Eagle Station Part 22

Next to it was what he figured to be the thatch structure used by the DEA inspector. Like a ghostly bear, he made his circle of the village and, just at dusk, returned to where he had started and made himself comfortable. He didn't expect an attack, but he did lay an almost invisible wire on a small perimeter around his spot and attach it to a finger on his left hand. He sat against a tree with his AK in his lap and programmed himself for a light nap of one hour's duration. The last he heard before he fell asleep were the soft sounds of flutes and gongs from the village, signaling readiness for the boon.

Thirty minutes later, when it was quite dark, a twitch on the wire jotted his body like a ma.s.sive electrical charge. Adrenaline surged throughout his body and into his brain bringing him to instant physical and mental alertness. Without making a sound, he rolled to a crouch, put his rifle down, and pulled out his Randall stiletto. He figured it was probably the advance guard or point man of a patrol, but he didn't know if the patrol was friendly or enemy. If it looked like he was to be discovered, he wanted to examine and, if necessary, kill him silently.

The faintest of moonlight filtered through the high trees, illuminating vague tree forms but no definitive shapes. He heard the lightest of movement, as if a mouse sought its burrow, then the slow compression of leaves. He c.o.c.ked an ear and thought he could hear breathing. He cupped his ear and slowly moved his head, like a radar antenna homing in on the direction of the sound. Barely perceptible in the air was the smell of a human who used bug repellent. It was not, he knew from experience, an Asian. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement advancing toward his tree. His muscles tensed; almost without conscious thought or signal from his brain he curled his hand, stopped his breathing, and, when the man was in position, rose up from behind.

Silently cupping the man's mouth with his left hand, he pulled the head back to stretch the throat while simultaneously placing his knee in the man's back, bending his body into a tight backward bow. In the same silent and fluid motion, he placed his blade against the exposed throat.

His mouth was next to the man's ear.

"Who are you?" he whispered.

The man went slack and shook his head and made a mumbling noise deep in his throat.

"Quiet, now. Who are you?" He released the pressure of two of his fingers over the man's mouth.

"James Perrit, DEA," the man said and coughed. "Let me go. You're choking me."

Wolf pulled him back to the tree and down to a sitting position. He could barely see him in the darkness.

"Just what are you doing out here?" he asked, trying to keep his voice low.

"I was just taking a walk. I heard you were out here someplace and I thought maybe I could see you and tell you to stay out of the village while I'm there. I didn't expect you to jump me." The man spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper. "My gla.s.ses are gone.

Help me find my gla.s.ses."

"Don't run around the jungle after dark. Why didn't you want me in the village?"

"These are very skittish people. I'm having a hard time getting their attention. I didn't want anybody else around to complicate things."

Perrit groped around until he found his gla.s.ses.

"I think it's dumb of your company to send you out alone."

"We don't have enough men over here."

Wolf stood up. "Let's go," he rumbled. "Regardless of how you feel, I got work to do." He padded off into the darkness without another word or gesture. Perrit stumbled through the darkness to keep up with him.

The flickering fires illuminated the figures of Wolf Lochert and James Perrit as they walked with stiff steps into the main clearing of the village Yat. Wolf stopped and studied Perrit.

He looked about thirty-five, slender, brown hair, horn-rimmed gla.s.ses.

He wore a dark green safari suit.

"I've got work to do too, you know," Perrit said. "I'll be in my hootch." He walked to the thatch hut next to the chief's longhouse.

Wolf caught his bearings and headed for Lee and Loo, who stood next to a fire pit where a pig was roasting. Scores of small brown men, some naked except for loincloths, others in various portions of rough military jungle fatigues, sat or stood around the clearing, chatting among themselves in the glottal stops and tones of the Hmoung language.

