by Peter Nealen
“A couple are definitely a bit rusty,” he commented as he stepped up beside Santelli.
“If they were ever that proficient before,” Santelli replied.
“Good point,” Hancock said, taking a long pull off his hydration hose. “But I think most of ‘em will do. I think we dropped the dead weight in the first five miles.”
“We’ll see,” Santelli said. “We’ve still got a day and a half. Some might still quit.”
“Maybe.” Hancock couldn’t tell if Santelli had sounded hopeful or not. He had to admit that, if any of the men below didn’t have the sticking power, it would better to weed them out right then and there. There wouldn’t be a chance to go home once they were in Burma. He pointed. “Yeah. I think that blond one’s having his doubts.”
“Or he’s just having to decide how much he wants it,” Santelli said impassively. He raised his voice. “End-Ex! Bring it in!”
Rather more slowly than they had at the beginning of the morning, the group gathered around the two men. Santelli and Hancock started running down their list of critiques. It was relatively harsh; both men were making it clear that they were serious about good tactics and movement. Hancock scanned the group, seeing the light come on in a few pairs of eyes. They weren’t screwing around, and this wasn’t just a game to make the instructors feel good about “protecting the badge.” This was deadly serious. He saw a few of them start to wonder just what the job was really all about.
They’d find out. Before that, though…
“All right, let’s go,” Santelli said. “The bad guys are now alerted to our presence, so we had best get clear of the area with a quickness.” True to his word, he started off at a double-time, his pack bouncing on his back.
With stifled groans, the rest fell in behind him.
***
Finally, after the longest two days most of them had endured in some time, Hancock and Santelli had six new recruits: Wade, Jenkins, Gomez, Bianco, Hart, and a quiet former Army grunt named Tanaka. Santelli still didn’t tell them all the details, even then.
“For the moment, all I can tell you is that the job is short-term, overseas, and extremely high-risk,” he said. “It will involve combat operations. We haven’t just been playing these games to fuck with you. If you’re still interested, meet at the location on the card next to your chairs, in two days. Colonel Brannigan will give you the full briefing then.”
“Brannigan?” Bianco asked. “I know that name.”
“I should hope you do,” Hancock said. “He was our CO. Now you’re going to get to know it better. We’ll see you there. Oh, and I hope none of you have a problem with heights.”
***
Brannigan stood on the tarmac in the light breeze, rolling his shoulders a little in the parachute harness. Hancock, as the jumpmaster, was inspecting everyone’s equipment, one at a time, with a swiftness and thoroughness that only came from long practice and innate professionalism. Brannigan had already been inspected, and was waiting near the Casa C-212’s ramp. True to his long-standing rules, he’d be the first one out of the bird. Brannigan firmly believed in leading from the front, and that meant he put himself into the danger zone first. “First on, last off,” was his motto, one that he’d followed to the best of his ability in combat zones around the world for over two decades now.
The first man cleared waddled toward where he was waiting by the aircraft. They were jumping with combat equipment, which in this case was simulated by a sandbag in a rucksack, strapped to the front of the parachute harness. It was heavy and made for tough walking, never mind standing upright for any length of time.
“You all right, Tanaka?” Brannigan asked as the other man lumbered past him and onto the ramp. “You look a bit nervous.”
“I am nervous,” Alex Tanaka admitted. He’d been in his element during Santelli’s vetting course, but now he swallowed hard. “I was a dirty, nasty leg. I’d never done this before a week ago.”
“As long as you keep your cool and do what Roger told you, you’ll be fine,” Brannigan assured him. “Rare that a straight-leg infantryman does eight years,” he commented. “It’s usually either four or twenty.”
“Well,” Tanaka said, as he sank down on the jump seat, taking a bit of the weight off his shoulders and spine, “once I got settled in, I sort of didn’t know what else to do. I only got out when my stack of NJPs from my first two years caught up with me, during the drawdown.”
Brannigan nodded his understanding. Non-Judicial Punishments were permanently recorded in a man’s service record, and could stay with him like a millstone around his neck, even if he had improved later on in his career.
