Countdown: The Liberators-ARC (13 page)

"Point," Hampson conceded. Then he pointed with his chin at a well dressed blonde with prominent breasts. "But then again, she has neither a gut nor a phone."

"Point. You figure they're natural?"

Hampson, though a former "delta," or Special Forces medic, shook his head. "Out of my league, training-wise. But probably not. There is no such perfection in nature."

"Terry," Little Joe said, nodding his head in the direction of a short and prosperous looking businessman, approaching with one underling in tow and a newspaper tucked under one of the businessman's arms. He had thin lips, long earlobes, a flat, wide nose, and the somewhat subdued epicanthic fold often found among the Burmese.

"I see our Mr. Nyein, Joe," Terry answered. "Split up, per plan."

Little Joe and Rattus Hampson cut right without another word, except to each other, heading to the lounge's bar. The other members of the team were already waiting, scattered about in ones and twos. Nyein's flunky headed towards the bar to link up with Little Joe and Rattus, and lead them to their hotel. When the other team members saw the flunky shake hands and then leave with Hampson and Venegas, they began to follow in a loose gaggle, Buckwheat taking up the rear. The flunky dialed a number on a cell phone, said nothing, then put the cell phone away.

Terry, meanwhile, took the nearest seat. Mr. Nyein sat down next to him.

Nyein opened his paper and began to read, or to seem to. His cell phone rang. He put down his newspaper, answered the call and began to speak. "Our friend Pugnacio," he said, referring to Boxer, "asked me to lend you a hand."

Terry took out his own cell and pretended to make a call. "And we appreciate this," he answered.

"The problem is, however, that the entire situation is much more complex than Pugnacio led me to believe."

"This doesn't surprise me, somehow," Terry said.

Still seeming to speak into the phone, Nyein said, "I will get up and leave. Wait two minutes and follow me but no further than the pickup ramp. I will swing by to get you in a blue BMW 328. After that . . . "

Nyein made the introductions. "Captain Welch, Major Konstantin, Mr. Naing. Captain Welch, Mr. Naing is Mr. Inning's attorney here. Major Konstantin is a . . . "

"I am a business associate of Victor's, Captain Welch," said the major in almost accent free English.

Terry took one look at Konstantin, heard his spoken English, and said, "You're Spetznaz."

"Not precisely," the Russian corrected. "Once upon a time I was in a somewhat similar group. Now I work for Victor. It pays the bills."

"And you are here to get him out?"

Naing, as typically Burmese looking as Nyein, answered, "Everyone wants Victor freed, Captain Welch. Since Myanmar is an outcast state, the government needs him out there feeding us arms. Major Konstantin has not the connections to keep the business going . . . "

"Victor is very cagey and clever that way," Konstantin said, stone faced.

"You need what?" Nyein asked. "Arms? Transportation somewhere?" The Burmese shrugged. "No matter. While Russia itself doesn't seem to care about Mr. Inning, certain interests within Russia want him back to doing the work he does so very well. And I need to be paid."

"Which you will not be," Konstantin said, "until my principal is free." The Russian turned toward Terry, asking, "What is it you need with Victor?"

"I don't have the full list," Welch answered, though that was only true insofar as he didn't have the full requisition on his person. "In general terms, from him we need arms and ammunition for a small battalion, plus some special equipment, radios, night vision, and some light armored vehicles. Perhaps some few other things in his purview."

"I don't even know where he stockpiles the ammunition," Konstantin said. "I only know that he does and that he's got at least several regiments' worth of arms, to include eight hundred Abakan rifles, stashed away."

"They any good?" Terry asked. "I've never fired one."

"The Abakans? Yes, Captain, they're quite good in terms of accuracy and reliability though the ergonomics are suboptimal. My team has them here along with our version of those nonlethal electronic pistols your people seem to like. As for the Abakans, mechanical training is . . . difficult. And the sharp edges on the metal? Ouch! Not to mention the peep-"

Mr. Naing ahemed. "I hate to interrupt your professional discussion, gentlemen, but we do have a problem to solve."

