by John Ringo
She also thought she had seen everything there was to see go by her in the airport. But when a young man carrying a double-armload of quadruple-large T-shirts in a variety of neon pink, green, and yellow, and at least thirty of their largest duffle bags staggered up to the desk, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Can I—help you?”
The bearer of the majority of her stock dumped all of it on the counter and flashed her a bright smile. “Yes, I’ll take all of it, please. And I’m afraid I’m in a hurry, so I’ll just pack the shirts into the bags, if you don’t mind.”
Mya glanced up at him and saw a handsome Nepalese man, maybe around thirty years old, looking back at her. “All right.”
She began scanning the tags of the bags through the OCR reader on the cash register, hoping he wouldn’t notice the small price discrepancy between what was on the tag of each bag, and what each one was actually ringing up as. She had figured out how to short-change the register every few transactions, yet make it appear as though the sales were still being made properly. Of course, she was pocketing the difference. On the rare chance a customer complained, she would claim it was a pricing error and give them the lower amount.
While she rang up his purchases, Mya kept stealing glances at the man, who was efficiently packing the shirts into several of the duffels. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Why are you getting all of these? I mean, they’re not even in your size.”
Her customer looked up at her and smiled again. “I’m surprised you’d even care.”
“I’m just curious, that’s all. Will you resell them elsewhere?” Mya didn’t know why, but she wanted to keep talking to this man.
He shook his head. “No, these are actually going to be used to save your country from itself.”
She cocked her head as she finished ringing up the last of the shirts. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He waved a hand at her. “Never mind, it’s not important. Besides, you’ll probably find out later today anyway.”
“Oh. Okay.” She gave him the total, and he handed over a thick wad of kyat, much more than was necessary.
“Keep the change. I don’t imagine that you make a lot doing this.”
“You’d be right.” Mya put the correct total in the register and pocketed the rest. “Thank you, and good luck with whatever you are doing.”
He stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you. And please, do not take the gift your country is about to receive lightly. Freedom is always something to be prized.”
“Yes, but only if you know what it is,” she replied without thinking.
He nodded. “I hope someday that you do.” Gathering up the loaded duffel bags, he disappeared into the crowd.
Mya watched him go, her feeling that she somehow had to get out of this dead-end job suddenly reinforced, although she could not have said why.
* * *
“All right, everyone wrap your weapons!”
The flight from Mandalay to Yangon had taken about an hour, but getting into the city was proving much more difficult. First, they’d had to circle the much-busier Yangon Airport for a half-hour while waiting for a landing window to open up. Once they were finally on the ground, Mike had Jace dispatch several men into the terminal to buy concealing materials for their rifles, in order to prevent a panic in the streets. He figured there would be enough once the fighting started, no need to start it early.
Finally, everything had been prepared, and the men were moving out. Himal had suggested renting a couple of private buses to get the men into the heart of the city, and Mike had agreed. The buses had been fairly easy to procure, with large handfuls of kyat smoothing the way. Unfortunately, the congested traffic in the city proper had slowed them to a snail’s pace, even on the fifty-meter-wide streets, the cars, trucks, and buses all came together in an interminable snarl, miring them in a thick cloud of exhaust. After forty-five minutes of snail’s-pace progress, they were still almost a mile from the City Hall building. The only good thing was that everyone had had plenty of time to conceal their rifles in the duffel bags or wrap them in the colorful T-shirts.
“I thought you guys had a lot of street vendors here?” Jace asked as he looked out through the front window.
“We did, but the government has been cracking down on them more and more lately, restricting their hours of operation and limiting where they can sell things,” Himal replied.
“So much for one of our insertion ideas,” Mike said. They had discussed buying outright any carts or food stands to use as cover to get close to the City Hall, but that option was gone, since there was no one to buy the carts from.
“All right, we have to get there faster than this. Vanner, plot me the best route to the Hall by foot.” Mike said as he got on his radio. “All teams, this is the Kildar. We are going the rest of the way on foot. Unass from your bus and follow my lead.”
He turned to Oleg, who was sitting behind the driver, a pair of crutches resting beside him, and a dark glower on his face. “I wish we could have found a way to have you come with us, Oleg.”
The Keldara accepted his fate with a stolid nod. “I understand. Will remain here to make sure he—” he jerked his head at the driver, “—does not decide to leave early.”
“Affirmative.” Mike and Jace both stood to address the thirty men in his bus. “Everyone, we are getting off now and heading to the target on foot. Let’s move out!”
Leading the way, he pulled the door lever over the incensed protests of the driver. Stuffing another handful of kyat into the man’s hand, Mike hit the street, the men piling out behind him. “How far away are we, Patrick?”
“Okay, you’ve just hit Phone Gyee Street. Follow it south for 550 meters, then turn left onto Maha Bandoola Road. Follow that for 1.4 kilometers, take the first exit onto Sule Pagoda Road, and the City Hall will be on your right.”
“Got that, Himal?” At the Gurkha’s nod, Mike waved the group forward. “Let’s go!”
