Читать книгу Mission To Burma - Don Pendleton - Страница 13

Lily was clearly appalled. “This is not a good plan.” She had to draw her knees to hip height with each sucking step she took through the abandoned paddy. Normally wet-rice farmers also farmed ducks and crayfish in the same fields, and between them they kept the fields fertilized and free of pests. Leeches covered Lily’s bare legs, and the biting flies fearlessly buzzed through the blighted, overgrown rice plants and weeds and drew blood at an eye blink of inattention. Bolan had no attention to spare for the parasites.

They were literally walking through a minefield. Bolan mucked through the knee-deep swamp an inch at a time, using a five-foot pointed stick for a probe.

The problem for the Burmese military was that up in the highlands, with just a little bit of warning, rebels could melt away into the forests before an attack. However, almost all the rebels were farmers, and sooner or later they returned to their villages once the soldiers left. Like a number of governments, ruling junta had figured out there were few better ways to sow apprehension and dissension among farmers than to sow their fields with land mines. After the first few men and water buffalo lost their legs, the fields were abandoned and without a crop, so were the villages. Rebel strongholds became ghost towns, and the rebels and their families became masses of starving, migrant refugees. The Burmese army’s weapon of choice was a locally produced copy of the U.S. M-14 antipersonnel mine. It carried just enough explosive to take a man’s leg off at the knee, and was nicknamed the “toe-popper” for fairly obvious reasons.

So far, Bolan had found three of them.

Ostensibly the Burmese military kept charts of the minefields so that someday they could come and reclaim the farmland. Nyin, through various means, had acquired maps charting a number of the minefields in his area of operation. However, wet-rice farming was dependent on controlled flooding, and after a year or two without anyone manning the dykes the river had assumed its natural course.

Things had shifted a bit.

“They come soon!” Nyin stated.

Bolan moved inch by inch through the muck and worked his probe while ignoring mosquitoes the size of ballpoint pens that probed every inch of his exposed flesh and completely ignored the insect repellent he’d applied earlier.

“Soon!” Nyin grinned. His gleaming, sweaty head and bare arms seemed impervious to local insects. “Very soon!”

Bolan was trying to concentrate on the swamp in front of him. “Nyin, best for you to be quiet now.”

Nyin ignored the sage advice. “Should be one right in front of you, Sex machine. One meter or less.”

Bolan moved his stick softly through the muck like a plow until he encountered something hard. He probed the object softly. A toe-popper was about the size of a can of chewing tobacco. This one was about the size of a half-gallon can of paint. Bolan very gently touched the top and found the little fusing tower that held the three sensor pins. It was a mine known as a Bouncing Betty. When the sensor pins were disturbed, a charge in the bottom of the mine would literally make the mine jump three to four feet in the air before a pound of C-4 high explosive detonated. The prefragmented metal liner filled with steel ball bearings was lethal within five meters and would badly shred anyone within twenty-seven meters. It also had a pin in the side that could be set with a trip wire, and Bolan spent a few moments gingerly probing for it. It gave him an idea. “Give me the spare stick.”

Nyin handed him the stick, and Bolan broke it in two and carefully stuck a piece of stick against either side of the mine so that the tips just barely protruded out of the water. Bolan moved on, painstakingly clearing another fifty feet, inch by inch. After what seemed like hours, the muck reluctantly released him as he hauled himself up the embankment. He pulled up Nyin and Lily and they flopped exhausted among the weeds. Bolan grabbed his binoculars and scanned the hillside on the other side of the field. They were clear for the moment. He rose to his feet and stared at the empty huts with their gaping, empty windows and doors. “Take Lily and keep moving. I’ll catch up.”

