Target: Point Zero (42 page)

The three soldiers smiled and then saluted him.

“Whatever you say, sir…” one told him. “Early morning okay?”

Crunch looked at the three girls once again and then back at the men.

“Make it the afternoon,” he said with a soapy grin. “
Late
afternoon.”

One week later

I
T WAS JUST AN
hour after sunset when the strange airplane appeared high over Rangoon.

To the legions of radar operators manning dozens of early warning stations around the city, it seemed as if the aircraft had suddenly materialized out of thin air. One moment, their screens were clear; the next, this mysterious blip appeared. Most of the radar techs thought something was wrong with their sets. But several rounds of hasty radio calls to other stations confirmed what their systems were telling them.

The high-flying craft had somehow entered their air space, flashing in at fifty-five thousand feet from somewhere in the east.

What’s more, it was heading down towards the city.

By the time the scramble planes at Rangoon’s main air base were able to taxi out to their runways, the mysterious airplane was already coming in for a landing. A security detail, a mix of armed jeeps and small tanks, roared out to the landing strip, their soldiers nervous. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

The men inside the advance vehicle of this detail were the first to see the strange airplane up close. Though these soldiers had been around air bases and aircraft for several years now, they had no idea what kind of an airplane was rolling towards them.

The wings were in a delta shape, its nose was long, thin and agile. It had more weapons draped beneath it than the security troops could count. Its tail, high and wildly curved, was also adorned with a number of strange, stiletto like protrusions. Most unusual was the airplane’s color scheme. Though the security troops had gotten used to the childish colors of their own air force, this plane’s covering almost looked as if it had been burned on. It was bright red and blue on the wings and tail; the rest was almost luminescently white.

The airplane stopped right in front of the lead security truck, and to the surprise of the heavily armed soldiers, its canopy suddenly popped open. The pilot stood up, removed his helmet and rubbed the tangles from his hair.

Then he looked down at the security troops and said: “Please take me to your
swammi-wan…
I believe he’s expecting me.”

Ten minutes later, Hunter was being escorted into the main hall of the Kitchen Palace.

There were three times as many guards on hand as before, but now they stared at him as if he was a ghost. Obviously, word had gotten around about his rather sudden appearance over Rangoon.

Both the Kid King and his mother were waiting on the throne for him. The mother looked angry and bitched-out as always; the kid looked…well, he looked worn-out.

Hunter bowed deeply and then took to the first step of the royal platform.

“I have returned as I promised,” he told them. “I have kept my word to you. My airplane is at the airport; you may go and see it, touch it, and even keep it in your collection for a while.”

The mother snorted a few words of grudgingly disbelief.

“You do me no favors by returning,” she huffed. “I’d have been just as happy if you’d stayed away forever.”

Hunter took another step up closer to them.

“We had an agreement,” he explained, “I kept my end of it. And you kept yours…”

They all stared at each other for a long time.

Finally Hunter took a deep breath and asked the big question: “Where is she?”

The Kid King stirred uneasily. He looked down at Hunter, a mixture of emotions spreading across his face. He appeared older, more mature, with wisps of a mustache now sprouting beneath his nose. But one look into his eyes and the Wingman knew something was wrong.

“Where is she?” he demanded again.

But the Kid King did not answer. Instead he looked at his feet.

Hunter took another step closer, to him.

“Where is she?” he
asked a third time, a great fear rising inside him.

But the kid continued staring at his feet.

“She…she is not here,” he whispered finally. “She stayed with me, as she said she would…but only for a little while. I just couldn’t take it anymore…she was just too…too much.”

Hunter climbed two more steps. He was furious and the Kid King knew it.

“If anything has happened to her, I will…”

“She is safe,” the mother huffed again. “In fact, she’s in a lot better hands now than when she was flying around the world with you…”

Hunter was now level with both of them. The kid still refused to meet his eyes. The mother, on the other hand, looked like she wanted to take a bite out of him.

“Tell me where she is,” he said to both of them.

