Chapter 1
Gordon nudged his sleeping companion. “Doug. Wake up.”
Doug’s chin was drooping onto his stained military green T-shirt, sweat-soaked in the muggy night heat.
Gordon elbowed him again.
Doug shuddered, raised his head, and cracked open a bleary eye.
“What?”
“Shhh. Keep it down,” Gordon hissed. “We don’t want to alert the guards.”
He shifted his camouflage-clad legs in the mud and rotting vegetation then glanced at his partner’s calf, where a filthy bandage was wrapped around a festering bullet wound, the pants cut off at the knee. The rusty stain of dried blood on the dressing was alive with ants exploring the once-white gauze.
Doug was pale, his body battling infection and fever. It hadn’t helped that neither of them had been fed for two days, or that they only got water every four hours. The jungle in the southern hills of Myanmar was brutal at the best of times – if their captors didn’t kill them, nature soon would.
“I got my hands almost free,” Gordon whispered. “Slide over here so I can work on yours.”
Both men were tied to a stake hammered into the ground at the edge of a clearing, their wrists bound behind them with rope. A crude-yet-effective form of imprisonment – and it wasn’t as if there were a lot of places to go. The Golden Triangle was a lawless area that ran from Myanmar to Vietnam, encompassing a swatch of Laos and northern Thailand. Other than occasional villages, where the natives lived in abject poverty, it was mostly jungle and opium poppy fields.
“How?” Doug slurred, too loud for Gordon’s liking.
“Shut up. Just move a little. And stay quiet.”
Doug complied, inching his body to where Gordon could reach his wrists.
The night was dark but a sliver of moon shining through the trees overhead provided enough light to reveal Doug’s haggard features. Glancing to the right, Gordon could make out the main encampment’s tents in the clearing and a few rough-hewn shacks near the tree line, close to one of the countless streams in the hills of the Shan state that bordered Laos and Thailand.
Gordon sawed at the rope with a sharp shard of bamboo he’d broken from the base of the stake. His hands were bleeding from where the jagged edge had sliced the skin, but he didn’t care. If they didn’t escape, they would die. It was that simple.
He guessed that it was around one in the morning. The sun had set at least five hours ago, although his sense of time had become warped, he knew, from the dehydration, hunger and exposure. They’d been left out through the inevitable periodic downpours, the mountain air drying the moisture from their skin over time, bringing with it the mosquitoes that swarmed around them. He’d been bitten so often that every area of exposed skin was swollen and red, as was Doug’s.
He didn’t even want to think about the mosquito-borne diseases that were endemic to the area. Dengue fever, malaria, yellow fever, chikungunya…and there was typhoid, hepatitis, the plague, hemorrhagic fever and a host of other delights that could be had from drinking the water or coming into contact with the jungle denizens.
The least of their problems right now.
Gordon strained to hear anything from the camp. All was quiet, but he knew that could be illusory because, day and night, random patrols of two or three men moved soundlessly into the jungle from the shelters, assault rifles slung over their shoulders. These were Shan – area tribesmen who knew the region like their own back yard – hired guns, paid to live like fugitives and act as security for the man who was a kind of God to them.
A white man.
A round eye – with incredible riches and a desire for extreme privacy, who ruled his domain like a warlord.
Gordon hadn’t spotted their elusive target – the farang the natives were protecting, in whose camp they were now involuntary guests. From what he could make out of the guards’ hushed discussions the man wasn’t there. So even if their mission had gone to plan and they’d been able to sneak up on the camp without being captured, it would have been in vain.
The knowledge did him no good. It didn’t really matter if you were successful or not when you were dead.
He felt Doug’s rope fraying from his efforts with the bamboo and kept sawing methodically. Doug slumped into unconsciousness again at some point over the next hour, and Gordon let him be. He’d need any energy he could muster soon enough.
A noise disrupted the gloom’s tranquility, branches snapping, as two armed men entered the clearing from the periphery, chatting in the local dialect – the night sentries, Gordon knew from memorizing their shifts. The camp seemed calm even during the day, the men lounging around lazily, nothing much to do but cook, patrol and gamble amongst themselves. With their patron absent there was nothing to guard. Nobody would be interested in taking on a heavily-armed group in order to confiscate their tents or weapons. This slice of the world had plenty of weapons – they were more common than shoes in the rural hills.