Wade was next, his usual intense, eager look on his face. “Oh yeah!” he said, as he found his jump seat. “Damn, I missed this shit!”
“We’re only just getting started, Wade,” Brannigan said.
“I know.” Wade grinned. “I can’t wait.”
Full points for enthusiasm. Brannigan hoped that the big man would be just as good in the bush, though from what Santelli and Hancock had reported, he should be. He seemed to be a soldier’s soldier; not the kind who liked to look good, to capitalize on the title, but one who genuinely loved the work. From what the two men had told him, Brannigan wasn’t worried about Wade.
Bianco was next, lumbering up the ramp, exchanging a nod with Brannigan. Brannigan vaguely remembered the former Marine, and returned the nod gravely.
One by one, the rest of the team boarded the Casa, lugging their gear. Curtis was complaining about jumping out of perfectly good airplanes. Flanagan was as quiet as usual. Villareal was puffing and red in the face; it seemed that his work schedule as a doctor hadn’t necessarily included time for much in the way of physical conditioning.
The girl, Ma Sanda, was visibly struggling with her rig, the rucksack actually dragging on the tarmac as she moved. He had to hand it to her; most women he’d known would barely have been able to move that load at all, but that wasn’t going to help her much when they were in the jungle.
He saw Aziz start to reach out to help her, and pinned the man with a glare. Aziz tried to act like he hadn’t seen it, hadn’t even noticed Brannigan standing there watching, but snatched his hand back, his lips thinning. Brannigan didn’t lift a finger to help the girl up the ramp.
If she was going to come along, she had to prove she could pull her own weight.
Childress was behind Aziz, and was watching up the ramp as he paused next to Brannigan. “Are we really taking Aziz’ girlfriend into the jungle, sir?” he asked, a little too loudly.
Brannigan kept his facial expression carefully controlled. Sam Childress was working on improving his mind-to-mouth filter, but apparently this situation was a bit too much for it. “It looks that way,” he said diplomatically. “She speaks Burmese. None of the rest of us do.”
“And we really couldn’t find somebody that Aziz isn’t banging who speaks Burmese?” Childress asked, just loudly enough that Ma Sanda flushed and stared at the deck, and Aziz clenched his fists, almost half-rising from the jump seat before he noticed that everyone else on the bird was watching him.
“Short timetable, Sam, and we’ve got a jump to make,” Brannigan said quietly. “Get on the bird.”
Childress looked up at him then, and ducked his head a little, as if realizing he’d overstepped his bounds a little. He nodded, then stepped up onto the ramp and climbed into the airplane.
The problem was, Brannigan rather agreed with him. And he was still pissed that Aziz had presented him with such a fait accompli in the first place. But time was short, and he couldn’t afford to let the problem tear the team apart.
The enemy and the jungle would be challenges enough.
He watched as Gomez, Jenkins, and Hart boarded. Hart was moving with an odd gait, due to his prosthetic, but he was still handling himself, though he looked like he was straining a bit more than the others to get up the ramp. But both Hancock and Santelli had vouched for him.
&n
bsp; Finally, Hancock joined him, and they climbed in. Hancock hooked up to the intercom and spoke to the pilot. In a moment, the ramp was coming up, and then they were rolling, heading for the runway.
***
The takeoff went smoothly, and the Casa spiraled skyward. At ten thousand feet, Hancock signaled that it was time to don their oxygen masks. Technically, supplemental oxygen was only needed above thirteen thousand, but they were going a lot higher than that, and Hancock had decided that it wouldn’t hurt to go on O2 a little early.
The aircraft continued to climb, finally leveling off near its ceiling of twenty-six thousand feet. Brannigan was hoping to jump from at least that high for insert, but the Casa wouldn’t do much more. They had to make do with what they had.
At least Van Zandt was paying for it.
Switching his hose to his on-body oxygen tank, Brannigan stood up when Hancock signaled. The rest of the team followed suit, and started their equipment checks. A moment later, Brannigan gave Hancock the “All OK” signal. Everyone was ready.