* * *
As they trotted through the crowds, Vanel looked around at the wide thoroughfare filled with traffic, cars, trucks, and buses, all teeming with innocents. While he knew the Kildar and team leaders planned their operations carefully to avoid civilian casualties, this time there might not be a choice once the bullets started flying.
They kept moving as best as they could through the mix of locals and tourists, clearing a path while trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible. In a few minutes, the pyatthat, or traditional tiered roofs of Yangon City Hall came into view.
The sandstone-colored building had been designed by Burmese architect U Tin and completed in 1936. At the time, it was considered an excellent example of blending traditional and modern architecture into a pleasing whole. The building had been the site of many political demonstrations throughout the last several decades. These included a rally by the People’s Peace Committee in 1964, which brought more than 200,000 people together before it was dispersed by the Socialist regime led by General Ne Win. Recently bombings had supplanted demonstrations, with the building coming under attack three times in the last ten years alone.
As they rounded the corner onto Sule Pagoda Road, Vanel caught sight of a flurry of activity ahead. Several BTR-3U eight-wheeled armored personnel carriers escorting a half-dozen troop transports had assumed defensive positions on the road in front of the City Hall. The doors opened on the sides of the APCs, and soldiers began exiting, joining the men streaming out from the back of the troop trucks.
“Sniper teams, disperse! Find the highest ground you can and take your positions!” Himal translated for Mike. “All other teams, move forward!”
Cars were beginning to jam up behind the blocked road. Unable to see what was stopping traffic, the confused drivers in the waves behind the first vehicles furiously honked their horns. While the noise was useful for sowing confusion and concealing their approach, it also made it hard for the various teams to communicate. Althou
gh Mike and Himal did their best to keep the teams together, they began to spread out as they approached the growing mass of soldiers that were about to move on City Hall.
Of greatest concern to Vanel were the 7.62 machine guns on the BTR-3Us, which could quickly scythe through the smaller force in a few seconds. He resolved to keep an eye on them, and go at them the moment they started turning toward the Kildar and his motley crew. What exactly he was going to do once he reached them would be decided once he got there.
* * *
Jace had also noticed the weapons on the APCs, and was about to ask Mike what, if anything, they should do about them when about ten Gurkhas abruptly turned left and began moving toward the far side of the vehicles through the crowd of people that had started to gather near them.
Guess he’s got that handled, Jace thought. By now the main force of insurgents was almost on the group of soldiers. The enemy force, perhaps two hundred strong, had organized itself in the road outside City Hall and was about to move up to the main entrance. Expecting no resistance, the soldiers hadn’t even unslung their rifles yet. The commanding officer, a colonel, walked to the front of the line, and had just raised his arm to give the command to move forward when another voice shouted from the side of the street.
“All soldiers of the Myanmar Army, lay down your weapons and place your hands above your heads!”
The order was accompanied by the sight of sixty men popping out of the crowd and pointing automatic weapons at the assembled soldiers. The crowd behind them, seeing rifles appear, began to scatter, their shouts and screams rising above the noise of the idling engines and the confused bellow of the general. The turret of the nearest BTR-3U swung over to point at the interlopers as the general yelled for the others to surrender to the soldiers immediately.
Himal repeated the order, making the soldiers, with their rifles still on their shoulders, look at the determined, well-armed force on their left, and the colonel and their armored vehicles flanking them.
* * *
Toward the back of the assembled soldiers, Myanmar Army Lance Corporal Sanda stared at the men who had come out of nowhere and were now aiming rifles at him and his fellow soldiers.
This was not how it was supposed to happen!
His commanding general had told him and the rest of his men that only they could help stop the insidious spread of antinationalist forces that were conspiring to take over the government under their so-called “democratic” demands. Sanda had believed this, much as he had believed everything any military man had told him, beginning with his own father, a second lieutenant in the army.
Sanda had been perfectly schooled in the might and right of the military since he was a toddler. It had been only natural that he follow in his father’s footsteps and join the army as soon as he came of age. In many ways, he was the perfect military candidate; strong, relatively unthinking, and blindly obedient to the idea of the military state.
With all that in mind, there was no doubt that he would resist any enemies that tried to stop their progress toward bringing the nation back under its rightful rulers. He did not even need an order to do what he knew was so obviously right.
Using the cover of his fellow soldiers, Sanda unslung his weapon, chambered a round, and stepped out to aim at the attackers. He was just about to squeeze the trigger when—
Upon spotting one of the soldiers pointing his rifle at them, a Gurkha killed him with a single shot.
That was when the 7.62mm machine gun on the nearest APC opened up, and all hell broke loose.
* * *
Of all the groups, the Myanmar soldiers were caught in the worst position possible. Out in the open, with the nearest cover several meters away. More than a third of them went down in the initial volley from the combined force of Keldara and Gurkha soldiers. The rest scrambled for whatever cover they could find, some running back to the nearest BTR-3U, others diving behind the dead bodies of their former compatriots. The range was so short that almost all of the victims of the first volley had been killed outright.
