Tiger War by Don Pendleton Page A

the rush of air and the noise of flames sounding like flapping cloth. The silver fuselage gleamed red from the bonfires. The landing gear was not extended. The plane touched down and with a crunching noise slid on its belly, raising a cloud of dust. It plowed through the second bonfire, a wing tipped, and it spun to a halt.
    The crew jumped out but instead of getting away proceeded to unload. Nark and Stressner ran to them with Montagnards coming after, leading ponies. Bolan followed. By the time he reached the plane, the mortar tubes and bombs had been unloaded. Everyone grabbed something and ran.
    "Avion!"
    From the south another pair of fighters was streaking toward them. This time the whole valley opened up. The air filled with the crash of automatic weapons and a panoply of tracers formed the sky. The planes peeled, avoiding the tracers.
    "Cease fire!" Bolan shouted, running along the slope. "Cease fire!" The last thing he wanted was to shoot down a Thai plane. They were fighting Tiger Enterprises, not Thailand.
    The shooting died down while the Thunderstreaks circled the valley by a wide margin. Nark came running to Bolan. "They'll have bombers with napalm here in a moment."
    "And heliborne troops first thing in the morning," Bolan added. "Major Vang Ky!"
    The headman ran to him up the slope.
    "Move out," Bolan told him.
    "For village?"
    "No, we go directly to the Tiger camp."
    He nodded and ran off.
    Whistles blew, voices shouted. Bolan's Montagnard army was finally on the march.

Chapter 9
    By noon they had covered a third of the way. They were in the La Kon forest, famed for its sandalwood and its herds of wild elephants. It was there that Bolan called a long halt, the first of their journey. The trees provided plenty of shade from the now broiling sun and there was, a stream. The Montagnards watered the horses, Bolan posted guards, and the men sat to eat. It was simple Montagnard fare, glutinous rice dipped in pimento, washed down with water from the stream, which they drank in cups made from banana leaves. Lunch over, everyone stretched out for some shut-eye except for the whites who were not used to siestas. They sat in a group talking. Nark was describing how the Thais fought the heroin trade.
    "One day the district chief came to see me and said they had captured a ton of raw opium. He said they were going to burn it. Why didn't I get some American reporters to come up? I called the DBA office in Bangkok, and they sent a busload. The office liked the publicity. It shows Congress back home what a good job we're doing. The district chief put on a big party with girls and dancing, the reporters took pictures, and I paid out the reward money. In those days we paid reward money. Only later did I learn that what we burned was silage. The opium had been resold to a merchant in Bangkok. Clever, no?"
    "Why are they like that?" asked Heath, the Ilyushin pilot. "Don't they care what that stuff does to the people in America?"
    "America?" said Nark. "They don't give a damn about America. All those Thai politicians care about is themselves. Tiger pays protection money to Bangkok. Without it a lot of those government people wouldn't be able to afford their villas and their Mercedes. So they play ball.
    "Mind you," Nark went on, "there's also economics. If Bangkok put Tiger out of business, the opium farmers wouldn't have anyone to sell to. How would they make a living? Bangkok's afraid they'd turn Communist. USAID suggested schemes for substitute crops. Trouble is there isn't much demand for substitute crops from the Triangle. The area's too far from the main markets. Anyway, the farmers prefer opium; it's more profitable."
    A whistling hoot traveled from afar. Bolan's brow furrowed. "What's that?"
    "A railroad runs through the forest," Nark explained. "Trains carry ore and lumber from mines and sawmills up north. The maps don't show it. The line was laid down only recently. Guess who owns the railroad?"
    "Don't tell me," said