At a range of less than six miles, it had a targeting accuracy measured
in inches.
0522 hours, 21 January
New Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok
Colonel Kriangsak propped himself up in the commander’s hatch, his eyes
fixed on the line of tanks ahead. With less than three miles to go
before they reached the government building complex, he’d expected more
resistance from the loyalists, some show of force at least.
There was a thump, as though the tank he was riding in had hit a
pothole, and the predawn semidarkness turned a dazzling white. There
was no sound that he was aware of, but there was a gut-wrenching
sensation of falling … then blackness.
0522 hours, 21 January
New Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok
“My God, will you look at that!” Even at better than three hundred
yards, the blast had rocked the service station where Loomis and the
Thais were hiding. Windows shattered, and night turned to day as an
orange fireball crawled into the sky on a column of flame-shot smoke.
Loomis used the laser target scope to survey the damage. The lead tank
was gone … gone, along with part of the highway. He couldn’t see
anything left of the vehicle save for scraps which might have been
anything. The second tank in line had dipped nose-first into the crater
scooped out of the pavement by the blast and tumbled onto its back.
Smoke and flame poured from the wreckage. Tanks three and four lay
upended thirty yards from the pit, like discarded toys.
Beyond that, his vision was obscured by the smoke, but he could see at
least one truck burning, and make out the shapes of men staggering about
on the road or lying motionless on the ground.
“Okay, Lieutenant,” he said to the That officer at his side. “Looks
like we stopped ’em. Now it’s up to you.”
The lieutenant was already giving orders to his men over the radio.
0528 hours, 21 January
New Phetchaburi Road, Bangkok
Kriangsak opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, his ears ringing
painfully, his body bruised and sore. Experimenting gently, he found
that he could move, could sit up painfully and look around. Nothing was
broken.
He’d been riding in the fourth Stingray in line. At first, he was so
disoriented he couldn’t find the vehicle. Then he saw it, twenty meters
away and lying on its side. He decided he must have been flung clear by
the explosion. Several still, broken bodies in army uniforms lay on the
street.
Blind chance had saved Kriangsak’s life. The Stingray’s turret had
protected him from the worst of the blast, but he’d been thrown clear
from the hatch instead of smashed against the interior hull.
Two of the tanks were still intact, but they were motionless, their
crews killed or knocked unconscious by the shock wave. Everywhere,
soldiers stood or sat or stumbled through the smoky darkness as though
drunk. Most wore masks of blood from nosebleeds. Some writhed in agony
on the ground and appeared to be screaming, though there was no sound.
Only gradually did Kriangsak realize that he was deaf.
He looked up. The weapon which had shattered the column had to have
been an air-launched weapon, but there was no sign of aircraft, no hint
of where the bolt had come from. Striking a target with such accuracy
from so far away that the attacker could not be seen … the RTAF didn’t
have that kind of technology, but Kriangsak knew who did. He had an
uncomfortable feeling that the Americans were back in the game.
Shaking his head to clear it, he started moving back toward the line of
trucks. Through the high-pitched shrilling in his ears, he could make
out the far-off, muffled roar of fires, the screams of wounded men. His
hearing was returning.
Several trucks were burning. Others had swerved off the highway and
smashed into trees or gone nose-down in a ditch. The trucks toward the
end of the column, however, were untouched, though none of the vehicles
were moving.
Kriangsak had seen the crater in the road ahead. The convoy would not
get any further in that direction.
And the That loyalists would be closing in at any moment to mop up.