Gordon watched through shuttered eyes as the two moved to a small fire, where another man sat holding a Kalashnikov rifle, gesturing for him to pass his bottle. He protested half-heartedly and then the three men laughed as he handed them the alcohol. Cigarettes came out, and soon the inevitable cards were shuffled in preparation for another late-night redistribution of wealth.
There would be none of this kind of sloppiness once their target was back. They’d both read his dossier. It was just lucky that Gordon had gotten the rope loose on a night when security was lax. That might be the edge that kept them alive.
Although Doug’s odds weren’t good.
The gunshot wound in his calf had missed the bone, but infection had set in and would hobble his ability to get far. Gordon had debated slipping off without him, but he didn’t have the heart. If he had been wounded he knew Doug would have stayed with him. After all they’d been through together, Gordon owed Doug at least that much in return.
But that didn’t mean his chances were favorable.
If the guards kept drinking, Gordon hoped that in an hour they could make their move and disappear into the jungle. But then what? They were days from anything remotely resembling civilization. And this wasn’t the only armed group in the region. Drug smugglers, bandits, human traffickers, poachers: all flourished in the no man’s land that was the Triangle, and any one of them would kill without a second’s hesitation.
Not the greatest scenario, but one they wouldn’t have to worry about if Gordon couldn’t get their arms loose.
Twenty minutes later he felt the final frayed edges of the bindings separate with a quiet snap and nudged Doug again.
“Hey. You’re free. Cut the rest of my rope the same way I cut yours.”
Doug jolted and looked at him with uncomprehending eyes.
Maybe it had been a mistake to wait after all. He was out of it. The delirium brought about by the infection had progressed too far.
“Doug. Grab this piece of bamboo. Keep your hands behind you. Don’t make any sudden movements. Saw until I’m free.”
Awareness flickered and Gordon felt Doug’s fingers grasping for the shard.
When the bindings finally separated and his wrists pulled apart, circulation returned to his numb hands with a rush of feeling. He peered through slits at the guards, who had finished the bottle and were slapping down cards, cheating each other with tired familiarity, their vigil punctuated by an occasional burp or hacking cough. The guards were seventy-five yards away, and Gordon’s hope was that if they crawled into the underbrush it could be hours before anyone noticed they were missing. It wasn’t as though anyone had checked on them since the sun had set, and he knew from his experience over the last two nights that nobody would be by to look at them until dawn, at the earliest.
“Doug. Listen. We’re going to slide over by that clump of plants and then run for it. Can you make it?” Gordon murmured.
Doug seemed more alert now that his hands were free and there was a chance of escape.
&n
bsp; “I think so. How do we do this?”
“I’ll go first. There’s so little light they won’t be able to make us out if we don’t do anything stupid. Once I’m out of sight you crawl to me and then we’ll head downhill. If we make it till daylight we can tell by the sun what direction we’re headed and we can get to the Thai border.”
Doug nodded.
With a final glance at the guards, Gordon inched down and rolled onto his stomach, then dog crawled to the trees. Nobody noticed – no shots were fired or alarms raised. Once he made it into the brush he turned and watched for Doug. He hoped he wasn’t making a fatal mistake by taking him.
Two minutes later Doug materialized next to him. Both of them stood, and Doug tentatively put weight on his leg. The pain in his eyes was obvious but he choked it down.
With a final glance at the camp they slipped deeper into the brush, the sound of night creatures around them their accompaniment as they wordlessly wove through the thick vegetation, hoping to find a trail in the meager moonlight.
Gordon supported Doug as they plodded forward, an hour into their trek to freedom. Doug was already tiring from the ravaging his system had endured from the infection but he trudged on without complaint. Gordon’s arm burned with inflammation from where the guards had crudely carved out the implanted tracking chip, leaving a gash of tortured flesh. He could only imagine what Doug was enduring.
They came to a stream that meandered downhill from the camp, and soon found a game trail that ran along its banks, enabling them to pick up the pace – they didn’t have to blaze a new path or fight their way through tangles of vines.
“Gahh. Oh, God…” Doug exclaimed as his ankle twisted on a rut, tearing at his brutalized calf muscle and bringing tears to his eyes.
