can’t get away with it …!”
“I already have, Commander.” Hsiao held out one hand and snapped his
fingers. Phreng reached across the girl on the table and handed him the
cattle prod.
Pamela’s scream an instant later rang off the warehouse walls, going on
and on and burning itself into Tombstone’s ears and mind as completely
as the sight of the three bodies in his cell. “Stop it! Stop it!”
Hsiao lifted the prod. “Shall we start with the procedures for landing
a friendly aircraft on Jefferson’s flight deck?”
Tombstone shook his head, helplessly torn between horror and rage. Blood
pounded in his temples. He couldn’t let them do this to Pamela … but
to tell them what they wanted to know …
“For God’s sake stop it!” Bayerly yelled suddenly, as though the words
had been torn from him. His voice cracked, little more than a harsh
croak.
“Ask me! Ask me! I’ll tell you! Whatever you want!”
Hsiao looked up, his expression one of mild surprise. “Indeed?” He
seemed to be considering Bayerly’s offer.
Tombstone turned his head and stared at the other aviator. Bayerly was
sagging against the chair, his chest heaving as he gulped hungrily at
the air, his eyes bulging with a desperate, consuming terror. His face
was as pale as death, glistening under the lamps with a thin sheen of
sweat.
“Bayerly, you son of a bitch!”
Hsiao gave an order, and one of the Burmese began untying Bayerly’s
feet.
“Come,” Hsiao said as he helped the prisoner rise unsteadily to his
feet. “We will go someplace where we can talk in comfort.”
“What … what about them …?”
“Both will remain safe … so long as you cooperate.” Supporting
Bayerly with a hand under the American’s elbow, Hsiao turned to the
civilians and snapped something at them in That.
Phreng replied, the words singsong and incomprehensible. His hand
restlessly stroked Pamela’s thigh. Hsiao barked a command. There was
resentment in the That’s face … then a curt nod, and he began untying
the girl’s ankles.
Moments later they were freeing him as well. It looked to Tombstone as
though the worst of the horror might be past. But at what cost?
Somehow, the information Hsiao wanted was aimed at the Jefferson. What
was Hsiao up to …
terrorism? Holding a U.S. carrier for ransom? Whatever his plan, it
might mean the death of hundreds, possibly thousands of his shipmates.
As two Burmese guards led him back to his cell, he knew it was up to him
to warn Jefferson.
The problem was how? There was no way Hsiao and his henchmen were
going to let them walk away free, not now.
And Bayerly was spilling his guts. Tombstone felt the desperation
rising within his chest and wanted to scream, the torture as bad in a
small way as the hour he’d spent that morning hanging from Hsiao’s meat
hook.
Try as he might, he could see no way out of this mess for any of them.
1624 hours, 19 January
Doi Chiang Dao, Northern Thailand
The Karen party had walked for hour upon hour, stopping rarely, always
moving south. Batman lost track of how far they must have come; each
forest-shrouded ridge was much like the one before … or the one ahead.
His legs, especially his knees and thighs, shrieked agony at him
throughout the morning. By mid-afternoon he felt a kind of bludgeoned
numbness all over, and he had to concentrate with a single-minded
fanaticism simply on placing one foot ahead of the next.
There were increasing signs of settlement, however. More than once, the
Karens filed out of the jungle and across a road, usually a deep-rutted
jeep trail, though occasionally it was pothole-cratered blacktop, a sure
sign of civilization. They skirted several villages, and once crossed a
large open space with the watery gleam of a rice field off to the left,
reflecting the brooding gray of overcast sky and mountains.
The final climb left Batman breathless, and it was so steep that Malibu
had to get off his stretcher and hobble along supported by two of the
camo-clad natives. By the time the slope leveled off at last, the