"Well my people had a solution," Konstantin said, "until our helicopter broke down. Fortunately, we were not in the air at the time." The major sighed at the depravity of man. "Time after time I've told Victor, ‘You must maintain the aircraft.' But would he listen? No. And we were ready to launch in three days. My men have been spending the last two weeks rehearsing, to include driving in this miserable excuse for a city."

"You have a solution provided you have a helicopter?" Terry asked.

"With Mr. Naing here, along with a certain amount of interested indifference on the part of the government, yes, we do. Why?"

Terry smiled, "Well as it so happens . . . "

What a sadness, Mr. Naing thought, that though we were a part of the British Empire, and to a considerable extent inherited the English legal system, we did not, however, opt to keep up British integrity.

On the other hand, he added, with a mental shrug, at least we can say we have honest judges who, when bought, stay bought.

Naing stood and bowed, reaching across the judge's desk to shake hands. The leather satchel he'd brought with him to the judge's office remained on the floor, even when the barrister turned to leave.

The judge could count the money in the satchel later.

D-113, Insein Jail, Yangon, Myanmar

The money had been for nothing more than to get the judge to agree to a hearing on a particular day. The money being adequate to something not outside of bounds anyway, the judge had agreed. Of course to get to the court, Victor would have to be taken from the jail where he was being held, pending trial.

Located, for the most part, within a sixteen sided, walled complex, perhaps three hundred meters in diameter, the jail was about six hundred meters from the Irrawaddy River. Insein tended toward the primitive, with most waste functions being handled by pot and bucket rather than via plumbing. It stank far, far more than the surrounding rice paddies. Insein-pronounced "insane"-was also notorious for torturing, holding, dumping, and on occasion hanging political prisoners.

There were, however, better and worse conditions. At least one Burmese prodemocracy dissident had had a complex specially built to house her under approximately civilized conditions. Victor Inning, as someone considered by the government to be a past and potentially a future asset, had also been given rather better than normal treatment.

He was unsurprised when Mr. Naing showed up at his cell door, accompanied by two guards. "Court appearance today, Victor," the Burmese lawyer said. "I've moved the judge to hear your habeas petition ahead of schedule."

Inning nodded, stood, and began to walk to his cell door. His eyes searched Naing's face for any clue that rescue might be imminent, but the lawyer's face was set in concrete.

Seeing one of the guards holding up a pair of handcuffs, Victor turned about and placed his hands behind his back. The guard cuffed the right wrist and then the left. He tightened the cuffs, causing them to make a slight clicking sound, but no more than was required for security's sake. Inning's circulation was, in any case, not impinged upon.

Once outside the cell block, Victor glanced at the permanent gallows standing near the southwest sections of the wall, past the women's quarter. Even though he thought it very unlikely he would end up standing on the structure, the sight still sent a chill up his spine.

Approaching the blue-painted, Chinese-made van, Inning was struck by the word "POLICE," lettered in white across the vehicle's side. How odd, it is, he thought, that fifty years after the English pulled out of here, the word for those who enforce law and order is still in the English language.

The van was actually half van and half truck, having a four seat cab up front and a truck bed behind. One of the guards opened the door for Mr. Naing and Victor, while the other put a hand atop Victor's head to guide him away from hitting it on the door frame.

They're being amazingly polite, Victor thought. Almost as if they expected me to become a free man, even an important free man, soon. Again he looked at his attorney's face and again he was met with a cold mask.

Whatever little hope Victor might have had then evaporated when the door closed and he could see that it had no interior latches. A quick glance to the other side of the van confirmed that Mr. Naing was as trapped as he was.

Oh, well, thought Victor, even if I have to go back it will still be nice to get away from the stink of the prison for a while. I never before knew that some stenches were so bad olfactory fatigue wouldn't set in.

The van's engine started with a cough. Waving at the guard on the gatehouse at the southern end of the prison, the driver put it in gear and began moving forward. By the time they reached the gate, it was open. The van pulled through and turned right.

Timer's friends called him . . . "Tim." Major Konstantin called him "Sergeant Musin." Timer Musin was a Tatar. Part Tatar, anyway; somewhere in his ancestry were people with eyes not dissimilar to the Burmese. Somewhere in his ancestry were men who had ridden horseback with the Golden Horde.

