Forged in Honor (1995) (53 page)

"Yes, of course, just as you directed. Twenty two-man teams are inside the Defense compound in civilian clothes, all with radios. I also moved a Strike platoon of thirty men through the tunnel early this morning-they are in the small conference room across from the main press room."

Tan swiveled his chair around to look at a map of the city pinned to the wall. "You also moved a Strike company here this morning, did you not?"

"Yes. A hundred-man company with two helicopters is outside in our parking lot on standby. Also, as you directed, I informed the army to keep its units around Rangoon on standby alert if additional forces are needed to stop the students."

Tan shrugged his massive shoulders. "Then why are you acting so concerned? We have covered everything."

The colonel kept his brow furrowed. "The young woman who died last night would not speak to us. I knew she was hiding something and ordered the use of electrodes. She killed herself by swallowing her tongue. One of the other students told us the dead woman had just returned from a camp on the border."

Tan's eyes widened. "Xu Kang's camp?"

"The student did not know, but I think we should assume SO.

Lowering his head in thought, Tan made up his mind. "I will not attend the conference. I'll remain here and watch it on television while we monitor the student situation."

In the cavernous basement of the Congress Hall, the twenty-one-man assault force fell silent as Xu Kang strode down the steps followed by his eight remaining Horsemen.

The old Sawbaw wore his Karen sword in his beaded waistband. On his chest, pinned to his black tunic, were the medals presented to him by Chiang Kai-shek. His eyes glowing and his shoulders back, he marched up to Stephen and said confidently, "I just left our mortar units in the park. They are ready."

Stephen lifted his small, silenced submachine gun and pulled back the charging handle to chamber a round. Facing the assault force, he pointed to a small soldier who held a field phone and had a spool of wire affixed to a pack on his back. "Corporal Chee will be trailing wire so that I can keep in contact with the communications team and Colonel Banta on the Congress Hall roof. Colonel Banta has radio communications with the other units and will keep me informed of their progress. As I told you during the rehearsals, our radios will not work in the basement or tunnel. But we all know where to go and what must be done. Each one of you has lost a member of your family to Swei and his henchmen. In just minutes you will face the killers. Remember your family, remember how our people and villages were destroyed. Remember the Ri!"

Stephen nodded to his father, who stepped forward and took his submachine gun off his shoulder. "Fellow soldiers, our ancestors are with us and very proud. We fear no pye dogs, for our hearts are filled with revenge for what they have done to our people. We go into the cave for the future of our sons, our daughters, and our grandchildren. We go into the cave for Burma." He turned and nodded to his Horsemen, and they opened the tunnel door.

Together, father and son stepped into the darkness.

Seated in the fifth row on the aisle, Josh glanced at his watch, then looked over the crowded room that he would guess held just under a hundred people. He leaned over and whispered to Fletcher, "I'm going to open my bag in a few seconds and then push it over to you. Take out the stack of papers and hand them to me when I need them."

Fletcher dipped his head and whispered back, "The others are in place--good luck."

Josh leaned over, unzipped the bag at his feet, and took out a cassette recorder that he put in his lap. He scooted the bag toward Fletcher and settled back in his chair.

In his office directly above the conference room, General Swei slipped on his suit jacket with the help of an aide. The information minister tapped his watch and said, "It's time, Prime Minster. The cabinet and military chiefs have just taken their seats."

Swei collected his notes and shifted his gaze to his chief of security. "Any problems?"

The colonel came to attention. "No, General. My men are in place and have reported nothing unusual."

Swei nodded toward the four bodyguards waiting by the door. "Colonel, I want you and these security men to wait outside the side door of the conference room. I'll enter the room alone."

The chief's face screwed up as if he were in pain. "General, I don't recommend you-"

Swei raised one hand and cut him off. "It's about image, Colonel. Just do as I say."

When the information minister opened the office door, Swei adjusted his tie and strode confidently through the opened door.

The press room went quiet as the side door opened and the information minister walked onto the stage and approached the podium. He bowed his head and said, "Members of the government, ambassadors, guests, and members of the international press, it is a great pleasure to have you with us on this glorious Martyrs' Day. The prime minister has prerecorded his speech to the people in our language. It will be aired on television and radio as he speaks to you this morning in English. It is now my pleasure to introduce the savior of Myanmar, our esteemed prime minister, Ren Swei."

The cabinet officers and military chiefs of staff rose as the side door opened and Swei stepped out with a pleasant, practiced smile.

Raising his hands to stem the polite applause, he approached the podium and bowed his head to the audience.

When he looked back up, his face radiated confidence. "My beloved countrymen, it is time for change. We have been living too long in darkness bound by the chains of our past. Today, those chains are broken forever. Together we will ..."

In the basement below the conference room, two rooms down from the military command center, two guards stood at the heavy metal door to the tunnel. Hearing a buzzer, one of the guards opened a small, hinged metal flap to reveal a three-inch-square bulletproof window.

Stephen held his pass up to the glass and spoke into a mike box affixed to the door. "I have a report from General Tan for the on-duty operations officer."

The guard nodded and closed the flap, then began to unbolt the door. Stephen readied his machine-pistol, but two Horsemen suddenly pulled him back and Xu Kang stepped up to take his place. When the door opened, Xu Kang fired a short, muffled burst into the startled face of the young guard, shoved the door back with his shoulder, and killed the second guard with a three-round burst. Stephen and Horseman Lante rushed in and took up positions on opposite sides of the small room's door that led into the command center.

Stephen waited until more men had come in and lined up behind him, then grasped the doorknob. He nodded to his father and swung the door open. The Chindit and the Horsemen went left in the hallway. Stephen and his men went right.