Nyin grunted and Lily sighed as they woodenly rose and moved through the ghost village. Bolan followed them until he found a decent hide in the shadows of a pig enclosure beneath a hut. It had a nice panoramic view of the field. He lay down in the dirt with his rifle and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The enemy deployed down the hillside in a skirmish line with the Naga following Bolan and his team’s spoor as easily as bloodhounds. The Chinese had a dilemma. They did not know whether Bolan and his team had gone all the way across the field or turned midstream and followed the river. Three men, clearly soldiers, cut themselves switches and took one of the Naga into the rice field with them. Bolan and his team had tried not to break any rice stalks or reeds, but in the end it had proved impossible. The Naga stood behind the three-man probing line and directed them like a pointer.

Bolan put his crosshairs on the two sticks and waited.

When they were within ten feet of the sticks, Bolan fired. The suppressed rifle made barely any noise at all beneath the hut and none at all discernible to those wading out in the paddy. The Naga nearly jumped out of his skin as a little geyser of water shot up in the air where the bullet hit. Bolan flicked his bolt, lowered his aim an inch and fired again.

The Bouncing Betty erupted out of the water like a beheaded jack-in-the-box and detonated with a sound like a giant door slamming. There was a puff of orange fire and a spasm of smoke. The Naga tracker and the three-man mine-clearing team rippled and twisted like wheat in a high wind as hundreds of steel ball bearings passed through their bodies. The sound of the explosion echoed against the hills. The dead men sank beneath the surface of the flooded field, leaving spreading red stains in the scummy green water.

Bolan watched as one of the men across the field consulted with another. One man was clearly the Chinese officer and the other his second in command. Bolan itched for the shot, but it was long and would let everyone know he was in the village. He waited while they talked and let himself breathe a sigh of relief as the Chinese team broke into two groups, each with one of the remaining trackers, and began moving north and south down each end of the valley. They were going to go around and waste valuable time trying to pick up Bolan’s tracks again.

The big American crawled backward and kept the hut between himself and the other side of the valley. He hadn’t seen the sniper, but Bolan could feel the killer scanning for him through his scope. Bolan stopped on a little landing of the stairs that led up to the stilted hut and did a little shopping. He faded back and, when he reached the trees, he broke into a run.

It was time to do some distance.

SERGEANT HWA-CHE WAS GONE. Captain Dai couldn’t believe it. The man who had taught him everything he knew and recommended him to officer candidate school was dead in a nameless, fly-ridden rice field. It was a peasant’s death. The American had led them straight into it. It was almost inconceivable. Southeast Asia was their territory, their specialty, their turf, as the Americans would say. Dai looked down to see his hand was shaking. He had unconsciously opened it into the snake-fist formation. It shook with his need to reach into the American’s chest, rip out his beating heart and show it to him.

Old Man Cao approached Dai wearily. “We are down to two trackers.”

“I am aware of that, Corporal,” Dai replied.

“However, it is confirmed. They are a party of only three. An American soldier, the Na woman and an unidentified third party, wearing native sandals. I suspect he is a native, probably a CIA intelligence asset.”

Dai had his own sources. “I find that very hard to believe, Corporal.”

Cao wiped sweat from his brow and shrugged. “Who else could it be, Captain?”

“Who would you suspect, Old Man?”

Cao draped his weapon across his shoulder. “We are the dominant outside intelligence force in Myanmar.”

“Do you believe we are up against rogue Chinese agents?”

That was unthinkable. “Well, the Thais wield great influence as a trading partner, but we have thoroughly infiltrated their intelligence agencies.”

“So tell me, Old Man, who could this thorn in our side be?”

Corporal Cao spit the words. “Yang gui zi.”

“The foreign devil” could mean anyone unfortunate enough not to have been born Chinese, but in the old days the words referred to one nation in particular. A nation that had not just been a thorn in the side of the Middle Kingdom, but had held the knife across its throat. “Yes,” Dai agreed, “the English.”

The United Kingdom was a shadow of the mighty empire it once was, and the English lion paled in comparison to the might of the Chinese dragon, but the English were stubborn and meddlesome. They still had one of the best intelligence agencies in the world and, most importantly, were a staunch ally of the United States.

Dai gazed at Cao steadily. “And?”

Cao turned his gaze northward. “And I believe any assets the English have here in the north would be local and involved in drug interdiction. I suspect the Americans have called in a favor.”