The ramp was already down, and the light was still red. Hancock was crouched on the edge of the ramp, looking down to get a look at the landmarks below, which would orient him to the DZ. This was going to be a lot easier than jumping into Burma, but it was still hard enough.
The light turned green. Hancock snapped his hand toward the rear of the aircraft. Brannigan lumbered to the end of the ramp and pitched off.
The rumble of the Casa’s engines faded behind him, drowned by the roar of the wind going by his helmet. He flattened himself out, throwing his arms and legs wide, arching his back for stability, and got himself into a decent position. Checking his altimeter, he saw he was passing through twenty-five thousand feet. He looked right and left, waved off, then reached back and threw his drogue.
The tiny drogue chute whipped out of the deployment bag on his back, then dragged the main chute free. The big, rectangular canopy billowed open, with considerably less shock than the smaller, round, static-line canopies usually transferred straight to the jumper’s crotch and spine. Grabbing his toggles, Brannigan looked up and visually confirmed that his chute was open, whole, and wasn’t tangled with anything. Then he started checking for the rest of the stick.
It took some looking, but he soon picked out all sixteen parachutes, though one of them was a couple of hundred feet below him; somebody hadn’t pulled on time. He’d find out who, and have a talk with them. Especially in the dark, that could end up being disastrous.
Flipping open the nav board affixed to the top of his rucksack, he got his bearings and started steering for the DZ, fifteen miles away.
***
“Not too bad,” he said, as they gathered at the truck, rucksacks on their backs and kitbags loaded with chutes in their arms. “We got a little spread out, though. On a jungle DZ, that could be a problem we’d never recover from. And bear in mind, it’s going to be dark as the devil’s armpit when we jump for real.” The stick had been scattered across almost four hundred yards. In the open, it would be no problem. Where they were going, it could well mean the difference between landing on the DZ and getting hung up in the trees.
He checked his watch. “Today’s the last day for jump training,” he said. “Which means we’re going to get as much out of it as we can. We can get at least two more jumps in before dark, and then we’re going to do at least one night jump. Get some water, then we’re heading back to the strip. We’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
CHAPTER 6
Commander Cao Peng’s headquarters was a solid cinderblock house, with plastered, whitewashed walls and a tin roof. It sat inside a small, walled compound, with a guard post in a small shack at the gate. Chungwi Park found that it felt rather like home, if somewhat warmer and wetter. The red flag of the Kokang Army with its gold star and interlocked gold rings hanging above Cao Peng’s desk was as suitable as the red, white, and blue DPRK flag and the portrait of Kim Jong Un that hung in the tin-roofed bamboo shack that served as the central structure of his own camp.
“Ah, Zhong Wei,” Cao said in greeting, using the Mandarin equivalent of Park’s rank, as Park stepped inside his office. He did not stand up. Cao was the rough equivalent of a General in the Kokang Army, and, alliance or not, did not feel the need to stand in the presence of a mere Chungwi. “It is good of you to come.” The summons had been curt and demanding, but Commissar Lee had insisted that it could not be ignored.
Cao leaned back in his creaky chair, eyeing Park for a moment. “You and your men have been an asset to us,” he said after a moment. “You are a credit to the people’s work, and to international Communist solidarity.”
Park could hear the “but” coming. He kept his face impassive as he stood in front of the Kokang leader’s desk.
“However, while your training and support have been valuable, they have not been as effective as we had hoped when Comrade Xu initially proposed this liaison. The Kokang Army has been fighting the Burmese for decades. We are not the simple, untrained militia that Beijing and Pyongyang feared that we are.”
Park had to admit that that was true. It had been a source of some embarrassment and frustration to him, just how little it appeared his men had to teach the ethnic-Chinese Kokang fighters. It had ultimately boiled down to more organizational matters, and some lessons on fortification, learned from over six decades of practice on the DMZ. His men were more disciplined, more hardened, perhaps, than the Kokang, but they weren’t necessarily better fighters.
