Tiger War (6 page)

A door opened, filling the night with rock music. Through the doorway Bolan could see that the interior was arranged like a bar with tables and a dance floor. It was packed. A soldier and a girl came out. They kissed for a while, then headed for the stables arm in arm. A moment later the door opened again, and another couple stepped out. They too headed for the stables. Would they notice there were no guards?

Again the door opened.

"This is going to be risky," Nark whispered.

It'll be even more risky if we hang around any longer,
Bolan thought. The soldiers might overlook the absence of the guards, their minds on other things, but the interrogator would get impatient waiting for his next victim.

Bolan tapped Nark and they left the trees. Bent low, they ran across the open ground and untied the reins of two horses. They were mounting them when the door opened and a soldier appeared. Bolan pointed his M-16 at him like a pistol and fired. The soldier toppled backward, a woman screamed, and pandemonium broke out.

Bolan and Nark galloped off, the horses' hooves drowning out the shouts from the receding villa.

They headed down the road past rows of palms, the moon lighting their way. As they rounded a corner they saw the gate was closed. The gate was the only way out, the plantation being surrounded by a tall fence.

At their approach, figures materialized. One of them knelt in the roadway, and a muzzle flashed. Bolan let go of his reins, set his rifle on automatic, and stood in the saddle. Nark followed his example. Guns blazing, they bore down on the guards. Bodies toppled, figures scattered, the wrought-iron gate clanged from ricocheting bullets.

"Cover me!" shouted Bolan as the horses slid to a stop before the gate.

While Bolan leaned down to open the gate, Nark wheeled his horse in a circle, firing constantly, keeping the guards pinned on both sides of the gate. Bolan went through and proceeded to fire while Nark came out. Together they fired a final burst and galloped off into the night, free men once more.

For Bolan it was a glorious sensation. He ignored the pain in his crotch although it was aggravated by the furious gallop. What counted was the wind in his face, the moon in the sky... and freedom.

Behind them, an air-raid siren began wailing.

Two miles down the road they turned into a trail leading into the hills that would take them home to the Meo village. But here they had to slow down. The ground was uneven, full of rocks, and the thick canopy lowered visibility. A horse could easily break a leg, and they had to maintain a walking pace.

A little later they heard the thunder of hooves on the road they had left. The sound died out at the junction of the trail, telling them Tiger too had turned into it.

"They're going to catch up with us," said Nark.

"We still have a few minutes," Bolan replied.

The enemy would catch up because they were familiar with the trail and would know where they could speed up without risk of injury to their animals. Before they caught up, however, the trail left the thick woodland for a ravine in open grassland. The ravine sloped to a bridge across a stream, then the trail rose sharply up a hill, disappearing into some woods. For Bolan this was their opportunity. He sent his horse into a gallop and Nark followed. They crossed the bridge and scrambled up the slope, reining inside the woods.

"I'll try to delay them," said Bolan. "You go ahead."

"I'll help you," said Nark, dismounting.

"Nark, I'm giving you an order," said Bolan. "One of us has to make the air drop."

Nark was on the verge of replying but changed his mind. Bolan was right; the mission came before friendship. He remounted. "Take care, John," he said and rode away.

Bolan tied his horse to a tree and went to the edge of the woods. Nearby was a large boulder, and he dropped behind it and waited. He did not have to wait long because they were gaining on them faster than he had thought, and for good reason. They had torches, and the woods flickered with light.

On the third horse rode a man with a pistol strapped to his belt. There was one individual who would have benefited from the Vietnam War, thought Bolan. Nam taught officers not to advertise rank by such telltale signs; the VC always fired on officers first.

Bolan counted nine men. As the leading rider reached the bridge, he sighted the officer. A flame stabbed the night, and screeching birds rose from the treetops. The ambush was on.

Bolan picked them off one by one. The ponies in the ravine milled as the riders toppled. The flaming torches that had helped the Tiger soldiers to catch up quickly now helped Bolan to kill them quickly. They lit the target, complicating Tiger's defense. To reach the rifles on their backs, the soldiers had to drop their torches.

But the horses were panicked by the torches flaming on the ground, which made it even more difficult for the soldiers to unsling their rifles.

