“There’s quite a crowd assembling down there by the Porter. Looks like they’ll be working through the night.”
“Forget about that,” said Mac. “Keep your eyes on the villa. Another opportunity may present itself. They may try to move Charly and Vanquish out of there. My Spidey-sense tells me they won’t want them around with the place teeming with cops and FAA investigators.”
They watched two Huey helicopters lift off from behind the villa and began criss-crossing the town below, using powerful searchlights to illuminate rooftops and roads.
“I think we’re safe up here for the time being,” said Mac. “They believe the shot came from much closer in.”
“Yeah, none of those jokers would ever believe we could be almost a mile away and still pick the sonofabitch off like you just did. They’re checking rooftops and escape routes from the town.”
“Which will soon lead them up the side of the mountain,” said Mac. “When they don’t find us down there in the village they will widen the search.”
“Do you think they found our car?”
“Good point, let’s find out. Keep your eyes on the villa while I give Sunthonwet a call.”
Mac turned on his cellphone and checked the bars for reception. “Reception’s better in the evening. I’ve got three bars. Not too bad. Should be enough.”
Sunthonwet answered on the third ring.
“Han lo, Sunthonwet…”
“Colonel, it’s me, Mac.”
Long hesitation. “Hello, um, Mac, are you okay?”
“That’s what I’m calling about. Am I okay?”
Another long hesitation. “They, they know you were here. They know…know I helped you. Please do not contact me again. Sorry Mac…” He hung up.
Mac brought the cellphone down from his ear, held it out in front of him like it had suddenly begun to stink, and switched it off.
“Doesn’t sound too good,” said Culler.
“No, not good. They know he helped us. That means they know about the Range Rover and they also know we’re close by. We’re going to have to figure out another way to get off this mountain, and out of the country.” Mac turned his attention back to the villa. “But let’s not worry about that now. We’ll figure something out. Right now…look, see that white van going up the drive toward the villa? That’s one of Khun Ut’s security vans. Keep an eye on it.”
“I see it,” said Culler.
The van circled up the side of the hill and stopped under the portico. Two men dressed in security garb with black tee-shirts got out and slid open the doors on each side of the van. One of them turned toward the building and briefly spoke into a walkie-talkie. Then they lit cigarettes and stood talking near the rear of the van.
Culler had the spotter scope turned up to forty-power. The van nearly filled his circle of vision. “Looks like there’re waiting for someone to come out. Maybe more than one person because they opened both side doors.”
Mac moved the night vision scope of the Lapua back and forth between the two security men and the front entrance of the villa, and waited, finger poised on the trigger. Moments later the double doors of the villa swung open and four men surrounding Charly Blackburn and Vanquish walked out onto the porch. Two men guarded Charly and two guarded Vanquish – one on either side.
“Holy shit,” whispered Culler, “there they are…”
“I see’em, hands tied in front – no, they’re zip-tie handcuffs. Time to rock and roll…”
Mac was all business, not a touch of buck fever this time. He sighted on the black shirt to Charly’s right and squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked and he brought the sights down on the man to her left and he fired again. The rifle bucked again and he sighted on the man directly behind, to Vanquish’s left, and cranked off another round.
By now the bullets had reached their targets, creating chaos on the ground. Mac continued his rapid fire from the semi-automatic sniper rifle, snapping off round after round at the six black shirts around the van and on the porch.
The guard on Charly’s right went down first. The bullet hit him high in the right shoulder, spinning him away from her and sending him down hard. The guard on her left was next. He flew straight back from the impact of the 250 grain bullet which caught him high in the chest. He was dead before he hit the ground.
His third shot missed one of the two men holding Vanquish and ricocheted loudly off the concrete porch behind him.
The guards dropped the Hmong’s arms and drew their sidearms, looking around frantically trying to figure out where the shots were coming from. Vanquish stood there, head bowed and without his signature cowboy hat, looking dirty and beaten.
But he came alive quickly when he realized what was happening. He charged the guard nearest to him and knocked him to the ground and fought to rip the pistol out of his hands.
Mac continued to aim and fire, aim and fire, methodically, but his human targets were harder to hit because they were moving and the bullets coming from more than three-quarters of a mile away took time to reach them.
Chapter One Hundred-Twenty-Eight
Charly knew exactly what was happening. Free now, she dove at the first guard to be hit. He was lying on the ground moaning. He did not resist when she yanked his .357 magnum revolver from its holster. She dropped to one knee and turned the gun on the remaining guards and started firing. She hit the one closest to her in the chest and sent him flying backward.
Next she turned the revolver on the guard who was struggling with Vanquish. She aimed carefully to avoid hitting the Hmong and shot the guard in the groin.
Bullets from the mountainside continued to rain down on the remaining guards and on the entrance doors and windows of the villa – an effort to discourage any heroes from joining the gunfight.
The Hmong looked up at Charly with a mixture of surprise and gratitude. He grabbed the wounded guard’s gun and turned it on a guard near the van who was trying to run away down the hill. He shot him in the back and the guard tumbled forward into the underbrush.