“Let’s take a break and rinse off that bandage. The water will make you feel better,” Gordon said as Doug sank to the ground grabbing at his leg.
He gasped, his breath coming in hoarse bursts as Gordon unwound the gauze.
The stink was unbearable. Like rotting meat. Discoloration ran up the veins and the wound seeped a bloody mixture of pus. Gordon rinsed it as Doug winced and didn’t comment on the insects that had taken up a home. The water washed them away but Gordon wasn’t kidding himself. If Doug survived he’d probably lose the leg unless there was some miracle antibiotic they could get their hands on.
“How is it? Hurts like a bitch,” Doug said, but then his voice trailed off when he saw Gordon cock his head to the side and raise a finger to his lips. “What?”
“Shhh,” Gordon whispered, listening. “Damn. We need to get moving. Now. Let’s get you wrapped up. We don’t have much time.”
Gordon wrung out the bandage and hastily wound it around the gash – the bullet had passed cleanly through the calf muscle but the subsequent infection had caused immeasurable damage.
Doug glanced at him with alarm.
“What do you hear?”
“A dog.”
They struggled to their aching feet and stepped into the stream, hoping that would eliminate their trail – although Gordon suspected that Doug’s wound was emanating a strong scent.
He had no idea where his captors had gotten their hands on a dog. Probably one of the nearby villages. A few dollars would buy almost anything, even at three in the morning. Their luck had just ran out.
Clouds drifted across the sky and without warning a downpour started, drenching the two men and further darkening their way. There was no place to take cover from the cloudburst, but getting wet was the least of their worries.
Doug stumbled several times and then cried out. He’d pulled the ravaged muscle again, and this time looked like he wasn’t going to be able to continue any longer.
“Just leave me,” Doug hissed through clenched teeth.
“Not a chance. Come on. Pick up the pace.”
“I…I can’t do it. It’s too–”
A burst of rifle fire tore across Doug’s torso, bullets whizzing past Gordon as he instinctively threw himself to the ground. Doug spun and collapsed next to him, burbling his last breath, and then lay still. The crash of men and beast tearing through the jungle a few hundred yards away signaled that Gordon’s time had run out. He wondered whether they would drag him back or simply end his ordeal with a bullet to the skull.
The rain poured down with renewed vigor, large drops pelting him, and he used the temporary cover it offered to scramble forward and put distance between himself and his pursuers. His boots slammed onto the rocky riverbed, but the torrent falling all around him drowned the sound out. His only hope now was that nobody had night vision gear or worse, an infrared scope. If they did he was already dead.
He followed the brook to a small area of churning froth. Rapids, the stream swollen from the rain. He stepped carefully onto the exposed rocks and hopped across from one to another, hoping to make it to the other side while the downpour covered his escape.
His footing gave out and his sole slipped on the third rock, and he felt himself falling, disoriented as he slammed into the water, the force of the jolt knocking the wind out of him. He shook his head to clear it and felt warm liquid streaming down his neck, and when he reached around to feel the back of his skull his hand came away with a smear of blood.
Glancing around, he climbed to his feet and jogged along the shore as the stream widened, straining to hear any followers. The muffled sound of a dog barking told him everything he needed to know. He needed to put distance between himself and his pursuers while he could. When the rain stopped he’d be exposed – the guards were all locals recruited from the neighboring hamlets, and he had no doubt that some of them were guides for the smuggling trails that wove through the hills. His only edge now was a slim lead and the dark of night. Come morning, if he lasted that long, he’d be a dead man unless he could make it across the border into Thailand and into relative civilization.
The irony of his being the prey wasn’t lost on him. This had been a seek-and-destroy mission, the target a relatively easy, if elusive, one. Gordon had carried out similar operations in Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Middle East with no complications. He was the predator. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
The sound of men crashing through the trees trailed him, but at a greater distance now.
Maybe his gambit had worked. But if so, he’d need to get away from the stream soon. It had served its purpose but was too easy to follow.
A barely-discernible path forked off from the water to his right, and after a moment’s hesitation he threw himself headlong down the trail, willing his legs to greater speed even as he felt light-headed from the blood loss. He’d have to stop soon and try to clot the gash or it would do the gunmen’s job for them.
