‘Hang on, McQueen,’ said Sammy. ‘What’s this about?’
‘We can’t get to the camp by road without Dozsa picking up the optical trip wires – we’ll need a local to take us the other way,’ said Mac.
‘How do we know there’s another way?’ said Sammy.
‘This is South-East Asia,’ said Bongo, lighting a smoke. ‘There’s always another way.’
Chapter 47
They ran west through the forest, the half-moon dappling the footpad with enough light to see ten feet in front. Didge and the girl – Tani – went ahead, setting a pace that Bongo, Sammy and Mac struggled to maintain as they slid across mud and ducked low-hanging branches. Carrying backpacks filled with food and ammo, they wore Kevlar vests and carried their M4s across their chests. It was a cross-country tab of the kind that Mac had been forced to endure in the Royal Marines, and for some reason always in Scotland. But this was different: the humidity of the forest made their skin wet beneath their vests and the monkeys were much louder in the Cambodian forest than the deer ever were in the glens.
‘That Didge,’ said Sammy, panting as they forded a creek. ‘He ever slow down?’
‘No,’ said Mac. ‘But if there’s any trouble in this bush, he’ll kill it long before it comes near us.’
After almost two hours of jogging along the jungle footpad, Mac followed Bongo up an incline and found Didge and the girl waiting and eating.
Falling to the long grass of the clearing, they caught their breath as the moon passed in and out of cloud. Finding a banana and a muesli bar in his pack, Mac ate up and then finished a bottle of water. It was almost 10.45 and he wanted to tab until midnight and then lay up, let everyone have a nap before the fun part started.
‘Another hour, then we kip for two hours,’ he said.
‘Camp’s just over the hill,’ said Bongo, who’d been talking with Tani.
Looking around for Sammy, Mac saw him crouched twenty metres away, whispering into a satellite phone. Moving towards him, Mac ate an apple and waited.
‘Charles,’ said Sammy, ringing off. ‘Says the Hawk feeds are already coming through in the infrared range.’
‘Yeah?’ said Mac.
‘There’s several aircraft on the airfield,’ said Sammy. ‘Navy analysts are saying they’re Dash-8s and extended Fokker F-27s.’
‘There were none there this morning,’ said Mac. ‘What are they doing?’
‘The imagery is consistent with the aircraft being loaded and dispatched in fast rotations.’
‘Rotations plural?’ said Mac. ‘How many have taken off?’
‘Navy got the Hawk up there at twenty-one thirty and they’ve already logged three – there’s two being loaded and another just came in to land.’
‘Christ,’ said Mac. ‘What are they loading?’
‘Can we just get down there?’ said Sammy.
The knoll looked down on Joel Dozsa’s illuminated compound, the lights making it clear which building was being unloaded and revealing the road that led to the airfield.
Through his binos, Mac could make out a series of trucks backing into the loading bay of the long building that dominated the compound. Large white packages the size of wool bales were slid across rollers by the Chinese workers, from the loading bay into the trucks. The trucks were driven to the airfield, reversed up to the rear cargo doors of the planes – which now waited in a line – and the decks of the trucks were hydraulically raised to the height of the doors and the planes loaded.
Adjusting his field-glasses, Mac could see each plane taking between seven and ten of the bales, depending on the configuration of the plane. Waiting to be loaded was a North Star plane that looked like the one Mac had flown in with Luc.
The noise from the turbo-props echoed in a din around the valley, which suited Mac. Moving the Leicas back to the compound, Mac saw what looked like a barracks and, beside it, a large house. Further out, facing a large parade ground, was a machinery shed.
‘That house, between the factory and the barracks,’ said Mac, as Sammy raised his own field-glasses.
‘Yep?’ said Sammy.
‘I’ll bet that’s Dozsa’s house – and McHugh’s current address.’
‘Looks like the whole party is happening at the factory and airfield,’ said Sammy. ‘We should come around the back, past the barracks, and storm the house.’
‘Storm it?’ said Mac, dropping the Leicas. ‘I thought we were retrieving McHugh?’
Sammy hesitated. ‘Sure.’
