"Isn't it beautiful!" said Nark, looking in the direction of the setting sun.
Bolan nodded, feasting his eyes on the sight. When men roll to war, everything that represents life takes on added meaning, he reflected. For him, a sense of added meaning was always present, for he was forever rolling to war. For him, the meaning was justice by fire.
"How soon do you figure we'll be in Py Fung?" asked Nark.
"If everything goes well, two hours," replied Bolan. "Then another three by trail. We should be in position, ready to attack, before midnight."
"What about the train?"
"We'll park it in a siding. The engine driver says there's enough canopy to hide it. We'll put a bullet through the tank so he can't report us. He'll have to walk to town."
"You told him?"
Bolan nodded. "I'm paying him a thousand bahts for the inconvenience."
They steamed into the next forest. It got darker and cooler, and in the confined space the wheels seemed much louder. Solan's stomach tightened. The two hours it took them to load would have given the Thais plenty of time to put troops on the line as well. Bolan glanced behind him. The men in the ore wagons stood by the sides, guns pointing at the bordering forest. Bolan raised the radio to his mouth.
"This is the colonel speaking. All headmen, please remind your troops of the orders. We are not to fire on Thai troops even if they fire on us. I repeat: we do not fire back, even if we take casualties. Out."
"I don't think we have to worry too much on that score," said Nark. "While we were loading I heard the headmen telling their men that if anybody shot at the Thais they'd have their wages confiscated. I get the impression they realize your order is as much to their benefit as ours. When this mission's over, you and I will leave, but they have to go on living with the Thais. It's better not to rub your neighbor the wrong way too much."
"Let's hope you're right," said Bolan.
The fear of a firefight with the Thais was a constant worry to Bolan. From experience he knew that fire control is one of the hardest orders for troops to follow. When bullets fly and men around you fall, it takes real discipline to resist firing back.
On this mission Bolan felt like a trapeze artist who has to perform two tricks at once. He had to destroy Tiger without killing any Thais who got in the way, a frustrating position for a commander to be in.
The president had told him, "Your hands will be tied from the very start. If under the circumstances you prefer not to undertake the mission, I'll understand and we'll abandon it." But Bolan had a personal reason for wanting to destroy Tiger. It was another snaking head of the very same Hydra that had almost devoured Bolan's warriors off Cuba. He would fight for sure.
The train rounded a bend, and Bolan's fears materialized. The Thais had thought of putting troops on the rail line. On the track ahead burned red flares. Two soldiers stood by them, signaling with their arms for the train to stop. A group of four more stood to the side observing, one of them with a radio on his back. They all wore camouflage berets and were armed with CAR-15s. Thai rangers, the elite.
The engineer poked his head from the cab. "We stop?" he asked.
"Keep going!" Bolan shouted back. "Paj!"
The engineer began hooting, and the two soldiers stepped off the track. Bolan kept his eyes on their hands. But neither they nor the others made any attempt to bring up their weapons. They merely stood there watching, interested spectators, their stance relaxed, seemingly unconcerned that the train took no notice of their order.
As the train neared the group, Bolan saw one of them — an officer, judging by his side arm — motion to the radioman to pass him the telephone-like headset. He was speaking into it when the locomotive passed, his eyes on Bolan, his expression calm, unperturbed, professional.
"What was that?" Nark exclaimed.
"I don't know," said Bolan, turning to see what would happen next. But nothing happened. The Thais watched the cars roll by with the same detached air, the officer talking calmly into his set. Bolan lost them from view behind a bend. "They look like men who have something up their sleeve.''
"What do you think it could be?" asked Nark.
"We'll discover soon enough," replied Bolan.
"You know, those were rangers."
"I know."
"Trained by our Green Berets."
"That should make things even more interesting."
They rolled through the forest, listening to the locomotive's puffing and the rumbling of the wheels, waiting for the evening's surprises. The air was getting darker, the trees so close to the track it was like going through a tunnel. Often they had to duck to avoid branches.
