounds of their footsteps breaking the occasional branch, the background hum of cicadas and the calls of different birds,

Salot Sa, his wife Kiyu Ponari, his assistant Pang, and two bodyguards set out into the thick jungles on the hills of Rattanakiri.

The air was thick and damp and the brilliant different shades of green leaves mixed with the rich, earthy colours of the path they walked down from Office 100.

the hidden headquarters of the Communist Party of Campuchia.

It was an early morning in November,

and they had left before the sun had come up too high into the sky.

As the patches of fog began to evaporate,

they eventually made their way toward the network of paths

that made up the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail.

They were walking to Hanoi,

and it was likely that they had been summoned there

by the leaders of the Vietnamese Workers' Party.

One can imagine, as they walked,

The husband and wife of the bridegroom.

a little bit behind the bodyguards and assistant setting the pace and navigating the way ahead of

them, that perhaps Kew Ponnery might have occasionally grabbed the leader of the

Cambodian communists' arm. Perhaps she had seen something move, a shape behind a tree, a figure

comprised of the shadows bouncing off of the vines and branches. Her paranoia of being watched,

of people surrounding them in the forest, this had kept her awake before their long journey.

Not that the prospect of being bombed by an American B-52 on one of the Operation Menu raids wasn't at least a possibility,

or that they might be trapped in an ambush by Lon Noel's troops that were hunting them in this area that had become their stronghold during the almost two years of armed struggle against the government.