Fifteen more weapons to face Wiley, Loughlin, and the four backup gunners.
Small odds, in a normal battle setting, but they could be awesome in the type of precision-planned infighting Stone and company were used to.
Fifteen men could blow the whole equation out of balance, make the camp impossible to breach if they performed even adequately. By simply firing blind in the event of an assault, they made the chance of friendly casualties that much more likely.
At least, he told himself, Hog and Loughlin would have a preview of coming events when they cleared the jungle, marching toward the bridge. His men would have a chance to see and count the odds against them, and make some last-minute adjustments in their strategy to compensate.
What they could not do was find another backup force to fight beside them, more guns and ammunition to compensate for the larger hostile force. When all was said and done, they would have to make do with what they had … for good or ill.
So be it. They would go ahead because they had to. Because there was no other frigging choice, and they were all committed to the common goal.
And Stone would help, as best he could, from the inside.
He had spent the day recruiting volunteers for the break. It would be shaky at best, and getting out of the cages could itself be a problem … but if any of them were able to get their hands on automatic weapons in the confusion that would follow the breakin …
Some of the P.O.W.‘s had been reluctant at first, one or two of them downright hostile, suspecting him as a collaborator dropped among them to ferret out potential escapees. Those few had come around after he took a clubbing, but he could still read hesitation in their eyes, their shaky nods of assent.
Some of them would predictably fold once the action started, Stone knew. It was to be anticipated, and he did not hold it against them in the least. A few of these poor bastards had been caged for almost twenty years now, going back to the early days of the war, and their will to fight, if not completely broken, was certainly showing the cracks of age and long abuse.
They might follow when the tide began to turn—if it turned in their favor—and then again, they might be unable to move, unable to act. At least, he hoped, they would not mill aimlessly about, charging into the line of fire and getting themselves or others killed by careless movement.
Stone cut off the defeatist line of thought in midstream. There was no damned way to predict what would happen that night—or whether anything would happen at all.
If Loughlin and Wiley were alive, they would be coming for him. If and when they came, Stone would rally any P.O.W.‘s fit to fight, and he would try to help them out.
If they could get out of their cages.
If they could get their hands on working weapons.
If the cages were not wired to detonate immediately, as they had been at that other camp.
If …
Stone knew that he could talk himself in circles all night long and end up where he started. Nothing counted now but action, and he was waiting for it, looking forward to it, anticipating the hot taste of gunsmoke in his throat, the adrenaline rush that came with every life-and-death confrontation.
It was up to Loughlin and Hog now. There was nothing Stone could do from here, inside, without their help.
Another mile, perhaps another forty minutes, and they would be back at camp. He tried to spot some movement in the jungle, off to either side, that might betray the presence of a friendly lookout, someone to reassure him that plans were being made, steps being taken to effect the breakout.
But there was nothing.
So be it.
Stone took comfort from the fact that if he, in his exhausted state, had been able to pick out members of the patrol, then the guards, fed and rested, would almost certainly have seen them. It was good that there was no sign of Hog or the Britisher. It was downright reassuring.
But Stone did not feel the least bit reassured.
Chapter Nineteen
The water was colder than Loughlin had anticipated, and it momentarily took his breath away. He kept moving, refusing to let the cold settle in and take a grip on his bones, paralyzing him at the water’s edge. He had a job to do, and there was no time to waste now.
They were running out of daylight, and the charges had to be in place by sundown at the latest. Hog was shooting for an early crashin, and the charges were essential to any kind of marginal success.
Beneath the footbridge, in the shade, the temperature seemed to drop another ten degrees, and Loughlin was shivering in spite of himself. It was ironic, he thought, that anyone could feel so bone-cold here, of all places, in the middle of a steaming jungle.
But the temperature would fall like a plummeting stone with nightfall, and in the river, where he stood, armpit-deep in moving water, it was already cold. He did not want to think what the combination of wet clothing and the night chill would be like upon his flesh.
The charges that he carried were all waterproof, and otherwise, beyond the Ka-Bar knife strapped on the shoulder of his field harness, Loughlin was unarmed. It did not matter in the long run; if sentries found him down here, they would kill him or take him prisoner, no matter what sort of weapons he was carrying. There would be no way he could outshoot the entire garrison force by himself, so he opted for traveling light, keeping his assault rifle and the silenced pistol high and dry, free from rust and ready to perform at need, without hesitation.
He had set his charges first along the bamboo fence, not far from the drainage pipe where Stone had made his first, ill-fated entry to the compound. They would detonate upon a signal from his radio remote-control box—also high and dry on shore—giving Hog and the Hmong an entryway that would accommodate them nicely.
Passing by the pipe, with nothing but his head above the surface of the water, he picked up whispered voices, speaking in Vietnamese, and he knew they were waiting in the pipe for him, for anyone. He doubled back, pried off a small chunk of the extra C-4 plastique that he carried, and tamped it down silently against the corrugated metal, shaping it so that the blast would be directed inward, carrying along the channel of the pipe like a whirlwind from hell.