The remaining guard fired at Vanquish at the same moment that Charly fired at him, and both Vanquish and the guard went down hard.
Charly ran over to the Hmong. He was holding his stomach with his two tied hands, trying to stem the flow of blood.
“I am hit bad, Charly. Gut shot. Burns like hell. You better get out of here. Leave me. Just go.”
“Don’t move,” she said, “I’ll get you out of here.” She crawled over to the nearest dead guard and removed his knife from the sheath on his belt. She used it to cut through her zip-tie cuffs and then cut Vanquish free.
An alarm sounded from inside the villa and she could hear the continuing impact of rounds hitting around her and on the doors and windows of the villa behind her. The six guards were sprawled around her, dead or dying.
Still on her kness, she looked up in the direction of Doi Tung Mountain and said, “Thank you Mac, thank you…”
Chapter One Hundred-Twenty-Nine
Culler’s eye was glued to the spotter scope. “Holy shit, she just said ‘thank you Mac,’ she knows we’re up here, she said it. I could read her lips. No shit…”
Between shots Mac said, “Now she better get her pretty little ass out of there toute de suite or… fuck, I’m out of ammo.” He pushed back from the gun, grabbed his backpack, pulled out a box of shells and began quickly reloading his two magazines.
“She’s moving now,” said Culler. “She’s trying to get the Hmong up on his feet…okay, he’s up. They’re getting into the van…okay, they’re moving…okay…damn she is out of there. Sonofabitch…she floored it, spitting dirt and gravel all over the place, side doors still open... Uh-oh, they’re coming out the doors. Hurry up Mac…”
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it.” Mac slapped a full magazine into the Lapua and settled in behind it once again. Four men had taken advantage of the lull in shooting and had ventured out onto the porch. They stood there looking stunned, surveying the carnage,
and watched the van speed away down the hill. One of them spoke into his walkie-talkie and pointed in the direction of Doi Tung Mountain.
Mac fired off three rounds in quick succession. Two of the men went down and the other two scattered. One dove back into the villa and the other took off around the side of the house. Mac put another round through the front doors to keep the rest of them at bay.
“Good shooting, Mac.” Culler scanned the area through his scope. “Uh-oh, I think they’re on to us. Those two Hueys are gaining altitude and coming our way.”
Mac reared back on his haunches and grabbed his night vision binoculars. “Yeah, I think they figured it out. Let’s move back to better cover.”
They grabbed their gear and the spotter scope and the Lapua, and retreated further back into the pines, taking refuge in the large evergreen trees.
Culler grabbed his assault rifle and switched on the infrared laser targeting sight. He pulled his night vision gear from his backpack, strapped it over his head and adjusted the lens over his eye.
The green line of death shot out from the barrel of the rifle in front of him. He was comforted to know that whatever that green line touched when he pulled the trigger, the bullets would hit. And he knew the green line was only visible to him.
The two Vietnam vintage Huey helicopters flew back and forth on overlapping routes below them, their searchlights probing the mountainside. The side doors were open and the Huey’s 7.62x51mm Minigun and door gunner were visible to Santos and MacMurphy.
Culler shook his head. “Those babies may be old but they pack a lot of firepower in those Miniguns. I’m not comfortable being on the wrong end of one of those gunships. Seems weird...”
Mac followed them with his night vision binoculars. “I know what you mean. Let’s not get hosed down by one of those Miniguns. The Huey is heavy and slow and the belly is wide open. Let’s just stay back here under cover and let’em get close and maybe we can take’em out.”
“I don’t know. Maybe we should just bug the hell out of here? We’ve accomplished what we came here to do.”
“Where the fuck are we going to go at this point? Up or down? You decide…”
“Yeah, I see what you mean…okay, you’re right, offense is the best defense…”
The Hueys continued to scour the mountainside below them, gradually moving back and forth up the mountain. The searchlight flashed over their position and one of the Hueys pulled up level with them. The light penetrated the darkness and they shielded their eyes to maintain their night vision.
“They’re checking out this position,” said Mac. “They’re not stupid. They recognize this as a good vantage point for the same reasons we did.”
The Huey hovered in front of their location with its searchlight probing the darkness around them. They were standing motionless behind two large trees, guns at the ready, hoping it would move on.
The minigun wailed and bullets sprayed their location, knocking down branches and kicking up dirt around them.
“Fuck this,” said Culler over the noise, “they saw something, they know we’re here.” He waited for the stream of bullets to move away from him and then moved around the tree and put the green line on the open door and pulled the trigger, spraying the interior of the Huey.
The gunner was hit first. He sprawled back onto the floor of the gunship and the minigun went silent. Bullets sprayed the interior of the Huey hitting two of the other occupants and causing panic inside.
The gunship pulled up and turned away from the mountain in a tight arc. Culler continued to fire on the exposed belly of the helicopter, bullets pinged and ricocheted off the hull as the ship peeled away and sped back toward the villa.
“Well, if they had any doubts before…” said Mac.
“You want to go up or down?” asked Culler. “I vote down.”
“Let’s wait and see what they do first.”
They didn’t have to wait long.
