CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER
A FEW MINUTES LATER NASH CHECKED THE TIME and told Temple and Thura, “Okay, they’ll be here soon.”
Thura looked at him and said, “Leave me one of your guns.”
Nash eyed him, glanced at Temple, who shrugged, then handed his Beretta to Thura. “Aim straight and true,” advised Nash.
“What other way is there to kill someone?” replied Thura.
Nash ducked out of the Jeep. Carrying the can of gas and a knapsack with the four casings of slurry, he threaded his way completely hidden through the high grass on his side of the road.
He stopped when he was roughly parallel with the device that the men had laid over the road.
He set the can down and inserted his homemade shoelace fuse through a hole he had punched into the can above the level of the gas.
Making sure the gas cap was screwed on tight, he then splayed out the rest of the fuse along the ground.
Leaving that spot, he placed the four casings about three feet apart, mentally gauging the location of the two hidden vehicles across the road as he did.
He checked his weapon a final time, did his four-and-four breathing, and tried to push from his mind how many ways his rather primitive plan could go wrong.
But it’s not like I had much to work with.
As he crouched in the high grass Nash texted Thura and told him that when the ambulance approached he was to wait for the signal from Nash before starting the Jeep.
Now Nash awaited the arrival of the ambulance.
Ten minutes later Nash turned to the right when he heard the vehicle approaching. He slipped back to the first of the casings he had planted on the edge of the high grass, took out a lighter, and waited.
When the ambulance hit the spike strip the ambush party had placed across the road, all four tires were ripped to shreds, the driver lost control of the vehicle, and the ambulance ran off the road and onto the edge of the high grass.
Several prison guards emerged from the ambulance with their guns drawn.
However, automatic gunfire erupted from the high grass and all of the guards were killed.
Then the heavyset guard, the inside asset that Steers had shown them during their planning session back in Hong Kong, climbed out of the back of the ambulance.
Peering through the high grass, Nash watched as the guard hurried to the driver’s side of the ambulance. Nash flinched when the man fired a round through the window.
The guard then opened the ambulance door, and the dead driver fell out onto the road.
The men with the automatic weapons who had dispatched the other prison guards quickly emerged from cover and rushed over to the vehicle.
Two of them slipped inside the rear of the ambulance and carried out an elderly woman in shackles.
Nash had never seen Masuyo in person but had to assume that it was her.
The prison guard briefly talked to the other men, and then the other elderly woman appeared from the corner of the bushes, escorted by one of the men from the first SUV.
The guard unlocked Masuyo’s shackles, and two of the men worked quickly to assist the women in exchanging clothes.
With that finished, the guard shackled the other elderly woman and she was put into the ambulance.
Okay, thought Nash. That was the reason for the other old woman. They’re doing a switch so it’ll look like the prison break wasn’t successful.
He had to admit, it was pretty damn brilliant.
Nash quickly lit the fuses on the four casings. He counted off seconds in his head as he flitted over to the long fuse that was connected to the half-full can of gas.
Smoke started pouring out of the casings and quickly rose above the high grass.
Nash heard people crying out, and he heard feet running toward the side of the road he was on.
He lit the long fuse and moved far away, lying flat on the ground. Some of the men fired shots at the smoke. Nash crawled to the edge of the high grass and peered out. The only man left by the ambulance was the guard. Masuyo stood beside him.
Nash sunk as low to the ground as he could and put his hands over his ears.
Five. . .four. . .three. . .two. . .one.
The lighted fuse reached the closed gas can and the concentrated vapor housed there, and the resulting explosion, equal to about thirty-five sticks of dynamite, was far more than even Nash had anticipated.
He mouthed a silent prayer of thanks that he had moved so far away from the blast site.
People screamed, and a flame ball soared into the sky, joining all the smoke that had been released from the four canisters.
As the smoke billowed across the road, Nash heard Thura start the Jeep because the explosion was his signal to do so.
Nash jumped up from his hiding spot and ran out from the high grass.
Two of the ambush team lay dead, their bodies dismembered from the explosion.
Another member of the team ran screaming out of the high grass, flames dancing all over his torso.
He saw Nash, who raised his weapon and shot him in the chest. The man dropped to the ground, dead.
It was as much an act of mercy by Nash as anything.
A fourth member of the ambush team, blackened and gagging, hurtled out of the brush right in front of Nash.
He attacked Nash with a knife. Nash blocked the multiple thrusts of the blade and then gripped the man’s wrist, torqued it back and up, tripped the man with his ankle, and drove him hard into the dirt while using the knife to strike multiple blows into his side and neck.
The man was dead before Nash rose off him.
Nash’s gaze darted to the left as the fifth member of the ambush team raced across the road heading for the ambulance. The confused guard struggled to unholster his weapon, while Masuyo cowered behind him.
Nash rolled to his right, grabbed his pistol where it had fallen, came up in a crouch, took aim, and fired two shots.
Both of them hit the man, one in the neck and one in the back, and he went down.
Nash ran across to check on him. When Nash turned him over, the man let out one final gasp and grew still.
Nash sat there on his haunches for a few seconds, surveying all the death and destruction he had caused.
I’ve come a long way from crying over killing a cricket with my BB gun. It’s not progress. Actually, it’s the reverse.
But Nash had made a strategic miscalculation. The sixth and final member of the ambush team now emerged unscathed from the high grass. He took aim at Nash just about the time the Jeep bore down on them. A shot was fired and the sixth man took the round in the head.
Nash whipped around at the sound. Sitting in the Jeep’s driver’s seat, Thura lowered his gun and called out, “Straight and true; you’re welcome, man.”
Nash quickly searched several of the dead men and found an envelope stuffed with Burmese currency in one of their pockets.
Then he sprinted across the road to where the guard was standing, still paralyzed.