When the ambush was over eight corpses lay on the trail. Over them stood a few dazed horses. The rest of the animals had gone back the way they had come, along with the sole surviving soldier. From behind the boulder Bolan observed the silent scene, lit by the dying torches on the ground. Not a soul moved.

Bolan shouldered his rifle and walked back to the woods. He mounted his horse and resumed his journey.

Bolan and Nark reached the ridge overlooking the village late in the afternoon. One glance at the activity below told them something was up. An armed crowd milled outside the headman's hut, everywhere horses were being loaded with household belongings, and children were rounding up animals.

They dismounted and led the horses down the slope. That way they could descend faster. By the first house they came to, a woman was tying pots and pans to a horse already laden with bales of tobacco.

"What's going on?" Bolan inquired in Meo.

"Chinese are coming to kill Hmong," the woman replied.

"Why?"

"To punish the Hmong for helping white men."

"Who told you this?" Nark asked.

"Ask the headman," the woman said with a nod in the direction of his house.

They rode into the village past doorways from which women emerged, arms full. Piles of furniture and bedding lay everywhere. Pigs were squealing and hens were cackling. The entire village was preparing to move out.

In the square, men were loading a large crate onto the back of the village elephant. The beast knelt with the driver, the mahout, astride its neck. Nearby lay sacks of corn and rice for loading.

As they reached the crowd, the people parted to let them through. Faces watched them in silence, impassive. There was no hostility, but there was no friendliness either. The men were armed with muskets and crossbows. Where were the rifles they had captured? Bolan wondered.

They dismounted and entered the headman's gloomy home. The place was packed with people, the air thick with smoke. A shouting match was in progress at the far end. So absorbed was the audience, Bolan and Nark's entry went unnoticed.

"Did we not tell you?" a man shouted. "We told you not to have anything to do with him. We told you he would bring us trouble."

"You told me, you told me," shouted back a voice which Bolan recognized as Vang Ky's. "You told me many things. But when he offered you money you also accepted."

"Only because you vouched for him. You said he could be trusted. You said we would get the arms and money before we went to war."

"Pao is right," added a third man. "The agreement was for arms and money first. They tricked us."

"Why are you saying this?" Vang Ky retorted. "You know it is not true. It was the arrest of the first man that delayed the money."

"Who are these long noses, anyway?" broke in a fourth man. "I don't believe they are Russians. My son says they speak English to each other. He thinks they are Americans."

"Of course they are Americans," said someone. "They want to destroy Tiger for the poppies. Remember in Xiengkhouang? They were always after us to stop growing opium."

"Is this true, Ky?"

"Is what true?"

"That they are Americans."

A long silence followed. "Ky, we want an answer," the man persisted.

"Yes, they are Americans," the headman admitted.

On the rim of the audience, in the shadows, Bolan and Nark exchanged glances. The cover was blown.

"So, Ky," said a voice rising in anger, "you lied to us. You told us they were Russians when all the time you knew they were Yankees. Tell us, Ky, how much are they paying you to be their agent? How much for lying to your own?"

"Ky always did like licking American asses," observed someone.

"You'd better watch your tongue, Xan," said Vang Ky.

"Headmen, headmen," a new voice called. "We did not meet to exchange insults. We are here to find a way of saving the villages."

"You have a suggestion, Ly?"

"Yes, I do."

"Let's have it."

"What I propose is that we offer the Chinese a deal. As soon as the white men return we arrest them. Then we send a messenger to the Chinese. We offer the white men in return for peace."

Nark glanced at Bolan, alarm in his face. Bolan calmed him with a hand on his arm. Let them get their rancor out.

"And if the white men don't return?" someone asked. "Tiger is looking for them. They have patrols everywhere."

"They might be dead already," another suggested.

"They'll come, don't worry," said the man called Ly. "The one in the black scarf won't let Tiger get him, you can be sure of that. I was here two days ago when he polished off that squad out on the grazing fields."

"Yes, a real fighter," said Vang Ky.

"And lucky," Ly continued. "A man under the protection of spirits. He'll be back, you'll see."

"But we can't hand them over to Tiger," said Vang Ky.

"Why not?"

"We can't. That would be betrayal."

