Stealth Sweep

High overhead, tiny monkeys ran and chattered in the treetops, while at the noise of the engines colorful birds took wing. They erupted from the bushes and flew into the air like living fireworks, briefly filling the sky with wondrous colors. Somewhere in the distance, a tiger roared, announcing a fresh kill, a crimson snake slithered through the flowering wines and hordes of unseen insects endlessly sang their secret song.

In the rear of each truck was a single large trunk, securely strapped to the metal floor and surrounded by armed guards, their scarred faces grim and unsmiling. This was their second run of the month, and everybody was eagerly thinking of the exotic pleasures their bonus would purchase once the five trunks were delivered across the border. Heroin was very big business in China, and no country in the world grew it better than Laos. The much vaunted black-tar heroin from Turkey was laughable in comparison.

“Sometimes I wish that I was Chinese and the government would subsidize my opium,” a young private said with a laugh, nudging the trunk with the steel toe of his army boot. “Think of it! They buy at fifty a kilo, then sell it on the streets at ten. Ten!”

“Perhaps there is something good to be said about communism, after all,” another private replied.

“The drug is just another way to keep their slaves from rebelling,” a large corporal growled without looking up from his French comic book. “We use whips and chains, the Chinese use heroin. What is the difference?”

“Shut up, all of you,” a grizzled lieutenant muttered, dropping the ammunition drum from a massive Atchisson autoshotgun, only to slam it back into the receiver. “Never talk about business in the open.”

“Way out here?” a private asked. “Who is going to overhear us, a lizard working for Interpol?”

“I said be quiet,” the lieutenant repeated, clicking off the safety. “That’s a direct order.”

Grudgingly, the troops obeyed, and went back to polishing the dampness from their AK-101 assault rifles, and daydreaming about the fleshpots of Vientiane. The capital city offered many tender delights for a real man with hard cash.

Sitting in the second truck of the convoy, Tul-Vuk Yang pulled a slim Monte Cristo cigar from the breast pocket of his military fatigues and bit off one end. Spitting it away, he then thumbed a gold lighter alive and applied the hissing flame to the tip of the expensive cigar. Once the tip was cherry-red, Yang removed the flame and drew the pungent smoke deep into his lungs. Ah, wonderful! The foolish Americans used all sorts of bizarre chemicals to cure their broadleaf tobacco in only a few hours—arsenic, lead, formaldehyde—while, the Cubans allowed their tobacco to naturally cure in direct sunlight. The process took a month instead of six hours, and aside from the obvious health benefits of not breathing in vaporized arsenic, the difference in taste was beyond belief.

“Magnificent!” Yang sighed, exhaling a long stream of dark smoke.

“Sir?” the driver asked, glancing sideways.

“Nothing, my friend. Pay attention to the road! The rebels have been planting more and more of those homemade bombs these days, and—”

A thunderous explosion ripped about the jungle as the road just behind the convoy violently exploded, smoking pieces of men and machinery spraying outward in every direction.

“Incoming!” Yang shouted, the cigar dropping from his mouth. Clawing at the radio in the dashboard, he pulled up a hand mike. “Alert! Red alert! We are under attack!”

Instantly, the five trucks increased their speed, and soon were racing along the rough dirt road at a breakneck pace. Following close behind, the barrage of incoming missiles chewed a path of destruction after them, coming ever closer.

Just then, a fiery dart streaked between the first and second truck, the exhaust blowing in through the open windows.

“Close!” the pale driver yelled.

“Too close,” Yang growled, scanning the sky for any sign of the enemy helicopter. The bastard had to be tracking his trucks by the heat of the engines. There was only one solution for that. He thumbed the mike alive.

“Everybody use your grenades. Throw them randomly, as far away as you can!”

Moments later, the jungle shook from multiple explosions all around the convoy. Bushes erupted from the soil, and trees toppled over. For an intolerable length of time, it seemed to the drug runners as if the entire world was exploding all around them.

Then the vines parted before the first truck and there was the Dee-wa Bridge, a modern box trestle that spanned a white-water gorge to reach the other side. Yang grinned at the sight of China. Nobody sane would dare to attack them there! The Chinese Red Army was bad enough, but the Red Star agents were psychopaths, genuine sadists who loved torture and bloodshed. No one dared to offend the dreaded Red Star!

“We’re safe!” the driver yelled, as the first truck bumped onto the bridge and rapidly accelerated across the smooth, perforated flooring.

“Not yet,” Yang replied, drawing a Very pistol, and firing a round straight upward.

The flare arched high into the sky and exploded into scarlet brilliance. Almost instantly a missile slammed into the sizzling flare and detonated in a controlled thunderclap.

Laughing in victory, Yang fired more flares as fast as he could, every one targeted by a missile and then swiftly destroyed.

“Last truck is on the bridge!” a voice announced over the radio.

“Now we’re safe.” Yang chuckled, lowering the flare gun.

That was when he saw a flock of big black birds hovering over the Dee-wa Gorge, as if they were nailed to the empty air. He blinked in surprise, then screamed as the winged machines cut loose with all of their remaining missiles at point-blank range.

