JET II - Betrayal (JET #2)
Page 15
After a few minutes studying the screen, she looked up at him.
“He’s walking.”
“Then that’s what we do.”
“Yes, but we’re bringing the horses. He might have one waiting across the border. We don’t know how far he’s traveling, so we should expect that he’ll have a guide on the Myanmar side.”
Jet moved to the trunk and pulled her gear out. Rob pointed at a long, flat, black nylon case.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“Depends on what you think it is.”
“You know how to use it?”
“Do I look like I’m in the mood to experiment?”
She tossed him a smaller case. “This is for you. Idiot proof.”
He opened it and peeked inside. “Very nice. Thanks.”
They hastily packed their kits into the saddlebags and mounted up, then made for the northern summit of the mountain, taking care to have their night vision goggles ready. The thickening fog provided a cloak of muffled silence. After a mile of easing along a trail, Jet dismounted.
“What?”
“Shhh. I want to walk them from here on out. We’re only about a mile behind him. I don’t want to get any closer. One stray whinny or snort will give us away.”
“Okay,” Rob whispered, aware that voices would carry once all the background noise of civilization faded. He dropped to the ground and reached into his bag for the goggles, but Jet shook her head.
“Battery life is going to be an issue. Only one of us at a time with the night vision gear. I’ll go first.”
“We have several spare batteries.”
She spun to face him. “Rob. Don’t question me, or imagine that you have a better idea. You’re here to support me, against my will. Now, please, do as I say without a hint of anything but complete approval, or you’re out, right here, and won’t be going any further. Do you understand?”
He balked, then nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s better.”
She flipped her goggles into place and switched them on, and the coalescing gloom suddenly illuminated in neon green. The fog still limited their visibility, but at least she could make out the trail.
“Follow me,” she said, taking her horse by the bridle and leading it forward into the darkness.
They would be over the first crest within half an hour at their current speed: in Myanmar, traveling through an area of the country where heroin traffickers and slavers prowled the jungles, and death was as sudden and common as the fog that enveloped them.
Chapter 21
Three hours into their surrealistic trek, Pu’s red dot began moving faster.
“Looks like he’s got transportation of some sort,” Jet whispered.
“I don’t hear any motors, so you were right. Has to be a horse. How far ahead of us is he now?”
“About a mile and a half. But that’s fine. I don’t want to get right up on him. He can’t keep this pace up forever, so my guess is that he’ll be wherever he’s headed by morning. At his new rate of speed, that would take us…thirty-five to forty miles northwest. In the middle of nowhere.”
A cloudburst interrupted their discussion, soaking them both and turning the trail into a muddy slog before it stopped raining as abruptly as it had started. Shortly afterwards, the mosquitoes came out. After spraying herself down with repellant, Jet tossed the plastic bottle to Rob.
“You’ll want to douse yourself.”
“I know. Nasty stuff roaming around here.”
They waited until Pu was two miles ahead of them, then mounted up, urging the horses to a trot, which was all they could safely manage in the misty murk. An hour later, they were descending the summit, well inside Myanmar. There wasn’t a sign of another human, only the sound of creatures going about their nocturnal rounds.
The red dot began to venture deeper into the treacherous hill country, the fog thickening as they proceeded. Another shower of warm rain arrived with a clap of thunder, but this time the downpour didn’t stop, adding to the discomfort of the trek.
The first rays of dawn were cutting through the clouds when the dot stopped moving. Jet held up a hand and pulled her horse up short, then dropped out of the saddle, still holding the tracking device. She moved to Rob and whispered to him.
“Bingo. He’s stopped. I think we’re there. This must be one of Hawker’s camps.”
“I’ll call it in to Edgar. He’ll want to know the location.”
She glared at him. “You’ll do no such thing. Everything about this has been sketchy since the start. I don’t want anyone knowing where we are or what progress we’ve made until we’ve secured the target and successfully concluded the mission. Are we clear on that?”
