The temperature had plummeted significantly as night fell. The ocean air and night breezes made the jackets worn by Bob's crew somewhat more tolerable- but only Bob was still wearing his. Gordon Weston had not left the hotel in several hours, and Sato had drifted off to another one shortly before sunset. As the full moon rose, the tight crowds around the bars blossomed out into a seething beach party, complete with several massive PA systems supplying jungle beats. The full moon illuminated the waves gently sweeping in along the beach. The jungle, dark enough in the daytime, had become an impenetrable black wall. The dirt roads leading to other parts of the island were completely unlit. Sadeski began to wonder if he had unwittingly become trapped with the tourists.
The tourists seemed to have no such apprehensions about the black curtain of vegetation around them. Near the roads, a fire show had started. A muscular Thai girl twirled a pair of flaming bamboo sticks with ease as a crowd of tourists oohed and aahed. Rene Levancon could be seen holding some extra sticks behind the girl- he had somehow become her assistant for the night. Bob made a noise of amusement upon seeing this, then turned to his right. A kayak race was being held along the shore. Zachary Taylor was struggling along toward the back of the pack in a borrowed craft. Bob grinned. Taylor was a fine pilot for a motor-powered boat, but the kayak was clearly not his strong suit.
The crowds moved around Sadeski, churning in a regular path from the bars to the beach to a dirt area which had been clearly set aside for dancing, with pockets breaking off occasionally. The mercenary watched with dim eyes. He saw himself as the eye of a hurricane, with the swirling party around him no more than a collection of little storms of emotion. Bob had been toughened beyond what most humans were capable of after eight years of mercenary work.
A young Thai couple was making out less than five feet in front of Bob. His vacant thoughts did not preclude his finely tuned powers of observation from fixing on this, and Bob's face assumed an expression between apathy and scorn. He had seen couples just like this one ended by bullets during his tour of duty in Bosnia, or as a mercenary in Iraq, or in Africa. The jocular Mark Birch had once told him that a mercenary's primary use for a dance partner was as a human shield.
"Ah, love. Doesn't it warm your heart?" The Thai agent had materialized seemingly out of nowhere. Bob was surprised above all else at the sudden contrast in views, until he realized the smaller man was leaning on him. "Where's your crew?"
"Relax. They'll show up by midnight. You're early." Bob stepped to the side and the Thai collapsed in a heap, his support suddenly missing. "Oh, sorry about that. Didn't notice."
The agent picked himself up and brushed sand off his Hawaiian shirt. "You damn did. You can ask, I'm not friggin' Dracula."
Bob decided it was best to let this one go. The man's knowledge of Western movies was downright confusing. He scanned the crowd again, noticing a fuming Taylor heading towards him. Bob's expression quickly changed to amusement. "Smooth sailing, Zach."
"I will end you, Bob." Taylor's voice was more tired than angry. "You sail the Northern Cross better 'n me and we'll talk." He noticed Bob's companion trying to brush the sand off his back. "Who's he? Our contact?"
"Agent 007 Jaym Bond! License to kill!" He grinned at Zachary.
Taylor's face contorted into a picture of disgust. "Bob, you can't be serious."
"No, no! I really do have license to kill sometimes!" The man pulled an automatic pistol from his baggy shirt.
Sadeski quickly forced the man's hand back into the garment. "All right," he hissed. "I've been nice so far. This is not something a government agent should be doing. Do not show people that. You'll compromise our cover." He released the hand.
The agent laughed. "Silly Westerners. You don't get it. Thailand is a U.S. ally. We have plenty of guns. All kinds of things you don't have there. As long as I'm not shooting, nobody cares." He didn't take the gun out again, though.
Gordon Weston strode up, a calm smile on his face. "Got the message. Ready when you are." He glanced at Taylor. "What's his problem?"
"He can't race kayaks." Bob rolled his eyes. The Thai man giggled slightly. Zachary's hand crept towards a sheath knife on his belt, stopping just short. Bob looked down at the knife, then back to Weston. "Has Marvin brought you any luck?"
"Oh... yeah." Gordon's voice became smooth effortlessly, and his grin briefly widened before settling back into the calmer smile. Looking past Bob, he noticed another familiar figure approaching. Takeshi Sato stomped over to the group, with a jabbering East Asian girl following him close behind. She yelled something unintelligible at his back, and received what could clearly be interpreted as a command to leave in return. The girl flounced off, and Sato sighed as if a large weight was being taken off his shoulders.
"So, what was that about?" Taylor seemed eager to distract his companions from his own mishap, and Takeshi's misfortune would serve his purpose.
"Apparently she's Korean. Doesn't look Korean." Sato grimaced briefly. "I thought she was Chinese. She was speaking Chinese!"
The agent looked up. "What's the big deal?"
"Well, I managed to assume she was Chinese and inform her that I'm Japanese in the same sentence. The Koreans don't exactly like us, and they really don't like being told they're Chinese." Sato leaned against the gleaming side of the bar. "People really need to just drop these cultural stereotypes from our grandparents' day."
Bob glanced at his watch. "11:54. Where the hell is Rene?" The fire show had ended and some tourists were examining the burned sticks. Neither Rene nor the Thai girl was anywhere to be seen.
"Maybe he didn't get the message?" Weston remarked. "I just got it about fifteen minutes ago. Anyone know where he is?"
"He was with the girl who does the fire show." Bob pointed towards the dissipating ring of tourists. "They can't have finished all that long ago. I just saw him with her."
