Emerald Buddha

Chapter 45

Joe took careful steps along the trail. Uncle Pete beside him brandished a pistol, a rifle out of the question given his infirmity. The Shan gunmen moved soundlessly behind them, all obviously on high alert. Drake brought up the rear, his feet blistering from the hiking of the last few days in wet conditions, his face drawn as he labored forward, refusing to submit to the urge to quit. Visions of Allie being tortured, or worse, raced through his imagination during the silent march, and his abdomen was a rock-hard knot of tension as the afternoon light slowly began to fade.

His watch told him they’d been on the move for almost six hours. If they didn’t reach the suspect site soon, they’d be further handicapped by nightfall. Only half the men had night vision equipment, Joe’s assurance that there was an adequate supply as optimistic as his take on the duration of their trek, and Drake was afraid that the Red Moon guards might be better equipped. If they were, any element of surprise would be overwhelmed by superior firepower, and then it would become a bloodbath whose outcome couldn’t be predicted.

Drake did his best to think optimistic thoughts, but what kept repeating through his mind was silent cursing at their predicament. He’d been suckered into a game that he was unprepared for, and now his love and his friend might pay for his poor judgment with their lives. It wasn’t lost on him how quickly things could turn from good to bad, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were headed toward disaster.

He stumbled over a vine and a flash of pain flared from his ankle, adding to his sour mood. He’d need to be more careful — preoccupation could get him killed. All he’d need to do was miss one telltale warning sign, and it would be over. His rifle felt heavier than it had when they’d started this jaunt, and he tried not to think about the gunmen he’d killed. Drake might have fancied himself an adventurer, but the truth was he knew he’d be haunted by the vision of his victims for a long time to come. That they were trying to kill him, so it had been self-defense, didn’t mitigate his guilt at having taken human life. He wondered how men like the ones he’d surrounded himself with could eagerly go in pursuit of death, and he shook his head. They were almost a different species, Joe included. The aging hippie showed no remorse at having shot more than his share, and Drake was willing to bet he’d sleep well tonight even if he killed a dozen more.

The procession slowed as Joe held up a hand, his focus on the area ahead absolute. Drake filed past the waiting Shan and drew near. Joe turned to him and whispered, his voice so low Drake could barely make out his words.

“There’s a booby trap just ahead. A trip wire. So we’re getting close.” Joe pointed to an almost invisible length of monofilament strung across the trail. One of the Shan nodded and pushed past them and, after a brief study of the device, snipped the line. Drake realized he’d been holding his breath and exhaled in relief. The rest of the men seemed unfazed.

Their progress slowed to a crawl as they picked their way along the trail. Joe spied one more trap, which the same Shan rendered safe. The gloaming’s light was fading as they arrived at the edge of the clearing, and Joe nodded in satisfaction at the sight of the building in front of them. At one end hummed a generator providing power for the interior, but only a few lights illuminated the exterior, which made sense given the illegal nature of the operation. Still, it was easy to make out dozens of armed men in the shadows; at least five times as many as in the Shan force.

Drake murmured to Joe, “We need some kind of diversion. There are way too many to take on. Looks like the CIA underestimated their strength.”

“Yup. More like a hundred men, easily. Idiots.”

“So what do we do?”

Joe gestured at a shack well away from the main building. “See that? My bet is that’s where they keep all the flammable material they use to manufacture the meth. If we can get to it, that would create a hell of a distraction.”

“Yeah, but it’s got at least twenty men guarding it. What are you thinking? Fire an RPG into it?”

“Problem is, those aren’t very accurate at this distance, so it’s just as likely to miss as hit.” Joe shook his head and then gave Drake a small smile. “Maybe something more dramatic to get their attention?”

“Like what?”

“See the airfield over on the far side?”

Drake nodded. “Yes. And?”

“Is that a plane sitting at the edge?”

“Looks like it.”

Joe nodded. “Then here’s what we’re going to do…”

Darkness now enveloped the jungle around the manufacturing plant. Drake, Joe, Uncle Pete, and two of the Shan fighters crept through the brush, skirting the clearing as they made their way to the plane — a Cessna 208 Caravan with pontoons for water landings. When he’d first seen the floats, Joe had theorized that the Red Moon traffickers were flying payloads of drugs offshore, where they could be smuggled onto boats for shipment to different locales, evading the customs inspections that were routine in Thai ports.

Although the buildings were heavily guarded, the dirt strip only had two men watching it, neither particularly vigilant, judging from their postures. Both were slouched on a log, chatting in low tones, with their guns resting beside them.

The two Shans moved like phantoms on soundless feet toward the guards as Joe edged toward the plane, keeping to the brush. Drake watched with Uncle Pete as the Shans reached the sitting men at the same time, muffled their cries with their hands, and plunged knives into the bases of their necks, instantly severing the guards’ spines and ending their lives. Drake winced as the bodies slumped to the ground, and then his attention was drawn by Joe running to the plane, a satchel of grenades around his neck.

