Mission To Burma

“What about here in the village?”

Hwa-Che shrugged. “All the footprints in Ta village are bare feet or native sandals. On the other hand, the Naga say the boot prints in the compound are large, definitely Caucasian, and undoubtedly belonging to a man such as Maung has described.”

Dai settled on his plan. “Have the Naga begin tracking immediately. Gather the men and any of U Than’s who seem likely, and tell U Than he will be well rewarded for any assistance he gives us.”

“What is the plan, Captain?”

“One or two Americans, operating alone, could play hide-and-seek with us for months up here in the mountains, but that is not their mission. They must try to break out of Burma.”

Hwa-Che brightened as he saw it. “The woman!”

“Yes, the woman is the key. She is not American Special Forces. She is Taiwanese intelligence. Whoring, spying and assassination are her game. She will slow her rescuers.”

One look at the woman had convinced U Than there was a hefty ransom somewhere, and he had kept his men from abusing the woman. Captain Dai had told U Than over the phone as he came in that China wanted the woman intact. That was not out of any sense of propriety. Lily Na would be horribly punished, but Chinese interrogators would start the punishment, and they did not feel like swimming in dirty water. Dai’s men had all seen her picture and been briefed on the mission. They were already gambling numbers for who would take her first. Dai did not discourage such talk. Their only orders concerning her were to bring her back alive and ready for interrogation. As captain, he would of course get first dibs.

Dai peered up into the thickly wooded hills. “We will run them down.”

FOR A WOMAN who had spent two days lost in the mountains and twenty-four hours as the guest of an opium lord hanging in a cage, Bolan thought Lily looked fantastic. She had cut the flowered batik-print sarong Bolan had stolen for her to above the knees for action and knotted the men’s dress shirt under her ribs. She carried her Uzi with familiar ease.

But her feet were bruised, abraded and swollen. She had been barefoot for forty-eight hours in the mountains, and their night run from U Than’s compound hadn’t done her any favors. By the end of another day of hiking, her feet would be broken open, bleeding and going septic in the Southeast Asian soil and Bolan would be carrying her.

Lily sat against a tree and wiggled her swollen toes. “So what is our plan for extraction?”

“That’s a good question,” Bolan replied. “Burma is shaped like a diamond, and we’re in the north. We’ve got six hundred miles of Chinese border to the east, and then about the same to the west with India.”

Her jade eyes narrowed slightly. “India is in play?”

“It looks that way, and they may not be our friends on this one. I have forged documents for both of us and money. There are two airports in the north, Seniku and Bhamo. Both are about equidistant to us. We could clean ourselves up and pretend to be tourists, or just try bribing our way onto a plane. Then again we have to assume Chinese and Indian intelligence will be watching all the airports, and you and I are going to stand out in a crowd. For that matter, Burma just had a plane shot down over her airspace and we have to assume security is on high alert nationwide. We have to assume Chinese intelligence will be informing key operatives and informants to be on the lookout for us.”

Lily’s lips quirked slightly. “So, the Thai border.”

“Yeah,” Bolan agreed. “If we can get close enough to it, the U.S. and several of her allies have the assets to send in an extraction team for us, or if worse comes to worst we can just walk across it. We could also head southeast for the coast and arrange a submarine extraction. That’s about the same distance.”

The woman looked at her feet. “Five hundred miles either way, and almost all of it mountains.”

“Like I said, you and I stick out. It’s best if we stay off the roads and out of the towns. We can try stealing a car or truck and let Nyin drive, or do the same with a boat down one of the major rivers, but military checkpoints are frequent.”

“So we walk.”

“Yeah, it looks like we’ll have to hoof it most of the way and let Nyin go into the villages and towns along the way for supplies.”

Lily nodded, steeling herself for what lay ahead. “Then he had better go shoe shopping for me, and fast.”

Nyin gazed at her feet for a moment and then squatted on his heels before her. He began rummaging through the old canvas gas-mask bag he carried. He pulled out a little brown bottle and smiled triumphantly. Bolan smiled, as well. “Chinese medicated wine?”

Nyin almost lost his smile. “Burmese stone-fist liniment.”

Lily sagged against the trunk of the tree with a blissful sigh as Nyin went to work rubbing the liniment into her feet.

“How are you otherwise?” Bolan asked.

“I am all right.”

Bolan eyed the woman critically. “They didn’t hurt you?”

Her jade-green eyes went as cold as stone. “Nothing was done to me that has not been done before.” She sighed again as Nyin went to work on her toes. “And nothing so pleasant as this.” She gave Bolan a small smile. “I will pull my own weight.”

Bolan had to give it to her. The woman from Taipei was tough. “Fair enough.” He dropped to one knee beside her and picked up the remnants of her silk cocktail dress. He cut four two-inch-wide, bandagelike strips from around the hem. Nyin finished his medicated massage, and Bolan took the strips and cross-wound them from Lily’s toes to her calves and tied them off. The woman eyed her shimmering new footwear. “You know, there are people in Mongolia who still wear these instead of socks.”

“Siberia, too.” Bolan nodded at his handiwork. “Silk, twice the tensile strength of steel.” He stuffed the rest of the shredded dress into his knapsack. There might be more uses for it yet. Bolan held out his hand. “Let’s get you up.” He pulled the woman up. She took a few gingerly steps and then rose up on her toes several times like a ballerina.

“I can walk.”

“Good.” Bolan checked his GPS. They hadn’t established much distance from U Than’s place, and he suspected all too soon Lily was going to have to run.

5

“We got trackers, boss.” Nyin came up puffing from the trail behind them.

Bolan took a pull from his canteen and offered it to Nyin. “How far back?”

“About three kilometers.” Nyin took a long drink and pointed back. “You should be able to see them in a minute or two when they top that rise.”

Bolan took out his binoculars and waited, giving Lily some time to breathe. Men came over the ridge just as Nyin had said. The men were small, bare chested but wearing sarongs and turbans. The men’s arms, thighs and chests were heavily tattooed. Each man carried an M-16 rifle and thrust through his sash was a short, heavy ax with a triangular blade. The hilts were tufted with masses of red-and-black hair. “Naga?”

“That’s right, Hot rod, and those good old boy. From way upcountry.” Nyin patted the hilt of his sword. “This dha, it made for war. Those axes dao, they made for taking head. You saw tails on handle?”

“I saw them.”

“Dao made for tourists? Tails made of goat hair, very long, very pretty, like tail of horse or hair of pretty girl. Hair on those axes short. Most likely human. Those men expert hunter. Expert tracker. Never tire.” Nyin’s perennial smile stayed on his face, but he shook his head. “We in trouble.”

“Can you talk to them?”

Nyin chewed his lower lip. “Don’t know. Have to get close to find out. Not sure I want to get that close. Could be unhealthy. Wrong tribe? Even adopted, I still traditional enemy.”

“What about bribing them?”

“Don’t know. I tell you this. No Naga around here friend of U Than. U Than clean out local hills for agriculture, if you know what I mean. Make lowlander do work for him. U Than not wanting any hillbilly around.”

That was interesting. “You’re saying U Than didn’t hire them?”

“Nyin saying any man U Than send up into Naga country to hire them not come back.” The Burmese eyed Bolan shrewdly. “Nyin saying that maybe whoever hire them can outbid you.”

Nyin was probably right. He had some very thick wads of bills in his money belt, but Bolan was pretty sure the People’s Republic of China could outbid him at the moment. “Then we’ll have to discourage them.”

“That something Nyin would like to see.”

“Well, you’re going to.” Bolan handed Nyin his laser range-finding binoculars. “You’re ranging me.”