and slid off the roof of the canoe shed. “Let’s do this.”
“How?” Nyin hopped down. “Place locked up tight.”
Bolan glanced at the dark, dappled waters of the river. It flowed down around the hill, and U Than had some canoes and speedboats tied up on a bamboo pier of his own. “Can you swim?”
“No.” Nyin stared at the river in horror. “And there are crocodiles.”
Bolan glanced behind him at the village canoes. The men in the guard tower would undoubtedly see them long before they got to the pier. “I guess we do it the hard way.”
“You will want a diversion.”
Bolan smiled. “Yeah, I’m gonna want a diversion. You know what to do with an M-203?”
Nyin was a small man with teeth that belonged in the mouth of a horse rather than a human, and he showed them. “As private, I was grenadier in my squad.”
“Good.” Bolan handed Nyin his rifle and pulled three grenades from his bandolier. “This one is offensive, high explosive, big boom. When I give you the signal, I’m going to want you to lob it into the compound. That’s when I’ll use flexible charge to cut through the palisade. The second one is tear gas, which will keep everyone occupied and intrigued while I make my insertion into the big house. Number three is white phosphorus. When I send you the signal, I want you to light up U Than’s cottage like a torch.”
Nyin’s smile threatened to give away their position. “I light ’em up good!”
“I’ll be coming out fast. Plan A is that I steal a speedboat and pick you up. Failing that, I want you to put a Willy Pete into U Than’s boat dock, and I’ll meet you back on the promontory where we first met. If it goes to hell, just get out. You have a cell phone?”
“Yes. Unfortunately battery is low.”
Bolan pulled a phone from his web gear. “Take mine.” Bolan tapped the motherboard strapped to his forearm. “I can call you with this. Give me thirty minutes to get to the far side of the palisade.”
Nyin put a hand on Bolan’s shoulder. “It is not a bad plan. I am honored to fight with you.”
Bolan clapped him on the shoulder. “You just keep your head up, your ass down and your eyes open. Like I said, I’ll be coming back fast.”
“I will await your signal.”
Bolan moved back through the village lanes. He could hear people murmuring within the huts, but no one opened a shutter or peered down. The Ta villagers had long ago learned not to be too curious about what went on in their valley late at night. Bolan jogged back into the rain forest and took a game trail that circled wide around U Than’s castle. Once again, he had to pull a fade into the towering hardwoods as a patrol of gangsters came by. The good news was they were patrolling the wrong way. Bolan moved around to the back of the compound. He cut a length of flexible charge from his knapsack and a hoop just big enough to crawl through. He exposed the adhesive strip, pushed in a detonator pin and pressed the hoop into the bamboo. Bolan threaded a suppressor tube onto the muzzle of his machine pistol and text-messaged Nyin.
“Do it.”
The M-203 thumped down in the village.
Bolan put his finger on the detonator button and counted down the seconds. The compound lit up in an orange flash as the offensive grenade detonated. Bolan pressed his own detonator, and the crack of the flexible charge was lost in the thunder. Armed men spilled out of the main house like a kicked-over anthill. The tear-gas grenade landed, and its multiple skip-chaser bomblets broke apart and began spewing out gray gas. The two men in the watchtower were shouting and pointing frantically. The men below began flailing and clawing at their eyes as what they thought was smoke from the explosion turned out to be war-strength CN tear gas.
Bolan pushed in the panel of bamboo he’d cut with his charge and crawled into the compound. Everyone was running toward the commotion while Bolan moved toward the back of the main house. The back of the fortress was more prosaic than the front and marked by pig enclosures, outdoor barbecue pits large enough to roast entire hogs and heat woks large enough for a grown man to go sledding in. Bolan moved through laundry lines hung with Western clothes, as well as native sarongs and tunics. He dropped between two stone washbasins as the back door flew open and a pair of men with submachine guns checked the back perimeter. Bolan waited a moment to be sure no one was behind them, then rose up with the 93-R in both hands. The machine pistol barely whispered as he put a 3-round burst into each man’s chest. Bolan moved up the low stone steps past the two dead men and entered U Than’s compound.
The back porch opened onto the kitchen. A pair of women wearing turbans were huddled in a corner clutching each other as gunfire rattled from the front of the compound. They stared in slack-jawed horror at the grease-painted, camouflaged giant who had appeared in their midst. Bolan put a finger to his lips, and the two women nodded in vigorous assent. One of the women had a bruise under her eye, and Bolan suspected U Than and the boys weren’t too respectful of the hired help. They cringed as Bolan loomed over them and tried to press themselves back through the wall as he dropped to a knee in front of them. Their fear turned to awe as Bolan displayed Lily’s photo on the PDA on his wrist. He reached into a pocket of web gear and produced two thick folds of Burmese currency. He held the money up and shrugged. “Where?” he asked quietly.
Both women pointed back the way Bolan had come.
Bolan cleared the screen on his PDA and brought up the sketching function. He took out the stylus and drew a quick sketch with a circle for the palisade and squares for the main house and the outbuildings. Bolan shrugged again.
Both women pointed at the smaller square directly behind the main house.
Bolan handed them the money and retraced his steps. His target was the largest of the outbuildings. It was a heavy-beamed A-frame with bamboo for walls, and the smell of smoked meat and fish radiated out from it. The Burmese people were overwhelmingly Theravada Buddhists, but most were also confirmed carnivores. Bolan’s destination was the meat-smoking and slaughterhouse. There was a light on within it.
Bolan crept to the door. It wasn’t particularly well fitted, and through the seams he could see it was barred from the inside. He could also hear voices within. Bolan cut a two-inch length of flexible charge and pressed it into the doorjamb. The charge hissed as he pressed the detonator, and the shaped charged burned through the bar. The soldier put his boot into the door, and it flung open on its leather hinges.
Two men started up in shock from playing with a laptop and reached for their automatic rifles. Bolan nailed both men in the chest with a triburst each, and they dropped to the dirt floor. Lily Na hung two feet from the floor in a bamboo tiger cage. Only sweat and humidity kept the shredded remnants of her black cocktail dress clinging to a divinely curved body. She had a black eye, but she perked the eyebrow over her good one in interest as she took in the commando before her and managed a smirk. “Hey, sailor.”
Bolan shook his head at her situation. “This U Than asshole comes straight out of a comic book.”
“He has issues.” Lily shrugged. “No doubt.”
“Miss Na, my name is Cooper. I’m here to rescue you.” Bolan took in the tiger cage. It was made of bamboo, but the shafts were as thick as his arm and the knots of hemp that bound it together were like fists. A heavy iron padlock bound the door shut. He had only a foot of flexible charge left, and trying