“I have my orders.”
“Your first order is not to argue or question mine. So help me, if you so much as look crosswise at me or do anything I haven’t given permission for, you’ll be my first kill out here. Look at me. Do I look like I’m joking? Do not under any circumstances call Edgar or anyone else. Give me the phone. Now.”
Rob dismounted and retrieved the phone, then handed it to her. “I guess we’ve made it this far and we’re still alive. I’ll follow your lead. Seems like that’s better than the last two teams did.”
“Exactly. Something stinks in all of this, but I don’t know where. If the target has a mole in CIA headquarters, we have no idea what information is being relayed to him. I’m taking no chances.”
He looked up at the drizzling sky. “It would be nice if it stopped raining. This is pretty miserable.”
“It could work to our advantage. The sound will mask any noise we make, within reason. Let’s get to within a mile of Pu and stake out a camp, and then I want to do some reconnaissance – see what we’re up against. If they have patrols, I doubt very much they’ll be straying beyond that range. There’s no point if they’re not looking for a specific target or expecting any unusual risk.” She glanced at him. “We’ll walk the horses from here.”
“At least we can see now. That’s a plus.”
“Yes and no. We can also be seen.”
They traversed a creek and came to a cliff face a hundred yards off the trail with several small caves at its base, carved out by the rain-swollen stream cascading down the mountain. After finding a relatively shallow area, they crossed, submerging to their waists, the current strong and constant.
The caverns were little more than indentations in the rock face, but would serve to shelter them from the worst of the rain, and the sun, should it ever break through. After ensuring the horses had drank their fill, they set up camp, and quickly ate and washed down some bottled water. Jet unpacked her saddlebags, setting her weapons carefully to one side, and Rob did the same. Glancing at the screen of the tracker, she zoomed out and superimposed a satellite photo of the area over it. All she could see was a sea of green. That would be little or no help.
“I’m going to poke around. Stay here. Don’t leave the camp,” she ordered, then wiped black streaks on her face and neck, and tossed him the tube. “This will cut any reflection.”
“What do I do in the meantime, seeing as you’re excluding me from all the action?”
She gestured with her head at the black case she had given him earlier. “Practice with that. You’ll want to be good with it by the time I get back.”
He grunted noncommittally.
Jet sheathed her combat knife, slid two throwing knives into her web belt, checked her Beretta to ensure the silencer was screwed tightly in place, and then slid the strap of the P90 over her shoulder.
“Let’s hope I don’t need to use any of this,” she said and then disappeared into the brush in the direction of the trail that led straight to where Pu’s transmitter was signaling from.
It took forty-five minutes to get to the camp’s perimeter, the intermittent rain making the path slippery as it wound through the mountains. She halted at an area overlooking a ragged clearing next to a small stream and nestled
herself into a hollow spot between two large plants and peered through her binoculars at the rustic dwellings below.
~ ~ ~
Six hours later, Jet reappeared soundlessly near the cave.
“What did you find?” Rob asked.
“Pu’s there. So’s the target. He’s unmistakable, although he’s got a beard now. The bad news is, I counted twenty armed men. They look like hill tribesmen. Shan.”
“What kind of arms?”
“Kalashnikovs. AK-47s.”
“That figures. Probably made in China. Knockoffs, but still deadly. Plentifully available around here, and a big favorite with the hill people as well as the heroin traffickers.”
“They looked like they know how to use them. Those are the same weapons carried by the gunmen who were after us in Bangkok.”
“Could mean something, or not. There are so many of those floating around, they’re practically the national gun of the Golden Triangle. A lot of them make their way to Thailand, too. Although the ones that are sold legally there are .22 caliber.”
“The ones the gunmen had were the standard 7.62mm.”
“Not surprising they have illegal weapons,” Rob observed, “given that they murdered the doctor with them and then tried to kill us. So, what else do you have?”