Shouts echoed through the jungle behind him, but far enough back to afford him a momentary glimmer of hope. If the dog had lost the scent at the stream then they were as blind as he was, and it was a big area.
Vines tore at his skin as the trail narrowed. At that moment he would have given anything for a machete and an M4 rifle. He would have made short work of the amateurs who were tracking him, even with just the machete.
Shots rang out in the distance, but there was no accompanying shredding of vegetation. So the armed men were now shooting at phantoms.
A stirring in one of the trees stopped him in his tracks – a pair of glowing eyes burned into him. He squinted in the dim light and then started. There on a branch was a spotted leopard, capable of taking down a deer.
The big cat hissed as it watched him edge cautiously away while maintaining eye contact so it wouldn’t think he was afraid. Animals could sense fear, Gordon knew. His fight wasn’t with the hungry leopard, but he didn’t want to provoke it in any way. At seventy pounds it could inflict real damage, especially in his weakened state. He backed off, but the leopard seemed intent on challenging him. It could obviously smell blood.
The two stared each other down, twenty feet apart, until the cat decided that there was easier prey in
the jungle and leapt gracefully to another branch, then worked its way down to the ground before loping off into the foliage.
Exhaling a sigh of relief, Gordon resumed his push down the path, more than aware that the gunmen were still hot on his tail. He estimated by the sound of the last shots that they were a quarter mile or more away, but he wanted that to be several miles by dawn if he could manage it. As long as the dog didn’t pick up his scent again it was achievable, provided he didn’t bleed to death or get eaten.
As he eased down the hill he entered a thick layer of ground fog that seemed to hang like a cloak over the valley below. He had a rough idea of where he was, but after having been moved from where he and Doug had been captured, it was only approximate. A handheld GPS would have come in handy.
Cries from up the hill, followed by a bark, told him everything he needed to know. The dog had caught the smell of blood on the wind and was leading the men straight to him again. The baying of the hound seemed to grow closer with each passing minute, and he pushed himself, picking up his pace to a flat-out run.
A trailing vine tripped him and he tumbled, rolling down the slope, gathering speed as he slid down the slick side of the muddy hill. He reached out with both hands trying to slow his fall but it was no good. Gravity had the best of him, and the rain made the surface as slippery as an ice rink.
He thudded into the base of a tree, abruptly stopping his descent, and felt something in his chest snap. At least one, possibly two, broken ribs, he guessed. The simple assignment had now become an ordeal that he doubted he would escape with his life. Blood continued to leak from his head and his hands were shredded into hamburger. The only good news was that his slide had taken him at least another hundred yards down a steep section of the hill, which no sane follower would attempt. If he could find another trail and maintain any kind of speed, he might have a chance.
Forcing himself to his feet, he felt like he’d gone ten rounds wrestling a bear. His breath wheezed and a band of pain stabbed into his chest with each inhalation, but as far as he could tell he was still viable.
Gordon shouldered through the brush, careful of where he was stepping, aware that there were other dangers besides the gunmen. Leopards, an occasional tiger, Burmese python…all of which hunted under cover of darkness. He was wounded, bleeding, unarmed, starved and exhausted, which made him vulnerable to anything that wanted to try its luck with him.
And worst of all, for the first time in his career, he’d failed.
He’d lost his partner. Been captured. Had learned nothing that he hadn’t known before the disastrous sortie.
The drizzle stopped and the trees around him watched like silent sentries as he stumbled aimlessly, searching for any sort of route that would distance him from his pursuers. Insects clicked and buzzed in the surrounding grass, and an occasional rustle greeted his trudging as some unseen animal scurried away. The mud sucked at the soles of his boots and his legs felt leaden with each step, the effects of sleep deprivation and no food taking their toll, sapping his energy even as he demanded more from his battered body.
As Gordon emerged into a small clearing, the clouds parted just enough for the moon to leer through, its ghostly glow enabling him to see a gap in the undergrowth on the other side.
Then the fog drifted across the open space, closing in on the seeming mirage. Gordon staggered toward the trees, confident that he hadn’t been imagining the vision. Another bark sounded in the distance from behind him, urging him forward.
There.
Just a few more yards.
