The ring was taking no chances. One morning, Janet was found dead of a supposed overdose. An autopsy showed her heroin had been cut with rat poison. That was when Bolan vowed to kill the head of Tiger.
Chapter 13
The rider in black galloped in relentless pursuit of his enemy. It was late afternoon, and man and beast glistened with sweat. They had been on the go all day, winding their way through steamy jungles, climbing and descending hills, fording streams, and galloping on flat stretches to make up for time lost in picking up tracks on the other side of those streams.
Now he was once more on a flat stretch, galloping on a trail through a forest of sandalwood, eyes watering from the rush of air, face flushed from the heat, deaf to all sound but the rhythmic drumming of hooves as they carried him closer to his prey, his mind concentrating on what he would do to Janet's killer.
And that's what cost him, concentrating on the future instead of the present.
Too late did he realize that the birds no longer sang in the treetops. In the jungle this was a sure sign of an ambush, because while birds will sing when men go by, they clam up when the men stop. By the time he realized this and reined his mount, he was already in the ambush zone. Fate decreed that he undergo capture.
Ahead, a barrier of lianas blocked the trail. To the sides the undergrowth was too thick to pass. When he wheeled his mount to attempt a retreat he found himself staring into the muzzles of pepeshas held by Liu's Montagnard-suited soldiers.
They made him dismount and disarm. He complied; he had no choice. Then they tied him with lianas, one vine around his wrists, another around his neck. He was put back on his horse and they rode off, the soldiers laughing, enjoying their success, the prisoner acutely aware that he was allowing fate the upper hand.
Of all people to get caught like this, he told himself angrily. He who was always lecturing men under his command to concentrate on the task at hand and not to let their minds wander. If you must think of any moment but the present, he would tell them, pause in what you are doing.
It was little consolation to him that he had been five nights without sleep and that when a mind is tired it begins to wander. A commander was not supposed to let himself be carried away by a mission to the point where his faculties were impaired. Back at the refinery he had already had warning signs that he was overstretching himself when he hesitated on the third floor wondering what to do. Hesitation! The product of a sluggish mind deprived of sleep. But he chose to ignore the warning and play at being superman. Pride, the downfall of men. Fate was trying to tell him something.
A slap in the face from a branch brought his self-critique to an end. They had gone off the trail and were crossing a dense forest. Low hanging branches, pushed aside by the rider ahead, snapped back into his face, delivering powerful stings. The only thing he could do, since his hands were tied at his back, was try to duck in time.
They came to another trail and set off at a trot. They crossed some swampland and after about a half hour's ride entered a rubber plantation. They trotted past rows of palm trees with small cups attached to their trunks for the collection of the latex.
A mansion came into view, a magnificent white building with turrets, a relic from days when Burma was part of the British Empire. The architecture recalled the Taj Mahal. It was set in a park with fountains and beds of exotic flowers. A real palace.
The commander of the party dismounted and ran inside carrying Bolan's gear. While they waited for him on their mounts, a young woman appeared on the first-floor balcony. One look at her told Bolan she was Liu's daughter; the resemblance was striking. Their eyes met, and Bolan inclined his head. He did it unconsciously; she was that kind of a woman. She replied with a bow of her own, an expression of sympathy in her sad eyes. Why was she sad? Bolan wondered.
The officer returned and they rode off. They came to a work area, a large yard bordered by sheds with roofs but no walls. Bolan could see men pouring latex into huge tanks, and there was the smell of formic acid in the air, the acid used to solidify the rubber for shipment.
Beyond the work area were more sheds, these with walls. Bolan was led into one of them. The place stank to high heaven, being a storage shed for solid rubber blocks. In a space in the center was a post supporting the roof. One of the soldiers brought a chain, and they chained Bolan to the post like a dog.
The door closed behind them, plunging the shed into gloom. The only light came through cracks in the walls and roof. Bolan lowered himself to the beaten earth floor and propped his back against the pole. So this was Liu's hideaway.
On the last radio check Nark told him he had found out from a prisoner that Liu had a hideaway in Burma. Nark was looking for maps in the administration building that would give the coordinates.
Hopefully, Nark would find them. Hopefully, too, when he did not hear from Bolan on the next radio check he would put two and two together. And hopefully he would pay the plantation a visit.
An outside rescue was about the only way Bolan could see of getting out. After the caper he pulled the night he was tortured, he doubted Liu would leave much to chance. The chains he had on were a good example.
He was bound solid: cuffs around his wrists, cuffs around his ankles, a chain linking the two with the pole, everything joined by a padlock. No way out of that.
He stretched himself out on the ground, figuring he should rest while he had the chance. Through the cracks in the roof he watched night fall. Bolan began imagining food; he had not eaten since noon of the previous day. Bit by bit his eyelids grew heavy. What was his fate going to reveal to him?
The sting of a whip on his cheek brought him out of a dream. The light was on, he could feel blood oozing down the side of his face, and he could see a pair of highly polished riding boots. Before he could remember where he was, the whip lashed out a second time, catching him in the neck.
"Get up!" a voice barked.
It was Liu, dressed in a golf shirt and breeches, standing with his feet apart and a long whip in his hand in the pose of a circus animal trainer. And his eyes glared with anger.
But so did Bolan's. He sprang to his feet and charged his tormentor. The other stepped deftly aside, and Bolan was pulled back cruelly by the chain.
The whip flew at Bolan, catching him in the mouth and filling it with blood. "Get up!"
Once more Bolan went for him, and once more Liu stepped aside. But this time the whip moved constantly, forming red welts on Bolan's body, tearing strips from his shirt and trousers, the cracks of the whip mixing with the rattling of the chain as Bolan rolled on the ground to avoid the painful blows.
Finally the whipping stopped. "Better get it into your head, Colonel Phoenix, that here it is I who command. You might be commander at Stony Man Farm, but here you're just another white dog. A white dog, do you understand? Get up!"
Spitting blood, Bolan rose to his feet.
"That's better," said Liu. He wound the whip and went to take a seat on a rubber block. He leaned back in a relaxed manner against the blocks as if on a couch. "And so finally we meet, Stony Man One," he said, crossing his legs. "Don't look so surprised. You're not the only one with an intelligence service, though I must admit mine leaves a lot to be desired of late. You'll be pleased to hear that the man who interrogated you has had his head cut off. So has the man who interrogated Nark. They actually fell for that cock-and-bull story you fed them about a Russian-sponsored Montagnard uprising." He recrossed his legs. "I need some answers. What happened to my directors?"