Even with the chattering machine gun, the Keldara and Gurkhas had a much easier time falling back to cover. The cars littering the road made good, if not perfect, barriers, depending on the type of round the Burmese were using; even the engine block wouldn’t provide sufficient cover if they had gotten their hands on 7.62mm NATO rounds. Fortunately, with the APCs lined up in a row, there wasn’t any way for more than the turrets on the first two vehicles to draw a bead on the attackers.
Most of the nearest drivers stuck between the two groups of fighting men either got out of their cars and ran like hell or hunkered down in their vehicles, hoping their cars would protect them.
Against the 7.62mm machine gun, the runners were doomed, with the rounds punching through them like a hot knife through butter. Those who stayed put were better protected, as the gunner was primarily focusing on moving targets, not stationary vehicles.
The Keldara and Gurkhas had already been going for cover when the turret started to move. The majority of them had ended up behind the cars as rounds whizzed by, shattering windows, flattening tires, and punching holes in hoods and fenders.
A few, including Vanel, had even swept forward. They had ended up under the nearest APC’s slanted front end, which provided plenty of cover from the turret weapons as well as protection from the men in the road. Even the couple of army men who came around the corner of the tall vehicle were quickly shot and killed.
Now all Vanel had to do was come up with a plan to take out that machine gun . . .
* * *
Phen sat in the driver’s seat of his idling bus and cursed his luck. Even with the large payment the foreigners had given him, he could be making even more money on a run back to the airport. Times were still tight, and if he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t earning. It had taken him four years of bribery and working his fingers to the bone to secure a bus driver job, and he wasn’t about to lose it because some damn fools were going to keep him from working.
Glancing in his wide rear-view mirror at the huge, one-legged man with bright white hair sitting behind him, Phen repressed a shudder. He had a pretty good idea of why the big man had been left behind—beside his missing leg, of course.
The pop-pop-pop of gunfire sounded in the distance, making the bus driver sit up in his seat and crane his neck to try to get a look at what was going on. Sensing a shadow fall over him, he looked up to see the white-haired man towering over him. Staring at Phen, he pointed in the direction of the firefight just as several bursts from what sounded like a machine gun echoed all around them.
“Lee sok pay!” the driver exclaimed. “Suck my dick—I’ll be damned if I’m driving toward that—”
The huge man didn’t give any sign that he understood what Phen was saying. He just reached out and grabbed the collar of his shirt with one massive hand. Hauling the shouting, smaller man out of his seat, he opened the door, and tossed him out onto the road.
Phen landed on his ass, scraping skin from his palms as he tried to break his fall. He looked up at the giant, who was wedging himself behind the wheel with one of his crutches poised to work the clutch. As Phen scrambled to his feet, the white-haired man reached over to close the door.
With a grinding of gears, the bus lurched left. Smacking into a small truck, it shoved it out of the way as the man drove Phen’s prized bus onto the sidewalk.
* * *
Vanel was now crouched with Marko and a pair of Gurkhas in the shadow of the BTR-3U’s angled snout. While the APC didn’t seem to be going anywhere, its chattering machine gun kept spitting rounds and pinning down the Kildar’s forces. Along with the screams of the wounded, the loud bursts, along with the return fire, made it almost impossible to talk.
Suddenly they were faced with a trio of Myanmar soldiers who were trying to take cover in the same space Vanel and his teammates occupied. Three short bursts from the Gurkhas and Keldara made quick work of the retreating soldiers. As the bodies fell,
the smoke grenades on their web gear gave Vanel an idea.
Exchanging his standard magazine for AP rounds, he grabbed three grenades and shouted to Marko, “Boost me!” while pointing up. With a puzzled look on his face, Marko did just that.
Bracing his HK 416C in the crook of his arm, Vanel fired a short burst into the APC’s front viewport, punching a hole in the bullet-resistant glass. Before the crew could return fire, he pulled the pins on two of the grenades and tossed them inside. He followed both with a few more shots to make sure no one tried to throw one back out. Dark gray smoke immediately began pluming from the open hole, and coughing and panicked shouts could be heard inside.
“Down!” he said to Marko, who set him back on the ground. Vanel ran around to the right side of the vehicle in time to see the first crewmember climb out of the side hatch, coughing and wiping at his eyes. Vanel clubbed him with the butt of his rifle the moment his feet hit the pavement. By the time the second crewman had come out, Marko and one of the other Gurkhas had joined him, and they captured the rest of the crew as they stumbled out.
Grabbing another trio of smoke grenades, Vanel pointed at the next APC, which was one of the ones firing its machine gun. He was heading toward it, assault carbine at the ready, when a Myanmar soldier came appeared around the back corner of the one they had just disabled.
Vanel and the private both fired at the same moment. The Keldara’s target fell back, blood bursting from his chest as his rifle fired into the sky.
Vanel felt something punch him in the stomach, beneath his body armor, and suddenly he found himself sitting on the ground, feeling lightheaded and numb around his waist. He fell backward as his hand went to his stomach and came away bloody.