For a moment he thought he’d mis-stepped, and then the crackle of dry branches accompanied his body falling into the dark.
Blinding pain stabbed through him. Intense, searing agony from his abdomen, chest and legs.
His vision blurred as he gazed skyward, the moon mocking the sight of his body impaled on sharpened bamboo stakes in the bottom of the pit, his blood seeping black around the lethal spears in the eerie luminescence. A disembodied part of him wondered whether the trap was designed for wild boar, deer or some other prey, and then the pain receded as his consciousness seemed to float above him, observing his pathetic state, his existence brought to an abrupt end in a trench in an unnamed hell hole somewhere in a jungle time had forgotten.
Time seemed to compress as a simultaneous rush of regrets and memories overwhelmed him, and his last thought was that it wasn’t supposed to end this way, that he still had more to do. Even though he’d personally released many from their mortal coil and watched impassively as they died, his own passage surprised him, and he finally understood the puzzled look in the eyes of his victims when their moment had come.
With a last involuntary shudder Gordon strained against the stakes, and then he stiffened, convulsed and went limp, his ultimate breath escaping with a burble as blood filled his lungs and his heart gave up its pointless struggle to beat.
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Excerpt from Black Flagged
by Steven Konkoly
BLACK FLAGGED – "Classification given to an agent or intelligence officer who is to be interrogated and summarily killed if apprehended."
BLACK OUT
April 8, 1999
2:35 p.m.
A few miles outside of Vizic, Serbia
Marko Resja peered cautiously over the top of the jagged stone wall, scanning the lodge's distant front porch with powerful binoculars. Through the driving downpour, he counted four men, which was a good thing. With the entire external security team in one place, he should have no trouble approaching unseen.
He lowered himself to the spongy, pine-needle-covered ground and leaned back against a sharp granite chunk that formed part of the estate's perimeter wall. Created by haphazardly dumping large uneven rocks around the lodge on all sides, the utilitarian border marked the divide between hastily cleared land and the impenetrable Fruska Gora National Forest.
Marko had arrived at the stone wall one hour earlier, hampered by the same relentless rainfall that had kept NATO aircraft at bay for more than a week. Concealed in the dense pine foliage behind the jagged barrier, he could hear the distant roar of high-altitude jets through the unremitting storm. He guessed the NATO pilots were testing Belgrade's air defense network from a safe distance, impatient for the weather to clear over the northern Balkan Peninsula.
He stared out into the wavering pine forest before turning his attention back to the lodge. The two-story, modern, stone and beam structure looked sturdy enough to withstand an artillery attack. A similarly constructed, one-story garage stood between him and the house, partially obscuring his view of the main structure.
Srecko Hadzic, ruthless leader of the paramilitary Serbian Panther crime syndicate, had built the lodge for the sole purpose of hiding his brother, Pavle, from prying eyes. Rumors of NATO commando teams operating within Serbian borders had taken root among upper-level leadership, raising paranoia to near panic levels, and Hadzic feared Pavle's capture more than his own at this point. Unfortunately for Hadzic, the Vizic compound was one of the worst-kept secrets in Belgrade.
He took one more look over the top of the wall, just to make sure all four men were still on the porch. He spotted the bright orange glow of cigarettes through the nearly impenetrable rain squall. He didn't expect any of them to emerge from their cozy shelter, but he had to keep in mind that these men were all current or former Serbian Special Operations types, and despite the overindulgences often associated with paramilitary security details, all of these men had been hand-picked for their competence. Three more had accompanied Radovan Grahovac, Hadzic's chief of security, into the lodge to meet with Pavle.
They had all arrived dressed in civilian clothes, which suggested that the crew might head north for a night of prostitutes and drinking along the banks of the Danube River in Novi Sad. Despite their casual dress, however, each man carried a compact assault rifle and a pistol. Under normal circumstances, this was not a
crew he would fuck with. Today, Marko would make a notable exception.
Satisfied that all four men were still in the same place, he picked up a long, thick, black nylon duffel bag and ran to a position along the wall that was completely obscured from the porch by the garage. He knew from two previous reconnaissance trips that Radovan didn't stay more than ten minutes, which meant he was already running out of time.
