“Very well.”
Ox Boy shoved night-vision goggles down over her eyes as Lily checked the loads in her Browning Hi-Power pistol.
“Turn on your transponder.”
Lily pulled her crucifix out from under the high collar of her dress. She gave it a hard squeeze at the apex of its arms and then tucked it back in. Once the tiny transmitter was activated, certain surveillance satellites of the United States, the United Kingdom and Taiwan would be combing Southeast Asia for its tiny but distinctive signature. The lurid red lights turned off, and the baggage compartment whirled into a hurricane as the loading door opened.
The pilot’s voice spoke over the intercom in Mandarin. “Agent Na, we have been given our last warning. We are about to be fired upon.”
“Very well, I will—”
Ox Boy slammed both hands against Lily’s back and shoved her out the door.
She gasped in shock, but training took over. She arched her body hard and thrust out bent arms and legs as the jet wash flung her about like laundry. Flight 402 shot away westward with a roar as she stabilized her free fall. She jerked involuntarily as the two SU-30MMK fighters screamed past, but a tumbling human body was virtually no target to a fighter’s air combat radar. Lily plunged through space as the jets flew on toward India at six hundred miles per hour.
The clouds flashed as if they were lit up by lightning as both fighters cut loose with their 30 mm cannons. The cloud cover in the west went from orange to white and then to red as Flight 402 broke apart and exploded beneath the automatic cannon onslaught. Lily winced against the sonic booms as the fighter jets turned and went supersonic to return to base. She had lost her drop count, but the Kumon Mountains were rushing up beneath her with disturbing speed. Lily brought her feet together, kicked off her high heels and faced facts.
Regal, voluptuous and green-eyed as she was, her problem was that from the get-go she had been designed to be insertable, deniable and expendable. Any extraction assets in the civil-war-ridden mountain and river valleys of Burma would have to be the same. The upper tier of the jungle canopy of the Kumon Mountains rushed toward Lily’s silk-stockinged feet and she wondered what, if any, kind of man might be sent to save her.
2
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
Mack Bolan stared at the 8 x 10 glossy of Lily Na. She was Taiwanese National Security Bureau and undoubtedly straight out of “Mystical 110,” or 110 Yangteh Boulevard on Yang Ming Mountain outside Taipei. It was the address of NSB headquarters, a place where no visitors were allowed, and people who did visit usually came in late at night and often never left. Miss Na was undoubtedly one of the NSB’s secret weapons, probably from the Chinese Mainland Maneuvers Committee.
Bolan looked up at Hal Brognola. “Rescue missions aren’t normally my kind of thing, Hal.”
“Yeah, but what about the woman?” Brognola countered. “I know for a fact she’s your kind of thing.”
Bolan returned his gaze to Na’s picture. She was undeniably erotic. “Still not my kind of mission.”
“Yeah, I know.” The big Fed gnawed on his unlit cigar. “But the stakes are high on this one.”
Bolan knew the stakes were about as high as they got in the world of international espionage. The United States and Taiwan very badly wanted the ballistic-missile-defense information. It was information the Chinese government wanted back even more, so much that they’d downed an entire jet full of innocent people over Burmese airspace. They were working on the forty-eighth hour of her disappearance, but her personal transponder was still signaling.
“You know the government has people and agencies who train for exactly this kind of spook-extraction bullshit,” Bolan argued.
“Yeah, I know.” Brognola sighed. “They’ve already tried and failed.”
Bolan raised an eyebrow. “Really.”
“Yeah, actually the CIA was Johnny-on-the-spot on this one. Within twenty-four hours, they sent in two paramilitary rescue teams. One was compromised and stopped at the border before ever setting a boot in country. The second was smaller, a couple of advisers who parachuted in and met up with mobilized local assets. It’s been twelve hours since we’ve heard from them. We have to assume they’ve been captured or killed.”
Two teams in twenty-four hours was not good. “I think you have to assume they were compromised.”
“That’s right. That’s why the President wants to send in someone who’s outside of normal channels.”
Bolan had to admit he was about as far from normal channels as one could get, short of hiring extraterrestrials. “You know, I don’t speak Burmese, Hal. I don’t think I even know any of the swear words.”
“It’s a former British colony,” Brognola said. “Everyone there speaks a little English.”
“That was sixty years ago.” Bolan considered what he knew about the Union of Myanmar, known by most Westerners as Burma. The government was an utterly corrupt military junta that ruled with an iron fist. Human rights were nearly nonexistent. Human trafficking was some of the worst in Asia. Like most of Southeast Asia, the country was a patchwork of mountains and river valleys with dozens of oppressed ethnic minorities. Some of the minorities were large enough and well enough armed that the rule of the government only extended as far as their artillery could reach outside the big cities. Burma was also ground zero of Asia’s Golden Triangle of opium production. The warlords ruled their areas like medieval fiefs, alternately fighting with and doing business with government and rebel alike. “You do realize I’m over six feet tall, white and have blue eyes?”
“Actually I’ve noticed that about you,” Brognola admitted.
“So I can’t exactly blend in. If the first villager who sees me doesn’t turn me into the government as a spy, then they’re going to sell me to the drug lords as a DEA agent.”
“The President and I were both hoping you might do that lurking-in-the-dark thing you do so well.” Brognola brightened. “Besides, we have a local asset to assist you.”
“Hal, the Chinese found out Miss Na and the data were on the plane and shot it down. You had one CIA paramilitary team stopped at the border, and a CIA lead team of local auxiliaries has disappeared. There’s a leak someplace, and you’re going to have to forgive me if I’m not trusting local CIA or Taiwanese assets.”
“I wouldn’t trust them, either.” Brognola smiled. “So he’s neither.”
“Care to explain that?”
“Sure, like you said, there’s a leak somewhere. I’d like to think it’s Taiwan, but we can’t be sure. The President wants you because you’re outside normal channels. That made sense to me, so I went outside normal channels to get you some local backup.”
“Where’d you go?”
“I called David McCarter.”
McCarter was the team leader of Stony Man Farm’s elite international strike force. He was also a former member of the British SAS.
Bolan
