“Take it easy, buddy,” Lonnie called over his shoulder to Billy as he followed Brett to where Khen Sa was standing.
“Watch your backside,” Billy reminded him once more, and only Brett recognized the emotion in his voice.
“Mr. Jackson,” Khen Sa said with a thin smile and a bow so slight it was an insult. “It is very good to see you again.”
“We’ve brought the gold,” Brett said, ignoring the greeting and the smile. His scalp prickled with the awareness that he was being watched. By the Thai captain, he hoped, as well as by Khen Sa’s soldiers, some of whom were lounging in the doorways of various huts, their weapons close at hand.
“Bring the ponies forward. We will take the gold from their packs and load what you have purchased.”
Brett shook his head. “I make a gift to you of the ponies. We have brought others for the heroin.”
Khen Sa’s face grew hard. “You do not trust me?”
Brett remained silent.
The other man’s hand moved toward the revolver at his waist, then relaxed. He smiled again. “Of course, we will be happy to accept the gift of your ponies.” He motioned toward the big barn-like structure that housed the opium refinery and the heroin. “You will want to make sure you are getting what you pay for. If you will follow me…”
Two of the warlord’s bodyguards joined them, flanking their leader. All three of the men kept their distance from Lonnie and Brett. The feeling of being watched grew stronger. Brett felt sweat trickle down his spine. He took off his hat and tucked it into the waistband of his pants, the prearranged signal for the Thai captain to be ready for whatever happened next.
Brett stopped some distance from the open side of the building. Inside, it was dark and shadowed in contrast to the tropical brightness of the day. “Bring out the heroin and I will have the ponies brought forward.”
“You are a hard man to bargain with.”
Khen Sa raised his hand and all hell broke loose.
Brett had no idea if the warlord intended to call his men to bring out the bags of heroin, or if he intended to do away with him, then and there, but the Thai captain, from his vantage point on the ridge, had no such doubts. He opened fire and shots rang out from the other patrols of Rangers, as well. They were answered almost immediately from within the camp. One of the ponies screamed in pain and Brett hoped Billy got his men to safety before Khen Sa’s soldiers started picking them off one by one.
He took off at a crouching run, trusting Lonnie to keep close behind him. The only cover they had any hope of reaching was the opium barn itself. Behind him, he could hear Khen Sa yelling orders and staccato bursts of automatic weapons fire, neighing horses and Billy, shouting, as he deployed the men. Brett kept running. Billy and the others were on their own, but if Billy got the gold to safety, Brett knew his friend would be back to help him fight his way out of the spot he was in.
A spray of bullets erupted from the doorway of a nearby hut. Brett hit the ground in a rolling dive that landed him behind the dubious safety of a stack of packing cases, stenciled in Chinese characters. A moment later, Lonnie dropped down beside him with a grunt.
“You okay, buddy?” Brett asked, not taking his eyes from the men surrounding them on three sides.
“I’m okay,” Lonnie replied.
“Our best bet is still the opium barn.” The bullets were coming closer. Khen Sa’s men were zeroing in on their location. “It’s the only defensible building in the whole damn camp.”
“It’s a cinch we can’t stay here.”
Brett took aim and fired at the dark rectangle of the doorway where the last shots had come from. He watched with grim satisfaction as one of their attackers pitched face forward onto the dusty street and was still.
“Good shot.”
“Get ready to move.”
“I’m right behind you.”
“Go!”
Brett took off at a half-crouching run, Lonnie on his heels. Bullets shredded the air around them. Brett felt the sting of wood splinters as the packing crate barricade disintegrated under a barrage of automatic weapon fire. Lonnie grunted in pain and stumbled to his knees. Brett reached out a hand and hooked it under his elbow, half dragging, half carrying him the last three yards to the barn.