‘We won’t be retrieving anyone, Sammy, if we start kicking down doors, making it like the movies.’
‘Yeah,’ said Bongo, joining them. ‘Let’s isolate the Israelis, and when we know where they are, find the captive.’
‘Okay,’ said Sammy.
‘Our lead,’ said Bongo, moving away with Didge.
Returning to his backpack, Mac knelt and pulled out the Colt and a webbing containing four mags for the M4.
‘So, where my money?’ said Tani, giving Mac a start. He’d forgotten she was with the party.
‘Sammy?’ said Mac, looking for the American, but he’d disappeared.
‘You promise,’ she said, and Mac realised she wasn’t a kid – she was at least eighteen.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ said Mac, slapping his pockets. ‘I did promise.’
Looking at what he had on him, Mac found one-dollar notes and fives, but no tens. The only note he could give her was a US hundred-dollar bill. Reluctantly, Mac handed it over, reminding himself to get it back from Sammy.
‘This one no good,’ said Tani, doing the theatrical frown of South-East Asia.
‘Hundred dollar,’ said Mac. ‘I only promise fifty.’
‘Not this,’ she said, handing back the money, shaking her head.
Holding it to the moonlight, Mac wondered what her prob- lem was.
‘Bongo,’ he said, gesturing for the Filipino to leave his intense chat with Didge and join him. ‘Tani doesn’t like the hundred-dollar bill. What’s the problem?’
Bongo and the girl spoke for thirty seconds and then Bongo grabbed the greenback.
‘Tani says they make these down at the camp,’ said Bongo. ‘Make more of these than birds in the jungle.’
‘How –’ began Mac.
‘She been down there when her dad delivers food supplies,’ said Bongo. ‘Says there’s a factory in that long building – factory that makes money.’
‘What is this place? And where’s Sammy?’
Standing, they walked to Didge, who was checking his rifle. ‘Seen Sammy?’ said Bongo.
‘Went that way.’ Didge hooked his thumb in the direction of the camp. ‘In a hurry.’
‘No kidding,’ said Mac, turning to look at Tani. ‘You know your way around that camp?’
‘Yes, mister.’
‘You lead.’
Panting behind the tall machinery shed, Mac regained his composure as they surveyed the ground and Bongo chatted to Tani. The growl of propellers and groaning hydraulics filled the valley.
‘She says the last time she came here, a few days ago, there were guards at the rear entrance of the barracks.’
Following Bongo’s gaze, Mac saw the rear steps of the barracks building, with no guards.
‘What’s that?’ said Didge, pointing. ‘Behind the house.’
Didge’s eyesight was acute: there was a small movement through the trees, about sixty metres away, in the shadows of the main residence.
‘That Sammy?’ said Bongo.
They craned to see, but the movement didn’t repeat itself.
‘Leave her here,’ said Mac. ‘Let’s look at the barracks.’
Moving along the wall of the machinery shed, Mac stopped at the entrance to it and realised t
he entire front section was missing.
‘Look at this,’ whispered Bongo.
One half of the shed was a hangar, containing a silver-grey MH-6 helicopter, its size and bubble-covered cockpit making it readily identifiable as the Little Bird reconnaissance helo used by the US military.
At the other end of the shed was a fleet of Toyota LandCruisers and a Mercedes-Benz Unimog truck.
Jogging across the dirt towards the barracks, Mac joined the other two at the rear steps. Hiding in shadow, they listened for movement but all they could hear was the commotion from the factory and airfield.
‘Didge, you on point; McQueen and I will cover.’
‘Copy,’ said Didge, sticking his face out beyond their hide. ‘On my three.’
Counting it out, Didge slipped around the corner and up the six or seven stairs to the back door of the barracks as Bongo and Mac covered the approaches.
‘Door’s unlocked,’ said Bongo, and Mac skipped up the stairs. As Bongo passed through, a crashing sound came from the direction of the house through the trees.
Pausing, Bongo and Mac stared at one another in the dark. Then the shooting started, from a single source – no responding fire. Voices screamed and bursts lit up the house, the windows looking like a TV was flashing on and off inside. It sounded wrong.