Finally they rounded a bend and steamed out into a large clearing. It was a good two miles long and a half mile wide. The track ran straight as an arrow, and in the distance more flares burned on the line. But it was not the flares that commanded Bolan's attention, it was the goings-on beyond them.
Fifty-or-so yards on the other side of the flares — it was hard to tell at that distance — men crouched over the track. And five hundred yards beyond them was another group. At the sight of the train, both rose and ran to join a third group, this one standing halfway between the track and the tree line. A man in the third group had a radio antenna protruding from his back.
In the split second it took him to register the scene, Bolan had the answer to what the Thais had up their sleeve. Having been informed by the others by radio that the train refused to stop, this group had mined the track. Bolan's experienced eye even told him how they had mined it: they had used the Fog Signal system.
Beyond the flares — the last warning to the train — a detonator lay on the track. When the wheels of the train crossed it, it would explode the charges down the line, the distance between the detonator and the charges giving the driver time to stop. The Fog Signal was used to stop a train by blowing up the track without derailing the train.
To Bolan it was obvious that the Thais, too, wanted to avoid bloodshed. The peace-loving Thais were practicing what they preached. But Bolan had a mission to carry out, a mission into which he had sunk a lot of time, effort, and pain. A man whose balls have been broiled does not give up at the last moment. Colonel Phoenix's war train was stopping for no one, bad guys or good.
"Give me smoke!" he shouted.
He leaped off the coal tender, landing on the flatcar amid men and horses. He swung into a saddle and dug in his heels. The horse leaped from the moving car. It landed, stumbled, recovered, and Bolan sent it galloping down the side of the train.
They passed the locomotive and began outdistancing it, heading for the flares. Tracers flew at him as the Thais opened fire. Almost immediately, however, the three mortar tubes on the gun platform opened up, and smoke bombs began exploding, creating a smoke screen between him and the Thais.
The screen advanced with him, the mortar crews loading as fast as the bombs left the tubes. But gaps between the screen were unavoidable, and Bolan's white horse stood out. Colored projectiles still sang past him.
They galloped past the spewing flares, and Bolan leaned in the saddle, eyes scanning the rail, searching for the watch-and-strap shape of the Fog Signal detonator. Suddenly, he was flying, catapulted over his horse that now had blood pouring from its head, shot.
He scrambled to his feet and began running. Bullets no longer sang past him, his Montagnard suit making him harder to see, but now he was conscious of a more ominous sound — the locomotive was catching up with him. Then he saw it, a black object against the shining rail.
Lungs bursting from the strain, eyes tearing from the rush of air, the smoke screen blowing in his direction, he raced for the detonator. He reached it, his hands sought out the detonator cord and he pulled. But the cord refused to budge. It was firmly attached to the rail by tape.
A whistle rent the air, the engine driver warning Bolan to get out of the way. A picture flashed before Bolan's eyes: himself with bandaged wrists, hands amputated by the locomotive's wheels. He wanted to
run, but the bigger part of him — Bolan the professional — maintained his grip on the cord.
A piercing cry escaped his lips, a cry of controlled hysteria of the kind that gives enough strength to a woman to lift a car to save her child, and he threw himself backward to escape the thundering wheels. The cord came away with him.
The locomotive rolled past Bolan in a deafening cacophony of pistons, steam and wheels. The ground trembled, he felt metal heat, smelled grease. He scrambled to his feet and ran after the train.
As he ran he was conscious of stretching arms and shouting mouths, but in a vague way, as if in a dream. Then his hands came into contact with metal, a metal ladder running up the side of an ore wagon. He grabbed it and was dragged along the ground, then he pulled himself up and began climbing. His head swam, and his body grew weak.
Scores of hands reached down for him. He felt himself lifted and pulled in over the side. At that moment a loud cheer went up from the train, but he did not hear it. Bolan's world had gone black.