"Betrayal? And what is it they did to us in Vietnam? Was that not betrayal?"

Grunts of approval rose from the crowd. Ly's argument hit a nerve.

"Yes, it was betrayal!" A white man's voice spoke up from the back, loud and clear.

Faces turned and a buzz ran through the hut. An aisle opened and Bolan advanced to the circle of the stools. An empty one materialized from nowhere, and he joined the dozen headmen.

"Yes, it was betrayal," he repeated. "Politics is a dirty business." His eyes swept the assembled company. "As we all know."

At that the tension building up in the room diffused. Bolan could see his message had struck home. True, they had got a rough deal in Vietnam, but politics had its own rules, and none knew this better than the Meo. During their four-thousand-year history they had sold more allies down the river than anyone cared to remember. In politics, no nation is lily-white.

Taking advantage of the new mood, Bolan announced, "The arms and the money will be dropped after midnight tonight in the Valley of the Spirits. The drop has been confirmed." He turned to Vang Ky. "How near are the Chinese?"

"The Chinese will be here in four hours," the headman replied. "They are traveling on the Nam Tha trail. I have horsemen tracking them. We have reports every hour."

"Our homes will have gone up in flames before we see those arms," someone said.

"That is if we ever see them," threw in Pao skeptically.

Bolan looked straight at Pao. "Do I leave the room or do I continue?" he asked.

"Continue, continue," the others urged.

Once more Bolan turned to Vang Ky. "What is the strength of the Chinese column?"

"Two hundred rifles."

"How are they coming, on foot?"

"Yes, on foot."

"Any other armament?"

"Grenades and flamethrowers."

"What about us, what do we have in the way of armament?"

"Crossbows, muskets, and thirteen rifles."

"Thirteen?" Bolan exclaimed. "We captured over forty in the raid on the pagoda!"

Vang Ky sucked on his teeth and looked down at the space between his feet. Seconds ticked by.

"He sold them," volunteered one of the other headmen.

"You what?" Bolan exploded.

"On our way back," Vang Ky began, looking at everything and nothing in particular but making sure he avoided Bolan's stare, "on our way back we met the Yao. They were paying good money." Vang Ky's eyes traveled from the fire to the jars of upas tree poison, to the spot between his feet, and back to the fire. "Since we were going to receive a lot of weapons tonight anyway..."

"Ky thought it was his opportunity to make a killing," another man finished.

A long silence followed. It was broken by the man called Ly. "There you have it, Mr. White Man," he said. "We have thirteen rifles, and they have two hundred. We cannot save our homes by fighting. Our only chance is to negotiate." He added knowingly, "And as you said, politics is a dirty business."

Bolan got his drift, all right. He and Nark were to be the sacrificial lambs with which the Meo would appease Tiger. And judging from the reaction — or lack of reaction — the conference found Ly's proposition a good one. Only Vang Ky had spoken against it.

"What makes you so certain the Chinese will go for your proposal?" Bolan asked Ly. "If I know them, they'll take us and attack the villages anyway."

It was hardly an argument, but that was not the point. The point was to stretch the conversation to give himself time to come up with a solution. He had to find a way of destroying that column. It was the only way of keeping Galloping Horse alive. They could not scrub the mission, not now, not after the work that had gone into it, the effort of hundreds of good people who had been working on it for months, the ships, the planes that were waiting for the signal to swing into action.

He could not let them down.

"The Chinese are shrewd people," the headman Ly said. "They know if they burn the villages, there will be no one to harvest the opium."

To which Bolan replied, "Tiger can afford to lose a few kilos of opium. They'll make it up from their stockpile. But what they cannot afford is to let a rebellion go unpunished."

"There are many ways the strong can punish the weak," Ly said. "A fine, for example. A fine would be much more lucrative."

"I disagree," Bolan replied. "A fine is not a strong enough punishment. The punishment must be strong enough to deter the other Montagnard nations from following your example. The Chinese..."

Eureka! He found it! The solution was staring him in the face, stacked against the opposite wall, jars and jars of it. The upas tree poison!

He would destroy the Tiger column with poison.

Bolan turned to Vang Ky. "Can I borrow your elephant?"

