Bamboo Dragon td-108

by Warren Murphy

  Sun Ma was lost now, almost certainly among the dead, and Yau felt his loss most acutely. He couldn't relate to Malays in the same way that he did a fellow countryman. They were all right as cannon fodder, handling the dirty work, but when the revolution came at last, a Chinaman—perhaps Lai Yau himself—would lead it, marshaling the people's army for a rousing victory.

  Before that happened, though, he had to try to do a "simple" job with the survivors he had left, attempt to salvage something from the rubble of his master plan.

  Beijing would not be understanding or forgiving if he failed. His contact had been crystal clear on the importance of this mission, and a disappointment could have painful—even fatal—consequences. Lai Man Yau had pledged himself to die, if necessary, to promote the people's revolution, but he didn't plan to be rubbed out because he'd let that revolution down.

  Yau sat and thought some more, remembering a sound that had briefly distracted him in the midst of the battle, when everyone was firing. He recalled a scream. A woman's scream that emanated from outside the camp.

  It had to be the round-eyed woman, screaming from the jungle. Why? What was she doing out there in the dark? Yau took the simplest answer and decided she was probably responding to a call of nature. Westerners liked privacy when they relieved themselves, as if their shit were something sacred, to be envied by the world. Perhaps this round-eyed bitch had left the camp before his troops took their positions, and no one saw her go.

  But why was she screaming?

  She had started only after shots were fired, Yau thought. Perhaps the sound had frightened her. And she had stopped almost immediately after that. Did she have sense enough to know the screams would give away her hiding place? Or had some member of his strike team found the woman, silenced her forever with a bullet or a blade?

  Yau hissed for quiet in the ranks and waited till he had their full attention, asked the question to their faces. None of them admitted contact with a woman, and judging by their blank expressions, he had no reason to believe that they were lying. Furtive glances would be one thing, pointing to a guilty conscience, knowledge of a critical mistake, but Yau saw nothing of the kind.

  If she was dead, then, it meant one of Lai Yau's missing troops had done the job. It would hardly matter, except he still had no idea which member of the expedition was supposed to be his contact, and it suddenly occurred to him that he might never know. If he was forced to stalk and kill the others, it would be a total failure, and Beijing's reaction would be inescapable.

  The raid had sprung from an impulsive notion.

  Yau was tired of tramping through the jungle on a mission that could last for weeks without result, if the round-eyes found nothing. On his own, he had decided it was better to corral the foreigners, interrogate them and discover which one was supposed to be his ally. Once that information was obtained, the round-eyes could continue with their expedition, more or less—but under guard and with a very different goal in mind. Forget about the fairy tales of giant lizards tramping through the forest. Yau would let them hunt uranium instead, and he would also let them dig for it, relieve his troops of one unpleasant task.

  Before he sent them on to meet their round-eyed god.

  Now he had botched it, and the fault was his alone. He had considered laying off the blame on Sun Leo Ma, but that was unacceptable. Friendship aside, Beijing would never understand why Yau, the officer in charge, had delegated such authority to a subordinate, with such disastrous results.

  The only way to save himself, he realized, was to retrieve the situation somehow. He would have to do it soon, and he couldn't be subtle, given the present circumstances. There could be no question of negotiating with the round-eyes, making friends or "burying the hatchet," as they liked to say in the United States. It would be force or nothing, and his troop had already been cut in half. Their three-to-one advantage had been whittled down to something closer to two to one, and the Americans had shown a startling talent when it came to self-defense.

  Surprise was critical, he understood, but it wouldn't be easy to achieve a second time.

  "Be quiet," Yau snapped at his men, "and listen while I tell you what we have to do."

  The tracking part was easy. In their haste, his enemies had made no effort to disguise their trail. He could have followed them on nothing but the fear smell in a pinch, but they had also left him footprints, trampled ferns and broken tree limbs—someone in the raiding party even dropped an empty AK-47 magazine and left it on the trail as he reloaded on the run.