"Come see Colonel Bunth. He wait you," Loo said, and led the way to the opening to the longhouse. Inside, under a kerosene lantern hanging from a roof support, sat Bunth and the dozen or so members of his family on mats. Out of the corner of his eye Wolf noticed a man with a scar on his left cheek. From the yoga-like way he sat, Wolf knew him to be Touby. Thin smoke rose from a charcoal brazier. Bunth and the two older women were puffing on long pipes, sending up a sweet thick white smoke into the close air. Wolf placed his rucksack and AK-47 at his side, muzzle away from Bunth, sat on his ankles, and stared at the coals in the brazier. After a long silence, Bunth spoke.

"Why you make boon for the people of village Yat?" Bunth spoke the advanced English of one who had spent many months in training at the Special Forces camp at Lop Buri in Thailand.

Wolf raised his head. 1 make party for the brave warriors of Bunth and their families to display my appreciation and the appreciation of my government for their fierceness and loyalty in battle."

"Who are you?"

"A soldier. A simple soldier who does what he can."

"You have a name?"

"I am called Wolf."

"I have never seen a wolf. It is said to be a cunning and dangerous animal."

Wolf lowered his eyes and did not speak.

"Are you a wolf?"

After a short pause, Wolf spoke in a low voice. "Only to my enemies."

The man with the scar rattled off a few words. Bunth nodded without answering and spoke to Wolf.

"Do you have something for me?"

Wolf nodded to Lee, who handed him the radio from his back, which he put on the earth in front of him. Wolf took the spare batteries from his ruck and placed them next to the radio. He looked at Bunth.

"Mister Sam said you are a brave man who patrols his territory well."

Inside, Wolf thought fleetingly of his vow, made years before, never to lie.

Bunth nodded, pleased. He said something very quickly to one of the women in the longhouse. She came forward with a wrist-thick tube of bamboo full of liquid. A bamboo straw stuck up from the liquid.

Wolf forced a smile to his face and murmured sounds of appreciation. He knew what was expected of him. One tube was handed to him, and he sucked and slurped loudly from the straws. He did not like to drink alcohol because it made him nearly uncontrollable and he did not like to lose control of himself. When he was finished, he smacked his lips and said, "Ahhhh," as was expected.

When Bunth sipped it was the signal for the others to be given tubes of the beer, which was made from fermented palm.

Bunth, as the headman of the village Yat, was the current chief of the Yat clan that had migrated generations before down from China. When the local soil was exhausted, it was up to him to determine where to move next. Hmoung preferred to live at high alt.i.tudes. Wolf knew there had to be a good reason for Bunth to have moved his village to this low terrain.

"Your patrols are good," Wolf repeated. He patted the PRC25 and leaned forward. "There are numbers you like?"

"Every man has numbers he live by," Bunth replied.

"That is wise." He sipped his palm beer. "Maybe if you use your numbers for this radio to talk to Mister Sam you will receive more rice."

Bunth's eyes flickered. He nodded in understanding.

"You are clever man," he said.

Wolf dug a small, green-covered Army field notebook and a pencil from a pocket and handed them to him. Bunth wrote a few numbers down and handed the book back. Wolf read three sets of five numbers. He put a period after the first two digits of each set.

"Let's use the first four numbers in each set," he said. "Primary, secondary, tertiary."

Bunth nodded. He had been taught radio frequency rank order at Lop Buri.

Wolf felt he had control of the situation enough to risk a command.

"Call Mister Sam when the sun goes down and when the sun comes up."

Bunth stared at the PRC-25 and did not answer. From his sitting position Wolf picked up the radio and batteries and placed them in front of Bunth.

"For every time you call twice each day, Mister Sam will add five kilos of rice to your ration."

Bunth looked up. "Not five, no. Give ten more each day.

Plane drop rice maybe every ten day. Send hundred more kilo each drop."

Wolf nodded. Bunth had doubled the load but he had left room for bargaining. "Yes, that is possible. Mister Sam will add ten more kilo each day you call two times, once at the morning sun, once at the evening sun." It was silent in the longhouse save for the sipping noises. Wolf spoke again.

"You can tell Mister Sam of your brave patrols. He would be most interested. One patrol in the night. You can tell him of that in the morning. One patrol in the day. You can tell him of that in the evening."

"You do not like my beer?" Bunth asked, unwilling to agree.