Atop the elephant, Bolan waited for the coming of Tiger. It was night and the moon was shining. The elephant stood hidden by trees a couple of hundred yards from the Nam Tha trail. Everything was ready for the ambush, the entire village having lent a hand. Six thousand bamboo poles had been cut, women had sharpened them into spikes, children had dipped them in upas tree poison, and the men had planted them in the kill zone. Now, the rest was up to Bolan.

He sat in a howdah, an Armalite in his lap, an ammunition belt around his waist. From under the belt protruded a poppy red sash. A black Montagnard pajama suit replaced his tattered fighter suit. To make him look like a real Meo, the headman had given him a broad Montagnard silver collar, which Bolan also wore. The fighter was ready to defend the village.

While waiting, he smoked and the elephant ate. The animal was a nine-ton bull. It stood ten feet high and tore at the trees with its trunk, stuffing huge quantities of twigs and leaves into its mouth.

A birdcall sounded, the mahout announcing himself. The elephant driver came out of the trees, a bucket of rice beer in each hand. He set them in front of the elephant, there were two loud slurps, and the buckets were empty. The mahout put the buckets aside and whispered some words to the elephant. In answer, the beast curled its trunk and raised a foreleg. With the aid of these two steps the mahout climbed on its back and came to the howdah.

"Tiger coming soon," said the mahout. He brought out a cigarette and Bolan lit it for him with the end of his.

"Where is the headman?" asked Bolan.

"Coming," replied the mahout.

They fell silent, listening to the sounds of the elephant eating and to the noises of the forest.

An owl hooted. The mahout replied with a birdcall. At that the headman appeared, barefoot, rifle in hand. Montagnards often took off their footwear so they could move faster, more quietly. The mahout motioned him to come around the back. Big Bottom might get annoyed if he had to interrupt his meal to make steps. This time the mahout had it raise its hind leg. The headman climbed on it and pulled himself the rest of the way by the tail. He joined Bolan by the howdah.

"Tiger be here soon," Vang Ky announced, lighting a cigarette.

"Nark left?" asked Bolan.

"Yes."

Bolan glanced at the sky. "We should have no problems." The moon shone in a cloudless sky, and there was hardly any wind. Perfect weather for an air drop.

The headman smoked pensively. "What if we capture the white men?" he asked.

"You pass them to me and I will kill them," Bolan answered simply.

Just before sundown one of the shadowing riders had reported that a Tiger helicopter had landed near the column depositing three white men. The whites had evidently joined the punitive expedition to distract themselves with a little man hunting...

"Thanks for helping me at the meeting," Bolan said to Vang Ky.

The other shrugged. "An agreement is an agreement. And Ly and Pao are hypocritical crocodiles. They made money from the Vietnam War and now they spit on Americans."

"All the same, I appreciate it," Bolan added.

It was Vang Ky who convinced the other headmen to proceed with the Tiger War. The others were skeptical that Bolan could pull off the ambush. Whoever heard of one man single-handedly destroying two hundred? No matter how clever the plan, no matter how brave and lucky the fighter. Only when Vang Ky announced that his village would go to war regardless, did they relent, fearful of missing out on the booty. There was more than opium in the Tiger hardsite; there was gold, too.

"We should go see," said the headman, glancing at his digital watch.

"I'd like to borrow that," said Bolan. He needed a watch to calculate the column's speed. His own watch had been taken when he and Nark were captured.

They slid down from the elephant and walked to the trail. A shape materialized; one of the men left behind to supervise the collecting of the enemy arms by village women. He led them to a spot where they could observe the column comfortably and from where they could retreat without making noise.

Bolan measured the distance between two trees. By timing how quickly men covered it he would be able to calculate the speed of the column, then he would know how soon they would be in the kill zone. He returned to the hiding spot and crouched.

In moonlit silence they waited for the enemy. No birds were calling, no cicadas rasped, no mosquitos buzzed. It had not rained for two days and the jungle was dry.

A barely audible metallic sound alerted them. A sling buckle hitting the stock. Three Tiger soldiers went by noiselessly, shotguns at the ready. In Nam the pointman always carried a shotgun. For close-range work in the jungle, a shotgun was best.