The mother laughed a little, even as the kid sank lower into his seat. He looked like he was about to cry—a feeling Hunter could relate to.

“By her own choice, she is far away,” the mother said finally. “Too far for you to ever find her.”

Hunter felt his face turn bright red. He’d been through a lot in the past ten days. Securing the victory on Lolita. Getting the Zon shuttle back to America. Reuniting with his UA comrades to discuss his most recent mission and to plan the next one. But in all that time, Chloe had not once left his thoughts.

“I will go to the ends of the Earth to find her,” he told them forcefully.

Now the mother laughed again; this time it was louder and more demonic.

“Oh, you’ll have to do that,” she told him with a cruel smile. “And more…”

Downtown Rangoon

The bar was dark and dingy and smelled of burnt coffee, spilled liquor, cheap perfume, and body sweat.

Hunter took a few moments to allow his eyes to get used to the dim light. There was a time in Rangoon’s past where consumption of alcohol would have been strictly forbidden. From the looks of the crowded bar, those days were long gone.

He finally stepped in and began walking past the dilapidated tables and booths. They were filled with either gangs of foreign mercenaries or the young soldiers of the Kid King’s army. Everyone seemed drunk, the poison of choice being a sweet red rice wine known locally as
pyapon.

Hunter moved past the bar and the booths to a table far removed from everything and everybody.

This is where he found Baldi.

There were several empty
pyapon
bottles in front of him, and his table was sticky with pools of spilled wine. But Baldi was not drunk. He was beyond intoxication.

Hunter casually sat down, laying his M-16 across the table. The Maltese fighter looked up and gasped slightly. Then tears formed in the corners of his eyes.

“I’m sorry, my old friend,” he told Hunter, sinking into his seat. “I fear I let you down.”

Hunter picked up a bottle that had just a bit of
pyapon
left in it. He allowed a few drops of the sickly-sweet alcohol to run out onto his finger and then he put it to his tongue. It tasted even worse than it looked.

“They told you where she was?” Baldi asked him, eyes still downcast.

Hunter nodded. “Yes…”

“I could not stop her,” Baldi told him. “I tried, but she…she wanted to go.”

“I know,” Hunter replied.

Baldi sniffed once and then looked up at him.

“And you are going to try to find her?”

Again Hunter nodded. “I have to.”

Baldi’s eyes brightened ever so slightly. “Then why have you come here?” he asked.

Hunter put the sticky
pyapon
bottle down then handed Baldi his cap.

“I came, my old friend, to ask you to help me,” he said finally.

And so they set out.

First by hired car, up the Taungup highway to Mandalay. From there they crossed over to a ferry which brought them up the Irrawaddy River to Mawu, then Hopin, then Kamiang.

From there, they hired a four-tracked vehicle and headed northwest, towards the highlands of the Kumon Range. Upon reaching the outpost of Kumawang, they traded in the four-track for three llamas and a team of pack hands. They trekked through the hills of Gawai until they reached the Diphu Pass, close to the convergence of the borders of Burma, China and Tibet.

Here was the mountain they called Ch’ayu.

The pack hands left them at this point, leaving one llama and enough food for three days. Hunter and Baldi continued on, walking up the steep, narrow roads, and when they disappeared, the snowy, icy paths which led to the top of the 15,225-foot mountain.

The llama died at about eleven thousand feet.

Night was falling when they reached a way station located at the 14,450-foot mark.

Through the gathering darkness and gloom, Hunter and Baldi could just barely see the spires of a building located on an outcrop of rock near the top of the mountain. The faintest of lights were shining from the top of one tower, one was blandly yellow, the other deep red. Through his knowledge of the local religion, Hunter knew the pair of lights meant visitors could come forth, but only if they promised to descend the mountain after being made faithful.

It was here Baldi decided to stop. He was sore, weary and not predisposed to become “faithful” any time soon. He promised to wait here.

Taking the last of their water, and a cracker tin of food, Hunter continued up the mountain without him.

It was almost midnight when he reached the summit.

