Burmese Crossfire (Brannigan's Blackhearts Book 2)

by Peter Nealen

  But instead of making him relax, it actually made Brannigan more paranoid. He slowed his advance, carefully checking for booby-traps. He wasn’t under any illusions that the enemy would simply fold and give up. If they were falling back, there had to be a contingency plan at work, and he doubted that it was going to be pleasant.

  But as they broke through into a larger chamber, lit with several more gas lanterns and filled with tables and easels, the easels holding maps covered in Chinese markings, there still hadn’t been any punji traps, tripwires, or mines waiting for them. He almost started to think that they’d gotten far enough inside the Kokang perimeter, fast enough, that they were actually inside the envelope that the enemy had been prepared to defend.

  There was one last man in the cave, who turned as they entered, and tried to get a shot off. Brannigan gunned him down with a trio of shots. The man folded over as the bullets tore through his midsection, then collapsed on his face in the dirt at the entrance to another tunnel leading off the side of the chamber.

  Brannigan and the rest spread out across the artificial cavern, weapons up and looking for anyone hiding behind a table, an easel, or one of the crates stacked against the walls. This place seemed to have been a planning/command center and assembly area, rather than living quarters. And as Brannigan glanced at the tunnel where the corpse of the man he’d just killed lay, he started to wonder where it led. Because the rest of the tunnels had all been going roughly the other way.

  “John?” Flanagan said. He’d moved up to cover the dead man, his rifle still leveled at the corpse, just in case. “I think we found our Norks.”

  Brannigan, carefully crossing the room and acutely conscious of the opening of the next tunnel on the far side, moved up next to Flanagan and looked down at the body. Sure enough, the dead man was wearing the same camouflage as the North Koreans in the camp to the south, and the rifle wedged under his body was a Type 88.

  He peered up the tunnel. “What do you think?” he asked. “Escape tunnel?”

  “Maybe,” Flanagan replied. “I think that’s definitely where our targets went.”

  Brannigan looked around. “How’s everybody doing for ammo?”

  There were brief checks. The small band that had ventured into the tunnels was down to about the last third of their combat loads. They’d been careful, even during that desperate defensive action in the dark two nights before, but fighting still ate up ammunition steadily.

  “Well, we didn’t come here to clear tunnels, we came to kill Norks,” Brannigan said. “And I think you’re right, Joe. We have to have put a hurting on them already, and unless I’ve gotten completely turned around, China’s that way. So, we’ll keep an eye on our six, and go after them.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Childress said. Gomez, as usual, said nothing, but just held his position, covered down on the opposite tunnel. Flanagan, likewise, said nothing, but shouldered his rifle, stepped over the body, and started up the escape tunnel.

  Brannigan followed, slightly bemused. He realized that, while he’d never say as much, it must have irked Flanagan to have stayed in the number two position in the stack on their advance through the tunnel system. Flanagan liked to walk point, and as loyal as he was to Brannigan, he didn’t like his commander usurping his “rightful” spot. He might yield it to Childress, on a “your turn” basis, because Childress had demonstrated a similar level of fieldcraft, but that was about it.

  ***

  Park had heard the shots echoing up the tunnel, and knew that their time was short. Whoever the enemy was, they had penetrated all the way to Cao’s command bunker faster than anyone, North Korean or Kokang, could have anticipated. And if his rear guard was dead, then he knew that the enemy was going to be coming after them, up that tunnel. It complicated his plans, but he was already beginning to adjust them.

  North Korean officers were not usually trained to adjust their plans on the fly. Like most Communist armies, the Korean People’s Army was extremely stratified and hierarchical. Battle plans were set by the senior officers, and executed by the junior, without question. Park had discovered the need to be flexible the hard way, as the conditions on the ground, far from the high command, had necessitated a mental agility that he had not been trained for. He thought he had gotten quite good at it, over the last few months.

  He did not consider the potential fallout of his newfound independence. If he had, he might have come to the conclusion that he would not likely ever be assigned another billet in the KPA. He would either need to be “reeducated,” or he would be deemed “expendable.” If he had not been written off already.

