Something was wrong.
It took her a moment to realize they weren’t alone. She felt a cold tightening in her gut.
Shit!
She heard low voices, men on the move toward them from below, cutting off their intended direction.
The monk stood still as stone. How he’d heard them she didn’t know. She held the Glock and slipped off the safety.
No target came close enough. The men slipped by and she waited a moment before taking the radio. Narith grabbed her hand, but she pulled away. “They have to know more men are coming from this direction,” she whispered.
She then radioed the information back to Porter. She didn’t know how many.
“Okay, get the hell out of there.”
When it seemed they were safe, they left the copse of bamboo growth and continued on.
They went maybe another twenty yards when there was a shout, followed by bullets snapping at the limbs and leaves around them.
They broke into a full-out sprint.
At one point she glanced back and saw in the dimming light at least two, many three men dodging around trees and over limbs like a pack of wolves on the hunt.
She knifed through the thick growth, the sharp-bladed grasses cutting her arms and face and legs, the branches slapping at her with viciousness.
They entered another stretch of thick trees forcing an even slower pace. The heavy umbrella of canopy overhead made it difficult to see.
Avoiding branches and the roots and rocks on the ground slowed them to what amounted to a fast walk. She had no idea what direction they were going in now.
Their pursuers were close behind and she needed Narith to go faster, but he was beginning to tire and she sensed they would be caught soon and she was the only one with a weapon, unsure how she would handle a gun battle.
They moved through a thicket of heavy bushes and tangled, exposed roots, almost going blind now.
When they emerged and took few more steps, pushing aside heavy fronds, the ground beneath them dropped away.
Kiera grabbed for something to stop her. She found only grass as she slipped down a steep incline.
Failing to slow herself down she tucked the best she could as she crashed through brush and rock and then into space and into some branches of trees.
The mass of tangled branches swooped her in with a jolt. The shock doubled when she went through them and back to the ground and slammed into a rock, followed by a final slide down to the bottom of the hill.
Unable to draw a breath, she lay on a slope beside exposed roots, waiting for her lungs to refill.
I’m in bad shape, she thought, struggling to control her emotions, to find air.
Blood seeped down her forehead into her eyes and she wiped that away and now began to gasp. Every attempt at breath piercing in pain, like a hot blade thrust into the lung. The left lung felt collapsed.
She knew what that might mean. She knew the terms and had seen the outcome in the backcountry of a young daredevil skier. Atelectasis. Partial pneumothorax. Very possibly a quick death.
She knew to turn off her back and move to her side, then squeeze her lungs slowly, then turn back.
Wait. Let air come, she told herself.
Cautiously, painfully, she expanded her rib cage, letting the movement pull the diaphragm out, and hopefully create enough vacuum to pull air back in. She wanted to scream at the ensuing distress, but even screaming was impossible.
Kiera didn’t yet know the rest of her condition, if she could move, if any bones were broken.
She could hear the men high up on the ledge talking. Then they began firing burst after burst down into the trees even though they could see nothing.
She had no idea which way to roll, or how capable she was of moving. So she stayed put close to the trunk of the tree where she’d ended up.
She listened to her own painful gasping breath, hoping the sound didn’t carry.
Bullets ripped through the leaves and branches, and she could do nothing but hope none of them hit her…
48
Moving from the rock field into the jungle, Cole, favoring his left leg a bit, forgot any discomfort the moment he heard the music of sporadic gunfire ahead.
Cole and Besson broke into a jog through the massive trees, the security team leading the way.
The gunfire ahead slowed and came to a stop.
The jungle floor here was open, the trees high and tight and little sunlight nourished the undergrowth making their advance easier.
Besson finally got in contact with the leader of the gang. He spoke to the gang leader in English and Chinese, then turned to Cole. “It’s getting dark and they’ve had casualties. The leader wants to wait until morning.”
“Fuck him,” Cole said. “He couldn’t wait and now he’s backing down. He should have overrun them by now. He’s not running the show.”
“They’re his men.”
“They want to get paid now and in the future, they finish this fight now.”
