argue with the wizened driver of one of the three-wheeled taxis called
tuk-tuks.
He was in trouble. He knew that. The tuk-tuk driver spoke almost no
English, and he clearly wanted to join the crowd of vehicles and
pedestrians surging away from the heart of the city. The unmistakable
chatter of automatic weapons fire rattled in the distance, and Tombstone
could see a ruddy, spreading glow which might mark the reflection of a
large fire on the low-hanging clouds.
It was, Tombstone decided, a coup attempt, a big one, and the presence
of those soldiers in the truck outside Hsiao’s warehouse headquarters
meant that the Chinese general was somehow behind it. It also meant
that Tombstone couldn’t know who to trust. There were soldiers on the
streets. An M-113 personnel carrier was parked at a nearby corner,
nervous-looking soldiers manning the Browning .50-caliber machine gun on
its roof. Civilians streaming past the vehicle looked at it with
expressions ranging from curiosity to fear.
Tombstone had considered walking up, identifying himself, and asking to
use a radio … but he didn’t dare. Those troops might very well prove
to be working for the wrong side. He’d thought of and discarded several
other options. He could find a public phone but he had no coins. The
shops and businesses on the street might have phones, but every
establishment he could see was closed and locked, the owner gone or
hiding. If he tried breaking in, he could get arrested … and the
question of whose side the authorities might be on rose again.
His best bet was to reach the American embassy. That was when he’d
spotted the tuk-tuk and flagged it down.
But the driver didn’t seem to understand. “Tawee lahng bahee!” he
shrieked, gesturing wildly with his arm as Tombstone tried to block his
way.
“Blaho! Blaho!”
Desperate now, Tombstone placed both hands on the front of the tiny
vehicle. His laboriously memorized That phrases had abandoned him. How
did you say “I want to go to the American Embassy?” Damn! If this
went on much longer, he was going to attract the very attention from
soldiers or other interested parties that he wanted to avoid. He’d
thought most taxi drivers in this city understood English. Why did he
have to pick the one who didn’t?
He searched his memory for the right words. Sathan thut … that was
it.
“American sathan thut!” he said. What was the word for please? “Broad!
Broad!”
The driver’s face worked for a moment, then he gave a reluctant nod.
Tombstone sank into the tuk-tuk’s seat with a grateful sigh. “Kawpkun,”
he said.
With its tiny engine popping, the vehicle wheeled back into traffic,
threaded onto a side road, then turned north.
2035 hours, 19 January
Bridge, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Commander Stephen Marusko enjoyed standing night watches as Officer of
the Deck. It was peaceful, especially when the carrier was in port. So
far this evening there’d been only two departures from routine … a
fight in the crew berthing spaces and a fire and security watch
reporting that his relief had not shown up, both incidents best left to
the MAA duty watch-standers.
There was some continuing activity on deck. The four ships of MEU-6 had
steamed into helo range that afternoon, and several big Marine Sea
Stallions were parked on the roof. So, too, were two of Jefferson’s
four KA-6D tanker aircraft. One had just trapped; the other was being
readied for launch at 2100 hours to refuel Jefferson’s CAP.
A flash of light to the east caught Marusko’s eye. He paced to the
starboard side of the ship and used his binoculars to scan the shore
toward Sattahip.
Odd. The buildings belonging to the naval base were still blacked out.
When the lights had gone out a few hours earlier, he’d ordered the
incident logged but assumed the Thais were simply suffering from a local
power outage.
Several minutes later, all phone connections with the shore had been
lost when the radio station receiving Jefferson’s ship-to-shore radio
calls had gone off the air. So far, there’d been no explanation, but
most likely it was some sort of technical glitch. Marusko had reported