He would let them be the first to know exactly what was going on. And at the same time he would make damned certain that they were not waiting to ambush Wiley’s force at either end of the pipe, going in or coming out.
That done, Loughlin proceeded on to the bridge, hugging the shore and keeping well in, well down, in case a sentry prowling along the fence should glance into the water. There were no catwalks on the eight-foot fence, he knew, but the construction of bamboo allowed men to look out between some of the poles, and he did not want any premature alarms to spoil their master plan.
Everything hinged on surprise, and it was still possible to achieve that, even with Stone in custody, even with the commandant inside there, no doubt biting his nails to the quick by now, wondering what in bloody hell had become of his patrol.
They could still take advantage of the surprise element, even when the enemy knew—or strongly suspected—that they would be coming in to get him. The defenders could never know precisely where or when the invaders would strike, and that uncertainty, that tension, was enough to make them jumpy, ready to fire at moving shadows instead of skulking commandos. With any luck at all, the sentries would be firing at each other when the final showdown came.
Loughlin finished packing his charge against one of the bridge-support timbers, set the radio-remote detonator in place securely, and moved on. He traversed the length of the bridge, stopping at each support in turn, working his way back from the landward end toward the camp, wiring each upright timber as he went along.
No sense in taking any chances, and he meant to be damned certain that the bridge went up on cue. He had to close that back door, keep the support troops from the mine from getting in too easily, ahead of schedule.
He would blow the fence and bridge together, on Wiley’s signal, when the assault force was ready in positio
n to attack. That would be a short time after sundown, when the prisoners were back inside their cages, more or less removed from the immediate line of fire.
There was no sense in complicating things, after all, no point in risking lives that were enough at risk already. If they could make it in and out without getting any of the P.O.W.‘s killed, so much the better.
Loughlin could remember the last time, and he knew the way it ate at Stone—at all of them. But Stone had taken it most personally, as if he should somehow have seen the hidden charges, or read the crazy camp commandant’s mind in those last seconds before he hit the plunger and sent everything sky-high.
Something wet and slippery wound around Loughlin’s ankle, sinuous and serpentine, gliding in and out between his legs. A fish? Some kind of water snake? And if so, was it poisonous?
He froze, sweating now in spite of the icy water, unmoving until the thing—whatever it was—passed on. Even then, he gave it another long hundred-count, knowing he was behind now, preferring to hurry and make up the time on the other end, rather than risk an incapacitating and possibly fatal bite.
Finally free to move, he finished strapping a charge to the last of the pylons, snugging it in place and setting the detonator deeply, firmly. He was close in to the bank now, almost kneeling in the shallower water, and he heard the gate swing open, somewhere above him and to his immediate left, creaking as it moved.
Heavy footsteps—boots—moved out along the bridge, and paused almost directly overhead. They crossed behind him, moving toward the far side of the bridge, and then immediately doubled back. The man was right above him now, rocking back and forth on his heels, by the sound of it, and Loughlin held his breath, unwilling to make any sound or movement that might inadvertently betray his presence, jeopardize their mission.
A cigarette butt struck the surface of the water ten feet from his face, hissed briefly, and went out. Another moment, then the sentry turned, retreating toward the gate. But Loughlin did not release his pent-up breath from straining lungs until he heard the gate close again behind the man, the latch bar falling soundly into place.
It had been close. Too bloody close for comfort, certainly. But he had pulled it off.
Finished now, Loughlin began working his way back along the shore of the little island, to the point where he would cross and regroup with Wiley and the others. They would be waiting for him, counting on him to play his part in the night’s festivities. And Loughlin would be there with bells on.
Hog Wiley sat in jungle undergrowth, scanning the enemy camp through his binoculars for perhaps the thousandth time that day. This time, however, his attention was concentrated more on the water’s edge and underneath the bridge than it was on the fence and buildings inside the compound.
He was watching out for Loughlin, counting the charges as the Britisher set them, marking their positions in his mind.
If anything happened to the powder man, Hog wanted to be able to go on without him. That meant detonating the explosives on his own … which would require a working knowledge of their number and location.
More than that, Wiley was keeping an eye on Loughlin for safety’s sake. He liked the Britisher, for all of their good-natured bickering—and their occasional really heated disagreements—and he did not want anything to happen down there. Not now. Not yet.
The mission was literally riding on Loughlin’s shoulders. If he should be picked off by a sentry, or even seen, whether he escaped or not, the charges would be neutralized, their only means of entry to the camp wiped out at a single stroke.
Hog was determined that they would not fail. Their slim advantage of surprise would be maintained, no matter what risks he personally had to take.
Wiley would expose himself to sniper fire, if need be, or bring down fire of his own on the camp to distract the defenders … anything to make sure that the charges went unnoticed and undisturbed.