Brett pulled Lonnie behind a waist-high wall of neatly stacked, hand-stitched cotton bags of processed heroin, each one resembling a five-pound bag of flour and each and every one worth almost a million dollars on the street. He took a moment to scan the shadowy building. It appeared to be deserted. He dragged deep calming breaths of air into his lungs. Khen Sa must be very sure he could deal with them if he’d left the area unguarded.
Or perhaps, the men guarding the heroin had been called off to deal with Billy and the two dozen armed men they’d brought with them? In any event, for the moment, they were safe. There were no windows behind them and no way anyone could sneak up on them from the open side of the building. He figured they had about two minutes to decide their plan of attack.
Brett glanced over at Lonnie and saw the spreading, dark red stain on his shirt.
“Jesus Christ, you’re hit! How bad?” he asked gruffly, refusing to recognize his own pain at seeing his friend’s injury.
“Bad.” Lonnie’s face was white and pinched, his breathing labored. “Real bad.”
“Hang on, buddy. We’ll get you out of here as soon as we can.”
He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, folded it into a pad and shoved it inside Lonnie’s shirt. It was the best he could do. “Billy will work his way here as soon as he gets through with Khen Sa.”
“Must be puttin’ up a hell of a fight. Ain’t no one shootin’ at us.” Lonnie tried to smile but couldn’t. His face was a mask of shock and pain.
“Sure he is, but we might still have to make a run for it, buddy.”
Lonnie shook his head. “I can’t.”
“You have to, Corporal.” Brett considered their chances if he tried to carry Lonnie out of the building. They would be sitting ducks and they both knew it.
“I ain’t gonna make it, Tiger. I’ve seen a lot of guys buy it. I remember how they said it feels. I’m numb. I don’t hurt at all. That’s one of the signs.” His eyes flickered shut.
Brett slammed another clip of ammunition into his rifle. “I’m not leaving here without you, Corporal.”
“Is that an order, sir?” Lonnie looked faintly amused. A small trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth. He lifted his hand, slowly, to wipe it away.
“It is.” There was noise and movement outside the building. The sounds of gunfire from Billy’s position had died away while Brett tended to Lonnie’s wound.
“If Billy made it, they’ll be comin’ after us.” Lonnie pushed himself higher against the bags of heroin. Almost on the words, shots rang out, embedding themselves in the bags of white powder, in the roof and the dirt floor.
“Just hang on.” Brett fired back, heard one of their attackers scream in pain and then fall silent.
“If Billy…didn’t make it,” Lonnie said, his breathing labored, “I don’t want them to get this stuff back, too.”
“They won’t.”
“Let’s make sure. My life hasn’t amounted to much for the last fifteen years. But it looks like I’ve got one more chance to be a hero.” The effort to speak was draining his strength.
“What do you have in mind, Corporal Smalley?” Brett slid down behind the bags and placed the last clip of ammunition he had with him in the gun.
“I’d like to go out with a bang.” Lonnie’s smile was a death’s head grimace. “There’s chemicals…in here…and gasoline for the generator. This place should go up like a Fourth of July rocket and all this China White with it.” He stopped talking, as a sudden spasm of choking stole his breath.
Brett fired a random burst and slid over to support Lonnie’s shoulders until the choking ceased. “If this building goes up, so do we.” He watched the younger man closely, the pain i
n his chest threatening to take control. He fought it back. Not now, later, he would mourn.
“Not you, Colonel. Just me. Let me do it. Let me go out a winner.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE RADIO RECEIVER INSIDE the major’s tent crackled into life once more. Rachel clenched her fists around the bowl of cold, sticky rice a soldier had shoved into her hands a few minutes ago. She hadn’t eaten any of it. She couldn’t, because it would surely stick in her throat and choke her. Still, she didn’t throw it away—as long as she was holding it, she could resist the temptation to clamp her hands over her ears to keep from hearing what was said.
It was all going so horribly wrong.
The major hadn’t left the tent since the first reports of fighting began to come in, half an hour before. Simon and Micah and the two DEA observers had been allowed inside to study maps of the area around the village and to be made familiar with the positions of the major’s men.
