Mission To Burma. Don Pendleton

down over her airspace and we have to assume security is on high alert nationwide. We have to assume Chinese intelligence will be informing key operatives and informants to be on the lookout for us.”

      Lily’s lips quirked slightly. “So, the Thai border.”

      “Yeah,” Bolan agreed. “If we can get close enough to it, the U.S. and several of her allies have the assets to send in an extraction team for us, or if worse comes to worst we can just walk across it. We could also head southeast for the coast and arrange a submarine extraction. That’s about the same distance.”

      The woman looked at her feet. “Five hundred miles either way, and almost all of it mountains.”

      “Like I said, you and I stick out. It’s best if we stay off the roads and out of the towns. We can try stealing a car or truck and let Nyin drive, or do the same with a boat down one of the major rivers, but military checkpoints are frequent.”

      “So we walk.”

      “Yeah, it looks like we’ll have to hoof it most of the way and let Nyin go into the villages and towns along the way for supplies.”

      Lily nodded, steeling herself for what lay ahead. “Then he had better go shoe shopping for me, and fast.”

      Nyin gazed at her feet for a moment and then squatted on his heels before her. He began rummaging through the old canvas gas-mask bag he carried. He pulled out a little brown bottle and smiled triumphantly. Bolan smiled, as well. “Chinese medicated wine?”

      Nyin almost lost his smile. “Burmese stone-fist liniment.”

      Lily sagged against the trunk of the tree with a blissful sigh as Nyin went to work rubbing the liniment into her feet.

      “How are you otherwise?” Bolan asked.

      “I am all right.”

      Bolan eyed the woman critically. “They didn’t hurt you?”

      Her jade-green eyes went as cold as stone. “Nothing was done to me that has not been done before.” She sighed again as Nyin went to work on her toes. “And nothing so pleasant as this.” She gave Bolan a small smile. “I will pull my own weight.”

      Bolan had to give it to her. The woman from Taipei was tough. “Fair enough.” He dropped to one knee beside her and picked up the remnants of her silk cocktail dress. He cut four two-inch-wide, bandagelike strips from around the hem. Nyin finished his medicated massage, and Bolan took the strips and cross-wound them from Lily’s toes to her calves and tied them off. The woman eyed her shimmering new footwear. “You know, there are people in Mongolia who still wear these instead of socks.”

      “Siberia, too.” Bolan nodded at his handiwork. “Silk, twice the tensile strength of steel.” He stuffed the rest of the shredded dress into his knapsack. There might be more uses for it yet. Bolan held out his hand. “Let’s get you up.” He pulled the woman up. She took a few gingerly steps and then rose up on her toes several times like a ballerina.

      “I can walk.”

      “Good.” Bolan checked his GPS. They hadn’t established much distance from U Than’s place, and he suspected all too soon Lily was going to have to run.

      5

      “We got trackers, boss.” Nyin came up puffing from the trail behind them.

      Bolan took a pull from his canteen and offered it to Nyin. “How far back?”

      “About three kilometers.” Nyin took a long drink and pointed back. “You should be able to see them in a minute or two when they top that rise.”

      Bolan took out his binoculars and waited, giving Lily some time to breathe. Men came over the ridge just as Nyin had said. The men were small, bare chested but wearing sarongs and turbans. The men’s arms, thighs and chests were heavily tattooed. Each man carried an M-16 rifle and thrust through his sash was a short, heavy ax with a triangular blade. The hilts were tufted with masses of red-and-black hair. “Naga?”

      “That’s right, Hot rod, and those good old boy. From way upcountry.” Nyin patted the hilt of his sword. “This dha, it made for war. Those axes dao, they made for taking head. You saw tails on handle?”

      “I saw them.”

      “Dao made for tourists? Tails made of goat hair, very long, very pretty, like tail of horse or hair of pretty girl. Hair on those axes short. Most likely human. Those men expert hunter. Expert tracker. Never tire.” Nyin’s perennial smile stayed on his face, but he shook his head. “We in trouble.”

      “Can you talk to them?”

      Nyin chewed his lower lip. “Don’t know. Have to get close to find out. Not sure I want to get that close. Could be unhealthy. Wrong tribe? Even adopted, I still traditional enemy.”

      “What about bribing them?”

      “Don’t know. I tell you this. No Naga around here friend of U Than. U Than clean out local hills for agriculture, if you know what I mean. Make lowlander do work for him. U Than not wanting any hillbilly around.”

      That was interesting. “You’re saying U Than didn’t hire them?”

      “Nyin saying any man U Than send up into Naga country to hire them not come back.” The Burmese eyed Bolan shrewdly. “Nyin saying that maybe whoever hire them can outbid you.”

      Nyin was probably right. He had some very thick wads of bills in his money belt, but Bolan was pretty sure the People’s Republic of China could outbid him at the moment. “Then we’ll have to discourage them.”

      “That something Nyin would like to see.”

      “Well, you’re going to.” Bolan handed Nyin his laser range-finding binoculars. “You’re ranging me.”

      “Ah!” Nyin took the optics reverently.

      Bolan handed Lily his canteen. “Nyin and I are going to do some discouragement duty. Why don’t you rest here for a bit? Nyin, leave her the phone I gave you, just in case.”

      Nyin handed over the phone and then rummaged through his mess bag. He pulled out the little brown medicine bottle. “Reapply.”

      Lily didn’t argue. She took the canteen, phone and the medicine bottle and sat down with obvious relief. Bolan and Nyin went back down the game trail. Coming down from the escarpment, a ledge broke the rows of hardwoods marching up the hillsides. “There. They should be there in about five minutes if they keep the pace.”

      Nyin grunted in agreement.

      Along the trail, it was about two and half kilometers to the cliff, but from hillside to hillside it was around five hundred meters. Far out of range for most assault rifles without an optic sight. Bolan dropped into a rifleman’s squat. Nyin brought the laser range-finding binoculars to his eyes and pressed the laser designator button. Invisible to the human eye, the binoculars sent out a beam and measured precisely where it stopped. “Five hundred twenty-five meters.”

      The scout rifle was not a sniper weapon. Rather it was made for rapid sharp-shooting at close to medium ranges. Nevertheless, the Austrian engineering of the rifle was precise in the extreme. It was as accurate as the man shooting it and could reach out and touch Fort Mudge if the man behind it was good enough. Bolan wrapped his rifle sling tight around his left arm and dropped his elbow to his knee, wedging himself into a solid firing platform.

      Nyin spoke quietly. “I see them. They come.”

      Bolan kept his eyes on the open cliff. “Give me a count.”

      Nyin was quiet for a moment. “Three…two…one…”

      The lead man came out across the cliff at a steady jog. Bolan’s rifle was suppressed, and to keep it quiet the bullets it fired were heavy and subsonic. The Executioner put his crosshairs on the lead Naga’s chest and then gave him three degrees of lead. Bolan took up slack on the trigger as