  It was no challenge, hunting clumsy amateurs.

  The raiders had a six-or seven-minute lead when Remo started after them. Although they knew the territory better, they weren't all that adept at running for their lives in almost total darkness. Pushing it, with all the skills Chiun had taught him, Remo started picking up their panicked scurry-noises after just two minutes on the trail. Then he had to slow down to keep from overtaking them while they were on the move, and forcing a chaotic confrontation in the dark.

  There was no question in Remo's mind of the outcome, but he wanted information first. He had no qualms about a battle on the trail, but Remo knew that it might be impossible for him to single out the leader, spare his life and save him for interrogation once the others were eliminated. He decided to follow them until they stopped to rest, as they were sure to do within the next half hour or so, and then to pursue the matter with a more coherent strategy.

  Think first, Chiun had told him countless times, then act. The thinking didn't have to be prolonged in every case, no great excursion through the labyrinth of military tactics or philosophy, but it was never wise to strike in anger, blindly, without weighing the potential risks against rewards.

  The hunt was twenty minutes old when Remo's quarry took a break, the early rush of panic fading as they picked up no immediate suggestions of a hot pursuit. They fanned out in a small glade overgrown with ferns, three gunmen keeping watch while the remaining six were huddled in a group, their heads together.

  Remo studied them, moved past the guards as if he were invisible. The leader of the party was Chinese, but he spoke Malay to the others. Remo didn't understand a word, but no translation was required for him to know they must be hashing over what had gone wrong with the raid on Stockwell's camp. The leader started out with questions, but the answers clearly failed to satisfy him, and he had progressed to curt instructions by the time Remo began to make his move.

  He started with the sentries, closing on the nearest one and striking from the shadows, catching man and weapon easily before they hit the ground. No noise. He didn't think of Audrey or of anything beyond the fine points of the stroke he knew by heart.

  Imagine every move before you make it. See it in your mind and let your muscles feel it.

  Done.

  He moved on to the second guard, had no more trouble there. The target was not perfectly aligned, so Remo let the sentry hear him coming, just a scuffling in the dirt to bring the soldier's head around. He pulled the punch enough to keep from shattering his adversary's skull—too much potential for the sound to carry—but it did the trick, regardless. Blood was leaking from the dead man's nose and ears as Remo eased him down onto the turf.

  The third lookout appeared to have no clue of what it meant to stand a ready watch. He had his back turned toward the forest, busy listening to every word his leader said, when Remo look him from behind and snapped his neck without breaking a sweat. Three up, three down—but now he had a problem on his hands.

  The other six all carried automatic weapons, most of them Kalashnikovs, and while the distance was not great, their huddle almost perfect for his purposes, he didn't want to simply fling himself among them, striking left and right as if it were a barroom brawl. For one thing, he couldn't be sure the leader would survive that way. And for another, he wasn't convinced that the Chinese would be of any use to him, alone.

  Which meant that he would have to use a gun.

  It ran again
st the grain. Those days were long behind him now, the teachings of Sinanju having lifted Remo to another plane, where firearms were both awkward and unnecessary. He could snatch life from his adversaries in a hundred different ways, bare-handed, and if that failed, he had learned the secrets of converting household objects into deadly weapons as the need arose. With guns, you had the noise and smell, ballistics tests, the problem of disposal—but the rules were all on hold tonight. Whatever happened in the next few moments, the authorities could search for months and come up empty.

  On the flip side, if he made his next move empty-handed, Remo could be forced to kill all six of the guerrillas, and come out of the experience no wiser than when it began.

  The choice was made. He held the third dead sentry's rifle cocked and ready as he stepped into the glade.

  "Does anyone speak English here?"

  The sound of Remo's voice brought six men scrambling to their feet, a couple of them aiming guns in his direction. They were startled, but they also saw the AK-47 in his hands, and when their leader barked an order to the rank and file, they held their fire.

