Don Pendleton - Tiger War

It was old East German stock, some dating from World War II, unloaded as part of fraternal aid to some Communist movement in the Sudan. The movement's leader promptly sold it for some capitalist greenbacks.

Bolan called for the wheelbarrow from the elevator. He emptied it and stacked the bricks inside. He inserted detonator caps and attached firing wire to them. Then he covered the bricks with the raw opium.

A Chinese-speaking Meo who could write found a sheet of paper and wrote "ultimatum" in large Chinese characters. The paper was affixed to a stick, and the stick was stuck into the jelly.

They wheeled the barrow into the cage and positioned it so the wire would not show. Bolan passed the other end through a crack in the floor and out the elevator shaft. He attached that end to a small hand blasting machine, the bravo mama.

The assault unit assembled. A Montagnard called up the stairway to alert Tiger that an ultimatum was being sent. Another Montagnard pressed the second-floor button and closed the gate.

In the stairway, Bolan waited, machine in hand, fingers crossed. Old explosives tended to deteriorate and sometimes failed to go off. That's why he had asked for a mixture.

The cage rose. Bolan heard it come to a stop on the landing above. There was a lot of chatter from the soldiers, then Bolan heard the gate being opened. He twisted the handle on the machine, and an ear-splitting roar shook the building. Bolan dropped the machine, grabbed his gun, and bounded up the stairs.

The landing was strewn with chunks of concrete and twisted girders. The air was full of dust, and flames flickered. On Bolan's left came the sound of running, shouting men. Tiger soldiers were coming to see what had happened. Before they got to the landing, to be engaged by the Montagnards, Bolan had already slipped past.

He climbed to the third floor, colliding with a soldier coming down. The pepesha spat flame at point-blank range, and the man rolled down the stairs. As Bolan emerged onto the landing, he saw muzzles spitting flame from down a corridor. Bolan ducked and backed out. He primed a frag and rolled it down the corridor. A scurry of feet and shouts of alarm were lost in an explosion.

Bolan crossed the landing and entered a large storage area. The floor was full of crates marked with Chinese characters and piles of sacks marked Tiger Brand No. 4, the final product, ninety-nine percent pure heroin, ready for shipment to the States. The place was silent and dark, the only light coming from a distant bulb.

Bolan hesitated, wondering what to do. It was a perfect place to be ambushed. Why not try some psycho-warfare? Liu and company must be hoping for relief, otherwise they would not be making a stand. Why not fulfill their hopes?

Bolan cupped his mouth and called out, "Hey, guys, where are you? It's me, Jack. Jack Fenster. I've brought relief. I'm with the Thais. Where are you?"

He crouched and listened. Perhaps the trick would work. After all, no one but Big Bottom, the mahout, and himself knew what happened to Jack Fenster. And why shouldn't Fenster come back to help his colleagues if he survived the ambush?

Footsteps. Cautious footsteps. A voice called quietly, "Jack?"

Bolan tiptoed in the direction of the sound and went down behind a forklift. Steps approached.

"Jack, where are you?"

A roly-poly individual in a golfing shirt and slacks appeared. In his hand he held a handkerchief with which he constantly wiped his face. To Bolan it was obvious the man felt he was performing a feat of great courage by making the trip in the dark alone. Wrong! He was not alone. Behind him came a Tiger soldier, weapon at the ready. Bolan let them pass.

"Jack?"

Bolan rose and moved like a cat. A knife stabbed the soldier, a hand covered the fat man's mouth. "Jack is in hell," he whispered into the man's ear. "And he wants you to join him."

The man's eyes bulged and he began shaking. The smell of urine filled the air. As his bladder emptied, the shaking subsided.

Bolan pointed the knife at him. "Now, where is everyone? Use your hand."

The man pointed behind him.

"Any soldiers?"

The man shook his head.

Bolan turned him. "Lead the way."

They moved through the gloom past the crates and the stacks of Tiger Brand No. 4, Bolan keeping his ears wide open for any unusual sound. But there was none. The only sound was the muffled gunfire from the floor below as the Montagnards fought it out with Tiger troops.

They came to a partition with a door. An office of some sort. The door was closed, light came through the opaque glass, but no sound emanated from it.

"In there?" Bolan whispered.

The man nodded.

"Go inside and leave the door open behind you," Bolan whispered. "Understood?"

The man nodded.

"Go," said Bolan, releasing him.

The man walked to the door, opened it, and went inside. Through the doorway Bolan could see an office with an Oriental carpet and armchairs in which sat the directors. They watched their colleague enter with fear and expectation. But there was an additional expression on their faces, and it sent blood rushing to Bolan's head. They resembled men left leaderless.

A moment later, as he stepped into the office after roly-poly, Bolan's premonition was confirmed. The directors were there, but Colonel Liu was not among them.

From a window up in the refinery Bolan gazed on the scene of destruction.

The Tiger hardsite lay in ruins, the air swirling with smoke. By the light of dawn he could see groups of Montagnards going through the rubble.

In the residential section only the guest villa was left standing; everything else had burned or been blown up.

It was a picture of desolation, but desolation with a menace, for somewhere amid those ruins, Bolan's enemy was hiding.

From the directors, Bolan had learned that Liu had left the conference shortly before the battle broke out. It was the last day of the annual meeting, and they were working late. But Liu's servants said their master never showed up, which would indicate he was en route when the fighting started. What happened to him after that, no one knew. None of the soldiers questioned had seen him. All the other directors had stayed put, scared, unarmed, and pathetically easily taken.

To Bolan there could be only one explanation for Liu's disappearance: he must have decided on the spot that the battle was lost. He would have had good reasons, not the least of which was that when the fighting began the enemy was already inside the camp. And having decided all was lost, what would an opium warlord do, lead his troops in a death-defying stand?

Hardly.

He would escape or hide.

Bolan was sure Liu did not escape. The camp had been surrounded from the start by his Montagnards, no helicopter took off, and no secret tunnels running under the perimeter had been discovered.

But he would find Liu. It was his mission.

He realized it was of no consequence where fate might lead a man. If there was evil there, it must be resisted, struggled against, fought to the end.

A place, any place, is only godforsaken if men do nothing — if they do not stand up for what is right. Wherever a man finds himself, all that counts is that he fight for the civilized values he believes in.

To profess principles but not be prepared to back them up is to be without principles.

What matter where you die, what matter if you die — when all that matters is that you fought for the right.

But there are occasions when, as every soldier knows, inaction itself is one's fate. Today Mack Bolan knew better, in his dangerous and deceit-filled new world, the value of discretion, the valor of keeping his distance, of not jumping in before the true root of the atrocity had a chance to reveal itself. As The Executioner, and as Colonel John Phoenix, his heavy fate had become apparent: he must forever hit at the root, the core, of evil itself — go to the very heart of darkness itself, and react sanely to what he found there.