“Come on… come on…,” Drake whispered impatiently to himself as Joe fumbled with the plane door. Drake glanced back at the factory, where the guards milled around, and then to the aircraft. Joe had disappeared into the ungainly fuselage and pulled the door closed behind him.

Moments later the groan of the plane’s starter sounded from the runway, but the racket from the heavy generator powering the factory drowned it out. When the Cessna’s motor roared to life, the guards at the large building froze at the unexpected sound. It was clear from their confused yells that nobody knew whether it was an unscheduled flight or a problem, and by the time someone had sounded the alarm, Joe was accelerating down the runway, whose beige dirt was barely distinguishable from the grass that framed it.

The seaplane lifted into the sky and climbed. A tall man emerged from the factory door and screamed an order, pointing at the departing aircraft. The guards began firing at it, but the plane was well out of range of the rifles, and their bullets missed by a wide mark.

Confusion reigned on the ground as the Cessna banked in the dark sky and returned, its lights extinguished so it was almost invisible against the partial overcast. Drake watched in fascination as the plane reappeared at almost stall speed, no more than a hundred feet above the trees, and a half-dozen orbs dropped toward the storage shack.

Four of the grenades detonated wide of the mark, but two exploded just above the roof. The shack blew in a massive fireball as the flammable agents inside ignited, throwing debris and a scorching wave for fifty yards.

The tall man, obviously the leader, roared commands as he ran toward the shack, and most of the surviving men accompanied him. The chatter of automatic rifles was constant from the building; and this time, due to the plane’s elevation, some of the rounds found home. The tone of the engine changed when Joe attempted to climb to safety as he jettisoned the remainder of his grenades at the men below, but as the Cessna moved over the tree line, the motor coughed several times… and then quit.

Flames licked from the engine cowling as the aircraft disappeared over a rise, and twenty seconds later, another explosion shattered the night where it had vanished.

“Oh no… Joe,” Drake murmured, and then his focus was drawn back to the building as Uncle Pete and the two Shan rose beside him. Gunfire encircled the Red Moon guards as the Shan force opened up on them, and what might have been a pitched battle became a massacre. Most of the gunmen were caught out in the open with no cover, led by their leader, who dove for a rocky outcropping as plumes of earth geysered around him.

A Shan soldier sprinted toward the generator housing and almost made it when two rounds stitched into his chest. He dropped face forward, and the grenade in his hand rolled the final yards before detonating by the power plant. The lights blinked off as the electricity died, and the grounds and structure were plunged into darkness.

“Let’s go,” Drake said. He flipped his night vision goggles down and activated the power switch, and the stygian landscape blinked neon green, the muzzle flashes from the defending Red Moon shooters bright flares. The Shans and Uncle Pete did the same, and he ran toward the manufacturing building as the gun battle played out around him. Drake was firing at the now-blind Red Moon gunmen as he zigzagged to the main door, and heard the Shans’ guns barking behind him as they followed, picking off obvious threats with disciplined shots as they conserved ammunition.

Drake threw the steel door open and stopped shooting — the chemical smell was almost overpowering, and Joe had warned everyone that a spark could easily blow the entire place. He stepped inside of the empty production area and spotted two doors at the far end. Uncle Pete entered behind him, trailed by the Shans, who ducked into the entrance before slamming the door shut. Rounds pummeled the steel slab, but none penetrated. Drake led Uncle Pete to the pair of doors and pointed to the one that had a bolt on the outside. Uncle Pete nodded and moved to it, and Drake raised his rifle as Uncle Pete slid the bolt free.

“Allie? Spencer?” Drake called as the door creaked open.

“Drake!” Allie’s voice rang out from inside. Relief flooded through him as he approached the entry.

“Are you hurt?” Drake asked as he peered into the room. He stopped when he realized that they couldn’t see him. “Can you walk?”

“I’ve got an arm wound, but Allie and I can walk. What about you, Christine?” Spencer’s voice answered.

“Maybe with some help,” she said.

“I’m here at the door. I’m coming into the room with Uncle Pete. We’ll lead you out — we have night vision gear,” Drake warned. “Stand still until I reach you.”

“Okay,” Allie said, the intensity of the gunfire outside easing as the Shan men mopped up the Red Moon survivors.

Drake moved to where she was standing by the wall and whispered to her, “Take Spencer’s hand and follow Uncle Pete into the warehouse.” He raised his voice a fraction. “Christine?”

“Who are you?”

“Name’s Drake. We’re here to rescue you.”

“Sounds like a war out there. Might be safer in here.”

“Let me help you,” Drake offered. “Take my hand,” he said, holding his fingers out until he touched her arm.

“I can’t. They’ve got me tied to this damned cot.”