  "I said, does anyone speak English?"

  There was a momentary hesitation. Several of the Malays glanced back and forth at one another. Finally, the leader made things easy, holding up one hand as if he were a schoolboy asking for a bathroom pass.

  "I do," he said.

  "That's fine. Now, tell your boys to lay their weapons down—no tricks—and line up over there." As Remo spoke, he pointed with the AK-47's muzzle to a clear spot in the glade, some ten or twelve feet to the left of the Chinese.

  The would-be soldiers did as they were told, reluctantly at first, but when the leader started snapping at them, they got motivated in a hurry. Remo had them covered as they stacked their weapons in a pile and lined up touching shoulders, as if waiting for a uniform inspection.

  Remo could have shot them where they stood, one burst to knock them down like bowling pins, but he had something else in mind. Six pairs of eyes were focused on him as he crossed the glade in dappled moonlight, thick ferns swishing feather soft around his legs.

  "You sit down on that log," he told the Chinaman, and pointed to a spot that placed the leader six or seven strides from the collected hardware.

  It would have to be enough.

  "All comfy?"

  Remo waited for the leader's curt, resentful nod before he went to work. He used the AK-47 as a cudgel, spinning it around, first striking with the butt and then the barrel, crushing skulls, ribs, Adam's apples, breastbones, vertebrae. He caught the first two absolutely by surprise, and nailed the other three as they tried to break and run. The rifle wasn't balanced for such work, but it served well enough until he broke the stock on number four and had to kill the fifth by hand.

  Their leader sat and watched them die, a stunned expression on his face. He didn't have to ask what had become of his three sentries when he saw the bodies strewed at Remo's feet. A sharp flick of the wrist, and Remo sent the broken AK-47 spinning out of sight.

  "Okay," he said, not even winded by the massacre, "let's talk."

  "Who are you?" asked the Chinese leader when he could find his voice.

  "I'll ask the questions," Remo told him, stepping closer just to emphasize the point. "All right?"

  "All right."

  "You made a move on Dr. Stockwell's expedition, and I need to find out why."

  "Stockwell?"

  He closed the gap, reached out and grabbed his adversary by the throat. It was a simple thing, no trick at all, to hoist him off the ground and let him dangle, choking as a steely grip cut off his flow of oxygen.

  "I guess I wasn't clear about the rules," said Remo. "When I ask a question, you're supposed to answer it, not pick a word and give it back like I was talking to a parrot. Do we understand each other?"

  Remo shook the man a bit, then dropped him in a heap. Stepped back and gave his prisoner enough room to get up on hands and knees.

  "We don't know Stockwell," the Chinese informed him, holding one hand to his throat and speaking in a raspy tone. "No names. I'm told a group of round-eyes will be coming, one of them a comrade. He has information I must send back to… send back."

  He let the fancy footwork go for now. "Which round-eye?"

  "We don't know. He will reveal himself when it is time."

  "You took a chance back there," said Remo, "shooting up the camp. How did you know you wouldn't kill him?"

  "My men get excited," the Chinese replied. "I try to stop them. They are not much good."

  "Not anymore. You want to join them?"

  Blinking rapidly, the Chinese shook his head. "No, please."

  "Okay. What kind of information were you looking for?"

  "Don't know. The round-eye would deliver. We would pass it on."

  "On, where?"

  The kneeling soldier hesitated, finally shook his head. Remo's hand moved to his neck and at a certain spot applied pressure. The soldier's eyes bulged as he was overtaken by a universe of pain he never even knew existed.

  "That was just a love memento," Remo told him when he let go. "I don't think you really want to piss me off."

  The Chinese stared at Remo. Silent tears of pain left bright tracks on his sallow cheeks.

  "Once more, then," Remo said. "Who's waiting for the information? Where's it going?"

  Silence, and he was about to try a different strike, had one arm poised and ready, when his hostage blurted out a single word.

  "Beijing!"

