Don Pendleton - Silent Arsenal

Or worse.

Lingpau eased back in his leopard-skin recliner, one of several creature comforts he had managed to smuggle out of the city in his personal French Aérospatiale helicopter. There was a fully stocked wet bar in one corner, with enough brandy and whiskey to get him through six months of this drudgery. He had three giant-screen TVs, and his attention was torn between the satellite piped-in news from al-Jazeera and CNN and the latest porn flick he’d just slipped into the VCR.

Perhaps life among the savages wasn’t that bad, after all. Naturally, with rank, certain perks and privileges were expected, even necessary since an unhappy commander could become apathetic, simply killing time, shirking duty if his own needs weren’t met. And he was in charge, no mistake, lord and master of this jungle domain, surrounded by tough, seasoned soldiers who could claim plenty of rebel blood on their hands. What was to fear?

Lingpau was pouring another brandy when he heard the sudden outburst of voices raised in panic outside his hut. He pivoted, heart lurching, brandy sloshing on his medallioned blouse. Then he froze, staring at the bright shimmer of light dancing over the bamboo shutters, certain they were under attack by rebels. The shouting of men, the pounding of feet beyond his quarters leaped in decibels, his mind swarming with fear-laden questions as he picked up his Chinese AK. How many attackers? Did he have enough soldiers, firepower to repulse even the largest army the Karens or Kachins could field?

As he burst into the living room, Lingpau found three of his soldiers piling onto the upraised porch beyond the front door, skidding to a halt as their stares fixed on their commander. The mere notion they could be under a full-scale assault by a guerrilla force sent another shiver down his spine. The Kachin State, he knew, was home to some of the most vicious and largest rebel armies in Myanmar. With a hundred-plus-strong army, with antiaircraft batteries, scads of rocket launchers, with tanks and helicopter gunships, he couldn’t imagine any rebel band, no matter how large or well-armed the force, would be brazen, or foolish enough, to attack a SLORC compound. But what rational mind could possibly fathom the desperate motives of a people on the verge of extinction? In his experience, the question of living or dying meant next to nothing to desperate men—and women—who knew they were just this side of the walking dead.

But there were stories, however, some of which he knew were based on truth. It boggled his mind, galled his ego, stung his soldier’s pride, just the same, that he might be under attack by the rebel leader the Karens called the Warrior Princess. If they were being attacked by guerrillas, though, where was the gunfire, the crunch of explosions that, he had been warned, signaled a rebel onslaught? What was this weird halo of light shining beyond the shadows of his men on the porch?

They were pointing skyward, their babble rife with fear and confusion.

“Stop yammering!” Lingpau shouted at the trio, searching the grounds for armed invaders but finding only his soldiers scurrying about the poppy fields with the night workforce, other gaggles of troops frozen near the transport trucks parked in front of the massive tent refinery.

“Rebels? Are we under attack?” Lingpau saw them shake their heads, mouths open, his sentries clearly left speechless over whatever they’d seen. “Then what? Answer me!”

“The sky, Colonel, it is falling!”

“The heavens are on fire!”

“It is going to crash right on top of us!”

Teeth gnashed, cursing the fool bleating something about a craft plunging in flames from outer space, Lingpau hit the ground, whirling, shouting orders, calling out the names of his captain and lieutenant. His voice sounding shrill in his ears, eyes darting everywhere, he ordered the perimeter sealed, the workforce detained in their tents, full alert and double the guard around the refinery. He was forced to repeat the orders, uncertain of his own voice, limbs hardening like drying concrete as he realized he was looking skyward.

“What…”

Lingpau’s first conclusion was that the descending fireball was the result of a rocket attack. Only the massive size of the unidentified object, the white sheen that seemed to spew tentacles of luminous blue fire for miles in all directions and, finally, the trajectory of its fall, told him it was something other than a missile. But what? he wondered, squinting against the harsh glare illuminating the heavens, hurtling night into day, the mushroom-capped jungle canopy rippling against the blinding light as if the inanimate threatened to come alive.

Yes, he had seen meteor showers, shooting stars, and what little he knew about comets no giant rock from outer space could slow its own descent, appear to hover, change directions. There were other stories he had heard, though, fantastic tales from the jungle he had dismissed without a second thought, told around campfires, no doubt, by bored peasants with too much time to waste and too much imagination perhaps inflamed by opium. Tales told of alien spacecraft that flew at impossible speeds over the countryside, blinding lights that fell over a man and saw him vanish into the sky. Was it possible? Could it be?

He watched for what felt like an hour, waiting, dreading the moment when the giant flaming orb would squash the entire compound, nothing but a smoking crater choked with pulped corpses, crushed poppy and strewed product testament to the calamity here. Then it seemed to float away, or suspend itself in midair, or retreat—he wasn’t sure. The halo above its slow-motion free fall appeared to spread mist next, rolling it out like a carpet. He saw it was destined to crash far to the north, figured five or seven miles away, and felt a moment’s relief. The shouting of men was muted by the rolling thunder of the distant explosion as the white fireball plunged from sight. There were numerous Karen and Kachin villages in that direction. Whatever had plummeted to the jungle, whatever it was, he knew it required an investigation, a follow-up report to his superiors in Yangon. If this was some new weapon being tested by the rebels, perhaps some high-tech rocket the American CIA or DEA supporters had given the insurgents, and he failed to inform Yangon of its existence…

He shuddered at the thought of the grim consequences he could suffer for any dereliction of duty.

Lingpau was barking out the next round of orders, rounding up his lieutenant and ordering three full squads to board the Russian HIP-E helicopters and the Aérospatiale when he spotted a pair of eyes shining back at him from the edge of the jungle. Lifting his assault rifle, barrel sweeping up before his eyes, he was prepared to empty the entire clip into the brush. But the big cat was gone.

Lingpau scoured the impenetrable blackness, willing his legs to carry him to his helicopter. It was a fleeting albeit dangerous thought, yearning to return to Yangon, even if that meant abandoning his duty. Whatever had just dropped from the sky, he was certain yet one more evil was about to claim the jungle.

KHISA AN-KHASUNG neither wanted nor felt she deserved the Nobel peace prize. It was true, though, she had become something of a legend throughout Burma—Myanmar—if not most of Southeast Asia, viewed as heroine by the poor and the oppressed, denounced by SLORC and Laotian and Thai warlords and narcotics traffickers as a radical and criminal to be shot on sight. She took honor that she was seen by friend and foe alike as something of a stalking lioness, prowling the jungle, even hunting down the hyenas in human skin who would devour her pride. Defending the weak and the innocent had called on her to do more than just remain a rabble-rousing activist in Yangon or Mandalay, or to chase whatever accolades bestowed her as a lauded poet and writer of short stories, all of which, naturally, were published in the West. Had she chosen this path in life, she wondered, or had the path chosen her?