Ky held his fist up beside his head. On cue, the patrol stopped and Malko crept forward to his lieutenant’s side.
‘What is it?’
Ky pointed through the undergrowth. ‘Some sort of building.’
Malko could see nothing but rocks and jungle, but then he picked out shaped stone blocks and straight lines that could only belong to something man-made.
‘It looks like an old temple.’
‘The passengers are there. The path leads straight to the opening,’ Ky whispered.
‘But how could they have known it was here?’
‘The girl. The wood gatherer’s daughter. She must have known about it.’
Malko squinted down the open sights of his AK74 and scanned left and right. Now that he knew what to look for, the structure of the temple stood out. He picked out the long expanse of front wall and the jumble of stone blocks that had once been the entrance arch.
‘How many weapons do they have?’ Malko asked.
‘We recovered all but three.’
‘Enough to keep that narrow opening well defended. How many grenades do we have?’
‘Four.’
‘Give two each to Prak and Huong. Have them creep around to the left wall and throw them over. Make sure they land close to the entrance. That is where the defenders will be. When they explode we will assault the temple.’
***
‘Don’t scratch at it. You’ll only make it worse.’
Joyce looked up from where she scratched her broken wrist with a small twig pushed beneath the bandages. ‘It’s my arm, Harold. I’ll do what I like with it.’
‘Wait until Nancy comes back from collecting water. I’m sure she’ll have some sort of ointment in her bag of tricks.’
Joyce screwed up her face and poked her tongue at her husband. ‘Fiddlesticks! She said she might be an hour or more. The perspiration is irritating it.’ She resumed her probing with the twig.
Harold leant back against the stone fresco. The other passengers were strung out on his left, all resting in the shade. ‘Nancy shouldn’t have gone. We need her here.’
Joyce pulled out the twig and flicked it at her husband. ‘You leave that young woman alone. She has done a marvellous job of looking after everyone since this horrible business began. When we get out of this, I am going to write a letter to the Australian Prime Minister. That girl deserves a medal.’
Harold gave a little laugh under his breath. ‘If the Australian Prime minister cared anything about her, he would have organised to pay the ransom, not leave her in the clutches of a maniac. And I’ll tell you something else…’ He drew breath and Joyce realised she had triggered one of Harold’s famous political rants. ‘…our government is no better. Someone is going to get a good piece of my mind when we get back home. They—’
Joyce looked up to see what had cut Harold off mid-rant. He had his gaze fixed skyward and she followed his stare to see a drab-green, egg-like shape sail over the wall from somewhere behind them. The egg hit the ground with a metallic clunk then clattered over the flagstones. Three more followed it.
The first egg exploded with a noise like a thunderclap and tiny pieces of metal slammed into the fresco about Joyce’s head. Another egg hit one of the loose masonry blocks and bounced back towards her, coming to rest two metres away at the bottom of the steps on which she sat.
Harold pushed himself away from the fresco and pulled her down onto the steps, throwing his body over hers. The egg exploded and Joyce’s eardrums popped as the shockwave washed over her. Hot metal whizzed past her and something tore into her leg. Harold cried out and his body shuddered as it absorbed the brunt of the explosion.
The other two eggs exploded near the gateway, but Joyce felt nothing of their effect. People were screaming, the sound muted by the terrible ringing in her ears. She tried to push Harold off, but he had her good arm pinned beneath him.
‘Harold! Harold!’
He didn’t move.
She heard the shooting start.
***
As the first grenade exploded Ang pushed his face into the pile of rubble. Shrapnel rattled through the foliage. Three more explosions followed, the echoes drowned out by the screams of people inside the temple.
‘We have to go and help them.’ Beside him, Fred tried to get to his feet, but Ang pulled him back down.
‘No! They were trying to take out our defences. They are coming for us.’ He looked across to where Scott lay among the blocks, sighting down his rifle. ‘Get ready!’
