"We really hit the jackpot," said Bolan.
"About time," said Nark.
"Got 'em!" shouted Stressner.
The room filled with the crackle of the Crypton as Stressner began transmitting material already penciled by Nark. Bolan's and Nark's eyes met, and Bolan gave him a thumbs-up. For both it was a triumphant moment. After all they had been through, the ups and downs, the nerves, the lack of sleep, and in Bolan's case, the severe pain he still carried... finally, the payoff.
Bolan imagined the scene at the other end, the Stony Man Farm radio room triple-staffed for the occasion, April in command, the hustle and bustle as the incoming messages were decoded and passed on to the appropriate offices.
The radio blared, "Colonel, come quick!" It was Vang Ky. "We found the fish. In the refinery."
"They've located the management!" Bolan shouted to Nark and ran out.
He came out of the building, mounted his horse, and galloped through the dark, deserted alleys. There had hardly been any fighting in the industrial sector. It was all taking place in the residential part. Bolan could hear mortar warble overhead as artillery gave support. The sky over the residential section glowed with fires.
The refinery milled with Montagnards wandering between rows of vats steaming with frothy liquids that workmen were stirring. Vang Ky ordered the night shift to carry on for the education of the troops. For most of them, it was their first opportunity to see what happened after they sold their harvest.
One of Vang Ky's assistants led Bolan through the crowd past the steaming vats to the foot of a staircase. It was here that the action was taking place. The steps were littered with bodies of Montagnards shot by Tiger troops occupying the landing above. Now Bolan understood why the main body of the assault force was on R&R. There was no room in the stairway for more than a handful.
"They are on the third floor," Vang Ky reported.
Bolan unslung his submachine gun and climbed the stairs cautiously, followed by Vang Ky and some Montagnards. He came to a corner, took a dead man's beret, and placed it on the muzzle. He stuck the beret around the corner. A bullet sang past, and Bolan withdrew.
"We'll have to try something else," he said.
"I say we burn them," said Vang Ky.
"I want them alive," said Bolan.
A metal object bounced down the stairway. "Grenade!" shouted Vang Ky, and the recon party descended frantically to the ground floor. But it was only a metal cap.
From the landing above, a voice laughed. "Fooled you, eh? Next time it will be for real."
A Montagnard ran up the stairs and let off an angry burst from his AK-47. From the landing an M-16 replied.
"Colonel, what are we going to do?" asked Vang Ky.
"I'm thinking, Major," said Bolan, eyeing the elevator. The car was on the ground floor, the door open. Inside stood a wheelbarrow with a load of brown jelly, raw opium.
"Colonel, we cannot send men in the elevator," said Vang Ky. "They will be killed before they open the gate."
"I wasn't thinking of sending men, Major." Bolan pulled up the aerial on his radio. "Phoenix to Pincus."
"Pincus," replied the copilot of the Ilyushin. A former navy SEAL, Bolan had put him in charge of dynamiting.
"Where are you?"
"Mining the warehouses."
"I got a target and I need some explosive. Send me a couple of kilo. I'm in the refinery."
"Any particular sort?"
"Give me a mixture. And I'll need caps, wire and a bravo mama."
"Coming up."
Bolan told Vang Ky his plan. "The explosive will be here in a few minutes."
"You're a man of imagination, Colonel," said Vang Ky. In the same breath he added, "When can we have our gold?"
Flattery won't get you anywhere, guy, Bolan thought. "When the fighting's over," he replied.
They lit up cigarettes and waited for the dynamite, watching the work around them. From where they stood Bolan could see several processes going on at once. In one section opium was being boiled with water and lime to extract the morphine. In another the morphine was being solidified with ammonia. Farther on, beyond drying and filtering machines, stood rows of vats with thermometers where morphine was being dissolved in acetic anhydride to bond chemically into diacetylmorphine, the chemical name for heroin.
"Very interesting," said Vang Ky, nodding at the activity.
"Yeah," said Bolan. "Deadly, too."
"What happens in the laboratories behind the partition?"
"That's where the heroin's purified and solidified," Bolan replied. "Before you get the final product there are four or five stages through which the crude heroin must go. You must treat the heroin with chloroform, sodium carbonate, charcoal, hydrochloric acid, ether. Then you have something that will destroy the body as surely as viper's venom. But it looks harmless, just a white powder."
"Complicated business," said Vang Ky, sucking his teeth.
A stir by the door told Bolan his goodies had arrived. Two Montagnards appeared carrying sacks. Bolan emptied the contents. The explosive came in bricks that carried such names as Plastite and Nepolit, Pirkinsaure and Ammon Saltpeter, and Sprengmunition 02.
It was old East German stock, some dating from World War II, unloaded as part of fraternal aid to some Communist movement in the Sudan. The movement's leader promptly sold it for some capitalist greenbacks.
Bolan called for the wheelbarrow from the elevator. He emptied it and stacked the bricks inside. He inserted detonator caps and attached firing wire to them. Then he covered the bricks with the raw opium.
A Chinese-speaking Meo who could write found a sheet of paper and wrote "ultimatum" in large Chinese characters. The paper was affixed to a stick, and the stick was stuck into the jelly.
They wheeled the barrow into the cage and positioned it so the wire would not show. Bolan passed the other end through a crack in the floor and out the elevator shaft. He attached that end to a small hand blasting machine, the bravo mama.
The assault unit assembled. A Montagnard called up the stairway to alert Tiger that an ultimatum was being sent. Another Montagnard pressed the second-floor button and closed the gate.
In the stairway, Bolan waited, machine in hand, fingers crossed. Old explosives tended to deteriorate and sometimes failed to go off. That's why he had asked for a mixture.
The cage rose. Bolan heard it come to a stop on the landing above. There was a lot of chatter from the soldiers, then Bolan heard the gate being opened. He twisted the handle on the machine, and an ear-splitting roar shook the building. Bolan dropped the machine, grabbed his gun, and bounded up the stairs.
The landing was strewn with chunks of concrete and twisted girders. The air was full of dust, and flames flickered. On Bolan's left came the sound of running, shouting men. Tiger soldiers were coming to see what had happened. Before they got to the landing, to be engaged by the Montagnards, Bolan had already slipped past.
He climbed to the third floor, colliding with a soldier coming down. The pepesha spat flame at point-blank range, and the man rolled down the stairs. As Bolan emerged onto the landing, he saw muzzles spitting flame from down a corridor. Bolan ducked and backed out. He primed a frag and rolled it down the corridor. A scurry of feet and shouts of alarm were lost in an explosion.
Bolan crossed the landing and entered a large storage area. The floor was full of crates marked with Chinese characters and piles of sacks marked Tiger Brand No. 4, the final product, ninety-nine percent pure heroin, ready for shipment to the States. The place was silent and dark, the only light coming from a distant bulb.
Bolan hesitated, wondering what to do. It was a perfect place to be ambushed. Why not try some psycho-warfare? Liu and company must be hoping for relief, otherwise they would not be making a stand. Why not fulfill their hopes?