Wolf took a long sip and the level in his bamboo tube was immediately brought to the top by a wife.

"Ahhh, good." Wolf smacked, and wiped his lips. He was beginning to feel dizziness and the onset of nausea. He knew what he had to do. He spoke with Bunth of inconsequential things for a few minutes, then excused himself and went outside into the bush and stuck his finger down his throat. While it was perfectly acceptable to be ill from the liquid, it was not acceptable to refuse more until the party was over.

When he returned he was handed his tube, freshly filled with palm beer.

He sipped and smacked and sipped some more. Then he spoke.

"You understand there must be something to speak of when you contact Mister Sam,"

Bunth studied his beer.

"Something of consequence."

Bunth said something in rapid Hmoung, causing the others to laugh.

"Something of what your brave soldiers see on the patrols.

He wants to know if there are enemy soldiers moving toward Poo Pah Tee.

Where they are, how many, what direction they are moving. Mister Sam is only interested in what you see, not who you kill. It is not necessary to fight yet."

"You think we cannot fight?" Bunth responded quickly in a thin voice.

."No, I do not think that. I know Bunth and his men are good fighters.

But for now Bunth and his men should act as the creeping tiger stalking his prey, not being seen, not giving his position away. Report what you see twice a day and Mister Sam will give you ten kilos for each day you report two times on your radio."

The man with the scar spoke again. Bunth answered, then nodded to Wolf.

The deal was done.

Cradling his rifle, Wolf walked out to the area where the boon was in progress. Lee and Loo fired off some rapid-fire words, and the Hmoung sitting around the fire pit made "ahh" sounds through toothy smiles. He took the offered bamboo tube of palm beer and accepted a dripping slice of pig on a banana leaf. He sat down and made a big show of eating and pretending to drink. For a while he spoke with Lee and Loo, then he went to the thatch hut next to the longhouse of Bunth and went in the open door.

The light from a kerosene lamp turned low barely illuminated the face of James Perrit, who was sitting cross-legged on a straw mat eating C-rations from a tin. Placed on the mat next to him were a .45, two caliber .38 revolvers, and a Swedish K a.s.sault rifle. A rucksack and a PRC-25 radio were in one corner. He was barefoot. A pair of combat boots with brown socks draped over them stood next to the radio. Behind the boots was a rolled-up sleeping bag. Wolf waved a hand at him.

"Do you know how many airstrips there are in Laos?" Perrit asked without preamble. His voice was thin and official, as if quizzing a subordinate.

"Over a thousand," Wolf replied, amused at the man's intensity.

"Twelve fifty-six, to be exact," Perrit said. "Can you believe that?

And do you know that nearly every one of them can be used to fly dope in or out? Did you know that?"

Wolf stared at the man and did not answer. He had dealt with DEA men on other occasions and found that some were obsessed almost beyond reason with their job to stop the flow of raw opium from Asia.

Perrit snorted. "I told all this to the Air AttacM. When I asked him how much radar he had to cover all the strips, he told me there wasn't any. Can you believe that? I asked him what he was going to do about it and all he did was laugh. Can you believe that? I don't know how you people out here expect us to do our jobs if we don't get at least minimal cooperation from all agencies. Just minimal." He sighed and seemed to wind down. "I've got a message to send."

Wolf hazarded a guess. "About Touby?"

"Yes.

Wolf sat with his gun across his knees and did not speak.

The evening air was cool and clear but humid. The soft flute and tocsin bell sounds floated on the light breeze that wafted smells of roast pig and sweet tobacco.

"How many days have you been here?" Wolf asked.

"Three."

"So what have you found?"

"I think Bunth or somebody out here is a big opium producer and transporter."

"Or somebody?"

"Touby, maybe."

"The one with the scar? The Curer?"

"Yes, that's the one. Why are you here?" Perrit asked.

"Didn't Mister Sam tell you? I'm here to see what level of competence Bunth and his people have in protecting Eagle Station."

"So what do you think?"

"Right now, not much," Wolf said. "Just a few Hours ago I made a complete turn about this village and was not discovered.