Cao pointed to a stack of written notes on the desk in front of him. “It appears that the Burmese paramilitaries are getting more active here in Shan State,” he said. “There was a clash near Marish only two days ago, and several of our people have been harassed by impromptu and illegal checkpoints set up near Chinshwehaw. There has not been active fighting, as yet, but the message is clear; the paramilitaries are attempting to push Burmese government authority into Kokang territory, and are extorting and oppressing our people.”
He peered at Park from hooded eyes. “Pyongyang has made a considerable profit from this operation, Zhong Wei,” he said. “There are those among us who believe that the cut of heroin that your Bureau 39 is taking is far more than is warranted by what little support and training you have provided. They believe that perhaps we could get better use from the money obtained by selling the heroin that we are handing over to your people for your own black-market operations.”
Park did not react, but he was thinking fast, a sinking feeling in his gut. He knew what that would mean, and not only for the State. Personally, it would mean that he had failed, and he would either vanish into a forced labor camp, or simply be shot. The Party was not forgiving when it came to failure, especially of this magnitude. It took considerable funding to counteract the sanctions that were supposed to keep the DPRK a poor Hermit Kingdom, shut off from the world by the imperialists for its continued defiance of their rapacious capitalist oppression. The drug trade was only a part of the funding operations overseen by Bureau 39, but it was still an important part. The man who lost a major revenue stream like the heroin coming out of the Golden Triangle would not be shown mercy.
“And how should I put their minds at ease?” Park asked. “This relationship is an important one, not only to my government, but to Beijing, as well.” Invoking the People’s Republic of China should be a powerful argument, since much of the material support for the Kokang Army and the United Wa State Army, as much as they disliked each other, came from China.
Cao steepled his fingers in front of him. “There is a possibility,” he said. “Training is useful, but ultimately of somewhat limited utility. I understand that you were in Africa?”
Park was a little thrown by the abrupt change of subject. “Yes, I was,” he said. “So was Jeon.”
Cao nodded. “And tell me, did you only provide training there?”
Now Park knew where this was going. “No,” he admitted. “We conducted operations with our partners, though alw
ays far from where we could be observed and recorded.”
Cao nodded again, and stood up. “We will be moving against the paramilitaries on Kokang territory soon,” he said. “If your people wish to maintain this partnership, and therefore maintain their supply of our heroin, then I think it best if you and your men joined our operations on the ground.”
“I will have to consult my superiors,” Park said stiffly, temporizing.
“Of course.” Cao grinned unpleasantly. “I think that if you tell them that the heroin shipments for your Bureau 39 will be cut by, say, two-thirds if your men do not join us in this offensive, then they will be very receptive to the idea.”
Park remained stiffly at attention, and only said, “I will certainly pass that message on. May I go?” While technically he was there as an ally and a partner, and did not answer to Cao, under the circumstances, he did not consider it wise to risk angering the Kokang leader. While he was confident in himself and his men, they were relatively under-equipped, and vastly outnumbered by the Kokang Army. If Cao decided to make them disappear, it would not be difficult.
Cao waved at him. “Yes, Zhong Wei,” he said. “You are dismissed.” As Park turned to go, he added, “Our planning will start tomorrow, Zhong Wei. I hope that your government will have decided to aid us by then.”
The implication was clear enough. Park paused at the door, turned, and nodded. “I will communicate the urgency of your request,” he said.
Once outside, he breathed in the hot, humid air, redolent with the smells of smoke, burning fuel, rotting vegetation, and spicy food. It was very different from the high, colder air of home. Almost as different as Uganda had been. But his duty to the Democratic People’s Republic and to the Supreme Leader had put him here, and he would do his duty.
Squaring his shoulders, he marched toward the old Honda SUV that had brought him down from the North Korean mountain camp. Jeon was waiting behind the wheel. He said nothing as he climbed into the passenger seat, his Type 88 shoved against the center console, next to his leg. Jeon did not need to know what had transpired in Cao’s office. Nor did he need to know about the meeting that Park would shortly be having with Comrade Baek and Commissar Lee.