The mercenaries began moving toward the building in front of which the fire show had taken place, forming a protective ring around their diminutive contact. The bar inside was fairly sparsely populated, and Levancon was nowhere to be found. A quick inquiry at the bar found that the Frenchman had not gone upstairs, either. A more than slightly annoyed Sadeski led the group out and back toward the center of the beach area, almost reaching the next bar before Sato's sharp eyes detected some movement near the back corner of the building they had just left. Bob guided them slowly towards the jungle, taking note of the Chinese man who had been in the bar lurking nearby.
"It's a very smooth language, francais." The voice was clearly Levancon's. There was a faint sound of a kiss, and then an equally faint giggle. "I can teach you some."
"Yes, you can. A few hours ago." Bob's irritation was clear. "Rene, get over here. Now."
The girl's voice was drowned out by the background noise. Rene stood up. "I'm sorry, but I must." He said goodbye in clumsy Thai and walked over to the group. The girl ran up behind him, gave him a peck on the cheek, and vanished into the darkness behind the bar. Levancon watched her go.
"Well, at least you learned something." Sato's tone was cheerful. The Frenchman immediately returned to his normal sullen state. Takeshi suppressed a laugh at the abrupt attitude change and glanced over at the Chinese man who had been following them. The man caught Sato's glance and slipped away into the crowd. "Bob, he knows we've spotted him. We gotta go, now."
"All right." The mercenary leader set off towards the forest road. The other four mercenaries formed a square around their now-silent contact, following Sadeski.
Before reaching the fork, Bob was struck by how dark the road was. The full moon overhead provided patches of light, but to the left the trees and plants were out of sight in the heavy shadows. At the fork, the expected sentries were nowhere to be seen. Bob turned to the right, keeping his hand on the gun in his pocket. It was very difficult for him not to reflexively shoot the Chinese man who jumped out of a bush on the more lighted side of the path, carrying an AK-47. The man barked something in Thai. "I only speak English, pal." Bob tried to sound annoyed.
"Where... you are... going?" The man stumbled over his words. Behind the group, two more gunmen had materialized. "No safe... time night."
"We're going back to our boat." The guard's face contorted as he tried to interpret Sadeski's speech. "And we'd be very grateful if you'd let us by. We're already running late, and we'd like to get out of here now."
The final word was the trigger. Sadeski whipped his pistol from his pocket and fired two rounds into the man's chest. Behind him, Gordon and Zach had similarly disposed of the other two. "Run! Now!" Sato yelled, dragging the Thai agent along the trail with him.
Levancon picked up the leader's gun. "I hear the police, Bob. We were too close to the beach." Another AK-47 fired from somewhere nearby, and bullets whizzed overhead. The mercenaries took off running after Sato, easily catching up to him.
"Hurry up, Takeshi!" Zachary shouted. A large Chinese man in dark clothes jumped out of the bushes near the fork, sprayed some bullets at someone unseen near the beach, and began running after the mercenaries. After a few turns in the road, it became apparent he was gaining on them. Levancon fired wildly backward with the stolen gun. When no bullets found their mark, he tossed the weapon into the jungle.
Taylor jumped behind a large tree tilted over the path. Bob briefly glanced back at him. "God dammit, Zach!" he yelled. Taylor paid his leader no heed. When the Triad henchman ran by, Taylor brought the blade of the knife that had been on his belt down into the man's neck. The bigger man went down hard, his twitching hand causing the gun to fire wildly into the jungle. Zach extricated himself from the man's dying grasp, pried the gun from his hands, and sprinted off after the group again.
In the distance, a siren started up. "Over here!" Bob shouted. He ducked behind a bush, quickly followed by Gordon. Rene and Takeshi pulled the Thai agent along after Bob.
Taylor sprinted up to the section of trail where he had heard Bob's voice. "Where are you guys? Dammit." He looked about wildly, as the siren approached and flashes of light became visible far down the trail.
"Get over here." Weston seized the smaller man's arm and pulled him behind the bush. Taylor found himself face to face with the Thai agent, who grinned at him in the darkness. He groaned in frustration.
The lights and sirens came closer. Three Thai policemen on motorcycles rode by, shouting to each other. Once their lights had receded down the trail, the group took to the road again, moving at a slower pace. The Thai agent still found it difficult to keep up. Despite the darkness, the distance passed significantly faster than it had a few hours earlier. When the pier was in sight, however, it became apparent something was wrong. Three men in black jumpsuits guarded the wooden dock with guns which resembled the ones their companions in the jungle had wielded. Sadeski once again drew his men off to the side of the trail.
"All right," he hissed. "Shoot until dead. From here. Everyone got it?" The men produced their weapons. "All right. Now!"
The mercenaries jumped out into the road, firing madly at the guards. Their targets, caught completely by surprise, went down in a hail of gunfire without returning a shot. One man's gun fell in the water, but Weston snatched up the other two. In the nearby fishing village, the lights of the police motorcycles suddenly reappeared. Sato began cursing in Japanese as he rushed the agent onto the boat.
His companions, weighed down by their stolen weapons, scrambled aboard after him. Taylor reached the control room and began warming up the engines while Rene hastily undid the mooring line. The police reached the boat just as the vessel began moving, pushing out to sea. One man tried to scramble aboard the vessel, but Levancon, still on the deck, kicked him off into the water. The other two men fired their guns ineffectively, bullets pinging off the hull. Rene forced his way into the cabin as the boat sped north, catching one last glimpse of the full moon festival in the distance. He sighed and closed the door.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
