was dwindling. The attack had been so sudden, so unexpected, that only the handful of soldiers actually on guard had been able to respond, and those few had been quickly overwhelmed.
The alert phone continued to buzz.
'Victory!' a new voice called from the door. 'Victory!'
'Arrow!' Lin replied, giving his code name as countersign. He stood up as a trio of soldiers cautiously entered the control tower room. The leader wore the green uniform and collar device of a Burmese army lieutenant. The two soldiers were more raggedly clad in a mix of uniforms. Drug army conscripts, Lin decided. One held an AK-47, the other an American M-16.
The officer smiled. 'Major Lin?'
'I am Lin.' He lowered his Uzi. 'Welcome!'
The lieutenant turned away. 'Do it.'
Both soldiers opened fire at the same time, the bullets punching through Lin's body, sending him sprawling back across the tower radar console.
Lieutenant Bhan Sun had carried out his orders. There'd been a grave risk that the Thais might learn just how thoroughly their military was penetrated by Hsiao's people.
That could not be allowed to happen. He made certain that Lin was dead before leaving the tower. Outside, the last of the That soldiers and airmen were being rounded up and shot.
There would be no enemy witnesses to what had happened at U Feng.
CHAPTER 12
The night had been miserable. A heavy rain during the hours before dawn had soaked Batman to the skin. Swarms of mosquitos had descended on him from the nearby river, bringing with them glowing memories of countless films and lectures on the dangers of malaria in the tropics. He'd swallowed a couple of Dapsone pills as preventative and smeared insect repellent from his survival kit on his face and hands… not that the stuff seemed to have much effect.
Between the rain and the insects, he'd gotten little sleep during the night.
Throughout those hours, Batman's SAR radio had remained silent, though he checked it periodically and broadcast his Mayday message as frequently as he dared. He was still afraid of being tracked down by whoever had launched on him, but the need to contact the That Air Force or his own people far outweighed the need for radio silence. That faceless enemy out there in the jungle might home on his transmission and run him down, sure, if they had the equipment, if they had the trained personnel, and if they had the desire; on the other hand, friendly forces would never find him if he remained silent.
So he kept calling… but he was more certain than ever that the valley walls were blocking his signals. He would have to climb higher to have an unrestricted line of sight. The problem with that idea was that he would be leaving Malibu. He was sure his RIO must be in the same valley somewhere.
They'd ejected at almost the same instant. The fact that Batman had not seen his partner's chute meant little. He'd had other things on his mind at the time.
Batman didn't let himself think about the possibility that Malibu's chute had failed to open at all.
He'd spent most of the previous afternoon and evening quartering as much of the valley as he could reach, which, he was forced to admit, hadn't been much. Visibility in the jungle was less than thirty feet, It was possible he'd passed within ten yards of his RIO and never known he was there.
He'd felt more hopeful as he searched along the riverbank and found tracks… dozens of them, like bulldozer tread marks in the mud, but narrower. It looked as though someone had been driving construction vehicles back and forth along the river. They seemed relatively fresh, which suggested that someone ? loggers, possibly ? were working the area, that this stretch of jungle was not as isolated as he'd thought.
But after several more hours of searching, Batman was forced to admit that he couldn't tell which direction the vehicles had been moving, north or south, and while they weren't old, they still might have been several days old.
And he still needed to find Malibu.
Finally, as the unseen sun began warming the jungle floor, burning off the mist which had lingered there since the rain, Batman decided that his best bet was to get to the top of a hill where he could signal an aircraft if it passed overhead.
The river ran north-south, which meant Thailand ? assuming he had strayed over the border ? lay that way. To the left, the valley's east slope gave him the quickest access to an unrestricted hilltop.
And possibly from up there he could look down on the valley's treetop canopy and spot Malibu's chute.
He started climbing.
'Thanks for seeing me, CAG,' Tombstone said as he stepped into the cramped office. He'd not had much sleep the night before, and he was feeling the effects this morning.
'No problem, Stoney.' CAG looked drawn and tired as well. 'Pull up a chair and sit yourself.'
He sat. 'I'd like to know what's being done for Batman and Malibu,' he said without preamble.
Marusko sighed. 'Not a hell of a lot, Stoney. Not yet, anyway. Half the brass on this boat were up in Bangkok last night. You must have heard.'
Tombstone nodded. 'A little.'
'The admiral was pushing for a full-scale SAR effort, but the Thais turned us down.'
'But why?' The Thais had a fair-sized air force, but most of their planes were old and dated, Vietnam-era stuff like Broncos and F-5s, plus a single squadron of F-16 Falcons. 'We could make a TARPS run, and-'
'It was a TARPS mission that got us in this mess, remember?' Marusko shook his head. 'Things could be getting hot up there. After our meeting last night, something had the Thais stirred up. And the Hawkeyes we had on station over central Thailand picked up what might have been an invasion.'
'An invasion! Who? The Burmese?'
Marusko fingered a ballpoint pen on his desk. 'That's the working theory for the moment. The Burmese are denying it, of course.' He shrugged. 'The… ah… historical animosity between Thailand and Burma goes back a long way. Sometimes the Burmese shell the That side of the border just for the hell of it, it seems.'
'Still, that shouldn't stop us from sending in a search and rescue.
Those are our people up there, CAG.'
'I know that.' Marusko's voice was hard. 'But we're not running a SAR.
That's being left to the Thais.'
'No SAR! Shit, CAG! We can't just leave them up there!'
For Tombstone, the situation had an eerie sense of de ja vu. When his wingman ? another friend ? had been shot down off Korea three months before, distance and political considerations had prevented an immediate search-and-rescue effort. The look on Marusko's face told him that this situation was very much the same.
'Tombstone, you have to understand that the That government is very sensitive about their northern border. They've had trouble with the Burmese for centuries… and there are constant charges of corruption and connivance on their part regarding the drugs that come through that region out of the Golden Triangle. They agreed to have our two planes come into the area to help with recon the other day… but inviting our whole SAR force is something else entirely.'
'Oh, come on, CAG! We could manage with just a couple of planes-'
'Tombstone, we don't even know if Batman and Malibu are still alive.
Two-oh-three didn't sight their chutes, remember.'
'Damn it, we've got to know!'
'Look, it's out of our hands, okay? I just got off the phone with Colonel Kriangsak just before you walked in here.'