The other Huey circled in a wide arc around them, staying out of range. Finally it stopped and hovered close to the ground about five hundred meters above and behind them. Six black shirted security guards armed with AK-47 assault rifles bailed out of the Huey, spread out and headed slowly down the side of the mountain toward their position.
“I guess that answers my question. We go down, right?”
“Wait a minute, hang on. Let’s think a minute. We still have the advantage. We’ve got night vision, silenced weapons... Shit, let’s leave the Lapua and the rest of our gear here and go hunting.”
Culler grinned widely. “Hmmm, not a bad idea, I like that. If we could get around behind them we could pick them off one by one like Sergeant York.”
“Sounds like a plan. Let’s do it… Let’s get this gear wrapped up and under that tree over there. Then you circle around them to the right and I’ll go left. Just don’t shoot me, okay? Don’t get trigger happy with that POF. Hang on while I grab the commo gear out of my backpack. We’ll need that. Meet you back here when the game’s over. Good hunting.”
They tested their commo gear and then took off at a quiet trot in opposite directions. The combination of the darkness and their Ghillie-suits made them practically invisible. They ran parallel to the side of the mountain in opposite directions for about two hundred meters and then stopped, dropped into concealed prone positions and waited quietly in ambush, listening.
Santos heard the sounds of people coming through the woods before he saw them. He whispered in his lapel mic and scanned the woods in front of him. “They’re almost on us. I can hear’em coming.”
He heard a crash of noise directly in front of him and a barely audible curse. The sonofabitch must have slipped, he thought. He lay still, aiming up the side of the mountain and waited, barely breathing. Soon he saw the man coming around a huge evergreen. The man was holding his AK-47 assault rifle in front of him with one hand and swiping the dirt from his trousers with his other.
Santos flicked on the green line, laid it on the unsuspecting man’s chest and squeezed the trigger. Three silent rounds squirted out of the muzzle and sent the man straight back and down. Culler waited for sounds, and when there were none, he got up and moved quickly but silently higher up the hill, around and behind the dead man. He whispered into his lapel mic, “One down.”
“Hang on,” said Mac. Moments later he said, “I got one, too. Coming around.”
Mac stealthily circled around behind the body, like stalking a deer. He moved around and up behind the line of intruders. He stopped and listened, senses acute. He thought he was behind the remaining four security guards and was surprised they were not using flashlights. He heard twigs snap and leaves rustle. Yes, he thought, without flashlights or night vision gear you are blind, so you will stumble and fall and will die.
He moved purposefully toward the sounds. He was almost upon the man when he saw him, moving through the shadows no more than twenty feet in front and to the right of him. He flicked on the green line and, holding the gun waist high, brought the line up and placed it on the man’s side under his right arm and touched the trigger. Two silent rounds struck the man in the rib cage and knocked him sideways, his AK-47 flying out of his hands. He landed in a crash and a yelp, alerting the other guards.
Santos and MacMurphy had the same thought: shit, we’re blown!
Confusion reigned among the remaining three security guards. The man nearest to MacMurphy took off running down the side of the mountain, crashing through the underbrush. Mac sprayed shots in the direction of the noise and head a cry. The other two guards began firing at shadows, giving their positions away.
When the firing stopped, Santos moved toward the sounds in a crouch, being careful to stay low and behind cover. He stopped behind a large evergreen tree, hunkered down, and spoke into his lapel mic. “Where are you?”
“Behind them. One took off down the mountain and I think I winged him. There are two left. They’re frightened. Let’s take them out, but be careful…”
&nb
sp; “Roger that.”
They moved through the woods like hunters, stalking their prey, holding their assault rifles waist high at the ready, green lines of death dancing out in front of them touching trees and shrubbery.
One of the AKs opened fire in the direction of Santos. He hit the dirt, bullets peppering the trees above his head.
“I see him,” said Mac, “hang on…hang on…” He saw the man lying in the prone position, touching off two and three round bursts from his AK in the direction of Santos. Mac moved slightly to his right to get a better line of sight, put the green line on the prone man’s side and pressed the trigger. Several bullets struck the unsuspecting man and kicked up dirt under him and above him. “Got him.”
“Thanks,” said Culler, “one left…”
They heard the sound of thrashing and knew the last guard was running down the hill away from the action. “He’s on the move,” said Mac, “do you have a shot?”
“No…let him go. He’s out of here…” The sounds of the man running and sliding downhill toward the village could be heard clearly by both of them.
“Okay, meet you back at the site,” said Mac.
They rendezvoused at their original position, out of breath and experiencing an adrenaline rush from the action. They congratulated each other on the action and drank heavily from their Camelbacs.
“Let’s collect our gear and bail out of here,” said Mac. “They’re not done with us and this is a hot spot.”
“Up or down?”
“I think up. We can collect the rest of our gear up at the top and then go down the other side. Maybe we can commandeer a vehicle somewhere down in Ban Mae Sai. It’s too hot around Ban Hin Taek.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Culler. “I could use a little rest, too. I don’t think they’ll be screwing with us anymore tonight…”
Plausible Denial Page 31