Don Pendleton - China Crisis

“That bad?” Cho asked. “Must be to stop you talking, Dar.”

“Sammy, I wish I could do more for you. But this is something I can’t deal with.”

Hung knelt beside them. “Can you keep moving? I think we’re not far from the village now. If we get there we only have to wait for Mei Anna and her friends. They’ll surely have someone experienced to deal with your wounds.”

“Well, I don’t have many other choices, do I?”

Tan dressed the wounds and replaced the bloody bandage with a fresh one. They stayed for a little while longer, giving Cho more rest.

Hung took a look around, checking the direction they had come. If it had been daylight, he might have been able to spot Kang’s men. The semidark, layering the terrain with deep shadows, made it impossible to identify anything. He decided they would just have to keep moving, hoping the encroaching night would slow Kang as much as it had them. He preferred that way of thinking rather than imagining everything was running smoothly for their pursuers.

Their luck seemed to be holding. Despite the fact they had to move slowly, they spotted the village just after midnight. The temperature had dropped even further. The wind coming down from the higher slopes of the hills dragged at their clothing, pushing them around, and with the ground underfoot being unsafe, it made travel difficult.

“Will Kang know about this place?” Tan asked.

“He might, but what else can we do?” Hung said. “If we stay in the open, we might freeze. Out here we’re too exposed. If we can get under cover, we’ll be out of the wind and at least have a place to defend.”

“When you say it like that,” Tan remarked, the trace of irony in his voice not lost on Hung.

“I didn’t expect it to turn out like this, Dar. This wasn’t the plan.”

“I’m not blaming you. We all knew what we were letting ourselves get into when we joined the group. I don’t regret it. I just hope we have the chance to make something out of this. It would be a shame if we lost everything after getting this far.”

They reached the village a short time later, making their way past the razed buildings until they reached the one remaining that would still provide some shelter. This semiderelict house still had a couple of rooms and a door they could close against the bite of the wind. Pushing open the door they got the semiconscious Cho inside. Hung secured the door, then crossed to the single window slot that allowed him to look back the way they had come.

Tan had Cho propped up in a corner. He found some discarded, dusty blankets and covered the man as best he could. Then he joined Hung at the window.

“It’s the best we can do. Pity we can’t risk a fire to get a little heat in here.”

Hung squatted with his back to the wall, hugging the backpack that contained the circuit board to his body.

“The only thing we can do now is wait.”

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