Upstairs, Swei paused and looked directly into the bright lights of the television cameras. "As of today, Myanmar is no longer a closed country. I have ordered the borders opened, and travel visas will be issued to any Burmese citizens desiring to travel. And-" The cabinet members and some dignitaries rose, clapping loudly. Swei glanced down at his notes and smiled as he raised his hands. "-and with our new loans the rebuilding programs will begin immediately. Irrigation and well-drilling equipment are being shipped to our harbors as I speak, and ..."

Stephen peered around a corner of the hallway into the modern command center. Then he ducked back and nodded to three of his men. Taking a breath to steel himself, he nodded a second time and they all rushed in, shooting from the hip. The officers and enlisted men sitting at the consoles jerked and groaned as the burst of bullets stitched their backs.

The others in the room turned in shock at the muffled pops and metallic clinks of weapon bolts slamming forward in rapid succession. It was over in five seconds, leaving an eerie mist of gun smoke. Hearing a voice, Stephen spun and faced a small television screen within a console. He heard Swei speaking of giving amnesty to the insurgents who had fought the government.

The assault team captain ran up and gestured behind him.

"The Chindit and his Horsemen have cleared the communications room and offices."

Stephen pulled a map from his pocket, laid it on the console, and pointed. "Have your men bolt these three doors that lead up to the first floor. Leave only the lobby staircase open as per our plan."

The captain barked to his men to follow him and strode toward the hallway. Seconds later, Xu Kang and his Horsemen entered the hazy room filled with death and gray, wispy tendrils of pungent cordite. Stepping over three bodies, the old man halted. Stephen was standing in a pool of blood talking to Colonel Banta on the field phone. "Yes, we have cleared the command center and have destroyed all their radios. We are moving to the stairway to wait for Swei. Have the other units attack according to plan. Out." He handed the field phone back to Corporal Chee and looked at his father.

"It's time," he said softly.

His eyes smiling, Xu Kang slapped a new magazine into his machine-pistol and patted Stephen's back. "Your grandchildren and their grandchildren will speak of this day."

"People of Myanmar, on this Martyrs' Day, we are truly reborn. We have a new future ahead of us, and together we can make our nation great again. Thank you." Swei backed away from the podium and bowed his head, accepting a standing ovation from his cabinet and dignitaries. After bowing his head several more times, he raised his hands and stepped back to the podium. "Now, I believe there are some questions from the press. Who is first?"

Josh stood and put the recorder on his seat. The hot camera lights shifted their beams and fixed on his back. The young woman who had escorted him from the airport stepped up and handed him a wireless microphone. Josh raised the device up and spoke in a friendly tone. "Mr. Prime Minister, I represent the United States. Sir, isn't it a fact that your loan guarantees are actually payments for tons of heroin that you shipped to the United States?"

Swei's eyes narrowed into slits and his facial scars turned deep purple. "That's ridiculous!" he blurted above the gasps of the audience.

Josh's voice grew louder and colder as he continued, "And isn't it a fact that you ordered the murders of hundreds of people who produced the heroin in facilities you had built?

And isn't it a fact that your DDSI murdered hundreds of minorities and Burmese opposition leaders?"

Swei shook with rage. "All lies!" he yelled back.

Fletcher handed Josh a sheaf of papers, and Josh held them up. "Here is the proof!" Josh tossed the ream of paper toward the reporters. "The dates, names, locations, and amounts are all there! We know about White Storm!"

Swei's eyes widened in visible shock upon hearing his operation's name.

The information minister jumped to his feet shouting, "Turn off the television cameras! Turn them off!"

Fletcher stood on his chair seat and bellowed, "Tell us about White Storm, Prime Minister!"

One of the German women stood and yelled, "How many died of torture in Dinto prison?"

The other German reporter came to her feet and shouted, "How many women and children did you have murdered?"

Six hundred yards away on the roof of the Congress Hall, Colonel Banta watched the bedlam in the conference room on a small, battery-operated television. Seeing that it was time, he raised a radio handset to his lips. "Assault force two, stand by. All other units, execute now!"

In the park in back of the Congress Hall, mortar teams dropped high-explosive rounds into the wide mouths of their mortars. At the same time, one of the buses rolled out of its parking place into the driveway leading back to the front gate of the Ministry of Defense compound. The second bus stayed in place, but the two marksmen inside opened the dark windows just enough to rest their weapons and aligned their scope hairs on the security men by the rear entrance. The driver softly called, "Now!"

The two rifles coughed. Fifty yards away, both guards' heads exploded and showered the bricks with blood and brain tissue.

The first bus rolled to a stop seconds later at the front gate and the driver swung open the bus door. The two uniformed guards strolled forward but were suddenly knocked backward, shot in the head by the snipers in the bus. The driver ran into the brick guard shack and pressed a large green button on the control panel to open the electric gate. The marksmen had already swiveled around and fired again. The two security men standing at the front entrance of the Defense Ministry building collapsed.

Seeing the gate opening through his binoculars, Colonel Banta yelled into a handset, "Assault force two, go now!"

In the Commerce Ministry's parking lot across the street from the Defense compound, twenty-four men jumped out of four vans and ran toward the open gate.

In the DDSI command post, General Tan's eyes were glued to the televised conference as he screamed into a radio handset at the security chief, "The press is making a fool of him! Get him out of-"

The operations colonel grabbed Tan's arm and yelled, "The army bases are under mortar attack!"

Tan's eyes widened. "What?"

"All the army bases around Rangoon are reporting being hit by mortar fire. The air base is being hit, too!" the flushed officer said before trying to take a normal breath.

Tan brought the radio handset back up. "Our bases are being hit by rebels! Get the prime minister to the tunnel now!"