sight.
'Something tells me we're going to serve as target practice,' said Bolan. 'Let's tie up the horses.'
'We're going to stay here?' asked Nark.
'It's our only chance,' Bolan told him. 'He'd get us long before we ever reached those hills. This way he won't know if we're dead or alive, and he'll come to investigate.'
Just then the helicopter popped up. It fired a rocket, then dropped out of sight. Bolan and Nark hit the ground as the rocket swished through the treetops. They nearly lost their horses, which were sent rearing by the explosion. They managed to fight them down and get them tied to trees, spaced apart so one unlucky shot would not kill them all.
From his saddle Bolan took the RAW. 'Lend me your rifle,' he said to Nark.
'What are you going to do?'
'Not quite sure yet,' grunted Bolan. 'But as they say in the Boy Scouts, 'Be prepared.''
They swapped guns, and Bolan attached the launcher with the rocket to the underside of the M-16.
'If I get hit before I can fire this,' he said to Nark, 'simply pull the safety pin from the launcher and fire a normal round. The gases from the round will activate the launch.'
They went to the edge of the woods again, and Bolan knelt in the grass, awaiting the gunship with his puny rocket like David with his sling awaiting Goliath. He was sure the gunship would cease firing rockets and come looking for them. Not that it was short of rockets — in its four dispensers, Bolan knew, were seventy-six of those 2.75-inch folding fin toys — but Bolan also knew that a soldier had to account to a quartermaster. There was a limit to how many rockets the helicopter's crew could expend simply to flush out two men.
And Bolan guessed right. Two rockets later the Apache flew toward them. It came in low and slow, obviously figuring it had nothing to fear from the men below. After all, they were only armed with rifles, and an Apache was built to withstand even a .50-caliber machine gun.
The sky filled with the
As the gunship approached, the long barrel of the 30mm chain gun protruding from its belly moved, the gunner trying out the controls. Then the muzzle began winking and the sky growled.
Bolan and Nark threw themselves to the ground as a small storm swept the woods. High explosive rounds. Behind them they could hear the horses neighing in fear.
'You'd better go and keep an eye on the horses,' Bolan said to Nark.
The other ran back while Bolan crouched behind a yang tree. As the helicopter drew nearer, it changed course slightly. Bolan rose and moved through the trees, adjusting his position to the new trajectory.
A hundred yards from the woods the gunship paused, its gun moving from side to side. The muzzle winked as the gunner sprayed the trees with a long lateral burst. The trees around Bolan thudded from the impact of the exploding rounds. A second burst followed.
The gunship flew nearer. But when it reached the edge of the forest it stopped again as if afraid to proceed, as if some instinct of self-preservation told the pilot a hunter was waiting below. Orders are orders, however, and the helicopter moved over the trees, the wash from its blades flattening the canopy.
Bolan watched from behind a tree as the Apache inched its way overhead, visible through the leaves, the chain gun winking, hosing the woods with its hail of death. The noise was tremendous: the whining engines, the chopping blades, the growling gun, the exploding rounds.
As the machine passed, Bolan ran to place himself under its tail. He cocked the rifle and withdrew the safety pin on the launcher. Eyes tearing from the dust and bits of wood stirred up by the churning air, ears deafened by the constant din, Bolan followed his prey, waiting for an opening.
It came an instant later when the helicopter began turning. Perhaps the gunner had seen something and wanted a better angle of fire. The rotorwash blew some of the treetops apart to create a hole in the canopy. Bolan raised his rifle and fired.
The metal sphere hanging under the M-16's muzzle spun and flew to meet the green gray shape above. It punched a hole in the belly, there was a flash, and a ball of fire enveloped the helicopter. It fell through the treetops amid the sound of breaking tree limbs and shearing metal.
A blast of hot air knocked Bolan off his feet as the helicopter blew up. More explosions followed as the rockets and ammunition went. Bolan lay with his arms over his head while the earth heaved, metal and wood rained down.
Finally there was silence, broken only by the crackle of flames. Around him things were burning — wreckage, trees, leaves, bark, even himself. He jumped to his feet and beat out his smoking clothes.
Bolan heard the sound of running feet. 'Are you all right?' shouted Nark.
'So far,' said Bolan. He picked up his weapon and stared pensively at the destruction around him. A minute ago the forest was filled with the noise of a sleek killer machine at whose command sat two men. Now that was history, the men vaporized, the machine so much junk.
'We've lost the packhorse and the radio,' said Nark. 'The other horses are okay.'
On the way back to the horses Bolan said, 'Tiger must be rich to afford helicopters like that. They come fifteen million dollars apiece.'
'There's no shortage of money in that business,' Nark replied. 'In the States alone, illicit drugs is a ninety-billion-dollar-a-year industry. Ninety
'Yeah, well,' said Bolan, coming to his horse, 'let's see what we can do to change that.''
Chapter 5
From atop a ridge, hidden by bushes, Bolan and Nark surveyed the Tiger hardsite. The place reminded Bolan of one of those company towns that grow up in the middle of nowhere around a source of raw material. At one end was the industrial section with the heroin refinery, a long, three-story brick building with chimneys. Next to it were opium warehouses, a water tower, a power plant, tool sheds, and administration offices. At the other end was a residential section of neat villas with flowers, tree-lined alleys, shops and a park. But it was a militarized company town. The center was a parade ground with a flagpole, and there were barracks, lots of soldiers, an LZ with helicopters, and mortar facing the jungle.
The entrance to the town was a pair of heavy iron gates over which was a flag-bedecked arch. Written on the arch in Chinese characters was the name of Tiger's parent company, 93rd Kuomintang Division.
'They still use the old name,' Bolan observed.
'Very proud of it,' said Nark.
'Yeah, I guess from their point of view they're a real success story.'
'At least someone got something out of the Vietnam War,' Nark remarked.
It was the Vietnam War, or more precisely its outcome, that launched the 93rd into the heroin business. Prior to the war the division was basically a military organization dealing in opium on the side as a means of amassing money for the reconquest of the homeland.
This ambition was encouraged by the U.S., which used the 93rd, and other Nationalist army units that escaped when the Communists conquered in 1949, for the forays into China to destabilize the Communist regime.
The Vietnam War changed that. The U.S. defeat, with the emergence of Vietnam as a pro-Moscow satellite, upset the balance of power in the region, and to offset it, Washington was forced to seek a rapprochement with China. In due course the Communist regime was given diplomatic recognition, the trade embargo was lifted, President Nixon toasted Chairman Mao, and the CIA washed its hands of the 93rd. A twenty-year dream died.
To the men of the 93rd this was a bitter blow, and the division began disintegrating. Some of its members turned to banditry, while others prepared to emigrate to Taiwan, now the seat of the Nationalist regime. But a group of young men managed to arrest the disintegration process by offering its members the prospect of another