Chapter 11
Flanked by Nark and Vang Ky, Bolan surveyed the hardsite from the ridge he and Nark had been on before. It was a little after 22.00 hours, and Bolan's Montagnard army was ready for battle. But so was Tiger, and that was the problem. The camp had been reinforced. A quartet of newly arrived Apache helicopters sat on the landing zone, the parade ground was a sea of troop tents, and fresh gun emplacements were in evidence everywhere.
"We will be massacred," said Vang Ky.
"If we follow our original plan, yes," said Bolan.
"You have another?"
"The colonel is thinking of walking in," said Nark.
"Walking in?" exclaimed Vang Ky.
"As Tiger," said Bolan. "As victorious Tiger." He looked at Nark. "Did you bring the uniforms?"
"Uniforms, weapons and bodies," Nark replied.
By 23.00 hours the commandos were ready. He inspected them by moonlight as they stood in a forest clearing. There were two groups of men. The first was made up of forty Montagnards in uniforms of Tiger soldiers captured or killed in the battle of the train. They also carried Tiger weapons.
Bolan's plan was to gain entry into the hardsite by impersonating the returning Tiger party. But forty men were not enough to hold back the enemy while keeping the gates open for the rest of the force. Bolan needed at least twice that number. So he had contrived the idea of doubling his force with prisoners.
They formed the second group of the commando, men in regular Montagnard dress with bound wrists and cords around their necks, both lightly tied so they could get free in a hurry. The armament for this group was in sacks on horses that would be led by the soldiers, ostensibly captured weapons. Some men were bandaged to look wounded.
The inspection over, Bolan signaled to the men to assemble around him. "You look very realistic," he told them. "We should have no problem tricking Tiger. But once inside we must move very, very fast. Remember your targets and stick to them. May the spirits protect you."
"And you," they chorused.
They moved out of the clearing, taking a forest path, every fifth man a Chinese speaker. Luckily for Bolan there was no shortage of them in the force. Many of the Meo in the Triangle were from Yunnan, the province of southern China where most Meo still live.
The rest of the force lined the path to see them off. As Bolan passed, faces smiled, hands touched him, voices whispered encouragement. From commander he had become their hero, the man who had single-handedly saved the train from destruction. His unsmiling modesty only increased their admiration. He was a human hero.
The column descended the ridge and came onto the dirt road leading to the hardsite. Just before the last bend, Bolan was tied across a saddle. He would enter the hardsite as a corpse rather than a prisoner. A white prisoner would attract too much interest.
The gates loomed ahead. As the column neared, a searchlight came on from one of the flanking towers. Its beam swept the column up and down, lingering on the prisoners. A rider broke from the column and galloped up to the gates. He wore a bloodstained uniform with bullet tears and a bloodstained bandage on his head.
"Green frogs," he shouted. "Captain Wong's group returning." Green frogs was the password. They got that from the prisoners.
"What happened?" asked a voice from a tower.
"Montagnards attacked us," replied the rider. "We beat them but lost Captain Wong and four men."
"Killed?"
"Yes."
"And the wages?" another man asked.
"Safe."
"Open the gates!" the first voice called.
The gates swung open, the searchlight went out, and a smaller arc light came on, forming a spotlight by the entrance. The column filed under the flag-bedecked archway with the Chinese inscriptions. First came horses with the money, then horses with the bodies.
The prisoners appeared. "Look at those necks," said a voice. "The colonel will be pleased. Lots of flesh to test his swords on."
Guffaws greeted the remarks.
As the column entered the parade ground it formed ranks. From his upside-down position Bolan surveyed the lay of the land. The parade ground was in darkness, but beyond it were lots of streetlights and he could hear music.
A door opened from a barrack on the side. An officer and an assistant stepped out and walked briskly to the forming ranks.
"Where is Sergeant Tsepo?" the officer called.
"Here I am, sir," replied the false sergeant.
"What's this about an ambush?" asked the officer.
"We were jumped as we were getting off the train," said the sergeant. "They were waiting for us at Py Fung."
A flashlight shone in the sergeant's face. "You're not Tsepo," said the assistant. The beam swept the column. "Sir, these are not Captain Wong's men."