‘Let’s move,’ said Bongo.
Pushing into the dark of the barracks, Mac realised they were in a vestibule, an area deliberately separated from the dormitory. Tani had been right – there had been guards stationed here, because this was the stockade. Every military barracks had one.
Slipping slightly, Mac felt his bad knee give way again, the pain erupting in the joint. A hand held him up and he realised he’d slipped into Bongo. Beneath them, on a chair, was a Chinese soldier with a dark grin across his throat. Mac had slipped in the blood resulting from Didge’s handiwork.
His pulse going haywire, Mac found his feet again and followed Bongo towards a door that now swung open. Stopping behind Bongo, he looked over the Filipino’s shoulder and saw a cell. Didge was kneeling on the floor, whispering encouragement to a blonde woman as he used the guard’s keys to undo her manacles.
She sobbed, her crying getting louder, and Bongo stepped further into the room.
‘Name’s Bongo,’ he said, voice low but friendly as he held her by the biceps. ‘John and Margaret sent us – your childhood cat was called Sadie, a silver chinchilla whose favourite meal was the eels you caught in the creek.’
The woman blubbered and launched herself into Bongo’s arms.
‘That would make you Geraldine McHugh,’ said Bongo. ‘I’m here to take you home.’
Nodding for Didge to hold her, Bongo whipped off his back-pack. Mac had wondered at the overstuffed pack and now he saw the reason for it as Bongo pulled out a spare Kevlar vest and eased McHugh into it.
Turning for the door, Mac tried to block Bongo. He wanted to stay close to McHugh: there was a debriefing to go through yet, a detail Bongo didn’t have to concern himself with.
‘Where to now?’ said Mac, still panting slightly.
‘Phnom Penh,’ said Bongo.
‘Saigon suits me better,’ said Mac, regretting it immediately.
Bongo’s SIG was not pushed in Mac’s face like it would be in a gangster movie, but it was pointing at Mac’s throat and it had Bongo Morales on the other end of it.
‘Out of here, right now, with my client – that suits me, brother,’ said Bongo. ‘So you either swim with this, or you swim against.’
Gulping, Mac nodded and stood aside. ‘Remember our deal – I get to debrief with the Americans.’
‘The Americans?’ said McHugh, coming alive. Her voice was raised and Bongo swapped a quick look with Mac.
‘It’s okay, you’re safe,’ said Bongo, staring at Mac and gesturing for Didge to follow with McHugh.
The way Bongo had said okay was a veiled warning to Mac and he decided not to push the American angle. As they moved to the back stairs of the barracks, sliding in the blood and trying to stop McHugh reacting badly to the corpse, they paused. Across the dirt, people ran from the house, one limping, a little girl running for her life. Two bodies lay dead on the ground.
‘What?’ said Mac, seeing a hit, not a rescue.
People shouted and ran up from the factory while a man walked among the bodies, checking them with the toe of his boot. The man looked up and stared at the four of them.
‘It’s Sammy,’ said Bongo as they saw his face illuminated by the house lights.
Sammy started jogging towards them, M4 held across his body. His boy scout demeanour was long gone – now he ran like a trained killer.
‘What’s the problem?’ said Mac, trying to understand.
But the conversation was over. The first shots from Sammy’s rifle had slammed into the door above McHugh’s head.
Chapter 48
Sammy Chan leapt sideways behind a tree as Didge fired back at the American. Getting in behind Bongo and McHugh, Mac slipped off the porch, using Didge’s covering fire to escape along the lee side of the barracks building.
Stopping at the corner of the barracks, Mac aimed at the tree and let off three-shot bursts at the trunk as Sammy tried for a sighting around it.
‘Didge, your turn,’ said Mac, pausing from firing as soldiers ran towards them from the long factory building a hundred metres away.
As Didge ran around the corner, Sammy reappeared from his hide and let go a long burst from the M4 carbine, dropping Mac flat to the ground as the building’s corner exploded in splinters of wood.