  After all, this was not the first such operation that the KPA had undertaken. The generals had to know the potential side effects of letting junior officers far enough off the leash to accomplish the tasks given them, far from the Korean peninsula.

  Not that Park had become disloyal. He did, after all, come from the same military tradition that had led the crew of a North Korean submarine that had wrecked off the South Korean coast to line up for the ship’s Commissar to execute them one by one rather than risk capture.

  They were nearing the exit, high up on the shoulder of Pingshan Mountain. Park dropped back to find Lau.

  “We will execute the contingency plan as soon as we are out of the tunnels,” he whispered. Lau nodded. He already knew the plan; it had been briefly hashed out in whispers, in Korean, before they had left the command bunker. “Then, we must set an ambush for the imperialist commandos who are pursuing us through the tunnel. Only once they are eliminated can we safely proceed across the border. Understood?”

  “Yes, Chungwi,” Lau replied. “The men are ready.”

  Park nodded, then pushed forward again, toward the head of the column, where Cao and his porters and bodyguards were already pushing the camouflaged cover off the tunnel exit and starting out into the morning sunshine.

  Cao did not slow or stop, but yelled at his porters, laden with the drugs, as they started toward the northeast and the border. He barely looked back, and his bodyguards were hurrying after him, apparently unconcerned about the North Korean light infantry soldiers behind them.

  After all, why should they be concerned? They were allies, comrades in the global Communist Revolution.

  As Park and his men came out of the tunnel, they began to spread out, forming a skirmish line behind the hurrying short column of Kokangs. Park looked to his left and right. He had two Type 73s left; the rest were carrying their Type 88s, their vests crammed with magazines loaded with 5.45mm ammunition scrounged from Kokang stockpiles. Their own original combat loads had long since been expended.

  Park initiated by lifting his own rifle to his shoulder, shoving the selector lever down to its first detent, and opening fire.

  The rifle roared, spitting six hundred rounds per minute into the back of the green-clad Kokang soldier in front of him. The man’s back bowed under the impact, and he fell forward onto his face, dark red soaking his fatigues. Before he had even hit the ground, the rest of Park’s men opened fire as well.

  Cao turned, his eyes widening in shock, as the North Korean fire scythed into his men. Park met his eyes briefly, just before a rattling burst of gunfire took the Kokang general in the upper chest and throat, pitching him backward with a spray of red.

  Surprise had been complete. Not a single one of the Kokangs had gotten a shot off. One of the porters was trying to crawl away, groaning. Park motioned, and Sim walked up to the stricken man, put the muzzle of his rifle to the back of his skull, and fired. The bang echoed across the hillside, and blood and brain matter splashed messily from the point-blank blast, spattering Sim’s trouser legs. He jumped back, cursing.

  “Sim, Ha, and Gwak, grab the packs,” Park ordered. He turned and looked at Comrade Baek. “Since we are understrength, Comrade,” he said, “you can carry one yourself.”

  Baek’s eyes widened, looking even more comical behind his thick glasses. “But,” he started to say, but Park cut hi
m off.

  “As I said, we are understrength,” he said. “I need the rest of my men to protect us as we cross the border. You are responsible for getting these narcotics back to Bureau 39; you can certainly carry some of them.”

  Baek looked uncertain as he stared at the heavy packs. He clearly was not nearly as fit as Park’s light fighters, and Park was certain that he would slow them down, but he was relishing making the bureaucrat do some of the heavy lifting, for once.

  “We have little time, Comrade,” Park reminded Baek. When the little man looked up at him, he saw no sympathy in Park’s dark eyes. He stumbled toward one of the corpses and began feebly trying to pull the pack off while avoiding the blood.

  Park turned back toward the tunnel entrance and began barking orders. The enemy was still coming up behind them, and they had to set their ambush in quickly.

  ***

  Hancock almost missed it. The noise of battle from the far side of the saddle, where the Burmese Army was engaging the Kokangs to the west, almost masked the crackle of small arms fire off to the north, higher up on Pingshan Mountain.