"Searchlight!"
Night turned into day. But almost immediately muzzles flashed. With a puff of smoke and the tinkle of glass the searchlight went out. A moment of stunned silence followed, then all hell broke loose.
"Attack! Attack!" Bolan shouted into the radio set given to him by the Montagnard who released him. "We're inside!"
From up the ridge a green flare fired. A bugle sounded down the road. The radio blared. "Nark to Phoenix. The cavalry's on its way!"
On the parade ground bedlam reigned. Colored tracers flew in all directions, men yelled, horses galloped in confusion. A tower flashed as an RPG hit its mark. Windows blew, and a barrack exploded in flames.
But the enemy was not sleeping, either. The inside of the parade ground lit up with a myriad of flashes, and Bolan's commando force began to take casualties.
"Arty! Arty!" Bolan shouted into his set above the din. "Open fire on the parade ground! Willie Peter, all four tubes."
The hills boomed, the sky crackled. Mortar bombs rained on the parade ground as fast as the men could load them. They exploded in showers of white phosphorus, setting trees and tents on fire. But the enemy kept shooting.
"Spread your fire!" Bolan shouted into the radio.
The battery widened the lateral angle. The shells began falling farther apart. Soon the entire area was illuminated.
"Perfect! Now give me Hotel Echo."
The white showers gave way to orange flashes as the mortar crews switched to firing high explosive. By the light of the burning trees Bolan could see bodies cartwheel in the air and men fall, sliced by shrapnel.
Two groups of Tiger men were running toward the parade ground carrying machine guns. They dropped to the ground near the tree line and proceeded to set up their guns.
"Number three tube!" Bolan shouted. "Right thirty, down ten!"
The machine gun crews ducked as a bomb from number three mortar exploded near them. A moment later, however, both groups were firing their Browning .50-caliber guns, the famous battlefield broom, hosing the parade ground with 12.7mm slugs.
From the road came the blare of a bugle and the thunder of hooves. Gooseflesh broke out on Bolan's arms. With the big .50
s in action, the cavalry was riding to certain doom. It would be carnage.
"Arty, arty, all four tubes lock into number three! Number three down ten. All four go!"
A cluster of bombs warbled overhead. The inside of the tree line lit up with orange explosions. The machine gun positions disintegrated, arms and legs flying through the air.
"Bingo!"
"Ayu!"
A mass of black riders poured through the gates. They fanned out into the hardsite, heading for their assigned targets. Many horses carried two men apiece, miniature gun platforms flying through the night, the rider shooting to the right, the passenger to the left.
A group of riders with pack animals stopped by Bolan. Nark and Stressner were among them. They had brought a spare horse for Bolan with a pepesha attached to the saddle. Bolan mounted, and the group galloped off in the direction of the industrial sector.
Three abreast they thundered down an alley bordered by opium warehouses, the area dark and deserted. But not deserted enough. A squad of Tiger troops appeared, running for the parade ground. The three white riders rose in their saddles, and the perforated barrels of their pepeshas flickered flame. The squad scattered and the riders flew by.
They crossed a square, turned some corners, and the administration building came into view. Muzzles flashed from open windows. But there was no stopping Bolan now. He had neither the time nor the energy to work out some clever, safe way of taking the building. Horses tumbled, men died, but the charge continued.
One of the windows was closed and in darkness. Bolan steered his mount for it. At the last moment, still on the gallop, he jumped to the ground, bounced, and crashed through the window amid flying glass. The rest of the force followed in his wake, into the office, out into the corridor, some going left, others to the right, shooting up everything in sight.
Within minutes the building was secured. The Tiger communication center was theirs. So was the gold and, most important of all, so were Tiger's international files.
* * *
It was a veritable Ali Baba's cave. In the files were the names of every Tiger agent and contact around the world. There were names of shippers, importers, distributors, lists of companies that laundered the money, who invested what and where, the numbers of secret bank accounts, names of paid politicians, crooked cops, enforcers, and district managers. A wealth of data.
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