China's "Great Leap Forward" had never reached Hainan. The island province had never developed much industry beyond its collection of seaside cities. These cities themselves were only recently developed, the result of a push by the Chinese government in the preceding fifteen years to promote the island as a tourist destination. Dirt roads connected most of the cities on the island. These roads were usually widened trails which had connected the centuries-old villages dotted throughout the island. Outside these villages, rain forests too thick to navigate covered almost the entire island. The more remote central villages might see only a few visitors in a year, usually the same merchants.
Near the coast, however, the forests grew thinner. Trails were easier to establish around the edges of the island, and paved roads had sprung up between some of the coastal cities. Just outside the city of Sanya, the Chinese government had discovered an interesting natural formation in the early days of the People's Republic. This formation had become the basis for a massive naval base, the home of the greatest fleet in the region. While the base was unassailable from the sea, the land side gave no shelter to the massive vessels sent from the mainland. The island's Red Army garrison had therefore been built virtually atop the cave-like harbor. This garrison's location was kept hidden by a large and complicated network of dirt trails.
Zachary Taylor stopped the van at a fork in the trail. "Bob, we need a map. That damn GPS is useless in this maze."
"We don't have one. Go left." Taylor complied, muttering his dislike for communists under his breath. It had been almost an hour since the last paved road, and the army barracks was still nowhere in sight. A few trees near the edges of the trail had been marked in paint with Chinese characters, but Sun Xianli had assured the mercenaries that these characters were a military code which he did not understand.
"See? That one says 'tiger,' over there." Xianli pointed out a sign to Bob. "And that one says 'phoenix'. I think we are going the right way."
Bob didn't bother looking. "You said the same thing about the two pigs half an hour ago."
"Yes, but these are important animals! Pigs are weak. Tigers and phoenix are strong." He grinned at Sadeski.
"Isn't that too obvious?" Rene Levancon was sitting in the back of the van, cleaning a machine gun. "Use a rat or something. Make it difficult."
The van came around a curve in the trail and the path suddenly widened ahead. Across a long clearing loomed the brick wall of the military compound. Taylor leaned back in his seat. "Looks like he's right, Rene." The Frenchman did not respond.
Zach parked the van at the corner of the compound, keeping it well away from the center of the clearing. The mercenaries began hauling equipment out of the back door. Xianli noticed Bob and Gordon carrying what appeared to be folding metal tables. "What are those?"
"Invisibility." Gordon dropped his about five yards from the wall, then returned to the van. Bob unfolded the two metal structures until they resembled a fifteen-foot-long steel wedge. Nearby, Rene and Zachary argued where to set up the remote-controlled machine guns.
"This does not look invisible." Xianli grimaced at the structure. Gordon returned with a pair of shovels and tossed one to Bob. Both men began carving patches of grass off the top of the field behind the metal wedge.
"It's not done yet." Bob looked up, still shoveling. "Hey, Rene. Check out the perimeter of this field and take Mr. Sun here with you. You're not going to win anyway." The Frenchman grumbled loudly and dropped the machine gun. "Keep your eyes open." Taylor hastily set up the two machine guns near the corners of the wall, then began tossing the chunks of sod Bob and Gordon were gathering into a pile.
Once most of the grass behind the wedge was gone, the mercenaries began shoveling the underlying dirt onto the front of the steel slope. Taylor unpacked the van, tossing a pile of gleaming firearms onto a tarp near the expanding trench. He lashed two remote-controlled floodlights to trees near the machine guns, then began sorting the weapons. "Not worried about Rene, Bob?"
"Nope." Sadeski grunted. He threw a shovel-load of sandy soil onto the barrier.
"He's grumpy as ever, anyway." Zach picked up a worn gun which resembled a heavily modified AK-47. "What the hell is this piece of junk?"
"That would be Mr. Xianli's gun. You didn't notice that monstrosity?" Gordon smiled at Taylor.
Zach threw the weapon aside. "He'll be lucky if it doesn't blow him up. Want me to mine the clearing?"
"No. Mines are bad for mobility." Weston gazed down at the shallow ditch and what now resembled an earthworks in front of it. "Let's just cover this with the grass now, Bob."
"Fine with me." Sadeski threw his shovel aside. Zach took the shovels back to the van, then locked the vehicle. He glanced across the clearing to where Rene and Sun Xianli were inspecting the edges, not entirely convinced that leaving them together and unsupervised was a good idea. Even if they weren't a saboteur and a thief, Rene's temper and Xianli's odd behavior could cause problems.
