The White Vixen Read Online Free PDF

took the sergeant’s keys and went to the next cell.
    The older of the two Chinese prisoners looked at her strangely as she unlocked the door and entered. Jo realized she should’ve kept the pistol, but she couldn’t waste time to get it now. “Take your shirt off,” she ordered. The man dutifully complied, and in seconds Jo had used the filthy garment to bind the prisoner’s hands behind his head and also as a blindfold and gag, a nifty technique she’d learned from an intelligence officer who’d defected from North Vietnam.
    She was worried about the younger prisoner, who’d appeared fairly excitable. She found him holding onto the bars of his cell door. As soon as she came into view, he began jabbering. “Who are you? What did you do to the sergeant?”
    “Stay back,” she said, inserting the key in the door’s lock.
    The boy’s voice got higher. “I did nothing wrong! The other man, he told me what he wanted—”
    From next to her, Jo Ann heard a metallic click and the prisoner stopped in mid-sentence. “That’s good, son, now do as the lady says.” Jamison had the sergeant’s pistol out and carefully targeted.
    It took only moments for Jo to bind and gag the boy. “Thanks,” she said. “I owe you one.”
    “We’ll down a few in Hong Kong tonight,” he said. “Assuming, of course, that we can get out of here.”
    “There’s a boat waiting,” she said. “Two klicks past the village on the coast. I have transport waiting in the village.” Madame Zhi, her cover now blown, would be evacuated with them. She’d managed to borrow one of the village’s few vehicles, a dilapidated truck, in exchange for three cartons of American cigarettes. If their luck held, now that darkness was approaching, they could get past the base perimeter, down the road to the village and then hop aboard for the two-kilometer ride to the rendezvous point. The extraction team would meet them there with a Zodiac boat.
    “There are two guards outside the building,” Jo said. “Can you imitate the sergeant’s voice?”
    “I’ll try,” he said. “Lord knows I’ve heard it often enough the past few days.”
    “Good. When I go past them, I’ll get their attention. Then you order them to avert their eyes somehow.”
    “That will be hard for them to do,” he said, and even from his battered face the smile looked appreciative. Men.
    Jo went out first. The guards stiffened automatically as they heard the door open, then relaxed as they recognized her. Back into her peasant shuffle, Jo went down the two wooden steps and scuttled off, stopping ten feet from the guards. She turned and smiled at them. “Hello, boys,” she said in perfect Mandarin. “Are you as big as your sergeant?”
    One guard laughed. “Bigger,” he said.
    “Private!” Jamison barked from the doorway. “I heard that!” The guards shot to ramrod straight attention. “One hundred push-ups! Both of you!”
    Like automatons, the guards set their rifles on the ground and assumed the universal push-up position. The guard who’d spoken started quickly, followed by his comrade a second later. “Count them off!” Jamison said.
    “One, two, three, four…”
    Without saying another word, Jamison strode past them to Jo Ann. They began walking toward the same gate Jo had used only a short time before, although it seemed like hours to her.
    “Very clever,” she whispered to the agent.
    “By the time they finish we’ll be far enough away so they won’t recognize me,” Jamison said. “How many guards at the gate?”
    “Two.”
    “Our dog and pony show won’t work there.”
    “We’ll have to be more direct. I’ll take the pistol.” Jamison handed her the sidearm and she tucked it inside her sleeve.
    Dusk was upon them, and the base’s usual high level of activity was slacking off. A half-dozen or so soldiers passed Jo Ann and the British agent, but none came within ten yards. They had another hundred meters to go to the gate, and Jo began