“Very good. I am promoting you to acting sergeant, promotion to be confirmed by the battalion commander upon our successful return to Beijing.” Cao beamed delightedly. Dai made an effort to scowl. “Now give me the rest of your report and wipe that stupid smile off of your face. You look like a peasant.”

Cao snapped to attention. “The trackers have relocated their trail. The shooter was the American. He took a firing position beneath one of the huts and stayed to hold us off while the other two ran.”

Dai had suspected that, but he’d had to check the entire circumference of the fields regardless. The American had known that, too, and he would be using it to put distance between them. Dai’s snake-hand formation closed into a white-knuckled fist. He would take Lily Na while his men cheered him on. The Burmese bastard that was helping her would die staked out over a fire. As for the American…Dai snarled over his shoulder, “Corporal Khoay-Peng!”

Khoay-Peng snapped to attention. “Yes, Captain!”

“Do you have your needles with you?”

“Yes, Captain!” Corporal Khoay-Peng was the team medic, and an accomplished acupuncturist in both the little-and big-needle style. With skillful application he could relieve headaches, unlock muscles in spasm and cure any number of maladies. He knew the nerve meridians and energy channels of the body like the back of his hand. Khoay-Peng was also a master of the poison-needle tradition. The same skills that could bring the sick and injured back to health could also plunge a human being into an agonizing hell where they would regurgitate any knowledge they had to make the horror end. Dai had read after-action debriefings where the victims had likened the pain to having their living nerves drawn from their body and pulled through heated sand.

“The American will require field interrogation.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Dai turned away from the swamp that had swallowed Sergeant Hwa-Che’s bones. “Big-needle style.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Dai turned to his communications specialist. “Private Po.”

Po trotted forward. “Yes, Captain.”

“Set up the secure line. I need to make a phone call.”

BOLAN CAUGHT UP again far too quickly. Lily was sitting on a tree stump while Nyin puffed on a clove cigarette and then pressed the glowing tip into the gorged bodies of the leeches covering Lily’s legs. She had more than a dozen bleeding circles on her thighs and calves. Nyin surveyed his handiwork and then rose rubbing his hands. “We heard explosion, Coop. How many you kill?”

“I got four. Pretty sure three were Chinese, one was a tracker.”

“Good!” Nyin smiled. “Very good.”

Bolan turned to Lily and held up three pairs of sandals he’d found in the village. “I went shopping for you.”

Lily began sizing them against her feet. “I see I am reduced to peasant chic.” She chose a pair that just about fit her feet while Bolan cut her dry pairs of silk sock-bandages. “Nyin, you have any more ideas?”

Nyin chewed his lip. “Yes. A little way southwest is northern Myanmar railhead at Myitkyina. We ride on top of train and can jump off any time, and Chinese don’t know where we jump off. We lose them.”

“How far?”

“We can’t go in Myitkyina. Full of soldiers. We have to skirt city and then hop train. Say…twenty-five kilometers?”

Bolan clicked on his PDA. “Base, this is Striker.”

Barbara Price instantly answered. “I have you, Striker.”

“I need satellite recon and train schedules for every freighter heading out of Myitkyina.” Bolan glanced up at the sun and calculated. It was almost fifteen and half miles exactly, and they would be losing the light in a few hours. “I’m going to be there in three hours.”

“Copy that, Striker. Will have intel for you ASAP.”

“Striker out.” Bolan powered down everything on the motherboard except for the signal the Farm was tracking. He would have to change batteries soon. He only had two spare sets and he had almost drained the first within twenty-four hours.

Lily took a deep breath. “Twenty-five kilometers, cross-country, in three hours.”

Bolan nodded. There was no way to sugarcoat it. “You’re going to have to run.”

“So I suspected.” She sighed.

“I’m going to run you till you puke and then run you until you puke again. Then I’m going to carry you, and then Nyin is. Then we’re going to switch. We have to make time. We have to catch a train. We need to leave the Chinese eating our dust.”

Lily stood. “I am ready.”