meter or less.”
Bolan moved his stick softly through the muck like a plow until he encountered something hard. He probed the object softly. A toe-popper was about the size of a can of chewing tobacco. This one was about the size of a half-gallon can of paint. Bolan very gently touched the top and found the little fusing tower that held the three sensor pins. It was a mine known as a Bouncing Betty. When the sensor pins were disturbed, a charge in the bottom of the mine would literally make the mine jump three to four feet in the air before a pound of C-4 high explosive detonated. The prefragmented metal liner filled with steel ball bearings was lethal within five meters and would badly shred anyone within twenty-seven meters. It also had a pin in the side that could be set with a trip wire, and Bolan spent a few moments gingerly probing for it. It gave him an idea. “Give me the spare stick.”
Nyin handed him the stick, and Bolan broke it in two and carefully stuck a piece of stick against either side of the mine so that the tips just barely protruded out of the water. Bolan moved on, painstakingly clearing another fifty feet, inch by inch. After what seemed like hours, the muck reluctantly released him as he hauled himself up the embankment. He pulled up Nyin and Lily and they flopped exhausted among the weeds. Bolan grabbed his binoculars and scanned the hillside on the other side of the field. They were clear for the moment. He rose to his feet and stared at the empty huts with their gaping, empty windows and doors. “Take Lily and keep moving. I’ll catch up.”
Nyin grunted and Lily sighed as they woodenly rose and moved through the ghost village. Bolan followed them until he found a decent hide in the shadows of a pig enclosure beneath a hut. It had a nice panoramic view of the field. He lay down in the dirt with his rifle and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
The enemy deployed down the hillside in a skirmish line with the Naga following Bolan and his team’s spoor as easily as bloodhounds. The Chinese had a dilemma. They did not know whether Bolan and his team had gone all the way across the field or turned midstream and followed the river. Three men, clearly soldiers, cut themselves switches and took one of the Naga into the rice field with them. Bolan and his team had tried not to break any rice stalks or reeds, but in the end it had proved impossible. The Naga stood behind the three-man probing line and directed them like a pointer.
Bolan put his crosshairs on the two sticks and waited.
When they were within ten feet of the sticks, Bolan fired. The suppressed rifle made barely any noise at all beneath the hut and none at all discernible to those wading out in the paddy. The Naga nearly jumped out of his skin as a little geyser of water shot up in the air where the bullet hit. Bolan flicked his bolt, lowered his aim an inch and fired again.
The Bouncing Betty erupted out of the water like a beheaded jack-in-the-box and detonated with a sound like a giant door slamming. There was a puff of orange fire and a spasm of smoke. The Naga tracker and the three-man mine-clearing team rippled and twisted like wheat in a high wind as hundreds of steel ball bearings passed through their bodies. The sound of the explosion echoed against the hills. The dead men sank beneath the surface of the flooded field, leaving spreading red stains in the scummy green water.
Bolan watched as one of the men across the field consulted with another. One man was clearly the Chinese officer and the other his second in command. Bolan itched for the shot, but it was long and would let everyone know he was in the village. He waited while they talked and let himself breathe a sigh of relief as the Chinese team broke into two groups, each with one of the remaining trackers, and began moving north and south down each end of the valley. They were going to go around and waste valuable time trying to pick up Bolan’s tracks again.
The big American crawled backward and kept the hut between himself and the other side of the valley. He hadn’t seen the sniper, but Bolan could feel the killer scanning for him through his scope. Bolan stopped on a little landing of the stairs that led up to the stilted hut and did a little shopping. He faded back and, when he reached the trees, he broke into a run.
It was time to do some distance.
SERGEANT HWA-CHE WAS GONE. Captain Dai couldn’t believe it. The man who had taught him everything he knew and recommended him to officer candidate school was dead in a nameless, fly-ridden rice field. It was a peasant’s death. The American had led them straight into it. It was almost inconceivable. Southeast Asia was their territory, their specialty, their turf, as the Americans would say. Dai looked down to see his hand was shaking. He had unconsciously opened it into the snake-fist formation. It shook with his need to reach into the American’s chest, rip out his beating heart and show it to him.
Old Man Cao approached Dai wearily. “We are down to two trackers.”
“I am aware of that, Corporal,” Dai replied.
“However, it is confirmed. They are a party of only three. An American soldier, the Na woman and an unidentified third party, wearing native sandals. I suspect he is a native, probably a CIA intelligence asset.”
Dai had his own sources. “I find that very hard to believe, Corporal.”
Cao wiped sweat from his brow and shrugged. “Who else could it be, Captain?”
“Who would you suspect, Old Man?”
Cao draped his weapon across his shoulder. “We are the dominant outside intelligence force in Myanmar.”
“Do you believe we are up against rogue Chinese agents?”
That was unthinkable. “Well, the Thais wield great influence as a trading partner, but we have thoroughly infiltrated their intelligence agencies.”
“So tell me, Old Man, who could this thorn in our side be?”
Corporal Cao spit the words. “Yang gui zi.”
“The foreign devil” could mean anyone unfortunate enough not to have been born Chinese, but in the old days the words referred to one nation in particular. A nation that had not just been a thorn in the side of the Middle Kingdom, but had held the knife across its throat. “Yes,” Dai agreed, “the English.”
The United Kingdom was a shadow of the mighty empire it once was, and the English lion paled in comparison to the might of the Chinese dragon, but the English were stubborn and meddlesome. They still had one of the best intelligence agencies in the world and, most importantly, were a staunch ally of the United States.
Dai gazed at Cao steadily. “And?”
Cao turned his gaze northward. “And I believe any assets the English have here in the north would be local and involved in drug interdiction. I suspect the Americans have called in a favor.”
“Very good. I am promoting you to acting sergeant, promotion to be confirmed by the battalion commander upon our successful return to Beijing.” Cao beamed delightedly. Dai made an effort to scowl. “Now give me the rest of your report and wipe that stupid smile off of your face. You look like a peasant.”
Cao snapped to attention. “The trackers have relocated their trail. The shooter was the American. He took a firing position beneath one of the huts and stayed to hold us off while the other two ran.”
Dai had suspected that, but he’d had to check the entire circumference of the fields regardless. The American had known that, too, and he would be using it to put distance between them. Dai’s snake-hand formation closed into a white-knuckled fist. He would take Lily Na while his men cheered him on. The Burmese bastard that was helping her would die staked out over a fire. As for the