Because she was a woman, Rachel had been asked, politely, to remain outside. It made no difference at all to the Thai officers, that she had been inside Khen Sa’s camp. Rachel finally quit arguing with them. Throwing a temper tantrum wouldn’t help Brett and the others. Instead, she’d sat down on a packing crate of field rations just outside the tent and stayed there, listening to the rapid-fire exchanges in Thai, as they were relayed back and forth between the command center and the embattled patrols.
She still couldn’t be certain what had happened. All she knew was that the Thai captain in charge of the main patrol had believed Khen Sa intended to attack before the heroin could be transferred and he’d opened fire on the camp. She didn’t even know if Brett and the others were still alive.
Micah came out of the tent. His khaki shirt was open halfway down his chest and stained with sweat. He pulled his hat out of his belt where he’d shoved it and put it on. Rachel set the bowl of uneaten rice aside and stood up. She adjusted the brim of her hat to shield her eyes from the tropical brightness of the sun.
“Micah?” Had something happened she didn’t know about? Had they sent her brother to tell her the man she loved was dead?
“It’s hard to tell what’s going on, Sis,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know more than two dozen words in Thai.”
“I’ve been listening.” Rachel crossed her arms beneath her breasts and tried to stop the trembling that seemed to have affected every muscle in her body. “It sounds very bad, Micah.”
“Simon told me Billy got the ponies carrying the gold out of the camp. Sounds like they took some heavy casualties doing it, though.”
“I know.” She bit her lip. “What about Brett?” She couldn’t trust herself to translate the sometimes-garbled transmissions and rapid, colloquial Thai with any accuracy.
“He’s still pinned down in the refinery building.”
“Lonnie’s with him?”
“You heard that?”
She nodded, tears filling her eyes. She dashed them fiercely away. “I hoped I had translated it incorrectly.”
“They’re alive, Rachel. That’s all I can tell you. The patrol leader says they’re still returning fire, but he doesn’t know if they’re wounded, or how long they can hold out without help.”
“And that’s the one thing we can’t give them—our help.” She lifted her hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. “It’s not fair, Micah. We had so little time together. There are so many things I don’t know about him, so many things I want to ask him, tell him.” She turned away so he couldn’t see her cry. “Why is it always so hard to wait?”
Micah reached out to comfort her but never got the chance. At that moment, the idly turning rotors of the gunship helicopter located beside the tent began to revolve in earnest.
Rachel whirled to face her brother. “Micah, what does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, “probably just a precaution.” But his face was tense and he had trouble meeting her frightened gaze.
“It means the soldiers there can’t handle Khen Sa’s men alone, doesn’t it?”
“That’s possible.” Her brother was hedging. She could hear it in his voice.
“Or it means that they’ve already lost the battle and they’re going in to destroy the heroin so that Khen Sa can’t sell it again.”
“Rachel, you’re jumping to conclusions.”
“I’m not, Micah. Something terrible has happened. I know it.” She grabbed his hands, held on so tightly he winced. “I feel it. Here, in my heart.”
“I’ll find out,” he yelled over the screaming whine of the departing gunship. “I’ll find out, I promise.”
He started back into the tent but stopped when he saw Simon and the two DEA men coming out.
“Simon.” She was beside him in a heartbeat. “What happened?”
He didn’t answer her for a moment. The two DEA men kept on walking, fast, toward the helicopter they’d arrived in. “Simon. Tell me what’s happening.” As she watched, terrified, a Thai medical corpsman went rushing by, carrying a field surgery kit. “Tell me,” she all but screamed, as the small helicopter’s engine roared to life.
“We don’t know yet. There’s still a lot of shooting going on. They’re sending the gunship in to mop up. As soon as the Rangers can get down into the village, they will.”
One of the DEA men, already in the helicopter, signaled him to hurry.