Scott gave a thumbs up and Fred chambered a round.
‘Single shot. Save your ammo,’ Ang reminded them.
The first movement came from the right. Two men broke cover and ran towards the temple, firing from the hip. Scott’s AK74 barked twice and one of the men went down. The other thought better of his headlong assault and threw himself onto the ground.
‘Get ready, Fred. Our side next,’ Ang warned.
He caught a flash of movement in the trees on the left and loosed off a shot. The movement stopped, but was replaced by the starlight twinkle of a muzzle flash as someone shot back on full automatic. Rounds slammed into the masonry in front of Ang and a ricochet whined off into the distance. Fred fired and the muzzle flash ceased, but Ang had no idea if the shooter was hit or not. Then he spotted movement farther left, three more men, and realised the shooting was covering fire for an assault on the entrance. He fired at the running figures, squeezing off five rounds in quick succession. A man screamed and fell into the undergrowth, another went to ground, but the third had a charmed life. He reached one of the larger trees about thirty metres from the entrance and took cover behind it then held his weapon out one-handed and fired blindly towards the temple entrance. Ang and Fred had no angle to hit the man, but he heard Scott fire. The gunman dropped his weapon and fell to the ground, clutching at his knee.
***
Nancy was delighted to see that the water flowing from a spring in the cliff face ran clear. She had no means of testing it for harmful micro-organisms, but a tentative taste proved it to be fresh and sweet.
‘You can fill the bottles,’ she told the two men.
Tamko and a crewman emptied their plastic bags of bottles onto the ground. Soo-Li unscrewed the lids and handed them to the men. The water only trickled from a cleft and the first bottle took a minute to fill.
While she waited, Nancy watched the jungle and tried to stop her feet from fidgeting about. They needed the water, but she felt terribly exposed out here beyond the temple walls.
The first explosion came as a distant crump and Nancy stifled a scream. A flock of birds took to noisy flight and winged away into the distance as more explosions shook the air. Then she heard the unmistakable rattle of distant gunfire.
‘Leave the empty bottles. Bring the full ones. We need to get back inside the temple.’ It didn’t occur to her that the only entrance was now enveloped in a firefight.
Tamko and the crewman stuffed the full water bottles into bags and they started back along the cliff face. In the distance the shooting became more intense.
***
Malko watched the assault break down and withdrew back into the jungle. The defenders were not inside the entrance as he had first thought, but were hidden in the debris and undergrowth on the slope. The grenades had done nothing to harm them and he had lost three men. The others could now do little more than snipe from the undergrowth, a waste of ammunition, as the passengers were well protected by pieces of masonry. His only hope lay in flanking the defenders, and he was the only one in a position to do so.
Moving cautiously to his right, he hoped to get beyond the corner of the temple wall where he could approach close to the entrance. From there he had one last trump card left to play.
An unwieldy weapon, the RPG7 was not designed for close quarter combat in jungle, though guerrilla forces over the years had made good use of it in all manner of operations. Of the two RPG rounds left, Malko had only one
with him. But one was all he would need for his plan to work.
Reaching the corner, he slung his rifle and lifted the RPG onto his shoulder. The entrance to the temple was mottled in filtered sunlight. Only sporadic single shots came from that direction, and he guessed the defenders were running low on ammunition, only firing at targets of opportunity. He found a firing position behind a fallen log, about sixty metres from the entrance. The temple wall stretched away on his right. Ahead, the gateway was a tangle of jungle undergrowth and fallen masonry.
He keyed the mike on his walkie-talkie. ‘Ky. I am in position. Charge the entrance when you hear the explosion.’
‘I am ready, Colonel.’
Malko propped himself on one knee and raised the sights on the launcher. The warhead was designed to take out armour. It would make a million pieces of flying shrapnel from the stone blocks the defenders were using for cover. He sighted on the biggest piece of masonry he could see, about twenty metres out from the wall and squeezed the trigger.