The entire length of the Dee-wa Bridge was engulfed in a fireball from eighteen antitank missiles. The steel mooring ripped from the concrete beds, and the trestle writhed like a dying thing, twisting and convulsing, rivets flying and welds cracking until the bridge was smashed into a million pieces. Smashed and on fire, the armored trucks tumbled down into the gorge, the men already dead from the bone-pulverizing concussions.

It took the burning vehicles almost a full minute to reach the bottom of the gorge, and trees were flattened for a hundred yards from their meteoric impact. Then a pair of drones arrived to crash among the smoldering wreckage and ignite their self-destruct charges of thermite. Soon, a raging chemical bonfire filled the area, melting the metal trucks into slag, vaporizing the cargo and forever completing the total annihilation of the infamous Yang Moon Convoy.

Patiently, the rest of the Sky Tiger swarm waited until their miniature computers were assured everybody was dead, and the cargo of opium was beyond recovery. Now the machines automatically switched to their secondary targets, and swooped away to find the next bridge of any kind that crossed the Dee-wa River. The wild waters had a different name in each new territory, but the drones were concerned only with bridges and dams. At each one, a drone would smash into the structure and set off its payload of deadly thermite. Burning at the surface temperature of the sun, the lambent fire destroyed everything it reached. Concrete, iron, granite or steel—nothing could withstand the hellish infernos.

Less than an hour later, there were no functioning bridges between Laos and China, and the drug trade between the two nations was terminated for the time being.

Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong

THE AIRPORT WAS bustling with crowds of people arriving and departing, and nobody seemed to be paying any attention to the Chinese soldiers standing on the overhead catwalks carrying QBZ assault rifles.

Maintaining a neutral expression, Bolan gave them only a cursory glance, then ignored the guards completely, just like everybody else. The Customs line moved swiftly, faster than he had expected, and soon he was standing before a small Asian man who scrutinized his passport as if knowing it was a fake. Except that it wasn’t, aside from the name imprinted on the federal paper.

“And what is the purpose of your visit, Mr. Dupree?” the customs inspector asked, looking at the passport. “Business or pleasure?”

“A little of both, hopefully.” Bolan chuckled, looking past the two men going through his luggage. “Seems like quite a party out there. Is today something special, like your Independence Day?”

“Liberation Day,” the Communist corrected, studying the fictitious travels of Adam Dupree, a sewage pump salesman from Detroit, Michigan. “But that is not today. You are just in time for the Hungry Ghost festival. A colorful celebration from our more primitive past.”

“Got some mighty pretty girls on those floats going by,” Bolan replied, giving a wink.

The Customs official almost smiled. “I cannot speak on such matters. You understand?” The passport was returned, and the suitcase snapped shut. “Enjoy your stay. Break no laws. Next, please!”

Bolan tucked the passport inside his plaid sport coat.

Taking the suitcase, he merged into the next line and passed through a glistening arch that looked like something straight out of a science-fiction movie. It even gave a low, ominous beep when he passed through. A moment later, the woman sitting behind a glowing screen waved her hand and a guard stepped aside with a nod.

The inspectors had found nothing illicit, or illegal, in his belongings because there was nothing to be found. He didn’t have so much as a penknife or a sharp pencil in his pockets. Smuggling weapons through airports was getting tougher every year, and while Bolan hadn’t expected the airport to have the new-style body scanners yet, he was very glad he had decided to play it safe. The modified X-ray machine had given the woman at the console a clear view of his naked body. Everything was revealed without the traveler being bothered by the inconvenience and embarrassment of disrobing or receiving a pat-down. These days, the dreaded cavity search was reserved only for people who acted unduly nervous, or broke the rules.

Exiting the airport, Bolan took a moment to look around at the bustling crowd of tourists, hustlers and armed police. Outside the terminal, the air was much warmer and a lot more noisy, with people talking in a dozen different languages. Most were Asian, and Bolan could detect the subtle difference between the Chinese, Japanese, Cambodians and Macauns, the other recent acquisition of Red China. But there were also a lot of European blondes and British redheads mixing with the Asian ravens.

The Hungry Ghost festival didn’t start until the next day, but there were dozens of floats being prepared, along with an army of pretty woman practicing dance steps. Bolan was impressed. Their elaborate costumes covered every inch of their bodies, yet, somehow, the dancers still managed to exude an aura of sultry eroticism. What the Brazilians did with partial nudity, the locals in Hong Kong did with simple body movement and grace.

Before he’d left the States, Bolan had Barbara Price, mission controller at Stony Man Farm, arrange for a gun drop with the CIA.

Turning his attention to the line of cabs parked along the curb, Bolan easily spotted one bearing the faded logo of a half-moon, the symbol he was told to look for. As he walked that way, the other cab drivers shouted out their prices, and special offers, but the soldier ignored them. He had just traveled halfway around the world, and his contact was driving a specific cab.

“Taxi, mister?” a tall Asian driver asked, lowering his MP3 player. Instantly, the screen went dark. “Clean and cheap! Best rates in town!”

“Now, I heard that the Star Ferry is the fastest way to reach the Kowloon District,” Bolan said, tightening his grip on the suitcase.