the conveyance, then straddled it, pushing the starter button. The thing sputtered to life as Konstantin sat down. In moments he was entering stalled traffic, between cars mostly abandoned, heading for the other side of Pyay Road and eventual safety. As he moved Konstantin heard police sirens, distant but growing closer.
Of course, our big advantage now is that we are vehicle-borne, while the police are going to have to get on foot to get through the traffic jam we've created.
I hope.
Baluyev saw a Burmese policeman walking west, through the halted traffic, waving his pistol and shouting imprecations in his native tongue. Oh, oh. We planned for all the known cops but this one was not in the plan. Probably some poor bastard just getting off duty.
Halting his moped and glancing to his left rear he saw what had to be, from the size, shape and color of the bike, and the fact that there were two big men mounted on it, the American, Welch, and Victor Inning. Apparently the cop saw them as well, as he pointed both himself and his pistol in their general direction, raising his left hand to order a halt.
Baluyev twisted the handlebars to the left and leaned that way as well, laying the moped down on the asphalt. He extricated his left leg and got up to a crouch, even as his right hand pulled out the Taser. Once the cop took up a deliberate firing stance, Baluyev hesitated not a nanosecond, but fired his two leads into the policeman's side. The cop began a twitching descent to the ground.
Trotting over, Baluyev bent down and patted the policeman's cheek. 'No offense, officer,' he said, in English, with a New York accent. Once upon a time, Praporschik Baluyev had been part of a very highly trained team, oriented to doing some very nasty things in the American northeast.
A motorcycle raced by, its wind and smoky exhaust assailing the Russian. He then scooped up the cop's pistol which he saw was an old Browning. This he stuck in his belt before racing back to his moped.
Terry, riding down the now abandoned sidewalk, saw the cop preparing to shoot and was, himself, a couple of nanoseconds from dumping the bike to try to get himself and Inning out of the line of fire. Just before he did he saw the policeman begin to twitch and fall. He recovered the bike to full upright and gunned it past the fallen constable of the peace without a backward glance. He continued east on the University Avenue sidewalk for another five hundred or so meters before cutting left, just inside the smoke screen still bisecting the road. Here Terry had to slow to weave through the stopped autos. He got as far as the westbound lane before he ran into a series of crashed cars so extensive that he thought he might make better time on foot. He stopped the motorcycle and turned around to shout to Victor, 'Can you run?'
'Stop this thing and I'll fly!' the Russian shouted back.
'Come on then.' Terry took a folding stock assault rifle Victor instantly suspected was from his own stocks and tossed it, shouting, 'Shoot to intimidate, and only if necessary. Do not shoot to wound or kill.' Then Welch took his own Taser-clone pistol from his pocket. Leaving his helmet on his head and grasping his satchel in hand, Terry took off at a gallop, Victor trailing close behind. They passed school buildings on the left of the gently curving road, mansions galore-in both senses-on the right. Further to the right, past the irregular line of monuments to conspicuous consumption, a Russian-built helicopter could occasionally be glimpsed between dwellings and through trees, as it came in low over the waters of the lake.
'I see your purple smoke,' Artur Borsakov said, his helmet mounted microphone transmitting the message in a warble to the man on the ground below, the one who had announced, 'I am popping smoke.'
I know I've picked that man up before, somewhere, somewhen, thought Borsakov.
'Affirmative, that's us. Enemy situation is negative at this time, but everyone's not here yet.'
Borsakov keyed his mike to internal only and asked Cruz, 'What do you think, Mike, land or take a turn around the lake?'
'Land, I think, Artur. After all, the LZ is cold.'
'Fair enough.' Rekeying the microphone, Borsakov said, 'We're coming in.'
'Roger,' answered Tim from the ground. 'Be advised we do not have our principle target here yet.'
The months of enforced inactivity, at least of cardio-vascular inactivity, had taken their toll. Inning was flagging, however manfully he tried to keep up. Terry had already had to slow to something he considered a crawl, and still the Russian was falling behind.
They heard an almost comical toot-toot behind them and stopped. It was just too silly a sound to be dangerous. Looking to the rear, Welch saw the Russian he knew as Baluyev smiling broadly as he pulled up on his moped.
'Get on, Victor,' Baluyev said. Welch immediately began forcibly pushing his charge onto the little vehicle's seat. Once he was there, and his arms placed around Baluyev's mid-section, the former took off again smartly. Terry resumed his foot-gallop.
A number of mopeds belonging to the two teams passed Terry. Though numerous high-pitched horns sounded, nobody offered him a ride until Buckwheat Fulton came to a stop a few feet ahead. Without a word, Terry jumped on back, facing to the rear, his ass on a metal frame and his satchel clutched in his lap. Fulton gunned the thing, if 'gunned' was the right word for an engine that measured roughly 3.1 cubic inches and achieved under four horsepower.
Ahead, they could hear the steady wop-wop-wop of their helicopter's rotors, mixed in with the higher pitched whining of its jet engines. In his earpiece, Terry could hear Konstantin ticking off the names of the team members as they arrived and formed a perimeter around the oval island.
Konstantin reported, 'Captain Welch, I have everybody here, including Victor, except for you and Sergeant Fulton.'
At that moment the moped heeled hard right as Buckwheat turned it toward the island.
'We're about two minutes out,' Terry said. He felt for a moment the joy that hangs on the edge of a completed mission, which joy is usually expecting disaster to intervene and cut its life short. 'Start loading.'
Konstantin pointed at Baluyev. 'Get Victor aboard.' He had to shout to be heard over the helicopter's roar. Arm around Inning, Baluyev led him up and over the rear ramp, which Borsakov had dropped for faster, smoother loading. (Some models of the Hip have clamshell doors; this was a variant with a ramp able to handle a vehicle up to the size of an SUV.) Others began following by twos as Konstantin called off numbers.
The men were buckling in on the side-mounted troopseats when someone shouted, 'Look the fuck out.' Everyone turned their head to the helicopter's rear. They saw white teeth and the whites of eyes, both in their way smiling broadly, in a black face. The moped below that face came up the ramp before the driver twisted and dumped it on its side, causing it to slide down the cargo deck, bouncing off this and that and propelling legs upward.
'Take the fuck off!' Welch shouted from the cargo deck. He was rewarded with the sound of the chopper pulling pitch and lifting off the island. His stomach was pressed to his back. A low tree ahead brushed its branches along the underside just before the Hip twisted in air, assuming a generally easterly heading, on its way back to Thailand.
I love Russian helicopters!
D-112, Headquarters, State Peace
and Development Council, Napyidaw, Myanmar
A ceiling fan rotated gently over the desk, not so much fanning the moist air as just redistributing it a bit.
'Well, that went nicely,' said the general at the desk to Mr. Nyein. 'My compliments.'
'All the doing of the Americans and Russians, sir, I assure you,' Nyein modestly responded.
The general made a shushing motion with his hands. 'Perhaps,' he admitted, 'but let us not give the