“I took some photos. Here, take a look. There are five buildings, huts, really. A central fire pit, what looks like a primitive cooking area, and a latrine. I saw a few solar panels by one of the huts, so I’m guessing that’s the target – Hawker’s. The rest are probably the guards’.”
Rob peered at the tiny camera’s screen and nodded.
Jet knelt down, picked up a branch, and brushed away some dead leaves before sketching a rough diagram in the muddy dirt. The rain had lightened up to a steady drizzle, punctuated by occasional half-hour dry spells; they were in one of the lulls between showers. She had quickly become accustomed to the perpetual moisture, and now didn’t even register that she was soaked through.
“There’s a stream here. The target’s hut is here. These are the others. Firepit here.”
Rob studied the outline, then crouched beside her. “How far across would you say it is? How many yards from this point to the stream?” He tapped a finger on one of the squares she’d drawn.
“No more than fifty.”
He stood and wiped his forehead. “So what’s next?”
“We’ll wait until nightfall. It looked to me like Pu was planning on staying at least overnight. His guide has tied the horses up and taken the saddles off.”
“Wonder why he comes out here every few weeks?”
“I have no idea. But there were no children or females, so it’s not to get slaves.” She checked the time. “We have about six hours before it gets dark. Let’s make the most of it. Rest for five hours, then we’ll get into position while we can still see.”
“I presume you have some ideas about how to take on twenty heavily armed men?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter 22
“Shit. He’s moving,” Jet muttered, forcing herself to stand. The rain was still pelting them whenever a gust blew a sheet into the meager shelter of the cave, and it was coming down in torrents, limiting visibility and making for a miserable afternoon. She stared at the blip on her screen, now crawling steadily away from their position. They had been planning to get under way in another hour, but Pu heading out changed everything.
“We have to go after him. What if he’s with the target?” Rob whispered, frustration evident in his tone.
“Looks like they’re moving east now.”
“On horseback?”
“Hard to tell. But I think we have to assume so. Let’s get going. Mount up.”
They hurriedly repacked their saddlebags, Jet processing furiously. This was the last thing she wanted – a moving target, no time to formulate a plan, and nightfall rapidly approaching. If the stakes had been anything besides her daughter, she would have aborted the operation at this point and simply watched and waited for a good opportunity. Unfortunately, she didn’t have that luxury, so instead she brushed water from her horse’s face and patted his neck. “Come on, boy. Time to put you to work again.”
She swung herself into the saddle and waited for Rob, whose horse was less cooperative. After another minute of struggling with the reluctant beast, he was ready. Jet pulled the rein to the right and nudged her horse into motion, and soon they were trotting down the path, checking the tracking screen every few minutes.
“We need to pick up the pace. They’re heading at a right angle from the camp. Let’s hope that we can find a route that parallels their path, or we’re screwed,” she said, eyeing the vegetation for any promising signs.
Ten minutes later, they came across a game trail that led off in the rough direction of their quarry. Jet ducked and urged her steed forward. Branches scratched at them as they fought their way through the brush, and then the undergrowth became sparser, and they could move more easily. A brook burbled just ahead of them, and they saw another trail paralleling it. Jet was operating purely on instinct now, trying to close the distance so they could engage. It hadn’t looked like the camp was getting ready to move, so this was probably only a portion of the gunmen accompanying Pu, and possibly, the target. That was the only good news in all of this.
“How far now?” Rob whispered, pulling alongside her as the horses instinctively followed the creek.
“Less than half a mile.”
“Then what?”
“If Hawker’s with Pu, then obviously we take him alive. The rest of them I don’t care about.”
“So shoot first and ask questions later?”
“But spare Hawker. He’s the priority.”
A bird took flight from a tree ahead of them, flapping its wings noisily. Jet stopped and held up a hand, head cocked to the side, listening. She craned her neck, trying to see ahead of them, but the rain made it almost impossible. After checking the screen again, she turned to face Rob.
