Don Pendleton - Tiger War

The crew jumped out but instead of getting away proceeded to unload. Nark and Stressner ran to them with Montagnards coming after, leading ponies. Bolan followed. By the time he reached the plane, the mortar tubes and bombs had been unloaded. Everyone grabbed something and ran.

"Avion!"

From the south another pair of fighters was streaking toward them. This time the whole valley opened up. The air filled with the crash of automatic weapons and a panoply of tracers formed the sky. The planes peeled, avoiding the tracers.

"Cease fire!" Bolan shouted, running along the slope. "Cease fire!" The last thing he wanted was to shoot down a Thai plane. They were fighting Tiger Enterprises, not Thailand.

The shooting died down while the Thunderstreaks circled the valley by a wide margin. Nark came running to Bolan. "They'll have bombers with napalm here in a moment."

"And heliborne troops first thing in the morning," Bolan added. "Major Vang Ky!"

The headman ran to him up the slope.

"Move out," Bolan told him.

"For village?"

"No, we go directly to the Tiger camp."

He nodded and ran off.

Whistles blew, voices shouted. Bolan's Montagnard army was finally on the march.

By noon they had covered a third of the way. They were in the La Kon forest, famed for its sandalwood and its herds of wild elephants. It was there that Bolan called a long halt, the first of their journey. The trees provided plenty of shade from the now broiling sun and there was, a stream. The Montagnards watered the horses, Bolan posted guards, and the men sat to eat. It was simple Montagnard fare, glutinous rice dipped in pimento, washed down with water from the stream, which they drank in cups made from banana leaves. Lunch over, everyone stretched out for some shut-eye except for the whites who were not used to siestas. They sat in a group talking. Nark was describing how the Thais fought the heroin trade.

"One day the district chief came to see me and said they had captured a ton of raw opium. He said they were going to burn it. Why didn't I get some American reporters to come up? I called the DBA office in Bangkok, and they sent a busload. The office liked the publicity. It shows Congress back home what a good job we're doing. The district chief put on a big party with girls and dancing, the reporters took pictures, and I paid out the reward money. In those days we paid reward money. Only later did I learn that what we burned was silage. The opium had been resold to a merchant in Bangkok. Clever, no?"

"Why are they like that?" asked Heath, the Ilyushin pilot. "Don't they care what that stuff does to the people in America?"

"America?" said Nark. "They don't give a damn about America. All those Thai politicians care about is themselves. Tiger pays protection money to Bangkok. Without it a lot of those government people wouldn't be able to afford their villas and their Mercedes. So they play ball.

"Mind you," Nark went on, "there's also economics. If Bangkok put Tiger out of business, the opium farmers wouldn't have anyone to sell to. How would they make a living? Bangkok's afraid they'd turn Communist. USAID suggested schemes for substitute crops. Trouble is there isn't much demand for substitute crops from the Triangle. The area's too far from the main markets. Anyway, the farmers prefer opium; it's more profitable."

A whistling hoot traveled from afar. Bolan's brow furrowed. "What's that?"

"A railroad runs through the forest," Nark explained. "Trains carry ore and lumber from mines and sawmills up north. The maps don't show it. The line was laid down only recently. Guess who owns the railroad?"

"Don't tell me," said Bolan.

"You guessed," said Nark.

"Who owns it?" asked Heath.

"Tiger, of course," said Nark. "In the Golden Triangle there's hardly anything they don't own. Which is why they've got so much clout with the Thais. They've got the money and they've got the troops. Some people call this a second Taiwan, another Nationalist Chinese republic. Unofficial, of course." He paused to listen to the distant whistling. "Must be a lot of elephants on the line."

"Avion!"

The shout sent Bolan and Nark to their feet. A rapidly approaching drone grew in the sky, and a small plane skimmed the treetops. "Thai army," said Nark, catching the Pali writing on the fuselage.

"And he's coming back," said Nark, ears registering a change in the pitch of the engine. "Everyone under the trees!" he shouted.

It was easier said than done. The noise of the Piper Cub had sent the horses galloping in confusion. The Montagnards were still chasing after them when the spotter made its second pass.

"Now he knows we're here for sure," said Nark.

Vang Ky ran to them. "Colonel, we've been discovered!" he cried. "What do we do?"

"Round up the horses for a start," Bolan replied, anger in his voice. "I told you to tie them."

"I'm sorry, Colonel. I tried to tell them."

Discipline was not one of the Montagnards' strong points. Everyone did what he wanted, individualism and personal freedom being enshrined traditions. There was not much Bolan could do about that, either. With irregular troops you could not play the disciplinarian; the troops simply went home.

"He must have glided down," said Heath, "or we'd have heard him earlier. It's almost as if he knew we were here."

"He probably did, too," said Bolan, eyes on the circling spotter.

"How could he know?"

"By the color of the trail."

"Sorry?"

"An unused trail's yellow," Bolan explained, "the ground bleached by the sun. When a lot of men march on a trail they churn the ground back to its original color, terra-cotta. A good spotter will look out for that."

The headman Ly appeared. "Colonel, we must do something," he said. "The Thais will send troops and will block the trail."

Bolan nodded, eyes still following the spotter. The plane was unarmed, but that was small consolation. "Nark! Bring the map."

They laid the map flat on the ground and Bolan studied it. There were two ways out of the forest: north by the trail and east by a dirt road.

"Does this road still exist?" asked Bolan.

"Yes," replied Vang Ky. "But we want to go north. Tiger is to the north."

"I know," said Bolan, "but I propose to give the Thais the idea we're changing directions. I want them to think we're going east. Then, while the Thais are looking for us in the east, we disappear to the north,"

"How can we do this?" asked Ly.

Bolan told him.

A little later fifty Montagnard riders slipped from the main force, heading east. They left in groups of five, keeping close to the trees — away from openings in the canopy — so the Piper would not spot them. All carried machetes in addition to their weapons.

At their head rode Bolan and Heath. The pilot came from New Mexico and was at home in the saddle. Bolan had taken a liking to him; the young man impressed him. He brings back a burning plane, lands, and instead of running, starts unloading. Cool.

The forest was flat, so they made good time. They came to the dirt road and followed parallel to it, keeping inside the trees. The road crossed the rail line, and eventually they reached the eastern edge of the woods. Ahead was a stretch of open country before the road disappeared into another forest.

They all dismounted, and the Montagnards proceeded to cut down branches that they tied into large bunches using lianas. Bolan inspected the road. The soil was powder dry; there had been no rain since the night after he arrived in Thailand. Perfect.

When everything was ready, Bolan inspected the diversion force. They sat on their horses, rifles on their laps, handkerchiefs over their noses like bandits. Behind each horse was a large bundle of branches attached by a cord to the saddle.