***
The attack had broken down into sporadic sniping from the trees. Every thirty seconds or so a bullet pinged off the masonry blocks and whined away into the distance. The assault had failed, but the attackers were keeping the defenders’ heads down. But keeping them down for what, Scott wondered.
He had counted every one of his shots away and knew he only had three rounds left. Fred must have been close to going dry, too, if he hadn’t already. Ang had the only spare magazine, but he would surely be using that by now. The policeman had gone to automatic fire twice during the assault to drive the attackers back.
‘Ang?’
The major looked over from his position.
‘Is it worth me trying to get to that wounded man by the tree? I could do with the extra ammo.’
‘Stay down. There are snipers in the tree line. I can’t cover you. They’re too far apart, and Fred is dry.’
‘What then?’
‘Hold position. It’s all we can do.’
‘Okay.’ As he spoke, Scott saw a white puff of smoke in the jungle past Ang.
‘Down!’
The rocket streaked through the jungle shadows in a split second and hit a masonry block somewhere to Ang’s front. The warhead detonated and the shockwave forced the air from Scott’s lungs. A thousand pieces of stone flew through the air and he felt his exposed arms and legs stung by tiny shards. The rain of debris stopped. His ears rang from the roar of noise. Slowly, he lifted his head and opened his eyes.
Ang and Fred had been closer to the explosion. He could see them writhing about, but couldn’t tell if they were hit or not.
‘Ang?’
The policeman rolled onto his side and shook his head. Blood trickled from his nose.
‘I’m okay.’ He wiped at the blood with a hand and looked at Fred. ‘He’s hit in the leg. It doesn’t look too bad.’
Down the slope three men broke from the trees and ran up the hill at them. Scott recognised Ky and saw him raise an AK74 and start firing. Bullets smashed into the ground around him and flew over his head. The other men started shooting, the muzzle flashes little twinkles of deadly starlight.
‘We can’t stay here!’ Ang’s shout was barely audible over the gunfire. ‘Help me with Fred. We’ll fall back to the temple.’
Scott rolled to his feet. A few bullets whined over his head, but the shooters were running hard, their shots un-aimed.
Ang had Fred in a sitting position as Scott reached them. They grabbed an arm each, hauled him to his feet and dragged him towards the gateway. The attackers saw them moving and the rate of fire increased. Scott ducked instinctively as a bullet smashed into the wall only centimetres above his head. He stumbled on the loose footing and went down hard, carrying Fred and Ang with him.
Bullets struck the wall above them. The field of fallen masonry offered some protection, but the attackers were concentrating their fire on the gateway, still ten metres away. Scott glanced at it and knew they would never make it through without being cut down.
‘How many rounds?’ Ang asked. He had his AK74 up, facing back the way they had come.
‘Three.’
Ang unclipped the magazine from his rifle and used his thumb to push two rounds out then clipped it back on. He tossed the two rounds to Scott.
‘Now we have five each. Make them count.’
Scott unclipped his own magazine and pushed the rounds in then clipped it back on to his AK74, scanning the pile of debris for the hijackers that were coming for them.
***
Malko saw Ky and the others rushing towards the temple. He broke cover and moved closer to the wall. The amount of fire going into the gateway was murderous. The three figures that had made a break for it a few moments ago couldn’t have possibly made it through. They’d gone to ground somewhere in the jumble of fallen masonry outside and would be facing down the slope, facing the oncoming attack from Ky and the others. If he could get closer to the defenders then he would be in the perfect flanking position.
Leaving the RPG launcher by the wall, he unslung his AK74 and advanced carefully forward. No shots came from the defenders. They were conserving their limited ammunition. This would all be over in the next few moments.
***
Scott heard running feet between bursts of gunfire. The attackers were close, maybe fifteen or twenty metres away.
For the twentieth time in as many seconds his thumb slipped to the fire selector as he made sure the weapon was on ‘single shot’. Ang was on his left, the barrel of his AK74 facing out that way, so Scott concentrated on the right.