“Micah, come on,” Simon yelled.
“Where are you going?” Rachel screamed.
“To Khen Sa’s camp.” Simon started to say something more, but Rachel was already running toward the aircraft.
“I’m not staying here,” she threw over her shoulder. “I’m going with you. I have to know if he’s still alive.”
“WE CAN’T WAIT ANY LONGER to see if Billy got the ponies out,” Brett said grimly. “We’ve got to blow this place now.”
“Can you get to the gasoline?” Lonnie’s head rolled back and forth against the bags of heroin.
“I’m going to try.” Brett estimated the distance to the back of the building where the small barrels of fuel were stored. He just might make it if he kept low and moved fast. “If we dump them and let the gas soak into these bags, you’re right. This place should go up like the Fourth of July.” He fired one last burst to discourage any more kamikaze attacks by Khen Sa’s men while they talked. “If I make it. I’ll be back for you, buddy.”
Lonnie reached out and grabbed his sleeve. He shook his head. “Just hand over your dad’s lighter.”
“Goddamn it, no!” No more dying, no more of his men losing their lives to a war they couldn’t win. Twenty years of fighting was too long, too damned long.
Lonnie looked him straight in the eye. “I’m already dead, Colonel,” he said with simple dignity. “Give me the lighter and get the hell out of here.”
Brett reached into his shirt pocket and handed over the worn silver lighter. He flipped the lid and flicked the wheel; a small blue flame leaped to life. He reached out, placed it in Lonnie’s hand and folded his cold fingers around it.
“Maybe now you can quit smokin’ for good.”
“You bet.” Brett squeezed his thigh. The muscles were stiff and lifeless. “Give me a minute.”
“That’s about what I’ve got left.” Lonnie looked down at the flame in his hand. “Don’t try bein’ a hero and come back for me, Colonel. I’m already halfway home.”
He smiled then, and for a moment he was the cocky young medic Brett had first met all those years before, in another war, another lifetime.
“You don’t have to do this,” Brett whispered gruffly.
“Yes, I do.”
Brett laid his hand on his shoulder.
“No time for long goodbyes,” Lonnie gasped. “Get out of here, Colonel.”
Brett turned his back on his friend and crawled toward the barrels of gasoline. Behind him, he heard shouts and knew Khen Sa’s men had decided to rush the building.
“Come on, jackasses,” he said be
tween his teeth. “You’re going to get one hell of a warm welcome.” He pulled the barrels over on their sides, one by one. The first was empty, the second only half-full, but the other two were filled to the brim. He forced the lids off with the wooden butt of his rifle and watched the explosive liquid rush across the floor to be soaked up, greedily, by the dry white powder in its cotton sacks. One small rivulet meandered along some hidden pathway of its own, pooled at the corner of the stack of heroin stacks and then disappeared behind it.
Brett started running at a half crouch along the back wall of the building.
It was going to be very close.
The explosion caught him just three steps from the door.
THE BUILDING THAT HELD Khen Sa’s opium refinery burned furiously as the helicopter circled very high above the village. One or two trees close by also burned, but for the most part, the fire was confined to the building. The heavy jungle undergrowth, this soon after the rainy season, was simply too wet to ignite.
Rachel strained her eyes to see what was going on below them. The smoke was thick and pungent, billowing straight up into the sky until it was caught and ripped to shreds by the rotating blades of the big gunship that continued to circle and strafe any areas of the village that were still returning fire.
“How long before we can land?” she shouted to Micah, who was sitting closest. He shrugged. If any shadowy demons of his wartime experiences were troubling him, they didn’t show. The only expression Rachel could discern on his dark, rugged face was worry over his friend’s safety, and concern for her.
“The gunship says we can land after they make another pass.” The DEA man, Jurras, whose name Rachel had finally learned, relayed the message via earphones from the copter pilot. “The last of Khen Sa’s men abandoned their position just after we got here.”
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