Drake inched closer and saw the bindings. He withdrew the knife he’d been given as part of his gear and slashed both wrist and arm bindings. “There. You’re free.”

Christine’s legs were wobbly from a week on the bed, and she was unsteady as a toddler as Drake led her to the door. “Wait. They have my notebook computer from the plane. I can’t leave without it,” she whispered.

“You’re going to have to,” Drake said.

“No. You don’t understand. It’s got data on it that can’t fall into the wrong hands.”

“What are you talking about?” Spencer asked from beside Uncle Pete.

“Just look around. Please. It’s got to be here somewhere. They took it when they captured me.”

Drake led her over to Uncle Pete and the others. “Help them out. I need to look around.”

“I help too,” Uncle Pete offered.

“No. They can’t see. You need to stay with them.”

Uncle Pete grumbled his assent, and the group shambled to where the Shan soldiers waited by the entry, the sound of shooting outside now only occasional. Drake pulled the second door open and looked inside. There was a desk, several file cabinets, a shortwave radio, a bottled water dispenser, a weapons rack with at least twenty guns, and a massive safe. Drake slowly scanned the room, and stopped when he saw a laptop computer sitting atop the desk beside a large flat-screen monitor. His gaze followed the cable from the monitor to a CPU on the concrete floor, and he edged to the table.

A minute later he was at the entrance, his friends beside him.

“Did you find it?” Christine murmured.

“I took the only laptop in there. A Dell. Is that it?”

“Has to be.”

Drake looked toward the pair of Shans and nodded as he took a deep breath and swung the door open.

The air outside stank of burning chemicals, and the conflagration at the shack belched black smoke into the night sky. Drake surveyed the exterior, the ground littered with the bodies of fallen Red Moon shooters, and whispered to Uncle Pete, who called a warning to the Shan soldiers so they wouldn’t open fire.

The two Shans emerged first, guns sweeping the area, followed by Drake and Christine. Uncle Pete led Spencer and Allie out next, and let go of Allie’s hand once they could see by the firelight flickering from the ruins of the supply structure.

Shots rang out from the corner of the building, and rounds ricocheted off the concrete. Drake spun and fired as the tall Red Moon leader tried to duck for cover, but one of Drake’s rounds hit him in the chest and he flew backward, firing into the air as he dropped. Drake continued shooting until his magazine was empty, and then ejected the spent one and slid a fresh one home. He continued toward the corner and only stopped when he saw the man gasping, his rifle a few feet away.

Drake toed the weapon out of reach and watched wordlessly as the Red Moon leader struggled to breathe, the chest wound burbling with each effort. Christine limped to where he stood and stared down at the man, her face an ugly mask of hate.

“He was going to sell me into slavery after he and everyone here raped me. The only reason he hadn’t yet was because of my injuries.” She spit on Lee’s face. “Burn in hell, you bastard,” she hissed in Chinese. Drake’s fingers on her arm seemed to startle her, and then her expression softened.

“He’s not going to make it,” Drake said.

“Good. Or I’d put the final bullet in him myself. I just hope he suffers for a long time.”

Drake lowered his gun and nodded. “Let’s get out of here. Think you can manage a hike?”

“Try stopping me.”

Drake took her to where Allie and Spencer were standing. “Where’s Joe?” Allie asked.

He told her about the plane. She gasped when he described it crashing into the jungle over the rise. “Oh, God… so he sacrificed everything for us?”

“Yes. Without his distraction, we might not have been able to get you out alive,” Drake said.

Another shot rang out from near the airfield. The last of the stragglers were being dispatched by the Shans, who were showing their adversaries no mercy.

“Where’s Uncle Pete?” Drake asked.

“He ran off toward the jungle over there. Maybe he’s going to go look for the plane?” Allie said.

“I don’t know about you, but the faster we’re out of here, the better I’ll feel,” Spencer said. “I don’t want to learn the hard way that there are more of these Red Moon characters lurking around, do you?” He paused. “Or that the Shan aren’t much more honorable and might start thinking about ransoms rather than rescues?”

Drake nodded. “Point taken. But in a few hours, the whole Shan army will be here.”

“Then let’s agree that we won’t be.”

“What about Uncle Pete?” Allie asked.

“He’s the expert tracker. He’ll find us,” Spencer said, moving to a dead guard and scooping up his AK. He handed the gun to Allie and then walked to where another rifle lay abandoned and snagged it before turning back to Drake. “Any idea where we are?”

“Yes. According to Joe, there’s a dirt road that leads to a small town, Mong Tum, about nine miles south of us. From there we should be able to make it to the Thai border. We can stop and rest whenever we get tired, and still probably make it by morning.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Drake eyed Christine. “You ready?”

She stared at the fire dancing from the smoldering ruins and then at Drake’s face, her expression determined.

“Lead the way.”