Beside him, Fred began to stir and placed a hand to his head.
‘Stay down, buddy,’ Scott warned. He didn’t know if Fred had heard him and didn’t have time to check. Something moved at the edge of the rubble pile, a vague shape that materialised into a head and torso. Scott shifted his aim and squeezed the trigger. The AK74 jumped in his hands and the head disappeared behind some stone blocks.
Two more shapes on the left. Ang fired twice. One shape was knocked over backwards, the other dropped into cover.
Now there were shapes and shadows moving everywhere in front of them. Scott snapped off two more shots.
One bullet left.
Ang was firing. And suddenly the firing stopped. ‘I’m dry!’ he yelled.
Scott could see the hijackers on the other side of the pile of rubble. They came over the top, their weapons up. He used his last bullet on the man closest to him, hit him in the arm, just a glancing wound that didn’t even slow him down. The hijacker paused at the top of the pile. Seeing Scott, he aimed his weapon. Three more hijackers swept in from the left, their AK74s aimed at the pitiful huddle of defenders among the stones.
Scott waited for the rattle of automatic fire that would end their lives. He could feel the blood pumping in his ears, could see the barrel of the weapon that would kill him, the muzzle as dark as the eternity that would soon follow. The hijacker braced for his shot, leant into the recoil and then suddenly his body shuddered in a macabre dance as a burst of automatic fire cut him down. More automatic fire, and the hijackers on the left fell like toy soldiers before an angry child’s wrathful hand. Some tried to make a break for it, but the concentrated fire was too heavy, too accurate. They managed only a few steps before bullets tore into them.
The shooting died away into a few sporadic bursts then finally stopped.
Scott lifted his head and looked about. Three bodies littered the top of the rubble pile, the limbs at strange angles, like discarded dolls. There were no other hijackers to be seen.
‘What the Hell!’
Beside him, Ang stared wide-eyed at the carnage and risked climbing to his knees to peer over the pile of rubble and bodies.
‘Careful, Major. Whoever gunned those guys down may still shoot at anything that moves up here.’
‘Whoever it is, they are on our side.’
‘They may not know what side we’re on at first glance.??
?
Ang looked at Scott and shrugged. He dropped his empty AK74 and lifted his hands over his head. A shout came from the jungle farther down slope. Scott didn’t understand a word of it, but the major’s face broke into a broad grin. He shouted back in Khmer then turned to Scott.
‘I think our cavalry has arrived in the nick of time, Mr Morris.’
Scott climbed to his knees and looked down the hill. A squad of men advanced out of the jungle with weapons at their shoulders and split into a perfect cover formation. He could tell at a glance that they were well-disciplined and well-trained. They also wore the same uniform as Ang. These men were Cambodian police officers.
***
The shooting died away and Nancy’s stomach churned with dread. Had Malko’s men killed the three defenders and recaptured the passengers? She pushed the image of Scotty’s bullet-ridden corpse from her mind and concentrated on keeping up with Soo-Li.
Near the temple wall she called a halt to their mad dash. ‘We don’t want to rush back in and get recaptured. Let’s take a careful look at what’s going on from down at the corner of the wall.’ There had been no shooting for at least five minutes. But who had won the battle?
Slowly now, they made their way along the temple wall. Soo-Li was near the front of the little group, Tamko and the crewman behind the girl with Nancy bringing up the rear. She was about to call the girl back to her when a hand came around from behind and clamped over her mouth.
‘Hello, Mrs Morris.’
Malko’s voice in her ear made her skin crawl. Her scream was muffled by the hand but it alerted Tamko and the other crewman. The purser dropped his load of bottles and charged towards Nancy and Malko. Malko raised his AK74 and fired one-handed. A bullet ripped into Tamko’s chest and he fell to the ground. Malko shifted his aim and fired once more, killing the crewman.