They would be getting antsy down there as it was, what with their patrol now overdue and nowhere in sight. It would give the commandant something to think about, and Wiley knew that every little bit of tension or confusion he could heap upon the enemy would work to their advantage later, when the final showdown came that night.
Let the commandant sweat it out. It was good for him. Let him feel a little of what his prisoners had been feeling all this goddamned time, locked up in their sweatboxes with nowhere to go but the mines and the stinking latrine.
The gate was opening, and Hog immediately dropped his field glasses, picking up the CAR-15 that lay beside him on the ground. He brought it to his shoulder and flicked the safety lever off in a single fluid motion, setting it on semiautomatic fire and sighting down the barrel across the sixty yards or more of intervening distance.
Almost point-blank range, yes, for a marksman of his capabilities—but the close range could work as well to his disadvantage if the enemy began responding with their big guns.
He watched tensely as a single soldier exited the gate, moving out perhaps fifteen feet along the bridge. His AK was slung muzzle-down across his off-hand shoulder, casually, but Hog did not relax. He knew that some of these birds could swing their blasters up and into action in the time it took to fart.
The guard stopped in the center of the bridge, then turned his back and ambled over to the far side, with his back toward Wiley, taking his time and apparently not looking for anything in particular. He was smoking a cigarette, and the smoke curled around both sides of his head as he moved away, making it look as if his face was burning.
Hog centered the rifle’s sights on his shoulder blades, ready to crack the man’s spine with a round at a second’s notice. When the guy turned and moved back toward the near side of the bridge, the sights were automatically dead-center on his scrawny chest.
From here, Hog could clip him easily, blow him backward off the bridge with a sustained burst of fire, if it came to that.
And what then?
Soldiers, pouring out of the camp, through the gate, firing at anything and everything in their desperation to find a target—any target at all. Others would be banked along the fence, their weapons poking out through slits in the bamboo barricade.
It was an option Wiley wished to avoid, provided that he got the choice.
The guard was standing almost directly over Loughlin now, rocking back and forth on his heels, taking deep drags on his smoke. Finished with it, he flicked the butt into the water, ten feet below his boots. It sizzled and died, almost audible even from where Hog sat and watched.
Another moment, and the sentry was retreating through the gate, closing it behind him, securing it from the inside. Wiley waited another moment and finally lowered his rifle, leaving it across his knees, the safety off, and raised his field glasses once again.
Loughlin was giving the guard a long count, in case he doubled back and tried to run a fast one past them … and then he was moving, back in the direction of the island and the bank, circling toward his original crossing place.
Wiley went back to watching the long line of bamboo fence, alert to any sign of roving sentries who were interested in what went on outside their little compound. No one seemed to be on duty there, but he kept watching, just in case.
The soldier on the bridge had come closer to death than he would ever know. And soon, within a matter of hours at most, he would come closer yet. All the way through death’s door, perhaps … and straight on to a hell the likes of that which he had helped build here on earth for others.
Soon.
Tonight.
They dared not put the breakout off another day.
If Stone had some plan worked out in his mind to help them from the inside, that was fine. If not, Wiley and the others would be prepared to go ahead without him.
And Hog wondered, once again, if they would pull it off.
He knew that Stone had been alive that morning, when they marched him off to work the mines along with all the other P.O.W.‘s. Barring some incident on the job, some tr
igger-happy sentry, Stone should be alive right now, perhaps already on the way back to his cage.
It was important to Wiley that Stone come out of this alive and in one piece. But if he could not … if, by some chance, he was wasted on the way … Hog swore a silent oath that he would carry out the mission in Stone’s name, the way he would have seen it done if he had made it to the end.
No prisoner would be left behind, alive and in captivity. No hostile would be left alive to tell the tale, not if Wiley had anything to say about it.
In and out.
A classic hit-and-run.
Except that five men would be punching in, and roughly thirty would be coming out.
The odds were different from those they had encountered on any other mission. Wiley wished they had made some provision for backup air support. There would be hell to pay if a message was flashed out of camp to some larger garrison force. They might respond with heliborne troops, air drops, any damned thing at all.
Enough!
Wiley cut off the defeatist train of thought, refusing to entertain the idea of anything less than total victory. If they went in as planned, and pinned down the field telephones and any walkie-talkies, there was no reason on earth why anyone outside the compound should even be aware the raid had taken place. Not until the next supply delivery, days or weeks away.
It could still work.
It had to work.
Their lives were riding on it now, and there could be no turning back.
Chapter Twenty
Captain Ngu checked his watch and scowled, cursing underneath his breath. The search patrol was hours overdue, and no matter how he tried, it seemed impossible to come up with any sort of encouraging explanation for their tardiness.
They should have been back by the time the work detail returned from the mines, no later. Easily in time for the evening meal, which was already being consumed by prisoners in the courtyard of the camp.
He stood up, pacing back and forth across the small interior of his command hut, finally pausing in front of the narrow window, staring out at the uniformed inmates assembled there. His eyes picked out the new arrival, off to one side, eating, and they narrowed, growing cold and hard.
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