  He frowned, glancing up to the north. Had the Burmese circled around that far? That could be bad; they couldn’t afford to get encircled and cut off from the Chinese border. If that happened, they were screwed. None of Brannigan’s Blackhearts expected the Burmese to be nice guys. They knew enough about the atrocities that the Burmese Army was justly infamous for.

  “Surfer, Gambler,” Curtis called over the radio. “We’ve got small arms fire off to the north, a long way from where the Army’s plastering the west end of the village. I think we might have a tunnel exit off that direction.”

  “Acknowledged, Gambler,” Hancock replied, the gears already turning in his mind. If there was a tunnel exit that far away…

  His mission, with Santelli and the rest who had stayed in the village, was to cover Brannigan’s back as he and the others, Flanagan, Gomez, and Childress, went down the tunnels after the Norks. But if the Norks were getting out through an escape tunnel to the north…he had to make a decision, and there was no good way to communicate it to the men underground. Radios wouldn’t work, and they hadn’t had time to rig anything else.

  And if that was an escape tunnel, and that shooting was Brannigan and the others catching up with the bad guys, then Hancock and the rest were out of position.

  He decided. It was all based on a hunch, and if he was wrong, they could all very well wind up dead. But he hadn’t come all this way to hold security while the Norks ran away across the Chinese border. Still, he had to make sure of something. “Gambler, Surfer,” he called. “Did any of that fire sound like our weapons to you?”

  There was a pause. “Negative,” Curtis replied. “It all sounded like threat weapons to me.”

  Hancock wasn’t sure what that meant, but he had determined on his course of action. “All right, everybody,” he called over the net, “consolidate on the north side of the ville, and get ready to move out, fast. It’s possible that our targets are making a run for it, and we need to try to cut them off.” He had to admit to himself that he wasn’t sure they could catch them, not climbing uphill through the thick undergrowth. But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to try. Hell, if need be, he’d chase them across the border into China. It wasn’t like they’d paid too much attention to international borders so far. This was the second sovereign country he’d invaded since joining up with Brannigan again. Why not make it three?

  He grabbed Brannigan’s ruck. “Wade, Tanaka, grab those two rucks.” He pointed to Flanagan’s and Childress’, before frowning down at Gomez’s. “Fuck it.” He grabbed the last ruck and slung it over one shoulder. He’d probably humped recon rucks that weighed as much as all three put together. Of course, that had been a long time ago.

  It took moments to get out of the village and join up with Curtis, who was still covering the open spider hole, not far from where Villareal’s mangled body was already attracting clouds of flies. Seeing the Doc’s corpse gave Hancock a shock. It was far from the first dead man he’d seen, but knowing it was Doc was like getting kicked in the chest. Only long years of compartmentalizing emotions in high-stress situations kept him driving forward, detached and calm.

  He dropped Gomez’s ruck in the middle of the perimeter that they were starting to form. It had indeed been a long time since he’d carried that kind of weight; he was sweating even more profusely, and his heart was hammering in his chest.

  None of them spoke as they gathered in a tight circle, weapons trained outboard, Ma Sanda in the middle. She had ditched her own pack and taken Villareal’s. Hancock didn’t comment on it, but gave her a second glance. She was calm, though there were streaks in her camouflage paint that might have been made by sweat, or might have been made by tears. The fact that she’d had the presence of mind to take Doc’s med bag spoke well of her.

  Santelli, Jenkins, and Bianco were last, though they weren’t far behind Aziz, who looked extremely unhappy to have a mountain to climb in the heat and humidity. Aziz tried to take a knee next to Sanda, until Hancock turned a basilisk glare on him, and he grudgingly joined the perimeter, his weapon pointed off to the west, though he kept sneaking glances back over his shoulder.

  Santelli was huffing and sweating profusely. Bianco looked a little pale under his streaked cammie paint and barely dried blood. “What’s the plan?” Santelli asked Hancock as he sank to a knee.

  “We go for a jog,” Hancock said, jerking his head up the hill toward where the gunfire had sounded. “Either John’s in trouble, or our targets are getting away. I don’t think either of those options is acceptable.”