Masuyo was staring at Nash curiously but was now showing no sign of fear.
Nash next looked in the rear of the ambulance and saw the elderly woman in Masuyo’s prison uniform and wearing her shackles.
He looked between the two women and could find no discernible difference.
He could imagine that the substitute had been chosen for her natural similarity to the other woman and then perhaps she had undergone plastic surgery to make their appearances indistinguishable.
Otherwise, the plan wouldn’t have worked.
Thura pulled the Jeep to a stop next to them.
“When do I drive like a bat out of hell?” he said to Nash.
“Soon.”
Temple poked his head out of the window. “That was some serious shit back there, Dillon. Good job.”
“Come and get her,” Nash said to Temple, as he indicated Masuyo.
Temple jumped out, helped the woman into the Jeep, and climbed into the rear seat next to her.
Nash looked at the guard. “Do you speak English?” The man looked at him blankly.
Nash said to Thura, “Tell him that the men who we killed were not part of the plan. We were the ones hired to free Masuyo, and the other men ambushed us and then got here before we did with the other woman, who they took from us. They were trying to kidnap Masuyo for their own purposes.”
Thura slowly translated all of this to the guard, whose face showed increasing levels of astonishment.
Nash said, “Now tell him he is to drive the prisoner on to the hospital in the Toyota hidden in the bushes. He’s to report in and let them know about the ambush attempt and that the kidnappers have all been killed.
The substitute will be returned to the prison as Masuyo. He will be hailed as a hero.”
Thura conveyed all of this. The guard looked across at the smoke and flames and dead bodies.
He told Thura that he understood and it was good that they came along when they did.
Nash found the Toyota’s keys in the pocket of one of the dead men and handed them to the guard.
Nash then seized the man’s gun, pointed it in the air, and fired off the remaining bullets.
“Tell him I did this so they will believe he shot and killed the other men.”
Thura translated, and the guard smiled and nodded. Nash handed him back his empty gun.
“Tell him good luck.” Thura did so. When Nash handed the man the envelope full of cash the guard even shook Nash’s hand and said some words that Nash did not understand but deduced were probably “Thank you.”
Nash climbed into the Jeep and said to Thura, “Now you can drive like a bat out of hell.”
While Thura drove, Nash turned and looked at Masuyo. His time had been consumed recently with the mission of freeing the woman, and now seeing her in the flesh Nash concluded that he was underwhelmed by her appearance.
But then, when she glanced at him, he saw, just behind the eyes, something he had seen before. In the daughter. A level of extreme ruthlessness, coupled with a haughty superiority that made his skin crawl. He shot Temple a look, and the man shrugged and glanced nervously at Masuyo.
Nash gave further directions to Thura. They made the turn at the crossroads, and after a short drive down that road they saw the chopper parked in a cleared field.
They left the Jeep, hurried across with Masuyo, and climbed aboard. The pilot asked no questions, but upon seeing Masuyo he nodded, powered up the bird, and they were soon aloft. The flight to Lashio was swift and uneventful.
When they landed in Lashio, a vehicle was waiting and they were immediately driven off toward Mandalay.
No one would be searching for them because the prison officials would believe the attempt to free Masuyo had failed and the kidnappers had all died at the scene.
If they investigated carefully some holes in the story would emerge, of course.
But Nash could do nothing about that. And they’d be long gone by then.
He did wonder about Steers’s carefully timed getaway plan.
He hadn’t known about the plot to switch Masuyo with a manufactured twin.
If things had gone according to plan, the only way the substitute plan would have worked was if the guards had all been killed, save the inside guard, but the kidnappers would have either all been killed or else fled without Masuyo. That seemed convoluted, thought Nash.
But if we were supposed to die, then Steers’s plan had to be that we were the only kidnappers.
We would be found dead there, having failed to free Masuyo, the other guards would have been killed, and Steers’s paid-off guard would be the only one left to explain what had happened.
Which was why he had to kill the driver. So we really were the patsies.
Right before they arrived in Mandalay he finally got a reply to his days’ earlier message to Agent Reed Morris.
Can you make it back to Hong Kong? We can arrange to meet you.
Nash texted back, We’ll be heading there shortly in Steers’s jet. But no need to intervene. We are delivering Masuyo to Steers.
The FBI agent’s reply was fast and terse: Are you out of your damn mind?
Nash texted back, Maybe.
He had debated whether to get the FBI involved at this point and bring Masuyo into their custody.
But what would that do? It was highly doubtful the FBI would be able to leverage Masuyo to get to Steers.
And then Nash would have no more access to Steers and thus no possibility of bringing her down.
He would just have to go into hiding for the rest of his life with no justice for his daughter.
Or for me.
When they reached the private airstrip Steers’s sleek jet was waiting, its door open and the jetway down. Two pilots and a flight attendant stood at attention.
The flight attendant came over to them, bowed to Masuyo, and handed her a passport.
The elderly woman’s fingers clutched the object like it was gold.
And for the first time since her freedom had been secured she smiled.
Nash and Temple already had the necessary documents to clear entry into Hong Kong.
However, Thura’s presence had not been planned for.
When Nash explained that they needed to get him into the country under Steers’s orders, the attendant nodded and said that on the flight she would communicate the information to Steers’s people in Hong Kong, and the necessary entry documents would be awaiting them there.
She took Thura’s passport and then hurried onto the plane to begin this process.
Nash glanced at the jet and thumbed in another message to Morris, giving the man the jet’s tail number. That way the Bureau would at least be able to track it to Hong Kong.
Thura said, “You gonna be mixing up more stuff that goes boom?”
“You never know,” replied Nash as they all headed on board.
Five minutes later the jet rocketed eastward into a clear sky over Myanmar and back to a woman who had tried her best to leave them dead in the very same place.