Don Pendleton: Tiger War

Chest heaving, heart pounding, he lay there, rivulets of sweat flowing over his body.

When his panting subsided he removed his haversack and took a drink from his water bottle. He sat down by a tree and strained his ears. Not a sound. Even the birds had retired for the night.

He took another drink, leaned back and closed his eyes, his mind taking stock of his situation.

Eight hours earlier, which now seemed like aeons, he had taken off from an island in the Indian Ocean for the Golden Triangle on a mission to destroy the world's biggest heroin ring, Tiger Enterprises.

Code-named Galloping Horse, a synonym for heroin, the mission was to be the opening salvo in Stony Man's war against hard drugs. Instead of fighting the syndicates at home, Phoenix would take the war to the doorstep of the venal surveyors, the filth, who subverted the health and welfare of good people with the terrible products of their self-interest.

Yet no sooner had he arrived in the Triangle than the tables were turned. He, the hunter, had become the prey.

Where was Nark, he asked himself. In his last message, Bolan's pathfinder had reported everything going according to schedule. He had to find him and fast.

Bolan put away the bottle and untied the head scarf he wore in the manner of native warriors. One side was black, the other a grid map of that area of the Triangle. From his haversack he brought a poncho. He crawled under it, turned on a penlight and studied the map.

With the aid of a tiny compass on the band of his watch, Bolan worked out a route to the Montagnard village that Nark had made his base. If he hurried, he told himself, he might make it by daylight.

He repacked the poncho and put on the haversack. He picked up his gun and went to the trail. As he turned into it he glanced at his watch. A little past midnight. If he wanted to make the village by daylight he would have to run part of the way. Twenty minutes running, twenty minutes walking, he decided.

Bolan took a deep breath and set out on his journey.

It was dawn, and the sun streaked the sky with faint rays.

Standing on a ridge and peering through field glasses, Bolan surveyed the village. Judging by the goings-on, it was breakfast time. Smoke rose from the homes, and turbaned Montagnard women were coming out of the doorways with buckets of pig feed. Bolan could hear the squeal of pigs fighting at the troughs.

The village lay in a terra-cotta valley, a couple of hundred huts scattered randomly in Montagnard fashion where the only rule was that no two doorways should face each other in case they attracted each other's spirits. The absence of any symmetry gave the place a decidedly primitive look.

Beyond, in low grassland blanketed by a ground mist, shaggy horses and cattle grazed. A solitary elephant wandered among them, the chain around its leg attached to a boulder. The Montagnards used elephants for logging.

Bolan scanned the village for a sign of Nark. But there was none. Nark could still be sleeping, Bolan thought; nothing new in a CIA agent snoozing.

As the day advanced, people began leaving the village. Some went to the slopes to work fields of rice, corn and tobacco. Women with bamboo water containers on their backs headed for a stream in the hills. A hunter with a musket rode away. A family set out for market, each member carrying a live chicken in a basket under each arm.

Still no sign of Nark.

A group of women, small sacks in hand, left the village and headed in Bolan's direction. He watched them disappear from view as they began climbing his slope, then he heard them pass on the trail, chatting gaily. Bolan picked up his haversack and went to follow them.

The women turned off the trail, took a couple of footpaths and emerged into a field of opium poppies. From their sacks they brought knives and jars, and proceeded to scrape the white ooze that had coagulated on the pods.

It was the second stage of a harvest. The ooze was opium juice that had seeped out overnight, the pods having been slit the previous day.

For a while Bolan watched the women work. They moved gracefully amid the flowers, the colored accessories of their black outfits closely matching the reds, blues, pinks and yellows of the poppies.

Finally he coughed and emerged from his hiding place.

Cries of fear escaped the women's lips as they ran to one another for protection. Bolan could understand their reaction. In his tattered suit and with his bloody cuts he looked the epitome of the long-nosed "white devil."

To assure the women he meant no harm, Bolan stopped at a respectable distance, brought the palms of his hands together in a wai and bowed. He knew the ways of these people from his time as a sniper specialist during the Vietnam War, and from his return to Vietnam in search of MIAs at the beginning of the Stony Man operation. He addressed them in the most formal manner in their own language, Meo.

"O sisters of great beauty and worth, a lost traveler seeks assistance. I am searching for a brother, another white man. Does a white man live in your village?"

The women exchanged looks to determine who would answer the traveler. Finally the eldest replied, "Your brother is no more in the village. He left."

Bolan grunted in disappointment. "Where did he go?"

The women exchanged looks, this time to see if one of them knew. None did. "He left with the Chinese," volunteered a second woman.

Bolan's worst fears materialized.

"If you want to know about your brother, you must speak to the headman," said the first woman. "Your brother lived in his house."

"Is the headman home?" he asked.

The first woman nodded.

"Are there any Chinese in the village?"

"They left," said the second woman. The others nodded in agreement.

"O sister," Bolan said, addressing the first woman, "help me find my brother. Take me to the headman so I can ask him."

She signaled to a younger woman to accompany her, and they set out, Bolan following.

They descended into the village and walked quickly past yapping dogs and bare-bottomed children. Women ran out of doorways to look at him, and someone shouted a greeting, mistaking him for Nark. In the Orient, white men look alike.

They came to the headman's hut, the elder woman coughed — knocking being rude in their culture — and Bolan followed her across the threshold. Inside was a typical Montagnard abode, dark, windowless and smelling of dampness from the earthen floor.

By an open fire, on low stools, two men in baggy black mountain suits sat smoking water pipes. One of the men was a thin individual with tiny, almost reptilian eyes. The woman spoke to him. He came up to Bolan. They exchanged bows and shook hands. The others left, and Bolan and the headman took seats by the fire.

"I am Colonel John Phoenix," Bolan introduced himself. "Did Nark tell you about me?"

"Yes," the headman said. "He told us you were coming." He spoke in English.

"What happened to Nark?" asked Bolan. By coming straight to the point he was ignoring Montagnard etiquette, but time was short and the headman knew Western ways, so it was unlikely he would be offended.

"Bad things," said the headman. "Mr, Nark betrayed by the shaman's son. The son was spy for Tiger."

"When was this?"

"Three nights ago. Tiger soldiers come in middle of night. Take radio and code books, too."

"Where are they holding him?"

"The Tang Mei temple. A Buddhist monastery two ranges away. Tiger use it for radio relay. The temple is on a mountain. A bonze tell us he hear screaming at night. Bad for Mr. Nark."

"Yeah," said Bolan pensively. So Nark got himself betrayed. There had always been a danger of that. Tiger had spies everywhere, from simple villages to government ministries. Half the Bangkok government was in its pocket, which was the main reason the Colonel Phoenix visit had to be kept a secret from the Thais. They would have been the first to tip off Tiger.