From his new vantage point, he glanced over the wall and saw one of two dark blue Range Rovers that had arrived at Pavle's hideaway a few minutes ago, depositing Radovan and his heavily-armed security detail. The other Range Rover was parked several meters behind the first, hidden from his view by the garage.
He kneeled low and wrestled a Serbian-made light machine gun out of the soaked nylon bag, extending the weapon's foldable shoulder stock. He placed the weapon against the wall and reached back into the bag for one of two detachable ammunition drums. He swiftly attached one of the seventy-five-round drums to the weapon and placed the second in a hip satchel.
Beyond the high-capacity ammunition drums, he had four standard thirty-round magazines velcroed into quick-access pouches on his combat vest, nestled among four stun grenades. He screwed a large suppressor to the machine gun's barrel and chambered a round with the weapon's charging lever. The final item he took from the bag was a gray, aluminum, ice-climbing axe, which he attached low on the side of his vest. He was ready.
He gripped the sturdy assault weapon with his left hand and hopped over the rock wall, using his right hand for leverage. After splashing down in ankle-high mud, he slogged through the torrential rain to reach the left back corner of the garage. From that spot, he'd be able to see the four men leave the porch, which was critical to his plan.
Marko arrived at the corner, careful not to expose himself. He checked all of his gear one more time, wishing he could check the computer and satellite phone in his waterproof backpack, but just as quickly dismissing the idea as last minute paranoia. He knew the electronics rig worked, and that it would give him a secure satellite connection for both the satellite phone and his computer. He had assembled and tested it nearly a dozen times within the last twenty-four hours. He might not even need it, but he wasn't about to take any chances, and neither was General Sanderson.
The rain intensified for a minute, as sheets of water pummeled the side of the garage. Despite having been exposed to the frigid early spring rain for nearly two hours, he wasn't cold. Under his paramilitary camouflage outfit, he wore a waterproof, insulated, one-piece jumpsuit. Certainly not standard issue for elite Serbian commandos, or even the most pampered members of Hadzic's paramilitary forces.
Nothing in Marko's equipment load-out was standard Serbian issue, which distressed him. As an American deep-cover operative, he hadn't fired or handled a weapon less than twenty years old since his arrival in Serbia two years ago. The model he held in his hand came fresh off the Zastava Arms assembly line, compliments of General Sanderson, but it felt alien to him. Instinctively, he knew everything he carried was superior to the ancient hardware handed down to him by senior members of the Panthers, who passed their equipment down to make room for newer toys. Still, it felt strangely uncomfortable.
He peeked around the corner of the garage and saw one of the men throw a lit cigarette out into the front yard. Another man talked excitedly into a small handheld radio and rapidly nodded his head. Showtime.
Marko released the weapon's safety and pulled a rain-soaked black ski mask down over his head. He peered cautiously around the corner, watching the men scramble off the porch. When they vanished from his sight, he moved rapidly down the unobserved side of the garage to the front corner and risked another peek. Everything looked just like he had expected. The lead SUV was already loaded with Radovan and the three men who had accompanied him inside the lodge. The four commandos from the porch jogged toward the rear SUV.
He'd witnessed the same scene several dozen times before. Radovan always insisted that the team assigned to the rear vehicle wait for all of the members of the lead car to get situated. When he'd first seen this, he thought it might be for security reasons, but he'd learned firsthand that this was simply another one of Radovan's psychotic quirks. He also knew that all four members of the rear security team, anxious to get out of the rain, would be so preoccupied watching the lead SUV that he could engage them completely undetected.
He pushed these thoughts aside and instantly engaged a near trance-like mindset. He stepped out into the open and lowered his body into a semi-crouch, aiming at the last man in the group. Through the Aimpoint sight, he placed the red dot on the man's upper back, just below the nape of his neck, and squeezed the trigger for a short burst. The weapon kicked considerably, but he kept it under control and repeated the process for the remaining three guards. He sprinted for the back of the empty SUV and reached it before the last guard hit the ground. None of them had a chance to react. If anything, a couple of them might have felt a warm, chunky spray. Less than five seconds had elapsed.
A quick glance back confirmed that all four members of Radovan's rear security team were dead, and Marko moved forward along the right side of the rear SUV, focused on Radovan's vehicle.