The pair returned uneventfully, however. Until the sun sank into the jungle, card games in the trench kept the mercenaries occupied. At nightfall, the real mission would begin. At any given time, one man would be patrolling the area with night-vision goggles, another would be observing the first, and the remaining three were to watch the field. No lights were used- the terrorists might try to circle around if they spotted the floodlights on the trees. First Xianli, then Rene went out on patrol. When the Frenchman vanished for almost ten minutes, Bob immediately suspected desertion. He called Rene's cell phone, but heard no ring tone from among the trees. Sadeski concluded that either the phone was set to silent or Levancon had fled.
The Frenchman did not answer his phone, but stalked back to the fortification minutes later. "The hell was that about, Bob?" he hissed.
"We thought they got you." Bob didn't look up at Rene, but Xianli nodded vigorously. "I'm next." Sadeski stood up and the mercenaries reorganized themselves so Levancon would be able to watch him. Bob hefted his weapon and set out for the trees.
The jungle here was easily passable for a man or even possibly a motorcycle. There was no guarantee the Uighurs would pass through the clearing, or even that they would arrive. Bob had felt uneasy about the mission for quite some time, and the feeling grew stronger as he scanned the forest and the trails for any sign of life. A small animal darted by at the far end of the clearing, and insects flew back and forth non-stop, occasionally pursued by bats, but no humans were to be seen. The stars seemed to be the main source of light- the trees obscured the lights of Sanya and the moon was just past new. Bob stared up at the stars, thousands of lights he hadn't been able to see in Bangkok, or even in Sanya. A plane passed overhead, flying out of the nearby airport to parts unknown.
Sadeski's thoughts snapped back to the mission, and he completed his patrol with a new determination. The next ten patrols were uneventful, but by the fourteenth patrol, Gordon Weston's third, the mercenaries were growing tired. April 30th was two or three hours old when the black-clad Weston slipped off into the forest. Zach, his spotter, could barely follow his comrade, despite Gordon's size. He had already lost sight of Weston when the big man suddenly dropped in at the center of the trench. "They're here," he whispered. "A few dozen of them, I think."
"So many?" Bob wondered how two missions in a row had wound up like this. Defending territory was a job for an army, not mercenaries.
"Yeah. Some in turbans and strange clothes, some in what looked like desert uniforms." Gordon checked the safety on his machine gun. "They have at least one rocket launcher. We've got no time to waste. We have to hit these guys very hard, very fast if we want to make it." He turned to Taylor. "Zach, you ready?"
Taylor produced four remotes and lay two on the ground, holding the guns' controls in each hand. "Ready when you are."
"All right. No noise, anyone. Zach, keep watching. Everyone shoots when they're mid-field." Bob flattened himself at the end of the defenses, gripping his gun.
The Uighurs slowly spilled out from the trail and into the field- dozens, as Weston had said. They seemed to be led by a uniformed man with a powerful flashlight. The intruders had made it about a third of the way across the field when Rene Levancon's phone began ringing. The Frenchman quickly silenced the device, but the Uighurs had noticed. Their leader called out in broken Mandarin, but received no reply. Behind him, the men had stopped in a mass behind him. It was clear now that the tan-uniformed men vastly outnumbered the turbans. Bob stared at Rene in disbelief.
Sun Xianli understood the Uighur leader. His face rapidly changed expressions, from bewilderment to anger to horror. Bob ignored the freelancer. "Zach! Shoot!" he hissed. Taylor needed no second bidding. The automatic machine guns sprang to life, cutting down swathes of the massed men. The other three mercenaries opened fire, their bullets finding those who had avoided the initial bursts. Taylor dropped the remotes and slammed his fists into the second pair, flooding the field with light. He picked up an Uzi and resumed firing.
A man with a rocket launcher moved to the front of the disorganized Uighurs. Seeing him coming, Sun Xianli suddenly stood up, revealing his upper body above the defenses. "Stop! Stop!" he yelled. He began shouting at the terrorists in Mandarin. Weston reached for the freelancer, to pull him to safety, but Xianli's skull suddenly exploded from the top, strewing bone and brain over the sod and causing his lifeless body to slump over the steel wedge. The man with the rocket launcher was struck in the chest as he fired, launching the rocket high into the air, over the wall and into the barracks. Somewhere beyond the terrorists, more gunfire could be heard.
It was clear to the mercenaries that something larger was at work here. Nevertheless, all four continued firing, mowing down the Uighurs until all had fled or lay in heaps on the field. A Chinese special forces agent with a sniper rifle rappelled down the brick wall just left of the mercenaries' position, then casually walked over to Bob. "Well done." He grinned down at Sadeski.
"What the hell is this about?" Bob stood up, still clutching his gun. His crewmen followed him up. Suddenly, the section of the wall behind the small fortification began to sink into the ground with a loud rumbling noise. As the wall lowered, the mercenaries found themselves facing a tank and a small contingent of troops.
The agent's smile had never left his face. "I think you should come with me."
ns 15.158.61.8da2