It was like a lowly sergeant telling a commanding officer how things were going to go. Cole’s disposition jumped from joy to rage in a quick-step as they worked their way to the site of the battle.
That a bunch of ragtag Hmong and some monks and Michael Vale’s kid were helping Hunter’s granddaughter infuriated Cole. “This is nuts! I want them all dead but the girl. And I want that statue and if we have to kill every sonofabitch on this mountain we will.”
The biggest treasure in all Asia within reach wasn’t going to slip away if he had to kill every stinking monk and Hmong within a hundred miles. And maybe as well the leader of this gang of drug runners and poachers.
The vision of the golden elephant on display at one of the world’s biggest new gambling resorts came to Cole. He saw it in a glass case on a platform behind red velvet ropes. Gamblers would bow to it on their way into the pits. What a great attraction. But beyond that, there was the power of the thing, especially among the Vietnamese.
There was also the fortune. And Cole wondered just what else might be on that plane. He knew the rumors about Hunter. The man who was going to build the counter-insurgency out of Thailand. Could well be some very interesting documents and maybe a list of accounts and names.
Cole pushed through the jungle, his blood up. Again he was thinking maybe he and the Hunter girl could come to some arrangement.
“I think I can work something out that will benefit all of us,” he said out loud.
Besson laughed drily. “I warned you about young women. They can’t wait to bury old dogs like us, get the money and get on with life. Be careful what you wish for.”
“I am careful,” Cole said. “I didn’t last this long not being careful. But there are times when risk is necessary.”
The notion that these thugs wouldn’t finish this because they didn’t like fighting in the dark put Cole in a vicious mood. “They’re getting paid, and very well paid, to be fighters, not goddamn little girls.”
But he knew he had to control himself when they reached the Ks, as Besson called the offspring of the former Kuomintang. Losers beget losers, apparently.
The leader was a slit-eyed Wa thug sporting a blue bandana around his head, a mustache, the whole drug-lord bandit deal.
When they met up with the gang, Cole let Besson handle the negotiations, but Besson couldn’t get the little bastard to budge. Threatening them wasn’t getting anywhere. In this no-man’s land, they had the balance of power and knew it.
“They don’t like to fight at night,” Besson said. “They’ve taken casualties and they know they’re up against some very good fighters.”
“He know how many of these ‘good fighters’ he’s up against?”
“They don’t know. But Vale and company have good positions in the rocks with good fields of fire.”
Cole tried to hold back his disgust. He said to Besson. “Promise them whatever they demand. We’ll deal with it later. I want this situation resolved now. This has gone on long enough. And find out from this guy if he knows if the Hunter woman is here. I might be able to deal directly with her.”
Besson had another discussion with the bandit leader, then turned to Cole. “He says the American woman and a monk attempted to escape. They were shot as they jumped off a cliff. No chance of survival.”
“They know this for certain?”
“Yes. They apparently pumped a lot of bullets into them to make sure.”
The news succeeded in further angering Cole about these thugs. He’d really built up in his mind the idea of meeting Kiera Hunter. It would have been somehow apocryphal. He was sure he could have made a deal.
Her being dead hit him harder than he expected. His fantasy of getting to know Neil Hunter’s granddaughter and working something out, now gone. And these bastards killed her and now didn’t want to fight in the dark.
“The longer we’re up here,” Cole said, “things can happen. I don’t want to wait. You tell these goddamn grandchildren of the Kuomintang this has to be done now. They’ll get a very big reward.”
Besson again talked to the leader and again got nowhere. “He won’t budge. More men will be here in the morning. He has a cousin who runs another gang and they’re only a half-day out. It’ll double their force to nearly sixty fighters. He says the five or six in the rocks will be easily overrun.”
“Five or six. That’s what he now estimates? A minute ago he had no idea.”
“Yes.”
Cole swore bitterly to himself, but he couldn’t afford to insult the Wa commander. That could only make things worse.
“Well, if I can’t make a deal with Hunter I’ll make one with Porter Vale. I want to get close to where they are holed up so I can talk to him.”