But me? Nooo. I get to ride this miserable excuse of an upengined moped.

On the plus side, Tim wasn't much taller than the Burmese norm, though his shoulders were considerably wider. His eyes, rather than having the epicanthic fold, were round and green. This didn't matter as his sunglasses covered them. What did matter is that, as a former sniper, Musin had eyesight much better, at 20/8, than the human norm.

Though normally blond, Sergeant Musin's hair had been dyed black the night before. It wasn't the right texture to blend with the locals, though, and so he would cover that, too, with a helmet, before taking off on his-to be charitable-motorcycle.

Musin was perched atop his bike sipping one of the vile local soft drinks when the gate to his north opened. From one hundred meters away, Victor may as well have been sitting at a distance of a mere forty. He was easily recognizable to Tim as being his boss of many years.

Musin pushed a button on his cell phone to dial Konstantin's number, thus initiating an overall conference call among the members of the two co-joined teams. While the call was going through, he put the helmet on his head. By the time he finished that, his earpiece was saying, "Konstantin here, Sergeant Musin."

"I have them, Comrade Major. They've turned off to the west, toward the river. I am following."

CHAPTER TWELVE

Those who ‘abjure' violence can only do so

because others are committing violence on their behalf

-George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

D-113, Insein Road, Yangon

Tim made his last cell phone report as the half van carrying Victor entered the five way intersection where Insein Road joined with and became Pyay Road. With that report, he turned his motorcycle to the left, following University Avenue past the University itself to Inya Lake, a large, tree-fringed watery park within the city, largely surrounded by the mansions of the wealthy. At the intersection of University and Inya Road, he again turned left until the next right turn. This led into the park.

One of the requirements of the mission was that the helicopter that would pick them up needed open space to either land or, at least, come to a very low hover. Open space that was not normally filled with vehicular traffic was generally hard to come by in the center of this city of six million. The lake, at least, was open. It was also shallow enough to wade into for a pickup, should that become necessary.

The helicopters had already taken off from the southern tip of Mae Hong Son Province, Thailand; so much Tim knew. At this point one should be loitering over the river to the east, midway between Yangon and Onhne. Another one, the backup, was about thirty kilometers further out. The third, unknown to Musin, was back in Mae Hong Son with two flight simulators in the back. Both of the active choppers carried auxiliary fuel tanks to give them nearly six hundred miles of one way range. Given that the round trip from Mae Hong Son to Yangon and back was only about forty percent of that, that allowed for a lot of loiter time.

Which is really good, though Sergeant Musin, as he parked his motorcycle by one of the public parking spots edging the park that surrounded the lake, since traffic was especially bad today and we're a fucking hour behind schedule. Also good that the cops weren't in enough of a hurry to take some other route to the courthouse.

Tim unstraddled the bike, unfixing from the rear seat the small red satchel he carried. This contained a radio for contacting the helicopters, his submachine gun and a half dozen smoke grenades, two red and the rest white. The satchel also held two cartons of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka. These were slightly less important to Tim than his mission baggage.

He walked to the northeast, along a very narrow causeway to where an oval island seemed almost to float on the lake. Four mansions on the mainland and on two other nearby peninsulas framed the oval island. Sergeant Musin took a quick glace left and right and saw two more red satchels, just like his. Also good; Kravchenko and Litvinov are on station. And now, if traffic and the police will just cooperate . . .

D-113, Green Elephant Restaurant, Yangon

Terry Welch and Major Konstantin sipped tea on the sidewalk fronting the restaurant. Both were a little nervous at the hour's delay, Konstantin chain smoking while Welch drummed his fingers on the table.

Slightly to the north, nearly next door, in fact, Rattus and Little Joe made a show of inspecting the wares in Augustine's Antiques. Augustine's wares ran heavily to bronze- and silverware, wooden and stone statuary, furniture both local and colonial, and porcelain. The stuff was sometimes carefully displayed, while some wares were stacked to the ceiling. For all either of the two men knew, it was even as antique as claimed.