Kol turned again, and his eyes bugged out at the sight of the gun. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, then he licked his lips. "I didn't mean, General, that…"
"The situation is under control, General kol," Hsiao said. "As planned, the Thais have committed themselves to an attack on our forces here at U Feng.
Our aircraft and anti-air missiles will sweep their planes from the sky. When the skies belong to us, we shall rain destruction upon the That forces and crush them. You, General Kol, can be a part of the victory, or a casualty.
Which shall it be?"
"I–I support you, of course, General," Kol said. His eyes were wide as he stared down the pistol's muzzle. "I simply wish to provide counsel… to advise caution. Provoking the Americans is a terrible risk."
"I will handle the Americans, if it comes to that," Hsiao said. "You do what I tell you to do."
"Yes, sir."
"Get out of my sight. You make me sick."
The general bobbed his head and departed. Hsiao reholstered the pistol.
Kol would have to be killed, of course, and quickly. It would have been foolish to trust the man fully before. Now, afraid and insulted, he was far more dangerous. But the execution would have to be handled carefully, to avoid alienating the expatriate Burmese troops in his command.
Too, the defeat of the That assault on U Feng would generate yet more impetus for the mutiny, perhaps even convince the King and his ministers in Bangkok to support the dissident officers' faction. The body of a Burmese general would be a fine, added touch, proof that Burma had been behind the communist rising in the north and the capture of U Feng. That might satisfy the Americans as well, who would still be wondering about the loss of one of their planes in the area and smarting from the attack on their carrier.
Burmese involvement would explain so much.
If Kriangsak were still alive, he would pull the whole thing together in Bangkok. Hsiao frowned. Loss of contact with Kriangsak was worrisome. It was possible that the attack in the capital had gone badly, that Colonel Kriangsak was captured or dead.
No matter, really. Hsiao had other contacts among the dissident officers, and the important thing was the destabilization of the That government. When the government fell, Hsiao's men would step in. One way or another, Hsiao Kuoping would rule this country before the month was out.
All that remained was to defeat the That military forces now closing on this remote and otherwise insignificant air base.
Hsiao picked up a briefcase containing maps and reports and left the office. He had some further surprises to discuss with Colonel Wu.
The Thais thought they had him in a trap. Soon he would show them that it was possible for the trappers themselves to be trapped.
CHAPTER 24
"Eagle Two, this is Homeplate," CAG's voice said over Batman's headset.
"The brass has a question for you."
"Uh… roger, Homeplate," Batman replied. Now what in the world…?
"Do you know someone named Phya Nin?"
The question startled Batman. "That's affirmative, Homeplate." Hell, he'd told them all about her during his debriefing. What more did they want to know? And why?
"What do you know about her, Two-one-six?"
He thought a moment. "Uh… I'm not sure I understand the question, Homeplate. She's a sergeant in the Karen National Army of Liberation. The 12th KNLA Brigade." He'd told them that in his debriefing too.
"Roger that, Two-one-six. Can she be trusted? Over."
Trusted? "Absolutely, Homeplate. Are you in contact with her?"
"Two-one-six, stand by."
He listened to static for a long moment. What the hell was going on?
Below his Tomcat, the land spread out flat and green, a patchwork quilt of rice paddies and farmland. The squadron was about halfway to its destination. It looked peaceful down there. Indeed the fighting which had torn at Thailand's social fabric for the past weeks had not touched this, the real Thailand, where the smoggy sprawl of Bangkok was as alien as the surface of Mars. From ten thousand feet, Batman could see the six-laned intrusion of Route 1 following the Chao Phraya north from the capital, but the countryside itself looked as it must have looked for centuries, remote and untouched.
It reminded him of the jungle in the north and of the girl who claimed that the Karens with God outnumbered their enemies.
"What was that all about, Batman?" Kingsly asked from the back seat, his soft Tennessee drawl pronounced over the ICS.
"Beats me, Ramrod."
Kingsly laughed. "Sounds to me like they want to know more about your gook girlfriend."
"Can that 'gook' shit!" Batman snapped. His anger surprised him. He remembered his own references to gooks a few days before, and the memory burned.
"Well sure, man," Ramrod said, startled at Batman's reaction. "Anything you say."
"Ninety-nine aircraft, ninety-nine aircraft," another voice said over the radio. "This is Victor Four Delta traffic control. Proceed to Point Lima and orbit. Squadron commanders acknowledge, over."
There was a stunned silence, then Batman heard Tombstone responding for Eagle. Then the tactical channel crackled with questions and speculations by other men in the squadron.
"What's gotten into them back there, Nightmare?"
"Damfino, Shooter."
"Another crap-out, guys. Didn't I tell you? Another fuckin' crap-out."
"That's enough, people," Tombstone's voice came over the chatter. "Radio discipline. Keep the channel clear."
Batman couldn't help connecting the questions about Phya with the sudden change in orders, but what did it mean? In the Navy, the gods of Higher Authority rarely told the guys in the trenches what was going on.
He looked out the cockpit again. He could just barely make out the specks of vehicles crawling along the highway. More distinct were the toy-shapes of several helicopters pacing their own shadows as they flew north, parallel to the Tomcats' course but rapidly falling behind. Those were probably troop transports, possibly some of the helos on loan from the Marines to the Thais for the ground attack on U Feng. Possibly, he decided, something had gone wrong with that end of the operation, and the alpha strike was being held up to coordinate with them better.
Batman just hoped that someone remembered that the alpha strike was going to be running a little lean on fuel by the time they reached the skies over U Feng, and the more time they spent circling Point Lima ― a marshaling area just north of Chiang Mai, thirty miles south of U Feng ― the less time they'd have over the target.
From what he knew of the way command decisions were often made, Batman was not reassured.
"Silence! Silence!" Kriangsak shouted in English. His throat was raw with gun smoke and screaming, his head still fuzzy from the blast which had stunned him almost two hours earlier. He pointed the M-16 he'd picked up somewhere at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The sudden, shocking burst of gunfire cut through the screams and cries of the hostages and brought a sudden, deathly silence to the lobby. "Quiet, everyone!"
Plaster dust and smoke floated in the air of the hotel lobby. Nearly forty civilians, men, women, and a few children, knelt or lay on the expensive red and gold patterned carpet in front of the hotel's registration desk. A half dozen of Kriangsak's men kept their automatic weapons pointed at the crowd, patrolling the outer edge of the group like sheepdogs.
Two bodies lay on the floor nearby, a doorman in a military-looking white uniform and a That policeman in khaki, both killed when Kriangsak's men had stormed into the hotel. A third body, a hotel security guard, lay across the room near the front door.