Besson spoke with the commander, then turned to Cole. “He wants to know if you want to see the plane?”
“No. I don’t want to see the fucking plane. I want to talk to Vale.”
***
Porter shifted his position in the rocks when he heard the voices, one definitely American. Had to be Cole. What the hell is this? he wondered.
He figured Cole and Besson had arrived when he heard the chopper pass overhead, but he hadn’t expected them so soon. They obviously found a landing zone not far away.
He was even more surprised when Cole, much closer now, yelled to him.
“Porter Vale, you hear me? You have something that might belong to me.”
A moment’s silence. A ploy?
“I’m not here to kill you or your friends. We need to resolve this in a way that benefits both of us. You hear me Vale?”
Porter didn’t respond. He was looking for the exact position of the voice.
“Vale, you hear me? Answer me if you want a way out of this. I wanted to deal with Hunter’s granddaughter but, like your buddy McKean, she’s dead. It’s you now. Time to get smart or get everyone killed. Your choice.”
Porter had the general area. He figured the distance and placed the sights of the AK where he could spray with some possibility of finding the target. His finger wrapped the trigger.
C’mon a little closer
. Porter silently encouraged Cole.
“You don’t want to deal, that’s your choice,” Cole said. “We have a lot more men on the way. You have no options. Either you deal with the reality now, or you’ll all end up dead later. There’s no other option available.”
Porter started to put pressure on the trigger.
Cole said, “There’s no way off this mountain for you and your friends, Vale. You think anyone’s coming to help you, I assure you that’s not going to happen. The ones you sent back are dead. We have you surrounded. Give me what I came for, you walk. Otherwise we’ll bury you all right here on this goddamn mountain. And then we’ll go get the rest of the Hmong. Government forces will be coming up here soon, Vale. You know what that’s going to mean.”
Then a French-accented voice. “Cole, this is Luc Besson. You must understand. It’s over.
La femme est morte
. Your job is finished. I will guarantee your safety. I will also be very generous. I can arrange things for you. I have many powerful contacts in Vientiane. You don’t cooperate, you’re condemning the last of these rebels to death. Do you understand what’s at stake here?”
Porter thought about Kiera and Narith and realized they’d never had a chance. Once he’d heard the shots earlier, knowing they weren’t from a handgun but from heavier weapons, there was no other conclusion to draw. Still, he’d hoped against hope.
Now that was gone.
He stared in agony and dismay into the darkness, feeling a sinking sensation. Kiera Hunter had gotten to him. Something he’d resisted. He’d had plenty—too many—women over the last couple of years and hadn’t been interested in getting in deep with another one. But Kiera Hunter was different. That hurt him to the quick. Now all he wanted was to get the men responsible for all of this disaster.
Porter had no interest in responding to Cole and Besson with anything but bullets. What he wanted now was a target. The two of them together. Kill the two-headed snake. Porter focused grimly on the jungle around the gravesite, searching for any new sign of movement, a hushed voice, a moving leaf where there was no wind.
Let me see you.
He studied the leaf and limb patterns in the growing darkness as he walked his sight back and forth, letting his awareness fine-tune to the cloak of gathering night around him, seeking the slight, nearly imperceptible alternation of the natural pattern.
When need be, he knew himself. He knew what he was capable of.
He waited. Then he heard the low murmur of muted voices to his left near where Cole and Besson had called out their offer.
He sought a fix on the sound.
Porter pressed his cheek against the warm, wooden stock of the AK-47 as he worked over in his mind how they would handle this. Night was their friend. When the daily monsoon rains, always like clockwork, hit near morning that would be an even better cover.
It might take a miracle shot, but he couldn’t resist.
He squeezed off two short bursts in the direction of the voice of the American and the Frenchman.
All hell broke loose as he shifted position quickly in anticipation of the retaliatory fire.
Then the firing stopped.
“Alright,” Cole yelled. “Have it your way. You’ll all die here with your friends. Tell the Hmong they’re all going to die. It’s the end.”