  And it made sense, of course. The Chinese had uranium at home, but there was no such thing as too much weapons-grade material these days. If they could strike a bargain in Malaysia—or promote a revolution that would sweep the present government away, put friendly Reds in charge—then Chairman Mao's disciples would be points ahead. The value of an ore strike would depend on size and easy access, the expense of mining and a dozen other factors Remo had no time to ponder at the moment.

  He had managed to identify one set of players in the game, and that would have to do. The placement of at least one ringer on the U.S. team had also been confirmed, but he was short on evidence in that department.

  "You've been a great help," Remo said, and chilled the rebel leader with a kick he never saw.

  The forest glade was silent, still as death. He knew that when he left, within an hour at the most, a troop of scavengers would home in on the first faint smell of carrion and start to feed.

  "Bon appétit," he told the night, and started back toward camp..

  "I cant believe they both just disappeared," said Safford Stockwell, staring hard into the fire. "Under the circumstances," Sibu Sandakan reminded him, "it's possible they are unable to respond."

  "But both of them? What were they doing out of camp?"

  "That's what I'd like to know," said Chalmers, standing well back from the camp fire, with a captured automatic rifle braced against one hip.

  "I thought…" Professor Stockwell hesitated, shook his head. "No, it's ridiculous."

  "What is it, Doctor?"

  "Well, there was a moment," he told Sandakan, "right in the thick of things, when I was almost certain I saw Dr. Ward. He seemed to come out of the jungle over there and run across the camp and out the other side. I must have been mistaken, though. You surely would have seen him, Chalmers."

  "I'd have seen him right enough," the hulking Brit replied. "And all I saw were bloody wogs with Rooshian weapons, like this here." He brandished the Kalashnikov for emphasis. "I dropped one of them over there," he boasted, "and may have hit a couple more, besides."

  "Of course you did your best," said Stockwell, "but I still can't fathom why they ran away. One gun against so many, and they simply vanished."

  "All depends on who's behind the gun," said Chalmers, puffing out his chest. "I'd say they understood they'd met their match."

  "But where is Audrey, then?" asked Stockwell in a woeful voice. "I could swear I heard her voice."

  "A scre
am," said Sibu Sandakan. "I heard it, too."

  "Outside the camp, it was, just like you said," Pike Chalmers told them. "She had no good reason to go traipsing through the woods that way. The neither of them did."

  "My God, what if she was abducted by those men?" Professor Stockwell blurted out.

  "Then you can kiss her pretty arse goodbye," said Chalmers.

  "We must try to get her back!"

  "And follow them, the three of us? Don't make me laugh." The big man caught himself and rushed to qualify the comment. "I could track 'em down, o' course, and try to take 'em by myself, but that's a sucker's game. The two of you would only slow me down, and as for fighting, well… "

  His sneer left no doubt as to Pike's assessment of the value his companions would contribute in a killing situation. Neither Sibu Sandakan nor Dr. Stockwell rushed to contradict him, each man conscious of his limitations when it came to playing soldier in the wild.

  "But if she's still alive—"

  Their guide returned as Dr. Stockwell groped for something more to say. Kuching Kangar had gone to make a rapid circuit of the area, find out if he could pick up any trace of Audrey or the missing herpetologist. A tattered, muddy scarf was dangling from his left hand as he stepped into the firelight, moving closer to the fire.

  "That's Audrey's!" Stockwell blurted, pointing with a shaking hand. "Where did you find it?"

  "I find in quicksand, that way." As he spoke, Kuching Kangar inclined his head back to the north and east, the general direction of the nearby stream.

  "Quicksand?" On Stockwell's lips, the word came close to sounding like a curse.

  "No bottom," said the guide. "Sink down, too late."

  "Dear God!"

  "And what about the other one?" asked Chalmers.

  "Nothing," said the guide. "Too many footprints. Dead men all around. Count seven, plus the one you shoot."

  "God's truth! I must've hit more than I thought," said Chalmers.