The temple was ablaze with lights now, some red, most the bare yellow. Oddly they did not blot out the illumination of the billions of stars stretched overhead. Even in all his travels, Hunter had never seen the stars so bright, so close to the Earth. His eyes were filled with the illusion that he could simply reach out and touch them.

A Be’hei monk was standing by the front door of the temple, solemnly ringing a cast-iron bell every fifteen seconds or so. He looked neither surprised nor concerned when he spotted Hunter approaching. Rather he smiled slightly, displaying a set of crooked, yellowed teeth.

Hunter didn’t have to say a word to him; the monk knew why he was here. He simply made a series of hand gestures which directed Hunter around the north side of the temple, to a smaller building located at the very edge of the three-mile precipice. It looked to be an exact recreation of the larger temple, but at about one-tenth the size.

Sitting at its main door, wrapped in saphron and ringing a smaller, brighter bell was Chloe.

Hunter suddenly felt numb from his head to his feet. The long journey, the hard climb, the thinning air, none of it had adequately prepared him for this moment.

Like the monk, she didn’t appear surprised to see him.

“You look…beautiful,” he gulped—it was a stupid thing to say because she
always
looked beautiful.

She simply laughed though and rang her bell once.

He took a step closer. He could smell her fragrance on the wind.

“This is a long way from St. Moritz,” he told her.

She laughed again. “It is and it isn’t,” she replied sweetly. “I’ve only been here a short while, and yet it feels like forever.”

Another step closer. “What’s the attraction?”

Another laugh, another ring of the bell. She swept her hand over her head.

“Look at the stars,” she said. “They look as close as when we were up in the airplane.”

Hunter nodded slowly. “I’ll give you that.”

“This is my dream come true,” she said, her eyes still gazing upwards. “I wanted to be as close to the stars as possible. And now here I am…”

Hunter took two more steps towards her. “They tell me that the people up here practice a very—how shall I say it?—‘clean’ kind of lifestyle. Is it all it’s made out to be?”

She laughed again and rang the bell twice. “The word is ‘chaste,’ Hawk,” she said. “And yes, so far, it is…”

She pulled her eyes away from the stars and centered them squarely on his.

“Did you come up here to ask me to return with you?”

Hunter just shrugged. “I’m not sure…” he said. “Do you want to leave?”

She shrugged right back. “I don’t know—yet.”

She returned her gaze to the stars. Hunter took two more steps towards her—and the next thing he knew, she was in his arms and he was kissing her, a first.

His heart was pounding, his breath became short. What was happening to him? He had more things to do in other parts of the globe than ever. Yet he didn’t want to leave her, ever again.

“Maybe I should stay,” he surprised himself by saying.

She looked deeply into his eyes and then slowly shook her head.

“No…” she said. “This isn’t the place for you. Not now. You wouldn’t be happy. And then neither would I.”

He kissed her again—and then backed away.

“Will you ever want to leave?” he asked, again with an audible gulp.

She looked at him again.

“Maybe…” she said, tears forming in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. “If you came back. In a year. Maybe I will.”

Hunter’s next few words had a hard time getting out. Never had anyone affected him this way. He felt a knot tighten in his chest; a lump suddenly grew in his throat.

“I’ll come back,” he heard himself say. “In a year. Maybe less.”

She, too, was beyond words now. She simply looked at him, tears flowing, her face revealing all the time they’d spent together, everything they’d done. Suddenly she looked very much like she did the first time he saw her, swimming in the cold deep lake back in Switzerland. She had changed so much in that short time—and yet she had remained exactly the same.

“I love you, Hawk…” she finally managed to say.

Hunter felt like a giant hand had grabbed him around the throat and was squeezing him unmercifully.

“Me, too,” he finally coughed out.

They stood and looked at each other for the longest time. Then Hunter pulled up the collar of his flight jacket and adjusted his cap on his head. He pointed up at the stars and smiled.

“I’m going to be a little closer to them very soon,” he told her. “Keep an eye out for me, will you?”

She instantly knew what he meant. She wiped away the tears and managed a smile. They’d only known each other a short time, but it seemed like forever.