Finding his feet as Didge grabbed him by the collar, Mac accelerated towards Bongo and McHugh, who were inside the machinery shed. Sprinting after them, still struggling to comprehend what was happening, Mac watched the greenish lights come on in the Little Bird’s cockpit – Bongo was going to fly out.
‘No,’ said Mac, knowing where this was going to end.
Didge stopped and turned back the way they’d come, knelt and fired several three-shot bursts as Mac continued running.
The whine of a helo starter motor began, its beeping alarm piercing the night, and Mac heard the slow whoosh of a rotor turning as he stopped and covered Didge. Through the partially lit stand of trees that separated the barracks from the machinery shed, Mac could see the compact form of Sammy Chan tucked in behind a tree trunk; a magazine dropped on the ground and the click of a new one being rammed home sounded.
‘Go,’ said Mac, turning and running up behind Didge as Sammy’s full-auto assault ripped through the trees in a right-to-left scything of foliage. Grunting, Didge twisted in the upper body and dropped his rifle as a bullet whipped through the top of his outer bicep, one of the areas not covered by the Kevlar vest.
‘Okay?’ asked Mac, dropping to his knees to reclaim the rifle as Didge backed up behind a tree, his left hand clutching the wound.
‘I’ll live,’ said Didge, bloody hand outstretched for the rifle.
Handing it over as he crawled behind the tree, Mac found Sammy’s muzzle flashes and shot back at them. From the machinery shed, the whooshing of helo rotors intensified as the aircraft prepared to launch.
‘You go,’ said Mac, barely believing what had happened to this mission yet also feeling responsible for Sammy. ‘I’ll cover.’
‘We both stay,’ said Didge.
‘No, I’ll deal with this prick,’ said Mac. ‘He’s my problem, not yours.’
Turning to look back, Didge shot at Sammy as the American broke cover. Taking at least two shots in the bulletproof vest, Sammy was knocked off his feet to land on his side, winded.
‘Like I said,’ said Didge, grabbing Mac by the scruff of the neck and throwing him towards the helo with a huge paw.
As they approached the shed, the Little Bird was at
full revs and Mac could see Bongo’s illuminated face, the same face he wore whether making a difficult shot on the pool table or escaping from a rogue PLA camp in the middle of the Cambodian wilderness. Shots pinged and thudded around them and one put a star high in the cockpit glass of the helo.
Looking back, Mac could see Sammy had dragged himself behind an old bulldozer and the PLA cadres were now closing on Sammy’s position and the shed.
The pitch of the Little Bird’s turbine changed and Bongo gestured for Mac and Didge to get out of the way as the deadly helo hovered off the dirt and eased forwards in a storm of dust and debris.
‘Shit,’ said Mac, as the six barrels of the Gatling gun hanging off the helo’s skids spun silently in their warm-up revolutions. Throwing himself sideways to the ground in sync with Didge, he watched as the darkness was lit up by the full force of the Gatling gun – known as a Minigun – cycling at three thousand rounds per minute. The air filled with lead as branches fell and trees collapsed; arms and legs wheeled in crazy arcs as the approaching Chinese soldiers were mowed down.
His hands over his head as the helo downwash hit him with incredible force, Mac watched the Little Bird skew slightly and then the Gatling gun was trained on the bulldozer, opening up with five rounds of 7.62 ammo per second – a rate of fire so high that the predominant sound was a demonic whistling amid a thousand hammer strikes. The yellow Kohmatsu looked grey within six seconds and Mac could smell the blast of lead on steel. Even when the Minigun was shooting the bad guys, it was a terrifying weapon that made a man’s heart stop.
Standing, Didge waved for Mac to follow and ran to the side door of the Little Bird, throwing his rifle in ahead of his leap. Following the big Aussie, Mac ran to the hovering helo, the blast of noise and wind overwhelming his senses.
As he made to jump on, he saw her from the right side of his vision: crouched behind the tree, hands over her ears and looking like a scared child. It was Tani.
‘Fuck,’ said Mac, pausing. His mind roared with the choices as Didge’s hand reached out of the helo and Bongo yelled from behind his glass bubble. The girl turned to look at him and he saw she was crying – frozen with fear, and Mac didn’t blame her.
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