“Is that a plane sitting at the edge?”
“Looks like it.”
Joe nodded. “Then here’s what we’re going to do…”
Darkness now enveloped the jungle around the manufacturing plant. Drake, Joe, Uncle Pete, and two of the Shan fighters crept through the brush, skirting the clearing as they made their way to the plane — a Cessna 208 Caravan with pontoons for water landings. When he’d first seen the floats, Joe had theorized that the Red Moon traffickers were flying payloads of drugs offshore, where they could be smuggled onto boats for shipment to different locales, evading the customs inspections that were routine in Thai ports.
Although the buildings were heavily guarded, the dirt strip only had two men watching it, neither particularly vigilant, judging from their postures. Both were slouched on a log, chatting in low tones, with their guns resting beside them.
The two Shans moved like phantoms on soundless feet toward the guards as Joe edged toward the plane, keeping to the brush. Drake watched with Uncle Pete as the Shans reached the sitting men at the same time, muffled their cries with their hands, and plunged knives into the bases of their necks, instantly severing the guards’ spines and ending their lives. Drake winced as the bodies slumped to the ground, and then his attention was drawn by Joe running to the plane, a satchel of grenades around his neck.
“Come on… come on…,” Drake whispered impatiently to himself as Joe fumbled with the plane door. Drake glanced back at the factory, where the guards milled around, and then to the aircraft. Joe had disappeared into the ungainly fuselage and pulled the door closed behind him.
Moments later the groan of the plane’s starter sounded from the runway, but the racket from the heavy generator powering the factory drowned it out. When the Cessna’s motor roared to life, the guards at the large building froze at the unexpected sound. It was clear from their confused yells that nobody knew whether it was an unscheduled flight or a problem, and by the time someone had sounded the alarm, Joe was accelerating down the runway, whose beige dirt was barely distinguishable from the grass that framed it.
The seaplane lifted into the sky and climbed. A tall man emerged from the factory door and screamed an order, pointing at the departing aircraft. The guards began firing at it, but the plane was well out of range of the rifles, and their bullets missed by a wide mark.
Confusion reigned on the ground as the Cessna banked in the dark sky and returned, its lights extinguished so it was almost invisible against the partial overcast. Drake watched in fascination as the plane reappeared at almost stall speed, no more than a hundred feet above the trees, and a half-dozen orbs dropped toward the storage shack.
Four of the grenades detonated wide of the mark, but two exploded just above the roof. The shack blew in a massive fireball as the flammable agents inside ignited, throwing debris and a scorching wave for fifty yards.
The tall man, obviously the leader, roared commands as he ran toward the shack, and most of the surviving men accompanied him. The chatter of automatic rifles was constant from the building; and this time, due to the plane’s elevation, some of the rounds found home. The tone of the engine changed when Joe attempted to climb to safety as he jettisoned the remainder of his grenades at the men below, but as the Cessna moved over the tree line, the motor coughed several times… and then quit.
Flames licked from the engine cowling as the aircraft disappeared over a rise, and twenty seconds later, another explosion shattered the night where it had vanished.
“Oh no… Joe,” Drake murmured, and then his focus was drawn back to the building as Uncle Pete and the two Shan rose beside him. Gunfire encircled the Red Moon guards as the Shan force opened up on them, and what might have been a pitched battle became a massacre. Most of the gunmen were caught out in the open with no cover, led by their leader, who dove for a rocky outcropping as plumes of earth geysered around him.
A Shan soldier sprinted toward the generator housing and almost made it when two rounds stitched into his chest. He dropped face forward, and the grenade in his hand rolled the final yards before detonating by the power plant. The lights blinked off as the electricity died, and the grounds and structure were plunged into darkness.
“Let’s go,” Drake said. He flipped his night vision goggles down and activated the power switch, and the stygian landscape blinked neon green, the muzzle flashes from the defending Red Moon shooters bright flares. The Shans and Uncle Pete did the same, and he ran toward the manufacturing building as the gun battle played out around him. Drake was firing at the now-blind Red Moon gunmen as he zigzagged to the main door, and heard the Shans’ guns barking behind him as they followed, picking off obvious threats with disciplined shots as they conserved ammunition.
Drake threw the steel door open and stopped shooting — the chemical smell was almost overpowering, and Joe had warned everyone that a spark could easily blow the entire place. He stepped inside of the empty production area and spotted two doors at the far end. Uncle Pete entered behind him, trailed by the Shans, who ducked into the entrance before slamming the door shut. Rounds pummeled the steel slab, but none penetrated. Drake led Uncle Pete to the pair of doors and pointed to the one that had a bolt on the outside. Uncle Pete nodded and moved to it, and Drake raised his rifle as Uncle Pete slid the bolt free.
“Allie? Spencer?” Drake called as the door creaked open.
“Drake!” Allie’s voice rang out from inside. Relief flooded through him as he approached the entry.
“Are you hurt?” Drake asked as he peered into the room. He stopped when he realized that they couldn’t see him. “Can you walk?”
“I’ve got an arm wound, but Allie and I can walk. What about you, Christine?” Spencer’s voice answered.
“Maybe with some help,” she said.
“I’m here at the door. I’m coming into the room with Uncle Pete. We’ll lead you out — we have night vision gear,” Drake warned. “Stand still until I reach you.”
“Okay,” Allie said, the intensity of the gunfire outside easing as the Shan men mopped up the Red Moon survivors.
Drake moved to where she was standing by the wall and whispered to her, “Take Spencer’s hand and follow Uncle Pete into the warehouse.” He raised his voice a fraction. “Christine?”
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Drake. We’re here to rescue you.”
“Sounds like a war out there. Might be safer in here.”
“Let me help you,” Drake offered. “Take my hand,” he said, holding his fingers out until he touched her arm.
“I can’t. They’ve got me tied to this damned cot.”
Drake inched closer and saw the bindings. He withdrew the knife he’d been given as part of his gear and slashed both wrist and arm bindings. “There. You’re free.”
Christine’s legs were wobbly from a week on the bed, and she was unsteady as a toddler as Drake led her to the door. “Wait. They have my notebook computer from the plane. I can’t leave without it,” she whispered.
“You’re going to have to,” Drake said.
“No. You don’t understand. It’s got data on it that can’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“What are you talking about?” Spencer asked from beside Uncle Pete.
“Just look around. Please. It’s got to be here somewhere. They took it when they captured me.”
Drake led her over to Uncle Pete and the others. “Help them out. I need to look around.”
“I help too,” Uncle Pete offered.
“No. They can’t see. You need to stay with them.”
Uncle Pete grumbled his assent, and the group shambled to where the Shan soldiers waited by the entry, the sound of shooting outside now only occasional. Drake pulled the second door open and looked inside. There was a desk, several file cabinets, a shortwave radio, a bottled water dispenser, a weapons rack with at least twenty guns, and a massive safe. Drake slowly scanned the room, and stopped when he saw a laptop computer sitting atop the desk beside a large flat-screen monitor. His gaze followed the cable from the monitor to a CPU on the concrete floor, and he edged to the table.