“He offered to take you to his house for something to eat,” added the Dreamland translator. “Pretty high honor.”
“How do I say thanks but no thanks?” asked Dog. “We have to hit the road soon. Stoner should be just about wrapping up.”
AS THEY PASSEDthe point where the thief had turned off, Boston saw something flash in the jungle on the opposite side of the road. He hunkered toward the handlebars, pushing the throttle for more speed though he already had the engine red-lined.
Stoner shifted on the bike behind him. Boston yelled at him to stop moving; he was afraid of losing his balance. But the CIA officer was oblivious, and Boston nearly lost the bike as the trail clambered across the side of a ravine before flattening out.
Someone was shooting at them.
Bullets flew on both sides of the road, dirt exploding in small wavelets.
And then there was a loud boom behind him.
Somehow, Boston managed to keep the bike upright. The small village near the airstrip lay just ahead.
STONER THUMBED THEtape off another flash-bang as they sped down the hill toward the village.
The grenade he’d tossed off had temporarily slowed their pursuers, but he knew that it was just a matter of time before they closed in again. They had a jeep or something like a jeep as well as the other motorbike.
A group of children playing in the road ahead scattered as the bike approached. Stoner saw someone crouching near a building and realized he had a gun. Before he could do anything, he found himself flying through the air.
He realized he’d lost the M-84 stun grenade a half second before it exploded.
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BOSTON HIT THEdirt so hard his teeth slammed into his tongue. The pain made him scream; he jumped to his feet, head spinning in the dust. Someone grabbed him from behind, and he shoved his elbow hard into his side, fishing for his ruck and the submachine gun.
“Come on, come on,” yelled the man who’d grabbed him. “The airport. Come on.”
Stoner.
As Boston started to run, the bark of a heavy machine gun resonated off the nearby walls.
AS SOON ASDog heard the gunfire and explosions in the distance, he turned and ran back toward the airplane and Bison, who was standing guard near the wing.
“I’ll get the engines going and turn around so we can take off,” said Dog. “Get them aboard.”
He didn’t wait to hear an answer. He clambered into the cockpit, just barely patient enough to bring both engines on line before spinning the aircraft around. As he did, he caught sight of two figures running across the open field behind the blockhouse. Bison ran toward them, firing at something in the distance.
“Come on, damn it,” Dog yelled.
The plane stuttered, its brakes barely holding it down.
“Move! Move!”
BOSTON TURNED ANDsaw a jeep bouncing across the edge of the road behind him. A machine gun had been mounted in the rear.
He leveled his MP-5 in the bastard’s direction and emptied the clip. The front of the truck exploded and the vehicle flipped over, the gunner jumping out.
“In! Go!” Stoner yelled, pulling him toward the borrowed King Air.
Bison jumped up into the open rear doorway. Stoner yelled something, then threw himself inside the plane.
Boston took a look back. Two men were moving at the far end of the runway.
One was dragging a small sewer pipe with him.
No—he had a shoulder-launched missile.
The Whiplash trooper stopped, slapping a new magazine into his gun. By the time he had it ready to fire—no more than a few seconds later—the two men had disappeared.
There was a block building near the end of the runway.
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The plane began moving behind him, but Boston couldn’t worry about it now—he couldn’t let the bastards shoot his people down. He heard the engines revving as he started toward the building.
Where’d the bastards go?
Ordinarily, he would have taken the corner slowly—ordinarily, he would have had a squad with him, flanked the SOBs, maybe used grenades and machine guns and every piece of ordnance known to modern man.
But there wasn’t time for finesse.
Boston ran to the side of the building, finger edged against the trigger of his gun.
He saw them, the oversized blowpipe on the shoulder of the taller man.
Boston fired his MP-5 as the missile launcher exploded. For a moment, he saw everything stop; for a split second, he was part of the museum tableau, a display in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.
And then everything turned red. Then black.
DOG HAD ALREADYstarted down the runway when Bison yelled that Boston had gone back. He had too much momentum to stop; instead, he took the plane off the end of the runway, winging back quickly to land.
As he legged around, he saw smoke rise in a misshapen cloud, covering the building near the end of the runway.
He steeled himself for the worst as he touched down.
It took forever for Bison and Stoner to get out of the plane. When he saw they were out, Dog took off the brakes and trundled around once more, heart pounding—not because he worried that more guerrillas or whoever they were would appear, but because he dreaded having lost another man.
It was his fault. He could have worked with the Thai government. He should have.
He’d chosen not to because it would have involved politics and bullshit and delay.
His impatience had cost him a man.
Where the hell were the others?
“Go!” yelled Stoner finally, rushing into the forward cabin. “Go!”
“Boston?”
“Go!”
Bison appeared behind the CIA officer. “He’s okay. He just can’t hear. The SA-7 flew into the side of Page 132
the building and exploded. He shot the bastard just as he fired, and the missile went off course.”
Dog punched off the brakes and slammed the engines to full power.
Brunei
1800
“AFTER YOU GETa little more experience under your belt,” Mack told Starship, “you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.”
“I don’t know, Major.”
“Call me Mack, kid.”
Mack smiled at the young pilot. Even though the kid had the bad luck to be working for Zen, Starship was all right. Balls-out Eagle jock, just like Mack.
Well, not quite as good a pilot. But who was?
“Single-malt Scotch,” said Mack, raising his shot glass as he continued the young man’s education. They were sitting in a reception room that was part of Prince bin Awg’s lavish home. A butler had shown them here, and then vanished. “This is what real drinking is about.”
“Guess I can’t argue with that,” said Starship, downing his glass.
“Sip. Sip,” said Mack. “Like you’re going to be doing it for a while.”
“You sure we’re allowed to be drinking his Scotch?”
“Why do you think they parked us in this room?” said Mack, refilling the glasses. “You don’t understand Eastern hospitality, kid. It’s subtle, but it’s immense.”
“Immense and subtle at the same time?”
“Drink up.”
“There you are, Mack,” said the sultan’s nephew, entering the room. “And you’ve brought Lieutenant Andrews.”
The prince ignored Mack’s gesture toward the Scotch—he himself was an abstainer.
“The sultan wants you to attend dinner tonight,” said bin Awg. “He has been thinking over things.”
“Always up for dinner with the big guy. Right, Starship?”
“Um, I really have to get back.”
“No, no, Lieutenant, you come along as well,” said the prince. “Major Smith, His Majesty has a special surprise for you.”
“What’s that?” asked Mack.
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“He’s going to ask you to take charge of the air force.”
“Which air force?” said Mack.
“Our kingdom’s. We wish to modernize, and with a man of your stature, this could be easily accomplished.”