  Santelli looked up the slope. It probably wasn’t the steepest hill he’d ever had to climb, but he still didn’t look enthusiastic. “Hell,” he muttered as he blew out a breath. “All right, let’s do this.”

  “Wade and I will take point,” Hancock said. “Keep your eyes open, and stick to cover and concealment as much as possible, but speed is going to be our security. Hopefully we’ve only got about half a klick at most to go, but the clock’s ticking. Towne, grab that extra ruck. You’re the only one of us right now who isn’t carrying either an extra or a machinegun.” He pointed to Wade. “Let’s go.”

  The former Ranger hefted his rifle in his hands, took a deep breath, and started up the mountain at a jog, heading for the line of trees that paralleled the dirt road that ran past the south side of the village. Hancock gave him three paces, then followed.

  ***

  Brannigan heard the shooting, the reports rolling down the tunnel to them, and immediately dropped flat, hitting the packed-dirt floor an instant after Flanagan. But no bullets snapped by overhead, and no impacts smacked into the walls or ceiling around them.

  Straining his ears, he thought he could hear voices as the firing stopped. He couldn’t tell what language they were speaking, but they didn’t sound like they were getting fainter. Which meant that whoever they were, they were probably sticking.

  Flanagan looked back at him. “That didn’t sound good,” he muttered.

  “Sounded like somebody got in a fight,” Brannigan whispered back.

  “And whoever won is still hanging out up there.” Flanagan turned back to look up the tunnel. “Do we push?”

  Brannigan almost said yes. Their quarry was getting away, and pursuit was the only option left to them. Especially since they didn’t know how many more adversaries might be in the tunnel complex behind them. But something made him hesitate. Something about the voices faintly muttering ahead.

  The Norks and the Kokangs had to have heard the shooting just before they’d entered the tunnel. He’d noticed enough of the weird acoustics of the underground passages to be sure of that. Sound traveled far along those tunnels. And if he’d been fleeing up a tunnel, knowing that he had enemies following close behind, what would he do?

  I’d ambush the hell out of ‘em.

  They still had frags. If they could get close enough witho
ut getting shot to ribbons, they could conceivably use those to even the odds a bit. A defender in a tunnel was at a distinct advantage; he had one way he had to shoot, and could just dump bullets down the passage until everything in it was dead. They had to do something like he’d done with that rock back behind them, then get close enough to nullify that advantage.

  The question was, was the ambush in the open, aboveground, gathered around a tunnel exit? Or was it in another man-made cave dug into the mountainside? The answer could decide whether using frags was a good idea, or a suicide pact. And John Brannigan might have accepted a job to jump into northern Burma, hundreds of miles away from any concrete support, but he still was not suicidal. Nor were any of his men.

  “We need to see more of what’s up there,” he whispered to Flanagan. “Slow, quiet, and steady. We still haven’t seen any NVGs, so if they can’t see us, they can’t shoot us.”

  Flanagan lifted a hand, one thumb raised. He said nothing else. He didn’t have to.

  Slowly, carefully, he got back up into a low crouch, and began to advance up the tunnel again, carefully placing each step, rolling his weight onto his foot. If there was one thing that Joe Flanagan was really good at, it was being quiet.

  In the dark, surrounded by the faint sounds of their enemies’ voices, they crept toward the end of the tunnel.

  ***

  The combination of the slope, the undergrowth, the heat, and the humidity made the run north absolute murder. All of the mercenaries were already soaked to the bone in their own sweat, the wet only making the dirt and bits of vegetation clinging to every nook and cranny that much more irritating. Within a hundred yards, Hancock was already panting hard, and he was in damned good shape for his age.

  After two hundred yards, Sanda, Bianco, Jenkins, and Santelli were starting to fall behind. Hancock noted it with a glance over his shoulder. He was pretty sure Santelli was just trying to stay with the other two; he knew that the old former Sergeant Major was in a lot better shape than his squat, barrel-chested appearance let on. Jenkins had a bullet hole in his leg. Bianco had lost blood. Sanda was gutting it out, but she just didn’t have the strength or the endurance that the men did.