Biowar

47

Karr had just finished his steak when the first of the two helicopters began rumbling in the distance. Unlike the helicopter that had taken him up-country, these were large Chinooks, massive troop carriers propelled by rotors at either end. Temporarily chopped from a Special Forces assignment in the southeast, the helicopters were so large that they had to descend one at a time to pick up the Thai force, which had been divided into half for the mission. Karr went aboard with the first group, moving up to the cockpit to help guide the pilots to the landing zone. The Thai major, somewhat in awe to be receiving all this assistance, came with Karr, staying a respectful distance as he popped his head next to the two warrant officers guiding the big helicopter. One of the men handed him a headset with large earphones so he could hear above the roar of the engines as they lifted off.

“Pretty small airstrip,” said the pilot, his Texan accent nearly drowned out by the engines.

“Yeah, I was going to ask you to drop a bulldozer first,” said Karr, “but I figured these guys would have so much fun playing with the sucker I wouldn’t get them to come along.”

The flight over the border took less than fifteen minutes. Major Sourin had picked out a field as a landing zone about a mile and a half from the target camp; the helicopters had an easy time getting in.

“We’ll be back at nine, unless you warn us off,” said the pilot. “Things get dicey, you can call us back earlier, but we have to head all way back to Chiang Mai to refuel. Build that into your timetable.”

The attack plan was relatively simple — one unit would swing around behind the camp while the other three groups approached from the southeast, splitting for the final attack. Karr’s satellite reconnaissance photos revealed only two defensive positions covering the southeast; the guerrillas’ real enemy, the Myanmar army, would approach from the north and the guerrillas had not unreasonably located their main defenses there. The photo interpreters predicted a force of no more than fifty men, with the likely number closer to two dozen; Sourin had guessed seventy-five, though this may have been a play for as much firepower as he could get. The attack was planned for first light, giving them three hours after landing to get into position before the air support arrived.

There were two small buildings at the center of the camp, more huts than houses. They’d seen the pigs near building two. Karr gave strict orders that the buildings themselves were not to be targeted and under no circumstances were the antitank missiles to be used against them. The Thai soldiers were also told to be on the lookout for an “Anglo”; as an incentive against shooting him, Karr offered a reward of $25,000 to the man who captured him, as well as a similar amount to the major.

Sourin’s point people were all equipped with night-vision goggles and small radios. Each group also carried an AN/PSC-5(V), a twenty-pound multiband radio that could hook into satellite frequencies as well as UHF and VHF. Karr clipped a small radio onto his belt. He attached a headset with earbud headphones and a necklacelike mike that would allow him to talk to the others. The Marines did the same.

The Thai soldiers were well disciplined and used to working in the jungle; they moved toward their target area silently, stringing out along both sides of a small streambed. Karr adjusted his night-vision glasses — unlike the powerful but relatively clumsy AN/PVS-5 units supplied to the Thai forces, his were NSA-designed and looked more like extra-thick wraparound sunglasses than traditional night viewers. They were very powerful, however, and besides allowing the wearer to see in the dark provided up to sixty-four-times magnification, depending on the circumstances. Even the Marines, who were equipped with AN/PVS 14 monocles, were jealous.

“How we looking back there, Chafetz?” Karr asked his runner after they’d marched for better than two hours through the jungle.

“Satellite’s just coming over the area now. We’ll have a fresh series of infrared snaps for you in about ninety seconds.”

He took out his handheld, waiting for the download. Besides his A-2, he was humping one of the Minimis and three see-through boxes of ammo belts, all he could fit in his second ruck. Just before joining Desk Three, Karr had done a short stint in Iran helping to plant a signal-stealing device array in the northern mountains; the brief but intense experience drove home one overriding fact of warfare — you can never ever have too many bullets.

The handheld screen flickered, then came up with a red-tinted window of the guerrilla camp. He had to stop so he could fiddle with the magnification. Sourin came over to look.

“Our target,” Karr explained, holding the image up for him.

The Thai major had apparently never seen a handheld computer before and turned his head to look behind the device. Karr showed him how the screen image could be sized. By now the analysts back at the NSA had added information to the image; Karr toggled the overlay and showed Sourin that there were guards in both of the trenches they had spotted earlier. At least six men guarded the northeast line. The Desk Three people IDed two Russian DShKM heavy machine guns, commonly called Dushkas; the weapons were mounted near the center of the compound on a rise that gave them decent coverage to the south as well as the north. Though older than anyone on the assault team, the guns were serious weapons that fired 12.7mm rounds. Lighter machine guns, Russian-made RPDs, were mounted on tripods covering the Thai approach; there were two, along with a third, more curious weapon.

“Hey, uh, Sandy, my computer’s got a glitch. One of the machine guns is being called a Stoner.”

“That’s what it is. Stoner 63 LMG. I may have to hose down the weapons guy. He’s asking if you can take it home for him.”

“What am I going to get in return?”

The Stoner dated from the 1960s; an American weapon, it was a versatile lightweight gun that had been popular with some Special Forces troops in Vietnam but never really caught on in the military at large.

“He’s offering to trade a mint Winchester Model 1873, still chambered for.44–40.”

“That a good deal?”

“Claims it was used to shoot at Wyatt Earp.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Malachi Reese is your air support liaison. His time-to-target is two-five minutes; you’ll want to launch the Kite ten minutes before he’s there.”

“Sounds good,” he told her. He started to set the buzzer on his watch, then realized an audible alarm might not be a good idea.