The White Vixen Read Online Free PDF Page B

praying that no other soldiers would choose to use it right now. She knew that most of them were probably in the mess hall for dinner, but give them another half hour and some might be off duty and ready to head to town. The officers from the helicopter were probably dining with the base commander right now, but they’d soon finish and head over to the lockup. Jo estimated they had thirty minutes, tops, before an alarm was raised. They’d be cutting it close.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER TWO
     
    Fonglan Island, China
    November 1981
     
     
    Two lights at the top of the fence served to illuminate the gate, but at this hour the lights were ineffectual, and the fact that they were designed to shine on the area outside the fence, rather than inside, helped them. They would be right on top of the guards before they’d have to move.
    Jamison kept the rifle at a stiff port arms and his head down, Lu’s cap pulled low, and he hunched a bit to disguise his height. Jo took the lead as they approached the gate. One of the guards, standing outside the shack and smoking a cigarette, saw them and automatically moved to the gate, tossing the cigarette aside. Everything was quiet, so he had no reason to be suspicious of anyone coming out.
    Jo shuffled past the guard. “Thank you, sir.”
    The guard turned away from the gate as she kept moving. “Hey, you got any food left?”
    There was no way they’d bluff their way past the checkpoint. Jamison had the barrel of the rifle stuck in the side of the guard’s head as his last word was still hanging in the air. Turning and drawing her weapon in one movement, Jo aimed directly at the guard still inside the shack. “Hands behind your head!”
    Firing either weapon right now would bring the base to full alert within seconds. Jo was counting on the element of surprise, catching these two towar d the end of their duty shift; tired, hungry, bored, slow to react. It worked. Instead of dropping down below the level of the open window and hitting the alarm, the guard in the shack did as he was told. Jo quickly ran the few steps to the shack and forced the guard onto the floor.
    Jamison followed with the other guard prodded ahead. Jo was using a telephone cord to tie the second guard’s wrists behind his back, and then she gagged him with his snot-encrusted handkerchief.
    “Truss this fellow up, too,” Jamison said. “I’ll take care of the alarm.”
    Jamison was panting when they started out down the road, walking quickly but resisting the urge to run. Jo could tell his reserves, depleted by the confinement and beatings, were fading fast. “Hang on,” she said. “A half klick to the village. The truck should be waiting for us.” He nodded, too tired even to speak.
    “I have two men waiting with the truck, plus a native woman we have to extract,” she said. “Two more men at the boat.”
    “We’re…slightly outnumbered, then,” he gasped.
    “If we can make the boat, we’ll be in international waters in five minutes. Help will be waiting for us.” So much depended now on how long it would take for an alarm to be raised over the escape, and how efficiently the Chinese responded. In their planning, the allied force had allowed for at least ten minutes of safety after making it through the gates. Jo thought it had been about five already and there was the truck.
    A siren started wailing behind them. They wouldn’t get that extra five minutes now. “Run!” she shouted, pulling out the pistol.
    In the twilight she saw two figures near the truck. One jumped into the cab and started the engine. There was a grinding, a cough, and then it thrummed to life. Another figure stood near the back of the truck, a submachine gun held ready.
    A hundred meters from the truck, Jo shouted the password in Chinese: “Pelican rising!” The man with the submachine gun, a Republic of China Marine Corps sergeant, shouted back: “Nest is waiting!” He waved them forward.
    Jo and the MI-6 agent