“Dismount,” she hissed, already in motion.
“Why?” Rob whispered, dropping to the ground.
“Something’s wrong. I don’t like this.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” She clutched the P90 in her right hand as she held the reins with her left. “Follow me.”
They inched forward through the tangle of vegetation, Jet’s senses tingling, her horse’s hooves squishing in the mud behind her. The stream veered to the left, and they crept along it, the water bubbling as it passed over the smooth round rocks beneath.
The trees parted, and the outline of a building shrouded in mist loomed in the near distance, its roof curved at the corners in a highly stylized fashion. They could see that the structure was an old Buddhist temple, now fallen on hard times and in an obvious state of neglect. The disrepair became obvious as they approached it; what must have been, at one time, a remote outpost for the devout long abandoned to the elements, the faithful having moved on to less ethereal pursuits.
Rob’s horse snorted, a percussive sound that broke the eerie silence. Jet’s gelding pulled against the reins, stopping her, and then gunfire shattered the dusk.
Bullets tore into the frenzied animal, narrowly missing her. She loosed the reins and returned fire at the surrounding trees. The horse stumbled a few paces before going down hard, mortally wounded. Jet sprinted to the temple, firing as she ran. She heard Rob’s distinctive M4 belching burst after burst as she threw herself through the temple doorway, rolling as slugs pounded into the floor next to her.
Rob’s form lunged into the safety of the temple just as a round tore through his upper left shoulder, eliciting a grunt, but he still clenched the rifle in his right hand. He spun and fired at the muzzle flashes of the un-silenced Kalashnikovs and was rewarded by several cries of wounded men.
Jet emptied her magazine in a sweeping arc at the attackers and then jettisoned the clip, slapping a new one home and firing again.
“How bad is it?” she asked, not taking her eyes off the scene outside, then taking careful aim and squeezing off another burst. She heard a crash in the bushes. A body falling.
“I’m still here. Can you change me out?” he asked, thumbing the clip release.
She edged towards him and pulled one of the three remaining magazines from his cargo pants pocket and slipped it into his rifle with a snick, then returned her attention to the attackers.
“How many do you make?” she whispered.
“My guess? No more than ten. Problem is they’re on both sides. Were on both sides. I think we may have gotten at least four of them, so the odds are looking better. Shit. I wish we had a field first aid kit in here. I’m losing blood.”
“We have one in my saddlebag. Let’s just mop these clowns up, and I’ll get you taken care of.” Jet shot at an area where the vegetation was moving as a gunman tried to edge closer. Her volley hit him, and he reflexively gripped the trigger on his rifle as he fell, sending rounds whizzing overhead into the trees.
A shower of wood shards fell into the temple from where slugs pounded the window opening she’d just vacated, the shots revealing another shooter sixty yards away. Rob let loose two bursts in the attacker’s direction and heard a cry.
“If they’re smart, they’ll try to circle around and get us from behind. You got this side?” she asked, squinting outside in the rapidly dwindling light.
“Sure. Pull one more magazine out and put it by my side. I can manage it one-handed once it’s out.”
She slid over and did as he asked, then pulled his pistol free of his belt holster. “If you run low on ammo, let them get into range and give them a taste of this.”
He nodded and tried a grin, then coughed, blood streaming down his arm. “Go get ’em,” he said, squeezing off another few rounds with the M4.
Jet crawled to the back of the temple and peered through the slits in the walls, patiently waiting for a tell from the jungle beyond. She didn’t have to wait long. A rustling of bodies moving through the brush drew six more rounds from her weapon, and then more inbound fire assailed her from a dozen yards farther away. She emptied the rest of her clip at the area and then drew her pistol, carefully unscrewing the silencer to get maximum accuracy at the limits of its range. The remainder of her P90 clips were in the saddlebags. But with only two or three gunmen left, it wouldn’t matter.